Author: Trueman, Carl R.
Genre: Non-Fiction
Tags: Culture / Worldview, History / Story / Narrative, Truth
Series:
Rick Shrader‘s Review:
I found Trueman as an author not long ago and have thoroughly enjoyed him. I read this delightful book on my Kindle, then I bought two hard copies and have given them both away. Carl Trueman is an Englishman by birth and now teaches at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. He is typically Reformed in his theology (with an occasional confession of personal lifestyle choices which would be questionable to me) yet I enjoy him as a historian. I mostly enjoy his conservative cultural positions and his humorous style of writing. This book is a number of short unconnected chapters (previous articles) on various topics, especially American culture. Now and then you read, what is becoming typical of British conservatives, comparisons of what went wrong in Great Britain to the same thing now happening in America. Here are a few of his lines:
“In a world devoid of truth content, claims to truth are oppressive and thus personal, hurtful, and distasteful; and the church seems, by and large, to be buying into just this kind of namby-pamby nonsense.” “The leader who has no enemies has no honor. For such a leader has surely never done that which is essential to leadership—made a choice.” “The language of Facebook both reflects and encourages childishness, indeed, judging by the tantrums, spitefulness, and cowardly rants on many blogs and web pages, childishness has become something of a textually transmitted disease.” “Finally, and perhaps most tragically of all, we see the loss of a sense of God’s holiness in church. When prayers become the equivalent of ‘yo, how you doin’?!’ then something has gone awry. Public prayer should lead people into the presence of God, and that should be a humbling, if not crushing experience. When was the last time a pulpit prayer left you in awe of the God who humbles himself so that you might worship him?” (RCS)
Quotes from this book:
“ . . . one of the most insidious aspects of modern culture: the celebrity brand. . . and the consumer is conned into buying something that is not what it seems to be. . . or is this just one more area where Christians are actually in the vanguard of s …