For All It's Worth

Jonathan Edwards by Simonetta Carr (Christian Biographies for Young Readers) Simonetta Carr has once again outdone herself in this beautifully written book on Jonathan Edwards.  Most children going through school get only a negative impression from Edwards as they barely get past his sermon entitled ‘Sermon in the Hands of an Angry God,’ yet there is so much more to his life than one sermon.  Simonetta notes in the opening lines that “he lived in a time where people were questioning long-accepted ideas about the world, life, and God (5).”  Yet, he continually spoke truth about God’s world and His world in a changing time.  Instead of placing Edwards on such a high pedestal as often he is by biographers, Simonetta lets us get a glimpse of his humanity, his emotional toils and also his radiant joys.  She has this to say about young Jonathan, “He and his friends also built a shed by an isolated swamp where they could pray and read the Bible...

The Theology of the Westminster Standards by J.V. Fesko J.V. Fesko, professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary in California provides for readers a thorough understanding of the aims, intents, and theology of the Westminster Standards in his The Theology of the Westminster Standards .  With an eye toward history, theological debates within the Reformed world, and the emphasis that such Reformers such as John Calvin had upon the Westminster Divines (see pg. 50), Fesko’s book is a delight to read and investigate.  What makes Fesko’s book so unique?  For one, Fesko does not fail to provide objections to his theological statements and set forth arguments against objections with sound research and historical context.  In writing about the Holy Spirit convincing a person of the Divine authority of the Scriptures, Fesko writes (67), “Some have argued that this list of proofs for the divinity of the Word represents a turn toward rationali...

Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence by Karen Armstrong Hearing the mantra that religion is the cause of many wars on this Earth and poisonous to humanity is echoed among those who reject religion and also those who question religion’s capacity for goodness.  Karen Armstrong, in her new book, Fields of Blood, tackles the muddy relationship between religion and violence with care, probing early sources, but also judiciously reflecting on the nature of religion, its relationship to violence, and looking at violent activity being caused by other sources.  In turn, Armstrong makes a case that pointing to religion as the sum reason why wars take place is not only simplistic but doesn’t fit the records we find.  Noting the ample supply of food in Jericho in the ninth millennium BCE, Armstrong writes, “Warfare would not become endemic in the region for another five thousand years, but it was already a possibility and from the first, it seems, large-scal...