There is a certain honesty in the title I Believe. Help My Unbelief! that immediately signals both the ambition and the vulnerability of Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’s book. Borrowed from the anguished prayer of the father in Mark 9:24, the phrase functions not merely as a rhetorical hook but as a hermeneutical key for the entire project. What follows is neither a defensive apologetic nor a diluted catechism. Instead, Kärkkäinen offers a theologically confident yet dialogically open exposition of Christian doctrine for readers who inhabit a world shaped by religious plurality, scientific rationality, and pervasive secular suspicion.

Kärkkäinen is uniquely positioned to undertake such a task. A long-standing professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, he is widely known for his five-volume Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, a massive academic achievement that few theologians would dare to condense. This book is precisely that condensation, though “simplification” would be the wrong word. What is offered here is rather a careful transposition: the intellectual architecture of a major constructive project rendered in a register accessible to pastors, students, and reflective believers without forfeiting conceptual rigor.

The introduction sets the tone by refusing the false dichotomy between faith and knowledge. Kärkkäinen rejects both naïve fideism and scientistic dismissal, proposing instead a chastened epistemology influenced by Michael Polanyi’s notion of tacit knowledge. Belief, he argues, is neither blind assent nor empirical certainty but a reasoned trust that remains open to testing, critique, and growth. This epistemic humility becomes a recurring virtue throughout the book and helps explain its unusual generosity toward secular interlocutors and other religious traditions alike.

Chapter 1, on revelation, is among the strongest in the volume. Kärkkäinen navigates the post-Enlightenment crisis of authority by articulating revelation as trinitarian, incarnational, and historically mediated. His treatment of Scripture as “God’s Word in human words” avoids both fundamentalist inerrancy and reductionist liberalism, framing inspiration instead as divine–human synergy. Particularly noteworthy is the comparative engagement with Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist accounts of revelation. Revelation here is not domesticated; it remains scandalous, yet intelligible.

Chapter 2 turns to the doctrine of God, where Kärkkäinen’s ecumenical breadth and conceptual discipline are on full display. Rather than beginning with abstract metaphysical attributes, he situates Christian talk of God within the lived realities of religious plurality and philosophical contestation. Classical trinitarian theology is presented not as an inherited formula in need of defense, but as Christianity’s most daring and constructive proposal about ultimate reality: that God’s being is irreducibly relational, communicative, and self-giving.

What gives this chapter its distinctive force is the sustained comparative engagement. Jewish covenantal monotheism, Islamic tawḥīd, and Buddhist non-theism are treated not as foils but as serious theological interlocutors. Kärkkäinen responds to Islamic critiques of the Trinity not defensively but by clarifying how, in Christian theology, relationality does not dilute divine unity but intensifies it. Likewise, his engagement with Buddhist critiques of personal theism exposes how deeply Christian claims about God are bound to incarnation, history, and relational love rather than metaphysical abstraction.

In Chapter 3, creation is explored in sustained conversation with the natural sciences. Kärkkäinen affirms evolutionary accounts without surrendering theological claims about divine purpose, goodness, and providence. Creation is not treated as a closed past event but as an ongoing, Spirit-sustained reality. The chapter’s refusal to pit faith against science gives it particular resonance for readers formed by contemporary cosmology.

Chapter 4 addresses theological anthropology, asking what it means to be human in light of evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and cultural diversity. Kärkkäinen’s insistence on the imago Dei as relational and dynamic allows him to integrate scientific insights while retaining moral and theological depth. His engagement with Buddhist and Hindu views of the self is especially illuminating, clarifying both points of convergence and irreducible difference.

Christology, the focus of Chapter 5, is treated with careful balance. Kärkkäinen affirms classical Chalcedonian orthodoxy while exploring how Christ can be meaningfully confessed in religiously plural contexts. He resists both relativism and triumphalism, presenting Christ as uniquely revelatory and salvific without reducing other religious figures to mere negations. The chapter models a Christology confident enough to listen and humble enough to learn.

