Initially promising, but ultimately unsatisfying.  That’s how I would describe Dual Citizens:  Worship and Life between the Already and the Not Yet by Jason Stellman.  Now I want to be clear that I’m not on a witch hunt for Jason Stellman’s head.  I’ve never met him, but clearly he’s a brother in Christ, and I would say that he seems like a pretty cool guy.  I randomly discovered his book while browsing Nashville’s local reformed bookstore (logos), was highly intrigued by the subject matter, and purchased it with an extreme excitement and eagerness to begin reading.  And, I’ll happily admit that the introduction to this book rocked my world – helping to construct some much needed theological framework.  But, by the end of the book I feel like Stellman kind of lost steam.

The basic concept of Dual Citizens is that there is a necessary division between the sacred and secular in the lives of Christians.  Contrary to the opinion of many – including John Frame (whom Stellman quotes and disagrees with in the intro – ballsy!) – there should be a distinction between how Christians operate when gathered for worship as a church and when scattered throughout the week as citizens of earth.  I should make clear that Stellman is not arguing for any sort of antinomianism position that allows Christians to act like “hell” during the week and act like “angels” during church service.  But, he is arguing that the main way in which Christians are countercultural is through their gathering on the sabbath to participate in the preaching of Word and the taking of sacrament (Lord’s Supper and Baptism).  He decries any sort of seeker-sensitive, “let’s be relevant” approach to church.  Church is not supposed to be relevant to culture, but obedient to the Bible.  And Stellman argues that the Biblical pattern for our gatherings are:  Word and sacrament, period.

The book is divided into two main sections.  The first seven chapters describe Christian worship, and the last seven chapters describe Christian life.  In my opinion, the first half (Christian worship) forms a more cohesive whole than the second half of the book.  I don’t agree with all of Stellman’s conclusions in this first section, but he does a better job writing this section than he does in the second section.  One of my main critiques is that, Stellman over-argues his point about the church gathering being free from cultural influences.  I’m not sure that’s a good thing or even possible.  He argues that “culture, then, is never to be the determining factor in a church’s worship” (8).  But I would argue that all churches necessarily take on cultural forms both because they are composed of people from specific cultures and because they attempt to clarify the gospel to these specific cultures.  Certainly the attempt to be “relevant” can go too far and water down the gospel, but so can the attempt to avoid this pitfall.  The opposite of the “relevant” pitfall is to be so culturally insensitive that the gospel fails to even be understood.  You can argue all day long that the church is not composed of seekers but of saints; however, any church that loves people will be filled with both saints and the seekers.  Cultural sensitivity and even acclimation will always be necessary to make the gospel clear.  Without clear cultural understanding the gospel may be mistranslated altogether.  Having argued this point, I still think that Stellman does a fair job of deconstructing a lot of seeker-sensitive nonsense that Christianity seems to be so captivated by, but I think he could have made his point in a more even-handed way.

My other critique of this book is that while the first seven chapters were captivating (if overstated), the last seven were kind of boring.  Having read Stellman’s arguments for “worship,” I had a lot of questions about his conception of “life,” but he didn’t really answer many of my questions.  This is why I say that the book kind of lost steam.  The last seven chapters were more of a shotgun approach with bits and pieces of the puzzle being put together, but clearly with some frustrating gaps in clarity.  Two of the chapters:  9) Egypt’s Unworthiness:  Joseph, Moses, and Vanity of Time and 11) Worldliness:  Puritans, Pagans, and the Proper Place of Pleasure were on point, but the other chapters seemed to deal with secondary or even tertiary issues rather than the main subject matter at hand.  Maybe Stellman is just lacking a conclusion or an introduction to the second half of the book, but I can’t shake the taste of confusion that the book left on my tongue.  I would have appreciated more information about how Christians should participate in the culture.  How should they work, enjoy and create art, raise families, and participate in politics?  I’m not looking for answers from the Religious Right, I’m looking for answers from the Bible, but Stellman doesn’t really help me any in this endeavor.  He does briefly touch on some of these issues, but never for long, and never in a complete way.  Personally, I could have done without a few of the chapters that he did write (even though they were fine in and of themselves) and done with a few of the chapters he didn’t write on cultural engagement.  And to reiterate again, I think Stellman would benefit from a conclusion to pull all the pieces together.

