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Michael Wittmer, author of Heaven is a Place on Earth, has a new book coming out in December. It's Don't Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough. If it's anything like his first book, then it will be excellent.

Here's a brief description of the book:

Must you believe something to be saved? Does the kingdom of God include non-Christians? Is hell for real and forever?

These are big questions. Hard questions. Questions that divide Christians along conservative and liberal lines.

Conservatives love their beliefs and liberals believe in their love. Each pushes the other to opposite extremes. Fundamentalists imply that it doesn't matter how we live as long as we believe in Jesus, while some Emergent Christians respond that it doesn't matter what we believe as long as we live like him.

Theologian Michael Wittmer calls both sides out of bounds and crafts a third way that retains the insights of each. He examines ten key questions that confront contemporary Christians and shows why both right belief and right practice are necessary for authentic Christianity.

Here is an urgent reminder that best practices can only arise from true beliefs. Genuine Christians never stop serving because they never stop loving, and they never stop loving because they never stop believing.

You can check out his blog as well. Today's topic: what do you like about emergent?

I have an interview today with Ed Cyzewski, author of a brand new book called Coffeehouse Theology. It's part of a blog tour that's been happening for the past month. You can read Ed's explanation of why he wrote a book on this topic, or jump right in to the interview below.

By the way, I wasn't sure what I would think of this book. He calls it an "emerging church theology book," although the blurb at Amazon says that he's coming "from the conservative end of the evangelical spectrum." I hope to have a review up early next week.

If you have any questions or comments, leave them in the comment section.

Darryl Dash: A lot of people have heard of systematic theology and even biblical theology, but not contextual theology. What is contextual theology and why does it matter?

Ed Cyzewski: When I talk about contextual theology, I'm speaking most precisely of local theology that is aware of a context. I never want to insinuate that we shape our theology under the guidance of our context instead of God. Rather we shape a theology that is recognized as local and is under the influence of our context. While I've been using the term contextual theology, Andy Rowell's recent review offers the technical corrective: I'm talking about theology that is contextually aware and local, but not necessarily guided by context. So contextual theology as I'm using it is an awareness and a dialogue with our culture as we study God. God, scripture, and traditions still guide us in our pursuit of theology, but my understanding of contextual theology means we take part in these practices with context in mind.

Context matters in our theology because we have a limited perspective, and so we study the Bible realizing that we have a cultural lens--shared values with those in our context--that influences our interpretations. North Americans will read the Bible different from Latin Americans, Asians, and so on.

The parable of the prodigal son, found in Luke 15, is one of the best known stories of Jesus. In short, a son leaves home and squanders his inheritance. When things get bad, the son decides to return home to work as a servant. To his surprise, his father welcomes him back and throws a lavish feast to mark his return to the family. The father in this story represents God, and the son represents sinners who are forgiven and embraced despite their past.

But this isn't the full story. There are, of course, two sons in the story, and the targets of this parable are not the "'wayward sinners' but religious people who do everything the Bible requires." Jesus told this story "not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories," writes Tim Keller.

more at my book blog

I'm really looking forward to the release of Tullian Tchividjian's new book Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different. If you don't subscribe to Tullian's blog, you should. And you should definitely check out this book as well. It's an important theme, and Tullian is the guy to write about it.

Tim Keller writes in the foreword:

Here you will learn how we must contextualize, how we Christians should be as active in Hollywood, Wall Street, Greenwich Village, and Harvard Square (if not more) than the halls of Washington, DC. And yet, there are ringing calls to form a distinct, ‘thick’ Christian counter-culture as perhaps the ultimate witness to the presence of the future, the coming of the Kingdom.

Tullian describes the main thrust of his book here:

Tim Keller writes about his new book at the Redeemer website:

During the years I was working on these two books, my provisional titles were "The Gospel for Non-believers" (The Reason for God) and "The Gospel for Believers" (The Prodigal God). This second book is my way of doing what Martin Luther directed us Christian ministers to do. "This...truth of the gospel...is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consists. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually."

The book is due out this month. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Chris Brauns has an excellent new book out this month. It's called Unpacking Forgiveness. You can check out my review of this book, or read the first part of my interview with him. Here's the second half of the interview.

Darryl Dash: You talked about forgiveness being more than a feeling. Why do you think we often fall into a therapeutic, emotional understanding of forgiveness?

Chris Brauns: In the first place, it's because feelings are so much a part of forgiveness. While I think biblical forgiveness is "more than a feeling," it does involve feelings incredibly. Bitterness (the turmoil of feelings caused by an unwillingness to follow Christ's example) eats people up.