Chapter 6 deepens this trajectory by interpreting reconciliation through a plurality of atonement motifs rather than a single controlling theory. This integrative approach reflects both biblical diversity and pastoral sensitivity, particularly in a global context marked by violence, injustice, and historical trauma.

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, explored in Chapter 7, bears the marks of Kärkkäinen’s Pentecostal formation without becoming sectarian. The Spirit is presented as active not only in the church but in creation, culture, and beyond ecclesial boundaries. This expansive pneumatology reinforces the book’s overarching vision of a God who remains dynamically engaged with the world.

Chapter 8 addresses salvation with notable restraint. Kärkkäinen maps the theological options regarding exclusivity, inclusivity, and hope without forcing premature resolution. Salvation remains decisively grounded in Christ, yet its ultimate scope is entrusted to divine mercy rather than theological anxiety.

Ecclesiology, the subject of Chapter 9, is framed in explicitly public and pneumatological terms and speaks with particular force to ongoing conversations in Pentecostal public theology. The church is not imagined as a protected enclave nor as a moral lobby, but as a Spirit-constituted communion whose very existence is itself a form of public witness. Kärkkäinen resists both withdrawal and domination, articulating instead a vision of the church as porous yet identifiable, hospitable yet disciplined — a communio sanctorum sent into the world without being absorbed by it. Particularly significant is his engagement with secularism and post-secularity, where the church is called neither to nostalgia for Christendom nor to anxious relevance-seeking, but to patient, Spirit-led presence. For Pentecostal readers attentive to the public implications of ecclesiology, this chapter offers a compelling reminder that charismatic vitality and communal formation belong together.

The brief epilogue returns to the book’s governing prayer. Faith, Kärkkäinen reminds us, is always accompanied by questions, and theology at its best does not silence them but teaches believers how to live with them faithfully.

In an age marked by polarized certainties and shallow dismissals, Kärkkäinen offers something quieter and more demanding: a theology that believes deeply, listens carefully, and hopes patiently — refusing to confuse faith with the absence of questions. That may be this book’s most timely gift.

Reviewed by Ciprian Gheorghe-Luca

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781725276673/i-believe-help-my-unbelief/

Image: Kwon Junho

On Pentecost Sunday the Person of the Holy Spirit, the advocate, the one called alongside to help you, was the presence of God to come upon them. What does this mean for you? With the Holy Spirit, you wake up with a fire in your heart and the passion to serve Jesus. The Spirit reveals the way to move forward by faith every day.

Pray with me…“Come, Holy Spirit”…stir up your faith and relationship with the Spirit. Then with the message of the Bible in your hand and the Spirit in your heart, you will hear God’s voice lead you through your daily life!

PR

Oden and Packer have done evangelicalism a valuable service in this work affirming and outlining its underlying unity contra a reputation for fragmentation. Drawing upon a wide array of trans-denominational and international confessions, they posit a remarkable coherence among evangelicals regarding ‘primary’ doctrines. As senior statesmen of the evangelical movement they are uniquely qualified for this endeavour, representing (some would say) opposite ends of the evangelical spectrum (Wesleyan and Calvinist). Their collaboration is itself indicative of the unity they further affirm. Oden and Packer’s own analysis of and vision for evangelical unity strengthens the work substantially. Some repetitiveness is evident but this is a very readable book.

However, while One Faith takes an important step toward not only affirming but also advancing evangelical unity, it does not deal with what its authors consider ‘secondary’ doctrines that admittedly involve controversy. Is the alleged unity substantive when it is decided in advance to ignore diversity? How contemporary evangelicals deal with differences says something too. Nevertheless, the distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ status issues is an ancient and useful one potentially capable of carrying the burden and blessing of diversity. Though not a specifically scholarly work, students of evangelicalism as well as evangelical laity and clergy will benefit from this book.

