Before I begin this review I want to nominate the 19th-century preacher Charles Spurgeon’s newsletter The Sword and the Trowel for the title of Coolest Newsletter Name Ever. It captures both sides of the Word of God—the sword of truth and the layer of foundation upon which our lives are built.

I’m a big fan of Christian bookstores, and whenever I’m in a hurry or have errands to run I scoot by them as fast as possible; my presence within somehow triggers a time-contraction effect whereby I can spend what seems like a few minutes inside… and like Narnia in reverse, when I finally step out an hour or two have passed. At any rate I was browsing through some church ministry titles when my eye picked out Ashamed of the Gospel: when the Church Becomes Like the World, by John MacArthur.

It’s always a touchy business pointing out error, and I know from experience that the topics of religion and politics generate far stronger emotion and attachment than any other. (Oftentimes weaker debate too, as views clash that are passionately taken for granted, or someone thinks they can out-argue careful reasoning with a short, witty quip.) AotG is an analysis of current trends within the Christian church and how unsound and harmful they might be. I fully expected to read of other professing believers and to be able to gloat at how spiritually deluded they were and how our orthodoxy and loyalty to the Word was so much better than theirs.

Just kidding; there’s no place for that kind of pride. But there is a place for loving correction of error. Hell. The Virgin birth. Biblical inerrancy. The physical bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ. All these have been denied in whole or part by professing Christians, against the plain language of Scripture, and it’s important that the believer on the ground knows where he stands, why he stands there, and by whose power he does so. As James Braga’s book How to Prepare Bible Messages says, it’s one thing to drag yourself to hell, but another altogether to take an entire congregation with you.

I’m not saying you need to shell out hundreds of dollars for dictionary-thick, multi-volume commentaries, know your Greek adjectives from your adverbs (believe me, many false teachers do; but that doesn’t stop them from denying what the Scriptures expressly teach in both Greek and English translations), or read your Bible cover to cover, even… though all the able activities certainly help. Especially the last one. It’s a general pattern that a Bible-taught congregation will be far easier to teach and edify, and far harder to fool.

Which is why the customer isn’t always right—I’ve no idea who came up with the idea that parishioners are somehow a potential market and your job is somehow to market the gospel to them. There’s some truth in that; you don’t preach on the nuances of Hebrew grammar in the accounts of the prophet Elijah to a congregation without a working grasp of English, but the ideas MacArthur examines go beyond even that. Who is your ideal congregation, and where do you best use your resources in reaching that group? And are you using the latest church-growth methods to attract people to your ministry?

Some churches use light shows, others wrestling contests (I’m not making this up) and evangelistic carnivals where presentation of the gospel competes with entertainment. I don’t think any of the apostles used this approach; indeed, they sought to avoid using the “wisdom of this world” to spread it. Nowhere in the book of Acts or the epistles are we ever told that recreation and preaching can go together. Neither can we attract people of the world by showing how like them we are; the New Testament correctly states that friendship with the world is enmity to God, and He has used foolishness to shame the wise. The gospel gets its power by being different; as do all who believe it. To reduce it to the level of fun and games and put it in competition for the attention of the unsaved is hence to rob it of its convicting power.

MacArthur shines a light up to these practices and teaches just what should be done instead of trivializing the gospel and following the precepts of fallible men. Now when reading a book or article that sets itself up to correct error, I find it helpful to keep this in mind:

I am NOT bound to agree with everything the author says. The only infallible party in all this is God Himself, and it is He who sees the reins and the hearts. Human beings, on the other hand, disagree, and disagree often—which is why we have so many denominations. I may see a logical flaw here, a little bad reasoning there, but none of this means his entire case should be thrown out. The right approach is to “search the Scriptures, seeing if these things are so.” (Acts 17:11)

So free yourself from the expectation that these books are perfect or that they will argue correctly 100% of the time, and instead see how they support their arguments with logic, Scripture and experience. If you disagree with a legitimate biblical stand, fine. Just make sure yours is too, and consistent with the overall revelation that the Lord has provided.