But, too often, forgiveness has become only a feeling. Most people limit forgiveness to only being a feeling, "It is letting go of a matter and no longer feeling bitter."

But, in the Bible, forgiveness is about the restoration of a relationship. God never forgives anyone without being reconciled to them. You can't (contra what at least one book says) be forgiven by God and still go to hell.

So, how did we get here? Big picture, it goes back to the Enlightenment and the Modern Age. When Western thought shifted to a man-centered worldview, then it was inevitable that the focus would increasingly be on the subjective and feeling.

C.S. Lewis summarized this shift in his brilliant essay, "God in the Dock." Lewis said that ancient man understood that he must give an account to God, whereas modern man believes that somehow God is on trial. Lewis wrote:

The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defence for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock (God in the Dock, page 244).

Once this move from a God-centered worldview to a man-centered took place, it was inevitable that the emphasis would become on how people feel rather than how they relate to God.

And, that's at the bottom of how we got into this mess of people thinking it is legitimate to forgive God, something I talk about in my book. When people talk about forgiving God, I don't think they mean to imply that God made a mistake. They just mean that there feelings need to change. But, the idea that we would ever forgive God goes against a biblical understanding of forgiveness.

Dave Powlison has written some excellent material on the therapeutic gospel. You can read one article here.

Darryl Dash: How have you seen people change as they've learned what the Bible teaches about forgiveness?

Chris Brauns: Once people really own that whatever someone has done to offend them, pales in comparison to what they have done to offend God, grace begins to inform how they go about forgiveness. This is Paul's whole thrust in helping Philemon and Onesimus resolve their conflict. He was sweetly challenging Philemon to be gracious with Onesimus. So, he concludes the book, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."

Here are a few more ways people change:

When people understand how strongly Jesus stressed that we should resolve personal differences, then they stop saying things like, "I could never forgive him or her."

When people really meditate on what Jesus meant when said it would be better to have a millstone tied around one's neck, and pitched into the heart of the sea, then to be part of a scandal that causes impressionable people to stumble, then they stop being so petty about what they're holding onto in their local church (Matthew 18:5ff).

When people realize that holding on to some offense can cause damage that all the kings horses and all the kings men can't reverse (See Proverbs 17:11) then they are more willing to drop matters and move forward.

Darryl Dash: What do you find especially challenging as you practice the Biblical teaching on forgiveness?

For me, the hardest part is not thinking about it. I talk about this in a chapter, "How can I stop thinking about it?" Too often I can get on a mental gerbil wheel where I am running in place, not getting anywhere.

There have been times when I've been mowing my yard and something has been eating at me. I determine not to think about it any longer, and I find that I haven't even made one row before I was thinking about it again. So my own struggles with the mental gerbil wheel are one reason I wrote the chapter, "How can I stop thinking about it?"

Darryl Dash: Thanks, Chris.

I first met Chris Brauns at an annual retreat held for graduates of a D.Min. track at Gordon-Conwell. I've been impressed with his warmth, and I've enjoyed getting to know him better through his blog.

When i received Chris's book in the mail recently, I was excited to discover that his book is everything I had hoped it would be. Unpacking Forgiveness is now my go-to book on the subject.

I recently asked Chris some questions about forgiveness, and he was kind enough to answer them. Part two of this interview will be posted tomorrow.

Darryl Dash: What made you interested in the subject of forgiveness?

Chris Brauns: The short answer is that I realized I couldn't pastor my church unless I really understood biblical truth about forgiveness. Along with that, I think we need books on practical theology written by pastors who have one foot in the Word and the other in people's lives. Nowhere is that need greater than in the area of forgiveness. In a fallen world, relationships get broken. We all have to unpack forgiveness.

That's the short answer. (Skip to the next question if you like). One of my first counseling appointments as a senior pastor was with a woman, nearly old enough to be my mother, whose marriage was falling apart, or rather, had fallen apart. I don't remember all the details, but the ones I remember were ugly. Really, really ugly. This counseling session might have been the first time I met her. She had not been coming to church.

We sat down to talk at a small round table in my study. I took had my Bible and a legal pad. I prayed and she began to tell me her story. She was polite but matter of fact—and very angry. She was not angry at me. But she was upset about what she had been through and the fact that nothing had worked to fix it. She was probably also angry at Christians who acted as though her problems could be easily fixed. Her luggage was getting really heavy. To this day, I am not sure why she even agreed to talk. Maybe it was a final goodbye wave to trying.