Reviewed by Tony Richie

Originally published on the Pneuma Foundation (parent organization of PneumaReview.com) website. Later included in the Summer 2024 issue.

This is an important article for pastors and especially for those involved in evangelization in America. The article is a distillation of Ryan Burge’s just published book, The Nones: Who They Are and Where They Are Going (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021). Both the article and book are the distillation of the Pastor Burge’s research and decades-long experience as a minister. In many ways, it was a disconcerting experience for him. He saw his congregation, as well as other Evangelical congregations, steadily decline in numbers. At the same time, the numbers of American who are religiously unaffiliated steadily increases.

Those who have no religious affiliations are now labeled as “Nones.” That is, when questioned as to which denomination they belong to thy respond by “None.” This category has existed for a long time, called Deists in colonial America. They may have been a majority of the American public in the years after independence and before the Second Great Awakening (1798-1730). I encountered many Nones while doing evangelization in a Hippy/New Age neighborhood of Atlanta 30 years ago, but they were not yet given that nomenclature.

Ryan P. Burge, The Nones: Who They Are and Where They Are Going (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021).

The problem now, as Burge aptly points out, is that the percentage of Nones in the American population had increased dramatically in recent decades. In 1968, 5% of the population were Nones, but now they are over 25% and growing. At the same time, the percentage of Christians who are faithful church attenders is slowly declining. (As I pointed out in an earlier article, this is not as bad as it seems, as those who remain faithful as increasingly devote and more intensely and effectively prayerful.[1]) Burge also shows that the percentage of nominal Christians will practically disappear in coming decades.

Burge has learned the discipline of sociological investigation and with these skills and has identified three varieties of Nones: Those who do not believe in God at all, those who do not participate in any church (but may believe in God), and those who do not behave at all in any Christian manner (but again may believe in God). Interestingly, the hard-core atheists, who are non-attender and non-Christian behavior persons, are only 6% of the population. But as the author points out these are immensely influential in the media and industry and dedicate much of their energies in evangelizing their atheistic persuasion and life-styles. All of this makes for depressing reading. But Burge sees a silver lining in these dreadful statics. About 40% of the Nones still believe in God to some degree, and here is an evangelical opening. To quote him:

In my book I write that nearly 20 percent of people who identified as “nothing in particular” had changed their affiliation to Christian just four years later. And this “nothing in particular” category represents nearly 1 in 5 Americans. The harvest is plentiful!

Thus, at least some come back. I suspect much of that return is fueled by couples wishing their children to be raised in church and a decent Sunday School after they have tasted the sin-driven agnostic’s lifestyle. Sadly, as a non-Pentecostal/charismatic Christian Burge has only the standard Evangelical solutions to offer in order to bring back to church more of the Nones. These include things like listening to others well, outreach for the poor, etc. The last chapter of his book, The Nones, entitled “What we can change and what we cannot,” expresses his mix of hope and befuddlement at reversing the continues growth of the Nones.

But as Pentecostals and charismatics we can hold to a much greater hope. John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard denomination, showed the way forty years ago with his seminal books, Power Evangelism and Power Healing.[2] Specifically, Wimber encouraged evangelization the New Testament way, by demonstrating the power of God in healing prayer and effective prayer in the marketplace, office, or wherever a suitable situation presents itself.

On a practical level this is especially effective by manning a public prayer station right in the middle of a neighborhood where Nones are numerous, as in the places around a university. The public prayer station can simply be a sidewalk sign saying something like “Prayer Station” or “Free Prayer” and a place staffed by persons who know how to minister healing and deliverance prayer and prayers for other intentions. Many Pentecostal and charismatic churches already have trained prayer intercessors who normally minister in church – they can be put outdoors as “None catchers.” The Nones with health issues or other problems will give prayer a shot, and after, the ministers can invite the person to church, or suggest the person give their lives to Christ. On the details of this ministry see my article and book on this ministry.[3]

Reviewed by the Rev William De Arteaga

Notes

[1] “Real Christianity is Growing in the USA,” Pneuma Review (April 16, 2018).

