Brian Vickers. Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Imputation. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006. 254pp. $14.99. Anyone who has been paying attention to Evangelical theology in North America knows that the doctrine of Justification has become quite a hot topic. Not only has the “New Perspective” on Paul offered a challenge to the traditional Protestant formulation (e.g. James Dunn, N. T. Wright), but so have some dissenting voices from within the conservative sector of the evangelical fold (e.g. Robert Gundry). In 1999, when Christianity Today published “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration,” Robert Gundry responded by saying, “the doctrine that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believing sinners needs…

James M. Hamilton. God’s Indwelling Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Old & New Testaments. NAC Studies in Bible & Theology. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2006. 233pp. $19.99. The Gospel according to John has the reputation of being the “spiritual gospel” within the fourfold gospel tradition. Its distinct characteristics have caused it to be one of the most beloved books in the Christian canon. Indeed, one recent commentator has said that John’s Gospel “penetrates more deeply into the mystery of God’s revelation in his Son than the other canonical Gospels and perhaps more deeply than any other biblical book” (Köstenberger, John, 1).

I just received a new book from InterVarsity Press that I will be reviewing in a forthcoming edition of The Criswell Theological Review. When I finish the book (it’s in my queue!) and write the review, I will post it on this blog. In the meantime, I wanted to post a notice of its release. The title of the book is The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views with contributions by Greg Boyd, Joel Green, Bruce Reichenbach, and Tom Schreiner. Boyd defends the Christus Victor view, Schreiner the penal substitution view, Reichenbach the “Healing” view, and Green the “Kaleidoscopic” view.

Well, maybe we’re not that mad at Joel Osteen, but Greg Gilbert’s new review of Osteen’s book, Your Best Life Now, reminds us of why we are appalled at his version of “Christianity.” Greg Gilbert describes Osteen’s work this way: It should be noted clearly and widely that there is nothing Christian about this book. Yes, Osteen talks about God throughout, but it is not the God of the Bible he has in mind. Osteen’s God is little more than the mechanism that gives the power to positive thinking. There is no cross. There is no sin. There is no redemption or salvation or eternity. . . If Joel Osteen…

In years past, the gender debates among evangelicals have focused largely on the interpretation of key biblical texts. Complementarians have presented their interpretation of of the Bible’s teaching, and Egalitarians have presented theirs.In recent years, however, a new line of argument has been emerging among those of an egalitarian bent. According to a recent book review by S. M. Hutchens in Touchstone magazine, this new approach appears in John G. Stackhouse’s 2005 book Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender. Hutchens writes:

Rudolf Bultmann famously derided the biblical book of Revelation as “weakly Christianized Judaism” (Theology of the New Testament, 2:175). But, as Richard Bauckham points out, this phrase “betrays the influence of the tendency of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Christianity to deny its Jewish roots. It makes the extraordinary suggestion that only what is not Jewish is really Christian and that Christianity somehow came into being by negating Judaism. We should now be able to recognize . . . the unconscious tendency to anti-Semitism in this approach” (pp. 147-48). The anti-Semitic approach is not the one that Bauckham himself follows in his helpful little book The Theology of the Book of…

N. T. Wright. The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. 160pp. $19.95. I appreciate Bishop N. T. Wright’s willingness to address the church through writing popular books. Wright is the consummate scholar and is perfectly capable of producing the kind of work that would only be accessible to specialists in the field of New Testament studies. Yet over the years he has included among his prolific output books addressed to the interested layman. His recent short work, The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture, is one such book.

Don Miller’s blockbuster book Blue Like Jazz has influenced a significant number of a whole generation of young Christians across this country. I can say that the book has definitely made an impact on many of the students at the college where I teach. Mark Coppenger delivered an address at Southern Seminary recently in which he reviewed Don Miller’s book. The audio of the review is witty and insightful and worth the time to listen to. But if you don’t have the time for the audio, you can now read it. The Baptist Press has run a print version of the review titled “Blue Like Jazz & Berri Blue Jell-O.”…