She told me a little about herself and then looked at me poised with my Bible and legal pad in hand. She probably thought about my wife and me with a baby and a little girl wearing dresses and white patent leather shoes. She finally said, "Look, you are just another young pastor." She named my two predecessors (also young pastors when they arrived) and said in so many words, "You don't have any answers for my life. You are not about to help me, and my life is not going to get any better." And that was the meeting.

Even though she had attended church for many years, she had very little interest in forgiveness.

I kept running into forgiveness situations like that over and over again. And, I knew that I really needed to understand a theology of forgiveness and how that works out in life.

A couple of years in, I decided to preach a series on forgiveness and started reading as much as possible. When I read MacArthur's book on forgiveness, he shared that he had the same experience.

"Early on in my pastoral ministry I noticed an interesting fact: nearly all the personal problems that drive people to seek pastoral counsel are related in some way to the issue of forgiveness."

So, I got started studying forgiveness. Reading Gregory Jones's book Embodying Forgiveness gave me a greater interest in biblical forgiveness versus therapeutic forgiveness. And a column by Dennis Prager (who does not write from a Christian perspective) in the Wall Street Journal challenged me to think more clearly about forgiveness. Mostly, of course, I worked to understand what the Bible teaches.

Darryl Dash: How did your understanding of forgiveness change as you studied it?

Chris Brauns: I increasingly owned the need to be Cross and Gospel centered. There was never a time when I wouldn't have said that I was Christ and Gospel centered. But, over time I saw more clearly how the Cross and the doctrine of salvation (soteriology) must be foundational to how we forgive one another.

If any of us are really going to unpack forgiveness, then we must see that the loveliness of the Gospel and Christ are foundational.

I also began to see how really owning the doctrine of Providence, the atonement, and eschatology (the future work of Christ) must be included.

Take eschatology. The reluctance of the Church to teach about hell has damaged our ability to teach biblically about forgiveness. If you read what Jesus taught about forgiveness, say Matthew 18, you see that he issued very grave warnings about unwillingness to forgive the repentant.

My understanding also changed in that I developed a lot more precision in defining terms and responding to different questions that come up.

Studying forgiveness also gave me a love for God's providence. The story of Joseph resting in God's providence with his brothers is so powerful. Every parent should tell that story to their children until their children know it inside and out. This is a rabbit trail, but a few years ago we lost multiple family members to accidents in the same year. In the midst of it all, our oldest who was 7 at the time announced at the table, "I don't think all things work together for good for our family." I responded, Allison, "Do you think Joseph felt like all things worked together for good when he was at the bottom of that pit." That was the end of the discussion because she knew the story. But, if she hadn't, I don't think I could have talked a seven year old through it with straight propositions.

Tomorrow: Part Two

I don't think that there are many issues that come up more often than forgiveness. I sense this every time I preach about it. I can sense that I'm talking about an issue that is real for every person who is present.

Learning how to forgive isn't easy. Hurts often run deep; some situations that demand forgiveness are almost unspeakable. How does one forgive when the offense is so great, and the wound is so deep? To make things even more complicated, people who teach about forgiveness often offer conflicting answers. Not only is forgiveness difficult, but it's also frequently misunderstood.

more at my book blog

Just came across The Leadership Dynamic: A Biblical Model for Raising Effective Leaders. I think I'm going to have to get it. I liked the author's first book From Embers to a Flame.

I really appreciate this quote:

The American church is standing at the brink of a self-inflicted death spiral accelerated by worldly leadership. God's people are the "salt" and "light" of surrounding culture, so when the church begins its free fall, all of American culture will soon follow. What's the poisonous elixir that the contemporary American church seems so determined to consume? The answer: the leadership model now practiced and promoted in the boardrooms of American big business. What? Is traditional American capitalism wrong? Unbiblical? Dangerous? The answer is no—traditional capitalism is not the problem. The leadership model that is infecting the church today—with disastrous results—is a product of contemporary capitalism, which is a greed-based, wealth-consuming mutation that has replaced the historically Christian-influenced system of capitalism that created the wealth upon which our nation thrived and blessed the world. Today's self-promoting, infected corporate leadership is a deadly potion that countless churches are drinking as they thoughtlessly imbibe the contemporary corporate leadership models of the day.

"The immense value of church history and of the history of doctrine is the dimension of historical depth it gives to one's understanding of the faith, and of the balance it brings to one's judgments. Did ever the church stand in greater need of this?" (T.F. Torrance)

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is not a household name today, even though he died a relatively short time ago. I knew of him as a brilliant thinker, a physician who became a pastor of Westminster Chapel in London near Buckingham Palace. I've heard and appreciated some of his sermons, and I have some of his books. It wasn't until I heard Tim Keller continually refer to him that I decided to learn more.

more at my book blog