[2] See especially John Wimber and Kevin Springer, Power Healing (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987).

[3] William De Arteaga, “How the Public Prayer Station Started,” Pentecostal Theology (October 24, 2019).

A guest article from Christian ministry veteran, Charles Carrin.

Trust is not something that comes on its own. Where does it come from, how does it work, what does trust in God accomplish?

O for a faith that will not shrink, Tho’ pressed by every foe;

That will not tremble on the brink Of any earthly woe.

That will not murmur nor complain, Beneath the chastening rod;

But in the hour of grief or pain Will lean upon its God.

A faith that shines more bright and clear When tempests rage without,

That when in danger knows no fear, In darkness feels no doubt.

Lord, give us each such faith as this, And then what’er may come,

We’ll taste, e’en here, the hallowed bliss Of our eternal home!

— William H. Bathurst, 1831

Image: Jordan McQueen

Faith is not native to our planet but is projected into our cosmos from the Great-Other-Realm. Therefore, the faith at work in you is not at an attitude or mental effort on your part. Nor is it merely your religious concept or ideology. Faith is a trans-earthly power. As gravity, centrifugal force, thermodynamics, etc., are powers native to our cosmos, so faith is native to the other realm and is only a visitor in our’s. Faith came to you because of your “hearing the word of God”, Romans 10:17, and God then having dealt to you “a measure of faith”, Romans 12:3. Scripture makes it very plain that faith is a gift to you.

The Dictionary definition of faith is vastly insufficient. It identifies faith solely as religious persuasion, moral conviction, conscientious sentiment, credence, etc., but offers no comment about faith being a spiritual force. Wherever this concept has been accepted it has stripped Christianity of its inherent power. For that reason, much of what we call “faith” is nothing more than religious presumption and a poor imitation of the genuine. It is a deceptive counterfeit, rising from man’s soul—not his spirit—and remains powerless because it has no vital connection with the upper-domain of the Kingdom of God.

Nowhere is the distinction between religion and true spirituality more graphically displayed than in the difference between true faith and its artificial counterpart. Unfortunately, it is possible for believers to be seduced by a subtle imitation of faith. That seduction is supposition. Instead of hearing “what the Spirit is saying”, Revelation 3:13, people are directed by the deceptive appearance of circumstances. Supposition caused Paul’s shipwreck, Acts 27:13, Mary and Joseph’s three anxious days searching for the child Jesus in Jerusalem, Luke 23:44,45, and has brought frustration to millions of other conscientious believers. Churches are tragically caught in its trap.

Because of that, I wish to “coin” a Greek word, peiro, into an English application and join it with the word “faith”. Peiro means “to pierce through” and originates from the word peran meaning “other side”, “beyond”, “farther”, “over”, “across”. In Greek, the word for faith is pistis. The combination of the two words allows us to visualize faith’s purpose in penetrating our physical realm. This penetration is absolutely necessary if there is to be miraculous healing, spiritual gifting, deliverances, out-of-body transports, etc.

“Peiros-Faith” is a force that comes to our dimension from the other realm, passes through cooperative believers here, then, like an X-ray, penetrates and effects change in the circumstance it touches. Admittedly, the subject is beyond my explanation-but it is not beyond our exploration. I simply want to explore “faith” in its potential to interact both with our physical dimension of time and space while it maintains a complete, uninterrupted union with the Eternal Dimension where it originates. In other words, faith is a symphonizing of these separate dimensions. It is a force. A power.

Faith is a weapon in the hands of those who are vibrant and alive. Love, like gravity, is the force which grasps, bonds, holds to itself. Faith, working through love, penetrates, illuminates, radiates. Like sunlight restoring life to a plant kept too long in the dark, faith has the radiating power to change the spiritual environment around it and bring life.

