All Articles For Book Reviews

Letters to a Young Pastor: Letters to Rev. R Harbach by A. W. Pink. Grandville, MI: The Evangelism Committee of Grandville Protestant Reformed Church, 1993. 40 pages (paper). N. p. [Reviewed by the Editor.] The Evangelism Committee of the Grandville, MI PRC has published a 40-page booklet containing letters written by well known Bible expositor A. W. Pink to Rev. Robert C. Harbach. Pink wrote the letters during the years 1943-1949. The letters contain little explanation of Scripture; some advice to a young pastor concerning the ministry; and repeated expressions of concern that Pink’s magazine had relatively few subscribers. One...

Seasons of Refreshing: Evangelism and Revivals in America, by Keith J. Hardman. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1994. 304 pp. $16.99 (paper). [Reviewed by Prof. Herman Hanko.] For a thorough history of revival in the United States one can do no better than purchase and read this book. It is interesting and well-written, and traces the history of revivalism from the Great Awakening in New England to modern mass evangelism under the leadership of Billy Graham and Luis Palau. The purpose of the book is not, however, merely to give a bird’s-eye view of the history, but, as Luis Palau...

Hyper-Calvinism and John Gill, b y Curt D. Daniel. Privately published, 1983. Pp. xii-912. $60.00 (hard cover). [Reviewed by the editor.] This massive work, huge in size and bristling with footnotes, is the author’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Edinburgh. It examines the theological error of hyper-Calvinism, particularly in the teaching of the 18th century Calvinistic Baptist, John Gill. Although Daniel concentrates on Gill, he includes in his study other English theologians associated with Gill, e.g., Brine and Hussey, as well as some contemporary theologians whom Daniel regards as hyper-calvinists, notably Arthur Pink and Herman Hoeksema. In his scholarly...

Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church, by Gary North. Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1996. Pp. li-1023, plus indexes of texts and subjects. $34.95 (hardcover). (Reviewed by the editor) The book is a blockbuster, big and explosive. It is the study—a history—of the apostast of the Northern Presbyterian Church that culminated in the deposition of J. Gresham Machen in 1936. At that time, Machen founded what is now the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Earlier he had started Westminster Theological Seminary. The Northern Church is known today as the Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA). This is the...

Fighting the Good Fight: A Brief History of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, by D.G. Hart & John Muether. Philadelphia, PA: Committee for the Historian of the OPC, 1995. 217 pp. $11.95 (paper). [Reviewed by Prof. Herman Hanko.] The authors have produced an excellent work in their description of their church: the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). It is eminently readable; it is informative; it is a solid defense of the place in the ecclesiastical world which God has given the OPC; and it is even-handed in its evaluation of the OPC and her work. The book is more than a history...

The Incarnation of the Antithesis, by Dr. R.E.L. Rodgers; (Edinburgh: Pentland Press Ltd.) xvi + 87 pp., L7.50 (paper). [Reviewed by Prof. Herman Hanko.] Taking the title of this book from Frank VandenBerg’s definitive biography of Dr. Abraham Kuyper, Dr. Rodgers discusses the role that Kuyper’s view of the antithesis took in Kuyper’s educational philosophy and work. After a short biography of Kuyper, Rodgers informs his readers that Kuyper saw Calvinism as a world-and-life view and not only a theology. That is, Kuyper was concerned about man’s relation to his fellow man and to the world as well as his...

“Calvin v. Hyper-Spurgeonism: The Battle for the Preaching of the One Scriptural and Reformation Gospel,” by John Calvin and others. Lewes, E. Sussex, England: Berith Publications, 1997. 35 pp. $4 (surface mail)/$6 (airmail) (paper). [Reviewed by the editor.] This booklet is genuine Calvinism’s response to the recent Banner of Truth’s publication, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching. In the 1995 Banner of Truth book, Iain H. Murray wheeled out the English Baptist preacher, Charles H. Spurgeon, to defend Murray and the Banner’s doctrine that God in Christ loves and desires to save every human without exception. With astounding...

Our Reformed Church Service Book, by G. Van Rongen. Neerlandia, Alberta, Canada or Pella, Iowa: Inheritance Publications, 1995. 250 pages. $13.90 (U.S.). (paper). [Reviewed by Prof. R. D. Decker.] This book is about another book, viz., the Book of Praise: Anglo-Genevan Psalter. This latter contains the synodically approved Psalm texts and tunes and hymns, the Ecumenical Creeds, the Three Forms of Unity, Orders of Worship, Liturgical Forms, Form Prayers, and Church Order of the Canadian (and American) Reformed Churches. In Our Reformed Church Service Book Rev. Van Rongen, an emeritus minister of these churches, gives a history of the English...

Creating a Christian Worldview: Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism, by Peter S. Heslam. Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans/Paternoster, 1998. x + 300 pages. $28.00/£18.99 (paper). [Reviewed by the editor] On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Abraham Kuyper’s Stone Lectures on Calvinism at Princeton Seminary, Eerdmans has published a superb, provocative, ground-breaking analysis of theselectures. Standing outside the controversy over the doctrine of common grace that has raged in the Dutch Reformed churches, British scholar Peter S. Heslam offers an unbiased judgment on Kuyper’s lectures and the philosophy of a common grace worldview that they propound. The result must...

The Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text and the Claims of the Anabaptists, by Theodore P. Letis. Fort Wayne, Indiana: The Institute for Reformation Biblical Studies, 1992. 54 pages. $4.00 (paper). [Reviewed by the Editor.] Theodore P. Letis is a young scholar who will be heard from and ought to be listened to on the subject of the Greek text of the New Testament and the English version of Holy Scripture.