Recommended book Review: Foster

       Foster, Richard, & JB Smith, ed, Devotional Classics, Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups, A Renovare Resource for Spiritual Renewal, NYC: HarperOne, 1990-2005, pb, ~500 pp, I# 978-0-06-07750-0, LC#  BV4801.D39 1993; 242--dc20. 

       Foster has 52 selections from historical and modern spirituality authors in 6 areas:  Contemplative (the Prayer-filled Life), Holiness Tradition (the Virtuous Life), Charismatic (the Spirit Empowered Life), Social Justice (the Compassionate Life),Evangelical (the Word-Centered Life), & Incarnational (the Sacramental Life). He gives a short bio of each to past them in their setting and value, some questions for reflection, and lists of resources for further reading.  See Renovare.org  on the web.  

      I found this @ G&B Bjorkman’s, July ’12, but Jenn says we have it, too, in MALI!  They graciously gave us a copy that they had used in a small group of their Elmbrook Ch. J  In the past year I've read a number of  the selections, and I have appreciated the passion and seeking after God represented in them, so far.   Foster's questions for reflection are useful.

    L I realized later that many of his selections were Roman Catholics from before & even after the Reformation [Bernard & Francis as well as Ignatius of Loyola, Fenelon, F DeSales, Thr. Avila, John of the Cross, Bro Lawrence, J-P Caussade, GK Chesterton, etc.(some outright against the evangelicals of their time!)] as well as Quakers (his denomination) [G Fox, T Kelly, I Pennington, Jn Woolman, etc.],  and some seeming liberals [Wm Temple, Eliz O’Conner, ES Jones, A Dillard, S Kierkegaard, Dag Hammarskjold, K Norris, etc.].  I’m uncomfortable studying and relying on these to help show me the path to trod in this dark world.  I’ll read them, but it would require more study and reflection than expected if I knew they were all evangelical oriented.  

It is a good resource for finding authors and digging deeper, but I see some yellow flags as well! L  I appreciate their struggles and attempts to seek & serve God; all of us face tough spiritual times, both before and after conversion, but not all solutions are the same.


Cf his Spiritual Classics, Foster and E Griffin, eds. (might be better!).

Recommended BOOK Review: Bock

Bock, PH.D., Darrell L., The Missing Gospels, Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities, Thomas Nelson Pub, 2006, pb, 229, pp, I# 9778-0-7852-8906-7, 14 chapters, foreword by Dr. Edwin M. Yamauchi. 

                Bock seeks to carefully show the weakness of the popular ideas that other Christian faiths developed parallel to orthodoxy but simply orthodoxy won out!  He counters ideas of the ‘new school’ of Walter Bauer, and modern popular writings of Bart Ehrman and Dan Brown, etc. He proceeds by examining a large sampling of the new materials, especially those like the Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi and a sampling of the Bible early church fathers like Ireneaus, Justin Martyr and Clement, etc.  I enjoyed finding many of these traditional texts also on the CCEL site in the Anti-Nicene Fathers of Philip Schaff, and reading the contexts.  The so called new materials took further seeking out. Bock seeks to show the origin and nature of the gnostic materials and how the Bible philosophy is not at all like that, but better.   

This work is parallel to that of Dr. R Price’s Searching for the Original Bible, too that I’m also currently reading.  McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict also has much from the early fathers but it was written before current claims about alternative Christianities.

Gift from P Siebert, 2011, read May 2012 in Senegal.J 

Recommended Book Review: McConnell

         McConnell, D R, A Different Gospel, A Historical & Biblical Analysis of the Modern Faith Movement, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Pub, 1998, pb 195 pp, I# 0913573-78-7, 10 chapters in 2 sections of Historical Analysis and then Biblical Analysis and a good bibliog.  

             McConnell, an insider Pentecostal writer (ORU, YWAM, BPC), seeks to show the fallacies of the popular teachings of the charismatic faith healers, revelation knowledge, identification, & the popular prosperity gospel, & he strongly critiques the modern Faith Movement of E W Kenyon (d 1948), and Kenneth Hagin (1917- ), & Kenneth Copeland, John Osteen (father of Joel), Robert Schuller, Jimmy Swaggart, & even Oral Roberts, & Pat Robertson, etc.  Classifying the movements as a new Gnosticism, dualistic, & cultic, he also exposes the corruption, plagiarism, and nepotism that such teaching inevitably leads.  Well documented.

Found at UWM-Phare, once Jose Oliveira’s, May ’12.  It was worth reading to get a better distinction of charismatics and faith healing movements and to see the weaknesses of such prevalent ‘Christianity,’ especially the Prosperity Gospel.