George Müller (1805-1898), at the age of thirty entered the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in his native Germany, having decided to pursue theology, against his father’s wishes. During that same year of 1825, meeting with a small group of believers at a house-church gathering, he experienced his own personal conversion of faith. That experience changed his life and set him on a course away from habitual sin to a calling as a missionary. After receiving his diploma from Halle, Müller was invited to join the ministry work of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (LSPCJ, later the Church Mission to the Jews). Once relocated in England, Müller began his pioneering career in what would become known as para-church ministry.

Characteristically, Müller worked hard at LSPCJ, nearly to exhaustion. After a serious illness and much reflection, he took a sabbatical rest in the sea-side area of Plymouth and Devon, England. There he met Scotsman Henry Craik who had also been converted while at university, and he a met Anthony Norris Groves (see the article, “The ‘simple standard of God’s Word’”). Groves had convinced Craik that Christ was speaking literally when he said, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Matt. 19:21). These two men along with other ‘faith in mission’ leaders, strongly influenced Müller, leading him further to a personal relationship with his Savior, Jesus Christ and his calling to minister to the poor (see the article, “Delighted in God”).

George Müller, preacher, author, and orphan home founder/director, undertook a unique approach to missionary work, refusing to accept a pre-arranged salary and funding raised by denomination boards. He did not plan budgets; speak to people about how much money he needed or send out letters begging others to supply his needs. Instead, he knelt with his wife and a few close friends and prayed. Those prayers were answered by people who brought money, food, clothes, furniture, and just about everything needed by his orphanage. Müller’s approach to rely exclusively upon prayer for resources and funding became legendary.

The Brethren influence was long-lasting, reaching out to touch such familiar figures as Amy Carmichael (see the article, “For the love of God’s Word”) and Hudson Taylor (see the article, “Thus far the Lord has helped us”) in the nineteenth century as well as F. F. Bruce and Jim Elliot in the twentieth. The Brethren taught the importance of Bible study and following God’s will, the raising of funds by way of prayer and the signs of Jesus’s Second Coming. The Brethren movement reached the world with Bible instruction and missionary work that has reverberated through evangelicalism for almost 200 years.

CH issue #128, contains 10 feature articles and 4 shorter side-bar articles; a chronology time-line; an archive of rare art-work & photos; a ‘letter to the editor’ section and an extensive reading list compiled by the CHM editorial staff. The magazine is available on-line and can be conveniently read on screen at: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org.

Christian History Institute
www.ChristianHistoryInstitute.org
Worcester, PA, December 06, 2018

This issue, #124, examines the ancient “city movement” together with the modern one of today. Eleven articles and interviews, illustrated by accompanying images of art and architecture, explore how early Christians thought, worked, prayed, served, and talked to their neighbors in cities. During a 350 year period, starting some 2,000 years ago, a small group of Jesus’ disciples grew to be 56 percent of the population of the Roman Empire, transforming the western world.

Among six in-depth articles, the issue features a series of five interviews. Each tells the story of people who are, today, doing the same things as was done by early church city-dwellers.

Christian History has explored the early church in 11 past issues, but issue 124 is about early Christian life lived specifically in urban areas, where Christians had to negotiate how to live with pagan neighbors, mostly in cities that were crowded, noisy and hedonistic. In the midst of the empire’s wide-spread persecutions, Christians established institutions of education, developed professions, created art and built hospitals & churches, often replacing pagan temples.

The following articles can be accessed on-line at: What’s Inside?

Life in the earthly city – Christians advocated for “the Way” in the middle of urban distractions much like our own, by Joel C. Elowsky – professor of historical theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, a Lutheran pastor, and editor of the Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity, among others.

A bishop’s work is never done – During and after persecution new complexities challenged church leaders, by Helen Rhee – professor of church history at Westmont College and the author of several books on wealth, poverty, and early Christianity.

“An expanding circle of love and justice” – Interview of Katelyn Beaty, editor at large for Christianity Today, on how Christians today interact with their non-Christian neighbors.