So…for a first book this is pretty decent (I mean I’ve never written a book!), but I think it could use some additional clarity in the second half, and a more nuanced approach overall.  Also, I couldn’t help but feel that Stellman occasionally mischaracterized some of those whom he critiqued (which is why I would appreciate a more nuanced approach).  (And hopefully it won’t be said that I lacked a nuanced approach while writing this review, which is brief at best, but I’ll gladly accept any dialogue about my comments if anyone disagrees.)  At the end of the day, I think it would be a blast to sit down with Stellman at a coffee shop and talk theology, and maybe some day I’ll run into him and we’ll do just that.  Probably not, but maybe.  Anyway, I hope he writes another book because the nugget of understanding that he provided for me in the introduction about cult and culture was worth the whole book.

I’ll end by saying that if you are interested in the subject matter of dual citizenship, I don’t think you can go wrong with Living at the Crossroads by Bartholomew and Goheen.  In my opinion it’s a clearer and more well-rounded approach to this same subject.  At least read it first, and then read this book second.

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“As citizens of God’s kingdom, we may not just write off the present earth as a total loss, or rejoice in its deterioration.  We must indeed be working for a better world now.  Our efforts to bring the kingdom of Christ into fuller manifestation are of eternal significance.  Our Christian life today, our struggles against sin – both individual and institutional – our mission work, our attempt to develop and promote a distinctively Christian culture, have value not only for this world but even for the world to come.”

- Anthony Hoekema, The Bible & the Future, page 287.

In Plato’s thought, salvation is:

• vertical (our destiny is upward in heaven)
• otherworldly (our souls are saved into another spiritual world)
• an escape (we are saved not as part of this world but rather from this world)

But a genuinely Christian worldview contradicts the Platonic view at each of these points, since biblically, the goal of salvation is:

• horizontal (we look forward in history to the renewal of creation)
• of this world (the creation is to be renewed)
• integral to God’s ultimate plan for this world (no escape is necessary)

- Michael Goheen & Craig Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads, page 52.

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The Essential Edwards Collection is a five volume set of extremely, concise books that introduce readers to the basics of Edward’s thought.  The volumes cover a variety of subjects including:  Edwards himself (a lover of God), beauty, heaven and hell, the good life, and true Christianity.  On Heaven and Hell rolls in at only 147 pages including the bibliography.  As I said, it’s extremely concise.

In my opinion, this book’s greatest strength is also probably its greatest weakness. And that strength (or weakness depending on your opinion) is its brevity.  Strachan and Sweeney do a superb job of making Edwards, who lived some 250 years ago and spoke in an English dialect different from our own, extremely digestible for nearly anyone.  So, that’s a strength.  However, while reading, I often found myself longing for more of Edwards’ words and less of Strachan and Sweeney’s words about Edwards.  This is not to say that Strachan and Sweeney are not superb writers themselves, but rather that a person reads a book entitled Jonathan Edwards On Heaven and Hell to hear Edwards speak, not Strachan and Sweeney speak.  And that’s a weakness.  So too much brevity is my one complaint, and perhaps it’s not a legitimate complaint because I’m willing to bet that Strachan and Sweeney wrote with the very brevity that I am denigrating on purpose.

So at the end of the day, I liked this book, but I wanted more.  And that was my complete opinion until I discovered this sweet endnote at the end of book:

“For the premier collection of Edwards’s own writing, see The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1-26, Yale University Press.  Access these works in their entirety free of charge at http://edwards.yale.edu” (145).

Since all of Edward’s writings are available for free online, I guess I’ll loosen up on my complaint about the brevity of The Essential Edwards Collection.

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Anthony Hoekema’s trilogy of theology books:  Created in God’s Image, Saved by Grace, and The Bible and the Future rank as some of the most important books I’ve ever read.  Over the past three years I’ve slowly read all of them. In many respects they are not easy reads, I mean, it took me three years!  However, Hoekema’s depth of knowledge and even-mindedness is so enthralling that they are not “hard reads” either. They are life-changing books.  And The Bible and the Future is no exception.

