Book Reviews

PrintRod Dreher, author of the popular The Benedict Option (see my review here:  https://tottministries.org/?s=The+Benedict+Option) has written Live Not By Lies as a warning about the soft totalitarianism he sees rapidly overtaking America.  The means of resisting the propaganda is, according to the author, to challenge its philosophy with truth.  Or, as the title suggests, to “live not by lies,” a line taken from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s final message to the Russian people (p. xiv).  What it means today to not live by lies is the issue this book explores “through interviews with and testaments left by Christians (and others) from throughout the Soviet Bloc who lived through totalitarianism” (p. xiv).  The author is convinced that “we cannot become the kind of Christians we need to be in preparation for persecution if we don’t know stories like this, and take them into our hearts” (p. 204). Dreher sees much overlap between the…(Read More)

PrintGospel Conversations, How to Care Like Christ by Robert W. Kellemen (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015) 397 pp., paper, $18.99 Gospel Conversations is a long, intense and thorough manual for biblical counseling.  The big idea communicated throughout the book is that “we learn to become competent biblical counselors by giving and …(Read More)

PrintFrancis Asbury: God’s Circuit Rider by Charles Ludwig (Milford, Michigan: Mott Media, 1984) 206 pp., paper, $5.94 used. If someone is looking for a short, simple history of American Methodism, Francis Asbury would be hard to beat. Written at about a junior high level this biography of the most important …(Read More)

PrintSocial Justice Goes to Church, the New Left in Modern American Evangelicalism by Jon Harris (Greenville, South Carolina: Ambassador International, 2020) 205 pp., paper $16.99 Jon Harris has written an important book documenting the history leading up to the modern Social Justice Movement which has infiltrated evangelicalism. In part one …(Read More)

PrintJust Mercy, a Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (New York: Random House, 2015) 349 pp + xiv, paper $17.00 Shortly after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1985, Bryan Stevenson was a young black attorney who found himself quickly thrust into an American South justice system riddled …(Read More)

PrintThe Son Who Learned Obedience, a Theological Case Against the Eternal Submission of the Son by D. Glenn Butner, Jr. (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2018) 224 + x pp., paper $28.00 The Son Who Learned Obedience is exactly what the subtitle claims—a heavy, intense, thorough and robust defense against the …(Read More)

PrintThe Words of King Lemuel, The Virtuous Woman of Proverbs 31 by James Daughtry (Bridgeview, IL; Abidan, 2021), 117 pp.   The Words of King Lemuel is a short practical commentary on Proverbs 31.  The author claims that the keys to understanding this chapter are the careful examination of the …(Read More)

PrintAime Byrd is known as the housewife theologian. She is popular conference speaker, a prolific author with several books to her credit and, until the publication of this book, co-host of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals podcast Mortification of Spin.  Her earlier work, No Little Women, made some valuable contributions …(Read More)

PrintMike Gendron was a devout Roman Catholic for 37 years before he found Christ. Since his conversion, he has passionately sought to proclaim the truth of the gospel to Roman Catholics who are deceived by their church. To that end he founded and leads “Proclaiming the Gospel Ministry,” producing written …(Read More)

PrintFor anyone who enjoys reading American church history, or has an interest in the Puritans, The American Puritans is a treat.  Dustin Benge and Nate Pickowicz have showcased the lives of nine Puritans who were greatly influential in the early settling of America including John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, John Eliot …(Read More)

PrintThe Cessation of the Prophetic Gifts is Timothy Dane’s doctrinal dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for his Doctor of Philosophy degree at Baptist Bible Seminary.  It is a scholarly work with thousands of footnotes (which happily are not endnotes, making for easier reference) and an extensive 69 page …(Read More)