Healing the city – How Christians helped the sick and poor in the Roman Empire’s cities, by Gary B. Ferngren is professor of history at Oregon State University and professor of the history of medicine in the I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University. He is the author of Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity, among others.

“The only stumbling block is the cross” – Interview of Doug Banister, the pastor of All Souls Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, about how his church does urban ministry.

The things that are Caesar’s – How Christians behaved as citizens, soldiers, and public servants, by Rex D. Butler is professor of church history and patristics at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and the author of The New Prophecy and “New Visions”: Evidence of Montanism in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas.

Pastor Vreeland offers a defense, analysis, and refinement of the theology of the Word of Faith Movement.

“O, when it comes to faith, what a living, creative, active, powerful thing it is. It cannot do other than good at all times. It never waits to ask whether there is some good work to do…”

 Martin Luther, Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans [1]

The Debate over Word of Faith Theology

The independent charismatic movement has struggled to form an ecclesiastic identity amid its mosaic of churches, ministries, theological systems, and points of biblical emphasis. It surged onto the Pentecostal landscape in the fury of post World War II healing revivalism under the leadership of spiritual enthusiasts who were dissatisfied with established denominational Pentecostalism. They received the loose classification “independent charismatics” to distinguish them from the denominational charismatics or neo-Pentecostals of the late 20^th century charismatic renewal. Their self-imposed isolation from traditional denominational structures created an opportunity for theological innovations. This freedom has also allowed an array of voices to rise up and speak to the issue of theology often with less than accurate methodologies and piece meal constructs that in part have hindered the work of the Holy Spirit. No other movement has been more pervasive in the independent charismatic tradition than the word of faith movement[2] and none other has been as persuasive.

Researchers and Pentecostal historians have difficulty finding any independent charismatic church or ministry that has not been exposed to the word of faith movement to some degree. Tenants of word of faith theology, such as positive confession and prosperity, have become the caricatures of the entire independent charismatic tradition. The spread of the word of faith movement over the last 25 years has not been without opposition. Critics have spoken out from reformed, evangelical, classic Pentecostal backgrounds and from within the independent charismatic tradition itself. Some critics decry the movement as cultic and the theology as heresy.[3] Much to the detriment of the word of faith movement, this has been a rather one-sided debate. Many of the predominate word of faith proponents choose not to respond to the critics in an attempt to heed the Pauline warning to not “quarrel about words.”[4] While some substantial books have been published in response to some of the critical extremes[5], a thorough reconstruction of word of faith theology has not been attempted. A reconstruction of word of faith theology requires redeeming the word of faith movement from the “heresy junk pile” that it has been heaped on by answering the question, “Do the theological weaknesses within word of faith doctrines constitute an anathemaic condemnation or is there sufficient orthodoxy in word of faith theology to apply correction?” This will be a partial response to D. R. McConnell and other word of faith critics. The remaining process of reconstruction includes an explanation of four distinctives of word of faith theology – the nature of faith, positive confession, healing and prosperity. The final step to reconstruction will be to refine those tenants by answering the question, “Can each word of faith distinctive be reconstructed on a solid theological foundation and still retain its word of faith identity?”

Condemnation or Correction?

The integrity of the gospel is a primary concern in the Pauline letters. However, Paul’s injunctions do not fall into rigid categories, but differ depending upon the context. To the Galatians, he writes,

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned![6]

Paul emphatically states that the response to those who preach a different gospel is anathema esto. The verb esto is a third person singular, present active imperative form of eimi implying a command. This command becomes weightier as Paul repeats his instructions in verse 9. Anathema refers to a person or thing that is consecrated and devoted to God for destruction in that it is alienated from God spiritually by sin.[7] If word of faith theology breaks the boundaries of orthodoxy and is indeed preaching a different gospel, then we should apply the Pauline injunction to declare it anathema. This has been the direction taken by some word of faith critics. In his summary remarks, McConnell concludes,

