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Title: Putting Amazing Back into Grace: Embracing the Heart of the Gospel by J. I. Packer, Michael Scott Horton ISBN: 0-8010-6400-7 Publisher: Baker Book House Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.45 (20 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting read, deceptive title
Comment: I probably would never have got to the end of the book except I was reading it on the exercise bike at the gym! However I was glad I persevered. I think it is an excellent presentation of calvinism, but the title is deceptive because grace is not really the main focus of the book.
Rating: 1
Summary: Horton's Hearing Who?
Comment: I bought this book about 9 years ago. Took it home, looked it over...took it back! Intellectually dishonest Calvinists like Horton are why I'm not Reformed!
Most Calvinists assume they know what so-called "Arminians" believe, but they have never read Arminius, nor do they bother asking what each individual Christian believes. Thomas C Oden is a scholar easily on a par with Sproul, Packer, etc....try hunting up his book "The Transforming Power of Grace" for a primer on the Wesleyan/Arminian view, & how it is distinguished from Pelagianism & Semi-Pelagianism (there are also some aspects of the history of that contriversy that Calvinists won't bother to tell you, that Oden brings to light.) I believe this is out of print, so you will no doubt need to do a library search for it. But you will get a more balanced view of things than Michael Horton and his Reformation-worshipping ilk will ever do!
Since Calvinists like to think they are loyal Augustinians, I hunted up an Asbury Theological Seminary Journal article that talks about some aspects of Augustine not often considered. It can be found in the Fall 1995/Spring 1996 edition, Vol 50, no.2/Vol 51, no 1, a special edition titled SANTIFICATION IN THE BENEDCITINE AND METHODIST TRADTIONS. The spark for this was a World Ecumenical Conference wherein representatives of the Benedictine order of the Catholic Church met with Methodists to discuss what they had come to see as their common theological roots. (The sound of skin crawling you hear is from the staunch Reformed crowd.) The article is on page 45, and is entitled Sacramentum Caritatis as the Foundation of Augustine's Spirituality by Robert Dodaro, OSA who is a Catholic scholar. I won't discuss the article at length, here...but a quote from the closing may prove enlightening:
"The conversion of heart which is key to penetrating the sacrementum caritatis which inclines towards scientia and sapientia require just such open confession of one's sins. The enigmatic, sacramental aspect of love which Augustine encountered in his own study of the scriptures taught him that we love God and neighbor as genuinely as we can only when our decision about what to do proceeds from as honest a self-disclosure as we can muster." (Author's emphasis) (Author goes on to list several of Augustine's key works where this theme is found.)
"It is not Augustine's fault that this particular emphasis on an open confession of sins as the gateway to self-knowledge and, hence as the starting point for a proper, graced love of god and neighbor, has been lost on his posterity. It would be enlightening to know what impeded the reception in the Middle Ages of this central element of public penance in Augustine's portrait of the emperor in City of God, or why, indeed, the role of memory, intellect and will in fostering conversion through confession has been historically omitted from discussions of his theory of the triadic structure of the image of God within the human soul. Equally curious and regrettable is the cumulative, negative effect of centuries of interpretations of Augustine in regarding him as a pessimist. Clearly, more research is needed on the history of the reception of Augustine within later periods of history." (Author's emphasis)
The crashing sound you hear is the hopes of Calvinism's attempts at keeping Augustine in their camp. ;-)
Anyway, this makes me think that the protests by the Roman Catholic church that Calvin cited only enough of Augustine to support his own agenda must have some serious merit. It would also explain why by the time of the Synod of Orange, Caesarius of Arles didn't find as many sympathizers in the Augstinian camp as he had hoped. It wasn't beause they had been influenced by Pelagius, but because Augustine wasn't as "Augustinian" as his followers.
Also, in keeping with Horton's intellectual dishonesty...the last section of his book attempts to make the Patristics sound Reformed in their theology. No serious scholar of early church history (Oden is one) would support that.
Horton's hearing who? Tradition, maybe...but not the Spirit of God.
" When everyone is thinking the same, no one is thinking."
John Wooden
Rating: 5
Summary: Thank God for books of this quality
Comment: JI Packer and Mike Horton are two of the most exciting Evangelical authors in North America today - so it is great to see both their names on this very significant book. Anything they write are must reads for thinking Evangelicals today, so add them to your library and make sure that your pastor and church leaders get them on their shelves too. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)
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Title: Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer ISBN: 083081339X Publisher: Intervarsity Press Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Grace Unknown: The Heart of Reformed Theology by R. C. Sproul ISBN: 0801011213 Publisher: Baker Book House Pub. Date: March, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: Chosen by God by R. C. Sproul ISBN: 0842313354 Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers Pub. Date: October, 1994 List Price(USD): $10.99 |
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Title: Knowing God by J. I. Packer ISBN: 083081650X Publisher: Intervarsity Press Pub. Date: December, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray ISBN: 0802811434 Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Pub. Date: June, 1984 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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