Hoekema’s The Bible and the Future is broken into two main sections:  Inaugurated Eschatology and Future Eschatology. In the former section Hoekema explains (most notably) the concepts of the Kingdom of God and the “here and not yet.”  Regardless of one’s eschatological leanings, grasping these concepts is necessary for a proper understanding of the entire Bible.  In the beginning of section two, Hoekema discusses more specific end-time subjects such as: death, immortality, the expectation of the second coming, the signs of the times.  As Hoekema moves towards the latter third of the book, he then introduces the all-important discussion of differing millennial viewpoints.  Hoekema is an amillennialist.  He throughly explains this position and defends it against other positions (most notably against dispensational premillennialism).  And it is this amillennial explanation and defense that comprises the last several chapters of the book.

Having read The Bible and the Future, I’m convinced that a balanced amillennialist viewpoint does more justice to the Biblical record than any other view.  However, I also understand the underpinnings of the other millennial viewpoints more thoroughly than I used to.  Disagree with Hoekema?  Fine!  But you should still read this book because it will make you a better (read more Biblical) premillennialist or postmillennialist.   Finally, if you’ve ever doubted the reliability of many of the popular end-time books in your local Christian bookstore, then you should definitely check out the balanced exegesis of Anthony Hoekema.

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I began reading The Kingdom of Christ (TKoC) about two years ago, and was throughly enjoying the book at the time, but for some reason (that I can no longer remember), I failed to finish it in its entirety.  Currently however, I am in one of those modes where I’m enthralled by reading, learning, and synthesizing, so I just finished rereading the entire book.

The Kingdom of Christ is a deeply theological book that is not an easy read, but is well worth the endeavor.  One of the reasons that this is a hard read is the length of the chapters.  The entire book is only five chapters long, actually four chapters, because the fifth chapter is only a brief conclusion.  The four main chapters are lengthy and technical, which makes reading individual chapters a little-at-a-time a bad idea, because it’s hard to reenter the author’s flow of thought if your reading has paused for a significant amount of time.  The book also assumes that its readers have a basic understanding of things like covenant theology, dispensational theology, the Kingdom of God, the social gospel, and the evangelical movement.  These issues: the length of chapters, technicality of the language, and assumed pre-knowledge of the reader are the only real negatives of the book.  And honestly these aren’t negatives as much as they are just factors that narrow the book’s audience.  And let’s be honest, not every book is for every person.

In TKoC Moore does an unparalleled job of tracing the theological concept of the “Kingdom of God” as it has evolved in both the dispensational and covenant theological camps.  In each chapter, Moore unpacks how “Kingdom of God” theological construct has had profound implications on:  eschatology, soteriology, and ecclesiology. In all of these theological areas, covenantal and dispensational theologians have developed wider agreement due to a deeper understanding of Bible’s teaching about the Kingdom of God.  Moore’s intent is to question the social and political ramifications of evangelical action within the public sphere based on this wider theological agreement.  The book asserts that modern evangelicalism’s discussion of social and political action began with the publication of Carl F. Henry’s, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. In chapter one, Moore delves into Henry’s writings, and then traces the theological history of the Kingdom of God to the current time.  According to Moore’s conclusion, though larger evangelicalism now agrees more wholeheartedly on “Kingdom of God” theology, it now faces larger theological disagreements on perhaps even more primary issues such as epistemology, inerrancy, and the sovereignty of God.  This is evidenced by the increasing influence of movements such as evangelical feminism and open theism.

I walked away from TKoC with a much deeper understanding of covenantal theology, dispensational theology, the writings of Carl F. Henry, the Bible’s teaching about the Kingdom of God, and the mission of the church in society.  This book is profoundly relevant to the questions now being addressed by the modern church.  In many ways, the emerging church movement is repeating the mistakes of the social gospel liberation theology of the 1960’s.  And most likely, this is in part a reaction to the unhealthy politicization of Christianity by the Religious Right.  Church leaders need to continually assess how to be the “city on the hill” that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount.  TKoC is an important read in that assessment.  Having read TKoC, I yearn for a practical book dealing with how churches can be salt and light in the public sphere, that takes into account Moore’s research, but is geared to a larger audience.  I would love to hear any suggestions about books of this nature.

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