The Emperor Has No Clothes: Dr. Richard B. Gaffin Jr.’s Doctrine of Justification, by Stephen M. Cunha. Unicoi Tennessee, The Trinity Foundation. 118 pages. Softcover. ISBN978891777325. [Reviewed by Clay Spronk.] Mr. Cunha wrote what makes up the main body of this book in 2008. At that time Mr. Cunha and his family were leaving Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, a congregation belonging to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) denomination. He explains in the preface that his purpose was “to outline the reason for our family’s decision to leave that congregation” (p. 7). The reason Mr. Cunha and his family left this congregation,...

Rev. Langerak is pastor of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Cracks in the Crescent, by Hussein Hajji Wario. Self-published, 2009. ISBN: 978057800155. Paper, 252 pp. ($15.99). Excerpts and purchasing information at http://www.cracksinthecrescent.com. Reviewed by Mark H. Hoeksema. The ingenious title of this book is descriptive of its content. By “crescent,” the author obviously refers to the symbol of Islam. And his purpose is clearly to expose the ‘cracks’ or defects in this widely practiced and growing religion. This he does with admirable success by means of autobiography, which comprises most of this book. Carefully using the vehicle of...

Rev. Langerak is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Divided by a Common Heritage: The Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America at the Beginning of the New Millennium, by Corwin Smidt, Donald Luidens, James Penning, and Roger Nemeth. Eerdmans (2006). Paper. ISBN: 978-0802803856. Reviewed by Prof. David J. Engelsma. The intelligentsia in the Reformed Church in America (RCA) and in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) desire the reunion of the two denominations. Work goes on, mostly quietly and behind the scenes, to achieve the merger. The issues that occasioned the split in 1857...

Let the Nations Be Glad, by John Piper. 2nd ed. Baker Academic (2003). 256pp. Paper. ISBN: 978-00801026133. Reviewed by Dr. Julian Kennedy (Ballymena, Northern Ireland). John Piper is a pastor and writer with two passions, first, to know God, and second, to make Him known. This book, revised and expanded from when first published in 1993, highlights these two biblical passions as he sets out to prove that God’s great purpose in creation and redemption is His own glory, and that we as His people will experience His fellowship as we aim for that same goal, by making worshiping disciples...

Rev. Langerak is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Martin Bucer: A Reformer and His Times, by Martin Greschat. Tr. Stephen E. Buckwalter. Westminster John Knox Press (2004). ISBN: 978-0664226909. Paper. Reviewed by David J. Engelsma. This is a fine, well-written, and authoritative account of the life, work, and theology of the important, if secondary, Reformer Martin Bucer. Bucer was an early convert of Martin Luther, an instructor in important respects ofJohn Calvin, and a Reformer in his own right. Greschat’s work, originally published in German in 1990, is the first biography of Bucer in seventy...

Rev. Langerak is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Henry J. Kuiper: Shaping the Christian Reformed Church, 1907-1962, by James A. De Jong. Eerdmans (2007). ISBN: 978-0-8028- 2585-8. Paper. Reviewed by David J. Engelsma. President-emeritus of Calvin Theological Seminary James A. De Jong has written an interesting account of the life and work of influential Christian Reformed minister Henry J. Kuiper. Because of the prominence of “HJK,” the book affords as well a fascinating look at the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) during the years of Kuiper’s ministry, from 1904, when Kuiper entered what would now be...

Rev. Langerak is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Expository Genius of John Calvin, by Steven J. Lawson. Reformation Trust Publishing, 2007. ISBN 1567690858. 142 pp. Hardcover. Available at monergismbooks.com ($11.25), christianbook.com ($12.99), or publisher at Ligonier.org ($12.00). Reviewed by Rev. Douglas J. Kuiper. Steven Lawson, pastor of Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Mobile, AL, begins a series of short books under the series “A Long Line of Godly Men Profile.” Upcoming books in this series will focus on Martin Luther, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, and others. Lawson argues that the situation in the evangelical...

Rev. Langerak (“Bring the books” editor) is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Joshua Engelsma is a member of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Shack, by William P. Young. Windblown Media, 2007. ISBN 0964729237. Paperback. 264 pp. Available at christianbook.com ($8.99) orbarnesandnoble.com ($13.49). Reviewed by Joshua D. Engelsma. The Shack, a recently published New York Times best-seller, falls into the genre of Christian fiction. Since being published last year, it has gained widespread support, not merely from the population in general, but especially in the church world. Many churches advertise their discussion groups on the...

Samuel Miller was one of the founders of Princeton Seminary in 1812. He himself taught at Princeton for 36 years. The article we publish is part of the sermon that Miller preached at the installation of Archibald Alexander as first professor at Princeton in August, 1812. The full sermon has been published by Presbyterian Heritage Publication, P.O. Box 180922, Dallas, TX 75218. The excerpt reprinted here is taken from this publication with permission. . . . A further means which the Church is bound to employ for providing an able and faithful ministry isfurnishing a seminary in which the candidates...

* Chapter 9, in the Clark-VanTil Controversy (Hobbs, New Mexico: The Trinity Foundation, 1995.) Reprinted by permission. See the editorial in this issue. The last point of the Complaint concerns the so-called sincere offer of salvation on the part of God to all men, particularly to the reprobate. Here the Complaint descends from the stratosphere of philosophical contemplation and theological debate to the lower spheres of plain, even superficial reasoning, where even common mortals that may have been present at the examination of Dr. Clark and at the subsequent debate about the questions involved, must have felt that they were able to participate in...