Let Go and Let God? An Interview with Author Andy Naselli

Dr. Andrew David Nasellli (a.k.a. Andy Naselli), has completed some excellent doctrinal and historical study in the area of sanctification. How do believers grow to be like their Lord? What should they expect the experience of growing in holiness to be like?

Much of conservative evangelical and fundamentalist thought on the subject today is heavily influenced by ideas that took shape and gained popularity in the 19th century Keswick conferences. Andy’s BJU PhD thesis work focused on these Keswick ideas and their shortcomings. Subsequent articles and lecture series have refined them. The result is soon to be available in electronic form from Logos.

I interviewed Andy about the book and the Keswick way of thinking. The interview consists of two files. The first focuses on the history of Keswick and its influences on leaders such as C.I. Scofield and Lewis Sperry Chafer.

The second file focuses on the problems in Keswick and Keswick-like views of sanctification.

(Andy blogs at Thoughts on Theology which appears in our Blogroll)

High quality version

Part one (17:15, 16.5 MB), Part two (15:04, 14.5 MB)

Lower quality version for slower connections

Part one (8 MB), Part two (7 MB)


Aaron Blumer, SI’s site publisher, is a native of lower Michigan and a graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He, his wife, and their two children live in a small town in western Wisconsin, where he has pastored Grace Baptist Church (Boyceville, WI) since 2000. Prior to serving as a pastor, Aaron taught school in Stone Mountain, Georgia and worked in customer service and technical support for Unisys Corporation (Eagan, MN). He enjoys science fiction, music, and dabbling in software development.

Discussion

Some of you might find the discussion here interesting… on the same general subject:

http://sharperiron.org/forum/thread-keswick

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Is this in book form perhaps from BJUPress? Joe Henderson

It’s actually self-published sort of. I’m not sure how it all works with Logos, but if your project gets enough support in “prepublication,” (basically the “support” is early orders for the book), Logos will go ahead and produce & distribute the book in their format. So when it goes live (probably in Sep.), you’ll have to download (or get CD) from Logos and install their reader. The reader is free though.

I’m not sure why it isn’t being published on paper and forgot to ask Andy that when I was there. It certainly deserves to be published by a mainstream publisher. Perhaps the publishers have judged the range of interest to be too narrow, but this would be a mistake on their part.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

The book is only in Logos format. According to Naselli (on his blog I think) there are no plans for any other format.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

We’ll never be “there” entirely. There will always be lovers of real books. I personally almost never read a book on a screen. If I can’t write in the margins, I’d just assume listen to it in audio and not fatigue my eyes at all.

Screens are good for short pieces and reference works.

And I think I can envision a day when reading fiction on something like a Kindle would work for me. But non-fiction… I want to mark it up. If they find a way to do that (in a non distracting way) on a Kindlelike device, I might be seduced, but I’ll still wonder if it’s wise. What if civilization collapses for a while and all the networks go down and you don’t own hard copies of any of your books?

(Or, a more likely scenario, some terrorist figures out how to bring the Internet down for a long time).

But I understand the appeal of e publishing. Much, much cheaper and with the social networking you can market an e book fairly cheaply as well. Cut out the middle men. If it were me, my long term goal would be to get my book into print.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

[RPittman]
[Aaron Blumer] We’ll never be “there” entirely. There will always be lovers of real books. I personally almost never read a book on a screen. If I can’t write in the margins, I’d just assume listen to it in audio and not fatigue my eyes at all.

Screens are good for short pieces and reference works.

And I think I can envision a day when reading fiction on something like a Kindle would work for me. But non-fiction… I want to mark it up. If they find a way to do that (in a non distracting way) on a Kindlelike device, I might be seduced, but I’ll still wonder if it’s wise. What if civilization collapses for a while and all the networks go down and you don’t own hard copies of any of your books?

(Or, a more likely scenario, some terrorist figures out how to bring the Internet down for a long time).

But I understand the appeal of e publishing. Much, much cheaper and with the social networking you can market an e book fairly cheaply as well. Cut out the middle men. If it were me, my long term goal would be to get my book into print.
Aaron, I understand. I enjoy the feel of a good book in my hand. Also, I’m infatuated by old books with handcrafted bindings. The marking up of a book is useful for reading and research but digital media offers mark-up notes and bookmarks too. One of the best things about digital is the powerful and quick search capability. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.
You gentlemen may enjoy http://mytwocents.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/borrowing-brains-to-kindle-o… this discussion about the pros and cons of e-reading.

"I pray to God this day to make me an extraordinary Christian." --Whitefield http://strengthfortoday.wordpress.com

Thx for the link

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.