Review: Science, Creation and the Bible: Reconciling Rival Theories of Origins

Science, Creation and the Bible: Reconciling Rival Theories of Origins by Richard F. Carlson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While I felt that the authors could afford more depth and elaboration in certain chapters, I understood the brevity of the text was to maintain its accessibility. The summaries at the end of each chapter were super useful in helping readers (like me) who are new to this topic consolidate their thoughts. I would, however, have appreciated a suggested bibliography at the end of each chapter for further reading.

This book is like a free sample given out at a supermarket, meant to tempt one into getting sucked into the product. John Walton's The Lost World of Adam and Eve and The Lost World of Genesis One, also from IVP, would fit nicely into the category of further reading.

For me, an exceptional book would be concise (150-200 pages), accessible, engaging, theologically faithful and causes introspection. This title achieves all the abovementioned attributes; hence, for all these reasons, I heartily recommend this book!

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The Book of Esther and Theistic Evolution

I am introduced to one of the most interesting categories to date - Theistic Evolutionists - in layman's terms, Christians who believe that God employed evolution as a means of creation. Tremper Longman III cites the well-known theme of God's clear sovereign hand overseeing the impossibly coincidental events in the book of Esther to defend the Theistic Evolution.

From page 75 of Confronting Old Testament Controversies

Many... make much of what they think is a contradiction within the idea of evolutionary creationism. That is, if God is involved as evolutionary creationists insist, then how can the process of natural selection be random as the theory of evolution claims? However, we should not think that though the process of creation appears to us to be random, this means that it is actually random. Remember what we said about the book of Esther. It sure seems "random" or pure chance that on a sleepless night Xerxes had his people read about Mordecai's efforts to foil an assassination plot, but we all know that a deeper plan was at work. These critics of "randomness" in evolution again show an anemic view of providence.

Review: Why I Am a Christian

Why I Am a Christian by John R.W. Stott
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As with his other titles, Stott writes clearly and does not dive into complicated theological jargon or discussion. He writes in a calm, gentle manner (unlike the strong argumentation of Ravi Zachariah’s). He cites the notable people. thinkers and theologians as he gives the reasons why he is a Christian. Most of the time, he utilises the bible as the primary source of reference for his substantive.

John Scott is one of my favourite theological authors; The Cross is Christ is one of the few books that I felt deserving of an exceptional 6 stars. However, as a 30 year old I could not engage with the content of this book. I am aware that my peers generally hold post modern world views, and felt that his book would better serve a modern audience (like the readers of 2003, when it was first published). Alternatively, this title could also be useful to readers whose English is a second language or for people who hail from traditional and non-postmodern backgrounds. For engaging critical or intelligent thinkers, this book would however not be useful in bringing up logical positions or debates in apologetics. A better title to aid evangelism of postmodern people would perhaps be Timothy Keller’s Reason for God or C S Lewis’ Mere Christianity.

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Review: The Gospel for Muslims: An Encouragement to Share Christ with Confidence

The Gospel for Muslims: An Encouragement to Share Christ with Confidence by Thabiti M. Anyabwile
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book was easy to read and novice readers would find no trouble going the material. The target audience is an American one, and specifically African American (as seen from Chapter 11's The good news for African American Muslims). I felt that the illustrations and personal accounts sometimes did not serve to explain the substantive that the author was trying to bring across. It is however not the most engaging of titles, and if I did not have to sieve out information for a world religions seminary course, I doubt I would have wanted to read it from cover to cover. There was a lone flash of brilliance, whereby 61-2, whereby Anyabwile quoted from C. S. Lewis ("Jesus is liar, lunatic or Lord") to substantiate that accepting Jesus as a “good moral teacher” or as a prophet, only to then reject his prophecy and teachings about himself is not an honest position to take. With Moody's 2018 reprint of the original 2010 title, it is a pity that some updating or additions were not made.

I received this book from Moody Publishers Newsroom for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

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Review: Resurrection: The Capstone in the Arch of Christianity

Resurrection: The Capstone in the Arch of Christianity by Hank Hanegraaff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up this book as part of reading material for a research paper. Incidentally the book I read just before this was Strobel's The Case for Easter, which is actually an excerpt from the bestselling The Case for Christ. While Hanegraaff does make some unique contributions and substantives on his own, it seemed that many of the citations were secondary material from Strobel. Seeing the Gold Medallion Book Award and the many pages of recommendations by famous scholars, I however felt that the book was underwhelming for the amount of accolades and good reviews it received.

