A Few Good Books
April 15, 2010
It's been a good month or two for books. In addition to Kevin DeYoung's great little devotional commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, The Good News We Almost Forgot (Moody), there is also J.I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett's learned and provocative argument for putting catchesis back at the heart of the church, Grounded in the Gospel (Baker). Taken together, these books are delightful, encouraging, and, for those involved in church leadership, challenging, calling us to revisit old paths in new ways, avoiding both the romantic antiquarianism of so much Reformed church life, and the consumerist eclecticism of the ad hoc approach to the past found in emergent quarters.
Danny Hyde's also been at it again. Where does he find time to prepare his sermons and be a pastor? His latest book is typical of his output: accessible, useful, relevant. Entitled Welcome to a Reformed Church (Reformation Trust), it looks to have all the makings of a great book on which to build a membership course.
Finally, though I have only just dipped into it, Andrew Potter's The Authenticity Hoax: How We Got Lost Finding Ourselves (Harper), looks brilliant. Potter's earlier work, Nation of Rebels was a brilliant analysis of how counterculture became just another consumer product. here is much of the same, as he argues that `authenticity' has become just another synthetic product. No comfort here for the soul patched guys in those slightly-out-of-focus-eyes-averted-from-the-camera-with-serious-and-pensive-look-on-my-face-against-a-backdrop-of-slightly-grey-sky photos that front a myriad of authentic emergent webpages. Authenticity is - surprise surprise - just the latest synthetic knock-off. Still, as it says on the cover of my copy of Positive Thinking for Calvinists, `The secret of success in Calvinism is sincerity; once you can fake that, you're laughing.' Just switch the C word for the E word, and the S word for the A word.
Danny Hyde's also been at it again. Where does he find time to prepare his sermons and be a pastor? His latest book is typical of his output: accessible, useful, relevant. Entitled Welcome to a Reformed Church (Reformation Trust), it looks to have all the makings of a great book on which to build a membership course.
Finally, though I have only just dipped into it, Andrew Potter's The Authenticity Hoax: How We Got Lost Finding Ourselves (Harper), looks brilliant. Potter's earlier work, Nation of Rebels was a brilliant analysis of how counterculture became just another consumer product. here is much of the same, as he argues that `authenticity' has become just another synthetic product. No comfort here for the soul patched guys in those slightly-out-of-focus-eyes-averted-from-the-camera-with-serious-and-pensive-look-on-my-face-against-a-backdrop-of-slightly-grey-sky photos that front a myriad of authentic emergent webpages. Authenticity is - surprise surprise - just the latest synthetic knock-off. Still, as it says on the cover of my copy of Positive Thinking for Calvinists, `The secret of success in Calvinism is sincerity; once you can fake that, you're laughing.' Just switch the C word for the E word, and the S word for the A word.