So what do I think of AotG? MacArthur is no alarmist, and I’ve generally found it to be a useful look at declining biblical literacy, the gathering of teachers to tickle their congregations’ ears, and a gentle correction of the faulty plan that many churches are following. I’m glad I bought it—and whether you belong to the “emerging church” or not, you owe it to your spiritual life to examine this book. Some have said he goes off-topic by emphasizing Calvinism in the eighth chapter… but again, whether that’s really the case is something I don’t think anyone else can decide for you.

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About a month ago I held Oxford University’s Prof. Alister MacGrath speak on the New Atheism. Now for those who haven’t heard of him, here’s his website; plus the fact that’s quite unlikely. He’s written like a million books, or very close to that number; from the standpoint of one who hasn’t written any, 20 and 1 000 000 aren’t very far apart.

Now atheism’s enjoyed quite the resurgence, if the works of such writers as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens (whose god is not great I reviewed in an earlier post) and Daniel Dennett are to be the bestsellers they are made out to be. One remark MacGrath made stands out: “The new atheists are very environmentally-conscious, because they do a lot of recycling.” Many atheistic manifestos are repeats of arguments seen elsewhere… a trend that might be said to include Christian apologists as well.

Yet MacGrath admits that arguments for and against the existence of God have been stalemated for centuries; at the end of the day it’s still a question of faith in His being, or not being. The same old horses are brought out time and again on both sides, which is why a book like mathematician John Allen Paulos is so refreshing at first glance.

I’m especially attracted to atheistic books. Heck, I like reviewing atheistic books; there’s so much more to disagree with I can fill out hundreds of words just critiquing them. For Christian books… no offense, but what can I say, exactly? Spiritually uplifting? A call from God to holier living? If I agree in large part with the writer (which by my reading the book alone I probably will) there won’t be much beyond that to say.

Anyway I was browsing in the Central Lending Library when J.A. Paulos’s Irreligion: a Mathematician Shows Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up caught my eye. Now he’s certainly no believer in God; like Dawkins and others before him, he’s written this book to say why not. Even more uniquely, it’s from a mathematician’s point of view—a subject I’ve taken several courses on and will likely take still more of. And what I can safely say is that anyone qualified in that field is very, very intelligent indeed.

Which is why Paulos has turned his attention to the arguments for God’s existence, and analysed them to show that presto! they are logically unsound. To name a few:

- the argument from design

- the argument from experience

- miracles

- prophecy and the Bible Code

Don’t worry, we’re told. It’s short. There isn’t a single mathematical formula in the book. All the easier for the average reader to understand, right?

Not really. I think I got the flow of his logic well enough, but I doubt Paulos has actually talked to many Christians willing to confront the points he raises…

And there’s quite a bit about Paulos’s mathematical background, due to Irreligion being in the same series as his other Mathematician works, like A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper. Fine; but I neither know nor care what his area of expertise is. The question is, does he succeed in overturning what Christians and other religious groups have believed for millennia? Regardless of whether it comes from an angel or a scientist or a labourer, the same rules of logic still apply.

Several arguments he raises need careful analysis, while others are frankly quite weak; when dissing all religious prophecy, for example, no instances from the Bible, Quran, or any other text are given. Instead he uses a probability-based estimate… where random chance just might cause something mentioned beforehand to come true.

Here’s a general outline:

1. There have been attempts to predict the future.

2. Some of these attempts have come true, against extreme odds.

3. These events can be explained by natural causes or the laws of probability.

4. Therefore God is unnecessary in explaining these events. Which might be of use if you assume supernature doesn’t exist in the first place! (The probability that my computer mouse will be on the floor in five seconds is pretty low, but it shoots up dramatically when I actually drop it.)

Irreligion raises some interesting points and shows us a side of atheistic debate that would be new to most. However, in this short book Paulos discusses too little, assumes too much, and glosses over what he can’t address. All the same, as a summary of where atheists stand and the support for their position, it’s hard to beat for portability and the personal side of the issue. Borrow it from the library… why buy it when the government’s already done that for you?

My recommendation before reading any atheistic text is get a firm grasp of the Christian side of the issue—other theistic resources may help, but not so much. Are the New Atheists dangerous to faith? I would answer that a faith that allows human beings to tear it apart with a few logical tricks was not worth having in the first place—you are free to accept or reject said logic, however well-formed, as you choose.

