Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good, by Steven Garber, Inter­Varsity, 2014. Reviewed by Russ Pulliam.

Mild-mannered and gentle with his friends, Steve Garber must be very hard-nosed and disciplined in the management of his time and productivity.

He reads books all the time—history, biography, literature, theology, philosophy. He catches independent movies with profound themes. He listens to the latest music. He’s always mentoring students or people who aspire to significance in Christ, not just success on the world’s terms. His latest book, Vision of Vocation (IVP Books, 2014), ranges from books to movies to music in a profound analysis of contemporary American culture. The title suggests a discussion of faith applied in the workplace, and he does address that topic.

But Dr. Garber does so much more. He picks up where the late Francis Schaeffer left off in Schaeffer’s unusual ability to bring Christian faith to bear in critical thinking about contemporary culture.

Schaeffer died 30 years ago and was primarily known in his later years for support of politically conservative causes. Apart from politics, though, he analyzed existentialism, modern art, music, ethics, theology, and movies in a rare way for evangelicals of his era or of any era. Garber follows in that noble tradition.

He identifies the problem of moral relativism from several angles. The cynical use of “whatever!” doesn’t cut it as a philosophy of life. He also contrasts the practical impact of relativism with a moral decision by Gary Haugen to try to bring justice to victims of bloody killings in Rwanda and of other atrocities. “Gary believed that some things are true and right and that some things simply, profoundly are not,” Garber writes. The result is Haugen’s exemplary work founding and directing the International Justice Mission.

Garber brings historical perspective to bear as well. He is old enough to long for the good old days growing up in the 1950s. Yet he knows that the world was fallen in the 1880s and in the 1950s, and so it is in 2015. The problems of the Fall are just manifest in different ways now. “This is not the worst of all worlds. There is no golden moment historically,” he writes. “Pre-modern, modern, post-modern: every age is marked by graces and groans.”

Yet he has a keen grasp of our current problem of postmodern relativism: “There is no voice, no perspective that carries more weight than any other, because no one has access to certainty about anything,” he writes.

Like Schaeffer, Garber doesn’t offer cheap answers to hard problems. He feels the weight of a world marred by sin. Education by itself doesn’t make the world better. “Very, very bright people do not always make very, very good people,” he notes.

He recommends biblical wisdom and spells out the danger of the well-educated elite. We can get good grades and still flunk life. Or we can make lots of money and flunk life.

Running through the book is the theme of learning to be a doer of the Word, not a hearer only. His repetition of this theme is appropriate because in a fallen world we forget it almost as soon as we turn the page.

“Over many years, after many conversations, my conviction is this: moral commitment precedes epistemological insight. We see out of our hearts,” Garber writes.

He ties together some loose ends of the analysis of how we are overloaded with information, featured in such books as The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. That adds to the problem of knowing, but not doing. “We disengage, hoping to hold onto ourselves, to that which matters most to us, trying to protect ourselves from being overcome and overwhelmed,” he laments. One of his most interesting chapters offers a contrast between the stoicism of Tom Wolfe and the cynicism of John le Carré.

Another point of wisdom: his careful use of the word proximate. He speaks of proximate justice. We won’t achieve perfect justice, or perfect love, but we should not give up because idealistic dreams fall short. Here he echoes the way Schaeffer would speak of substantial healing.

I have a personal point of gratefulness to Steve Garber, back to the time we met at the old Ligonier Valley Study Center near Pittsburgh, Pa. We were studying under R.C. Sproul and others there, and he kindly invited me to a Reformed Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, when Ken Smith was pastor. Ken preached on Galatians 2:20, the first memory verse in the Navigators Topical Memory System. I heard psalm singing for the first time. In other settings we had sung hymns, and sometimes the careful theologically minded leaders would tell us to skip certain stanzas because they had wrong doctrine. But with the Psalms I realized that was not going to be a problem.

Steve also was a constant encouragement to me in a quest to try to bring the Bible and Christian faith to bear on the news. He had been a journalist until he found a calling in ministry. Steve is just not a good book writer. He connects people to people—spiritual networking I suppose, but the word networking does not convey the depth of Steve’s capacity for relationships.

Through his first book, Fabric of Faithfulness (1999), Garber helped many university faculty and administrators learn how to connect with students as human beings, not just as academic machines. This latest book has assigned him to another very useful calling—heir to the legacy of a pioneer in modern Christian thinking, Francis Schaeffer.

Preacher to the Remnant: The Story of James Renwick, by Maurice Grant, Scottish Reformation Society, 2009. Hardback, 280 pages. Reviewed by David Whitla.

At last, a contemporary biography of James Renwick, the final Covenanter minister to be martyred during Scotland’s Killing Times! The Church (and Reformed Presbyterians in particular) are in Maurice Grant’s debt for his thorough and balanced biographies of Donald Cargill (No King but Christ, 1988), Richard Cameron (The Lion of the Covenant, 1997), and now this work on Renwick to complete the trilogy.

