Book Reviews

“Though framed and marketed as a study in education policy, The Cult of Smart wants to be much more than that; de Boer wants his readers to rethink the foundations of not merely meritocracy, but the notion of personal responsibility as such.” - John Ehrett

“It is built upon the rotten foundation of identity politics. It is becoming increasingly clear that identity politics is establishing itself as nothing less than a competing religion, and one that is very good at dividing but very poor at uniting.

“A historian’s ‘intentionally provocative’ account of religious liberty in America leaves too little room for claims of conscientious dissent.” - Mark David Hall

“I have had quite a number of people ask my opinion about this book [Robin DiAngelo: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism] … I am going to provide a kind of summary of its contents and then, in a second article, discuss whether it is a helpful resource for Christians. I primarily want to consider the ‘story’ DiAngelo is telling.” - Challies

“Chatraw builds upon the assumption that all human beings are living out some kind of a story, some narrative about the big questions: Who are we? What’s the meaning of life? What’s wrong with the world and how can we fix it? What’s wrong with me and how can I fix myself?

“While for Bartlett each side makes important contributions to our understanding of the Bible’s teaching on women and men, and ‘each side needs to move beyond the confines of the existing debate and closer to each other’…. Bartlett clearly argues for an egalitarian position.” - TGC

“Strange Rites explores and analyzes seven different movements in contemporary modern American life, all of which function—at some level—as new faith systems after the decline of mainline Protestantism. The current age, for Burton, is decidedly not secular.” - John Ehrett

“In Alive to the Purpose: The Readerly Reading of Scripture (Greenville, SC: JourneyForth, 2020), the late literary scholar and Bob Jones University professor Ronald A. Horton seeks to correct unbalanced Bible study. There are multiple legitimate ways to study, but neither special study nor perfunctory reading should keep us from seeing Scripture for what it is.

“Kidd has shown that the term evangelical has lost much of its doctrinal meaning….And though he does not make this explicit, I think he has shown that the movement has done its best when it has focused on doing what it has been called to do (evangelize, emphasize personal lives of holiness) rather than when it has sought political power.” - Tim Miller

“The book records the stories of leaders who paved the way for groups such as The Gospel Coalition, 9Marks, and the other restless and Reformed organizations.” - TGC