This analysis of the Faith movement has characterized the Faith theology as “a different gospel.”…Is the charge justified that the Faith theology constitutes a different gospel? I think that it is, for three reasons: (1) its historical origins; (2) its heretical doctrines; and (3) its cultic practices.[8]

Christian Research Institute President Hank Hanegraaff writes, “The Faith movement has systematically subverted the very essence of Christianity so as to present us with a counterfeit Christ and a counterfeit Christianity. Therefore standing against the theology of the Faith movement does not divide; rather, it unites believers.”[9] In 1980, Charles Farah brought the debate to the Society for Pentecostal Studies where he concludes, “The (Faith) movement uses Gnostic hermeneutical principles and displaces contextual scientific exegesis. It shares many of the goals of present day humanism, particularly in regards to the creaturely comforts. It is in fact, a burgeoning heresy.”[10] Nearly ten years later, H. Terris Neuman adds to the debate upon the SPS platform. He writes, “…this paper is a call to the wider evangelical community also to engage in an apologetic that will distinguish the gospel of Jesus Christ from those who indeed propagate a “different gospel”[11] (i.e. the proponents of word of faith theology). However, anathema is not the only option.

Culture increasingly sees a connection between biology and sin. But what does the Bible really say? What does science actually suggest? How should we respond? You’re invited to explore these questions and more with Christian scientists and theologians at the 2016 Faith & Science Conference, September 23-24 at Evangel University.

Speakers include: Hugh Ross, Amos Yong, Stephen C. Meyer, Matthew S. Stanford, James Bradford, Marcus Ross, and Christina M.H. Powell.

Registration and more information: www.evangel.edu/faithandscience

Alister McGrath, The Living God: A Guide for Study and Devotion, The Heart of Christian Faith Series (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2014), ix + 111 pages.

Alister McGrath is professor of theology, ministry, and education at Kings College, London. He is also a historian and a biochemist. McGrath has written these volumes for ordinary Christians rather than professional theologians or clergy. In undertaking this task in that manner, he is following in the footsteps of Chesterton, Lewis, and Sayers. Like them, McGrath explores a consensual, basic Christianity, using accessible and engaging language and images. The present two books under review are two of five in a series entitled The Heart of Christian faith in which McGrath seeks to answer three questions: What do Christians believe? Why do we believe this? And what difference does it make? The first book under review deals with the nature of faith and how it came to be expressed in the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. The second book under review deals with God the Father and what we believe about Him.

In chapter one of Faith and Creeds, which outlines both McGrath’s and Lewis’ once atheistic positions in life, McGrath quotes Lewis as saying, “A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful about his reading. There are traps everywhere”. McGrath also notes that Lewis was drawn to Christianity not so much by the individual arguments in it’s favor, but rather by its big picture of reality (10). Christianity seemed to make sense of everything that really mattered to him and it connected with his inner longing for truth, beauty, and goodness.

In chapter 2, McGrath likens the Creeds to maps, which distinguish and delineate the framework of Christianity. The Creeds are indeed a map that distills the core themes of the Bible, disclosing a glorious, loving and righteous God. The Creeds give us a framework for going further and deeper into our faith. As chapter 3 points out, one of the virtues of the Christian faith is that it makes sense in and of itself, while also making sense of what we experience in the world around us. In chapter 4, it is noted that although the Creeds often seem wordy and formulaic, they are verbal vessels containing the treasure of the gospel. Chapter 6 introduces the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed by noting the words at the beginning — I believe — suggest that the focus of faith is the individual (83).

The Heart of Christian Faith series: Faith and Creeds (2013), The Living God (2014), Jesus Christ (2014), The Spirit of Grace (2015), and The Christian Life and Hope (2016).

All in all, both of these titles are worthy of study. Moreover, I look forward to getting the chance to read and study the other three volumes in this set.

Reviewed by Bradford McCall

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