The tales of our persecuted forebears in Scotland have been told many times, and this volume contains a familiar mixture of adventure, tragedy, and faithfulness under fire. The story abounds with hair-breadth escapes, secretive conventicles on lonely moors, and bloodthirsty government agents bent on death and destruction. Grant is a compelling, cohesive storyteller. All too often, Covenanter histories are less a single coherent story, and more a string of gripping anecdotes that can become mixed with legend. Not so this work, which is free of the hagiography that mars too many 19th Century biographies of the Covenanting era. The author is certainly in sympathy with his subject, but as an honest historian he refuses to sugar-coat the shortcomings of our forefathers. Renwick thus emerges from the narrative as a truly remarkable, but also very human personality, with a gentle spirit, great personal integrity and exceptional gifts—all the more exceptional in view of his youth. He was executed two days after his 26th birthday.

As “Scotland’s Most Wanted” in the mid-1680s, Renwick is no easy subject for a biographer. Yet, despite the scanty information available on the fugitive pastor, the author has assembled an impressive array of primary source materials: letters, sermons, society minutes, testimonies and court documents, many hitherto unpublished. This ground-breaking research will surely help to make Maurice Grant’s Preacher to the Remnant a definitive account of one of Covenanter history’s most famous sons. This book is highly recommended, especially for a generation that is again feeling its civil and religious liberties brought under pressure.

Can the author now be persuaded to give us a full biography of Alexander Peden?

Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem, by Kevin DeYoung, Crossway, 2013. Reviewed by Barry York.

Pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Mich., and popular author and blogger, Kevin DeYoung offers in this short work a well of wisdom. Often delivered with dry humor, this book offers tools to think biblically and address practically the busy, hectic lifestyle most American Christians lead. DeYoung admits that he wrote this work as much for himself as anyone, and thus opens his own life by first confessing his “addiction” to busyness. He describes what he has learned in his own battle to lead a more peaceful lifestyle. As he says, “Things are not the way they are supposed to be because we are not the way we are supposed to be. Which means our understanding of busyness must start with the one sin that begets so many of our other sins: pride” (p. 34).

Three dangers imperil overly busy believers: having our joy ruined; having our hearts robbed of gospel treasure; and having rotting souls covered up to our own hurt. DeYoung then gives seven brief chapters that diagnose the root causes of our busy lives and offers immensely applicable advice on how to remove from our hearts and schedules much of what plagues us. He concludes by reminding the reader that there is a good amount of busyness that is God-given, since we are called to be hard workers for His kingdom (like Martha); but, even more importantly, we are called to sit and rest at Jesus’ feet (like Mary) that we might have as our greatest priority knowing Him.

Crazy Busy is an enjoyable, excellent read. DeYoung avoids coming across as heavy handed and guilt inducing. Rather, he playfully pokes fun at his own busyness in ways with which the reader can readily identify, then leads you to consider the means for striving for greater sanctification in those areas. Again and again he refers to Jesus’ earthly ministry and His work with His own disciples to address particular areas of the anxiety that can lead to busyness. For instance, seeing how Christ stayed on track in His earthly mission without trying to do everything, and seeing how Christ embraced the limitations His own humanity placed on Him, helps you to realize your own responsibilities also end at a certain point. From recent graduates to overworked businessmen to new moms, this book is an ideal work to place into others’ hands.

Insourcing: Bringing Discipleship Back to the Local Church, by Randy Pope and Kitti Murray, Zondervan, 2013. Reviewed by Barry York.

The longtime pastor of Perimeter Church, a PCA congregation that has planted multiple churches in the Atlanta area and throughout the world, Randy Pope explains in Insourcing the key principle of ministry that he has been using and promoting for over 25 years. Unlike many ministers that “outsource” the job of making mature Christians to parachurch ministries, Pope describes how he learned and applied the scriptural mandate for the local church to make disciples.

Using his personal story of discovering discipleship’s importance, his implementation of a plan to bring it into his own congregation, and anecdotes and illustrations to highlight it, Pope explains fully what his “Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship” (LOLMD) program looks like in its overall structure and in its particular components. Utilizing the acronym TEAMS (Truth, Equipping, Accountability, Missions, Supplication), Insourcing provides the steps needed to implement all-male and all-female intensive discipleship groups in the local church.

Many churches talk about discipleship, but few know what it means biblically or how to practice it. This book explains those things clearly, taking concepts for individualistic discipleship (see Eim’s The Lost Art of Disciple Making) and showing how they can and should be lived in a corporate way in a congregational setting. The result of practicing intentional discipleship in the local church is seeing leaders raised up for new missions and the next generation. “I’ve already said that some of the leaders are men I led to Christ and disciple personally. They weren’t all born leaders. They didn’t necessarily aspire to be leaders. They became leaders during the process of discipleship” (p. 92).

The book includes several fictional accounts of a woman’s LOLMD group, based on composites of actual groups, to give a realistic view of how the discipleship works outs. It includes several appendices that give forms and syllabi for the program, since Pope teaches the importance of curriculum for effective discipleship.

At places Pope’s book reads a bit like braggadocio regarding Perimeter Church, and some illustrations are a bit over-the-top. However, his enthusiasm for discipleship and his practical descriptions make this book a helpful resource for learning how to implement discipleship in a congregation.