The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr, Norton & Company. Reviewed by Pastor Barry York.

These pages of the Witness are appropriately dedicated to reviews of Christian literature. Yet every now and then a secular book comes along that can help the church. I believe such is the case with the book The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr. Its subtitle gives the thesis: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.

Carr opens his book with research showing how the model of the brain once used by scientists is changing. Until recently, they thought adult brains were relatively static and fixed. Now they are realizing that the brain’s neurons are constantly being remapped and rewired. As Carr says, “The genius of our brain’s construction is not that it contains a lot of hard-wiring but that it doesn’t.” One of their eye-opening conclusions is that the brain has been created (they say “has evolved” but we will not spend time on that here) to reorganize itself in order to give us what we desire.

In other words, you are so fearfully and wonderfully made that your brain is constantly responding with physiological changes to make the map between your desires and body responses shorter, more ingrained, and more satisfying. That’s great news when you are trying to learn an important skill or overcome something like a stroke. Yet—and this is the thesis of Carr’s book—it’s terrifying when you begin giving into an addiction. “Bad habits can be ingrained in our neurons as easily as good ones,” Carr states.

It is not that the remapping causes the cocaine habit or the Facebook addiction. Rather, the repeated return to a desire impresses it so deeply into our physiology we begin to feel that we cannot go without it. It shows how frighteningly accountable we are for our own behaviors. Furthermore, spend too much time in “the shallows” of the internet, and you will not want to go into “the deeps” of such things as concentrating on a good book. As those called by Jesus to abide in the Word of God, we had best be careful!

With lucid writing, interesting history on how inventions like the clock and printing press changed human nature like the internet is doing, or chapters with intriguing titles like “The Church of Google,” Carr sustains one’s interest throughout the book. He provides insight into the impact of technology on modern human nature that parents, teachers, and elders would profit from understanding.

William Symington: Penman of the Scottish Covenanters, by Roy Blackwood with Michael LeFebvre, Reformation Heritage, 2009. Reviewed by Pastor R. E. Knodel, Jr.

William Symington is a long-overdue addition to current Reformed literature. Having stood in his Stranraer, Scotland, pulpit and mused over his immense influence on Scottish and Reformed Presbyterian theology and ecclesiology, this reviewer rejoices at Michael LeFebvre’s effort to popularize both Symington and Roy Blackwood’s earlier efforts to do the same. This is a book for our day.

Blackwood/LeFebvre capture the fact that Symington became a kind of lens that brought many earlier Covenanter beams into an intelligible focus. Just as Symington made the Covenanters more intelligible in his day, so Blackwood/LeFebvre do the same for Symington and the Covenanters in our day.

While many Covenanter stories may be known in Reformed Presbyterian circles, their cause is not so well understood. Symington believed in this cause. Blackwood captured this in his doctoral thesis on Christ’s kingship, and LeFebvre resurrects both men’s work in this captivating review.

These men had a refreshing view of the kingdom of God. As political instability assaults the pride of our modern world, we need the insights of these earlier Christians. Their theology is thoroughly biblical theology, but not so well understood today. If the promises of Psalms 22 and 67 (and 110, etc.) have any relevance today, we need the help of these earlier interpreters so that the promises might see fulfillment in our day.

This theology is thoroughly evangelical, yet applicable to us and our cultural situation. William Symington is valuable—even necessary—reading!

Pursued by God: The Amazing Life and Lasting Influence of John Calvin, by Christopher Meehan. Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2009. Reviewed by Pastor R. E. Knodel, Jr.

Pursued by God contains many surprises. In this smallish book, the author unearths many discoveries that will endear the great John Calvin to modern readers. Ostensibly, it sets out to personalize—or color in—the portrait of Calvin.

This is one of many books arising from the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth. All of these have been welcomed, based on Calvin’s continuing historical influence and merit. Christopher Meehan, a successful novelist and long-time journalist, writes as a biographer here—but with a special focus on the human-interest aspects of Calvin’s life. The modern pedestrian, walking through the pages of Calvin’s life, may more easily appreciate him this way.

Behind the book’s simple facade there is a breadth of research and reference. Many serendipities present themselves as refreshing caveats on Calvin’s life. For example, Meehan points to Calvin’s Genesis commentary, and a lengthy passage where he writes “in a wonderfully expansive way about the place and value of women!” (p. 143).

Meehan focuses more on popularizing Calvin than taking sides on debated topics. It is a positive presentation on Calvin that should serve as an easy, interesting and edifying introduction to the great man.

The Rule of Love: Broken, Fulfilled, and Applied, by John Fesko. Reformation Heritage Books, 2009. Reviewed by Pastor R. E. Knodel, Jr.

Depending on one’s point of view, this book will either be seen as a great ethical leap forward or as that which set back the study of ethics by a generation. It is the study of ethics through the “biblical-theological/redemptive-historical” lens; or ethics as it might be understood through the lens of our doctrine of salvation.

If the world’s only need involved the gospel, then The Rule of Love would succeed. Indeed the world needs the gospel more than anything else. The question involves: Does the world need anything additional to the gospel? Does it need a set of rules by which to order society? Does Christianity have anything to offer the world once people have been converted?

The Rule answers yes, but then instead of supplying the rules, it focuses again on how the gospel enhances the rules in an entirely new manner. Its prologue describes the proper relationship between law and gospel. But then, each successive ten commandments chapter reprises the thesis in a way that reduces the ethical scope of God’s revelation to issues of love and church. The idea of righteousness, fundamental to ethical study, plays almost no role here.
If one is looking for the Bible’s clear evangelical-ethical teaching for our day, one will be left wanting. This reviewer would argue that the Westminster Larger Catechism’s review of the ten commandments is far more extensive than The Rule’s, and that it provides a far surer guide for those pursuing ethical questions.

Indeed, this treatment stands ethics on its head, failing to understand the essential role biblical ethics has played in the first two millennia of Christ’s dominion—i.e., the rise of Christendom. Grievous ethical issues cry out for answers in the streets of our day. Islam marches to our very door! Happily the Bible supplies much. Why should our response be so restricted?

The Happiness of Heaven, by Maurice Roberts. Reformation Heritage, 2009. Reviewed by Philip H. Pockras.

How many books have heaven for their subject, or even cover it extensively? There are not many. This little paperback, by Maurice Roberts, is a splendid treatment of the Bible’s teaching about heaven.

By our own reasoning we cannot know much of heaven. And popular views of heaven, with St. Peter sitting at a clerk’s desk outside the pearly gates while dove-winged people sit around on clouds, strumming harps, are not all that appealing. The Bible gives us far more.

Mr. Roberts, a Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) minister in Inverness, deals with the scriptural data. From the Bible, he tells of the creation of heaven, how one reaches heaven in Christ, its holiness, its happiness, and a small number of other subjects. Who has not wondered if our children dying in infancy will go to heaven? Who has not thought about whether we shall know one another there? And who has not thought that surely heaven must be more than cloud nine? Mr. Roberts deals with these and far more.

This simply written, easily understood, short, and very deep book will make you joy at what lies ahead, if you are in Christ. Not much is said in the Bible about heaven. But to think of being with Jesus, being free from sin, knowing God our Father better and better forever is almost overwhelming. All of this is in the Bible, and Mr. Roberts brings it all out. This book will take an afternoon’s reading, but will provide you with meditation for many delightful hours.