The distinguishing factor from Strobel's more popular level material would be the more technical aspects of Part 2 (Defense of the Resurrection of Creation) and Part 3 (Definite Answers to Questions Regarding the Resurrection). However, I felt that Part 1 (Defense of the Resurrection of Creation) is far too brief before the hard hitting matter comes along.

That's not to say that this is a mediocre book, it's one of the better ones on the topic of the resurrection, just that it is not brilliant. I will still recommended Strobel's to anybody who wants to get a grasp on the subject.

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Review: The Case for Easter: A Journalist Investigates the Evidence for the Resurrection

The Case for Easter: A Journalist Investigates the Evidence for the Resurrection by Lee Strobel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For the purposes of a research paper, I picked up this book alongside probably 30 or so other books, journal articles and encyclopedia articles and this was by far my favourite. The others were mostly either a challenge to read or skimmed the surface; they were either full of complicated theological matter or were too simplistic. Strobel pitched it just right - he pens in an engaging and easy-to-follow manner and yet dived in deep into the subject matter.

An able writer himself, Strobel provides an insightful introduction to each of three segments - (1) Did Jesus really die on the cross, (2) Was Jesus body really missing from his tomb and (3) Did Jesus appear to people after his death on the cross. The highlight of the book is probably when taps upon the expertise of Alexander Metherell, William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas, providing a summary of the interviews he conducted with them when he was still a skeptic. I was surprised that I enjoyed the read (because I wrongly expected popular level books to be mediocre)!

Like today's great comedians who entertain stadium-sized crowds, this book ended a series of exciting storytelling with a bang - one that left this reader highly encouraged and inspired. While the rest of the book appealed to one's intellect and reasoning, the final story tugs on the heartstrings.

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Review: One Of the Few: A Marine Fighter Pilot's Reconnaissance of the Christian Worldview

One Of the Few by Jason B. Ladd
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Before I went to bible school, my book shelves consisted mainly of military history and military biographies. Fast forward 5 years or so, they are now dwarfed with theological titles. I still relish reading about the exciting accounts of men at war, and looked forward to reviewing this title.

As a seminary student, I recognise Ladd's mammoth effort to read, digest and cite from a large variety of sources to substantiate his thesis - from the military experience of himself and others, from pop culture, from Christian theologians, from secular thinkers. Ladd's retelling of military accounts/situations were intense, it rekindled my love of reading about men at war and gave me quite an adrenaline rush.

I initially wanted to flag out the rarity of Scripture in the book, but as I reflected, I think that is not a big issue as Ladd's purpose was probably apologetics and therefore his primary audience (which would not be the bible scholar types) probably would prefer extra-biblical accounts to substantiate the logical arguments put forth. And as the most helpful review on amazon points out, as the beginning of each chapter, Ladd's juxtaposition of quotations of a non-Christian against Scripture is a masterpiece.

I was however rather irritated at being left hanging about the outcome of Arnold the helicopter pilot in the prologue. This was an unwelcome distraction - I found that I was more interested in finding out what happened to Arnold - and the pages in between were standing in my way. When I finally got to the epilogue, I was disappointed at the short conclusion; I guess I was hoping to enjoy digesting what had happened after having waited 250 pages to find out the outcome!

Here are some suggestions for improvement.

Stylistically, I felt that the numerous short chapters were a challenge as a reader. Perhaps similar chapters could be consolidated into larger ones to eventually end up with about 10-15 chapters. Readers take a mental break with the end of a chapter and the beginning of another; I found it exhausting to do so about 30 times and struggled to maintain interest after about 20 chapters.

Formatting wise, the margins are far too wide; adjusting them to the usual one inch could save quite a bit of paper and perhaps even make the book a more compact size. Because the book had no illustrations, it felt like a wall of text. Fiverr.com would be a great source to include an inexpensive illustration for example at the beginning of each chapter.

I received this book from the author for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

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Adam4d on apologetics and ministry

It is so sad to think how biblically illiterate we have become. Often time church has its focus more on fun and games... 

From Let's talk about Moralistic Therapeutic Deism - Adam4d.com