Reviewing three books

I'm nearly finished writing a review of Dan Korocz's WORSHIP: the revolution is here and today received copies of a new Australian novel by Jo-anne Berthelsen called Helena based on a real life story, and Daniel Mendelsohn's very well regarded The Lost, which is about his search for details on six relatives who died during the holocaust.

I won't say much about these until my reviews are published. The Lost looks great, but it is over 500 pages! I think my review is going to be some time in being completed. I'm good at buying books, starting them, but not so good at finishing. But I do look forward to reading these last two I've mentioned. The Aussie novel is published by the same folk who published the Worship book, but they couldn't be more different.

Books on the Atonement

Reading Pierced for our Transgressions [which I have not yet finished], has inspired me to look at some other books on this subject. Last weekend, we were in Penrith celebrating our grandson Jerome's second birthday and I read a substantial portion of The Nature of the Atonement: four views, which includes an excellent article by Tom Schreiner on penal substitutionary atonement, as well as an article by Greg Boyd on the Christus Victor model and two other articles on the atonement as primarily healing, or kaleidoscopic.

The argument that the central teaching of the bible on this subject is that the death of Jesus was to take our place in suffering God's wrath for our sin still convinces me. I bought John Stott's The Cross of Christ yesterday and have dipped into it a little, having read bits of a library copy before. Stott argues, with Schreiner, that some of the other views are valuable [including the Christus Victor view] and should not be forgotten, but that penal substitutionary atonement is clearly primary.