But the more you look at both sides of the issue, the wiser your choice will be. “As for me and my house [I hope; it’s a long story here], we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15)

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Okay, what was the last sermon you heard on the afterlife? You know, that eternally long period you experience after the silver cord and golden bowl break (it’s in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 12; don’t ask me what they mean) and your body finally breaks down enough for it to stop supporting your animating soul.

Indeed, I’ve rarely heard the topic addressed in church; why talk about what happens afterward when there’s so much to do in the here and now? Because it would be a poor traveler who didn’t, on following his route on a map or a GPS, didn’t check where he was in relation to his destination. Scripture is full of exhortations to “count it all joy” in trials, and says that Jesus Himself “for the glory that was set before him endured the cross”. And the same Lord and Saviour promises that in His Father’s house He will prepare a place for us.

Fortunately, that sermon has come in the form of 19th-century evangelist D. L. Moody’s classic Heaven Awaits. (Its original title was Heaven: How to Get There, in case you see another cover on it.) Page after page resounds with the glories of heaven and what a great day the true Christian’s death will be. Not so for the false, and Moody provides plenty of warning about who will enter and who will be shut out. Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 6:9, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?”

But if you’re discouraged, weary from what seems like a never-ending journey through life, or just want a solid yet loving biblical exposition on what heaven will be like, you can read a lot worse than Moody.

And in my opinion, few better. Rare is the book that left me with tears in my eyes; this one did so with a joy that nothing in the world can take away. “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

Now if someone at Whitaker House could’ve fixed all the typos before sending it to press…

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Some years ago there was talk of computer game narrative. How they were coming into their own as a storytelling medium, and the player’s experience shaped accordingly. Games like 2000’s The Longest Journey and its 2006 sequel Dreamfall were cited as representatives of this new trend. Unfortunately someone—it could’ve been marketing, the writers themselves or someone high up in their publishers’—chose to lop off their endings. Faced with the Great Cliffhanger, the well-drawn, cared-for characters for all those hours of gameplay facing an uncertain fate, players would have to buy the sequels to “save” them, right?

It’s not a sentiment shared by most movies or books, and you don’t hear much about game narrative these days. I guess such discussion is much less interesting than just shooting things… or writing games that tell damned good stories. For while the industry played around with this new, ultimately ruined (for now) idea, Polish developer Techland was actually going out and making the first-person shooter Call of Juarez.

It’s some things a mega-budget, big-name FPS is not. One of them is being a Western; not many of these are made, and even fewer are good ones.

Another thing is having a story that actually stands on its own. It’s the 1860s, and the MacGuffin is a lost Aztec treasure rumoured to be hidden in the hills near the Mexican border town of Juarez. It’s also rumoured that said treasure is cursed, and anyone seeking it will be driven mad. Not that it’s stopped many from trying; it’s this greed for the gold that gives the game its title.

But Techland, and fortunately publishers Ubisoft, understood the treasure of Juarez is not important at all. It’s the interaction between characters, and how we grow to care for those we’re playing as. In the first game we play the fiery, gun-toting preacher Reverend Ray McCall and his on-the-run nephew Billy. In the prequel (2009’s Bound in Blood) we get a younger Ray and his brother Thomas in their gunslinging days.

Now CoJ and Bound in Blood aren’t triumphs of storytelling by novel or movie standards, but in the gaming world we tend to laugh off claims that their storylines are “epic tales of greed and honour, jealousy and betrayal, violence and redemption.” Well, these two games earn every word of it, and in a genre (shooters) not known for its deep narrative threads.

Very refreshingly, Christianity is actually treated positively; in the first game you could wield Scripture readings as a stun weapon, and in the second the cruel, murderous Ray is led to faith by his seminarian brother William. Religious characters are realistic, not everything-will-be-okay idealists, nor fitting the ranting bigot stereotype so common to movies.

(I mean, if you need a frightening, well-motivated villain, the Christian-fundamentalist card is too often the lazy writer’s way out.)

Thankfully the CoJ games are not the work of lazy writers. Design choices and top-notch production values make Bound in Blood more immersive than any game I’ve played in a long time; you feel like you’re really taking down mobs of gangsters, storming through the Old West and participating in two-men-enter-one-man-leaves shootouts (the last part isn’t all that realistic, but it’s fun and satisfying).

Excellent work, Techland. You’ll have my following for a long time to come.

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