Hearts & Minds Books

We had a thrilling time in Pittsburgh, selling the very thoughtful, accessible and nicely written New York Times best-seller, A Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, at the author appearance with Rev. Tim Keller.  I hope you read our last post about him, and followed some of the good links.  If you wanted to hear his presentation, here is a podcast video version of one that, I'm guessing, was very similar, done in Berkley California.

We still have some of these for sale for $20 if anybody needs to order any this week (while supplies last.) 

Pittsburgh's Carnegie Music Hall was certainly one of the most ornate locations in which I've ever had the privilege of selling books. Even though the lecture attracted causally dressed college students and working class pastors alongside the well-heeled from Pittsburgh elite circles, it was a thoroughly classy evening, with  Keller's literate presentation a perfect fit for the thoughtful crowd in that elegant setting.  We thank the CCO for allowing us to be the bookseller, and thank the Kellers for their friendliness to us as we worked the gig.  After packing up and running some errands we eat a very late night meal with Derek & Scott, I ended up arriving home just before the sun came up Friday morning.  Whew.

What an extra thrill, then, to see that the UPS guy has just brought a big stack of a thick new book, the long-awaited and magisterial third volume in John M. Frame's "Theology of Lordship" series.  Entitled The Doctrine of the Christian Life, (P& R) this weighs in at over 1000 pages and sells for $45.95.  It is classic Frame at it's best, I'm told, with rave, rave, rave reviews from serious Reformed writers, ethicists and Biblical scholars (like Richard L. Pratt and P. Andrew Sandlin.)  As therapist David Powlison puts it, "Frame sets forth God's commandments as broad and deep, as sweetly adaptable to the varieties of human experience.  He shows how the person, promises, and actions of our redeemer God are always intrinsic to our wisdom, faith and love.  He sets forth a vision for the Christian life that, in fact, glorifies the God of glory."

Frame is a brilliant teacher of ethics, complex and fair and thorough, utterly sound and faithful to Biblical revelation.  He's aware of the disagreements within the broader Christian community, is widely read in all kinds of literature, and knows post-Reformation Reformed thinking better than most.  He is trying hard not to capitulate to secularized categories (conservative, liberal) but is holding up a standard of radical Christian perspective.

The Doctrine of the Christian Life may spend more time on methodological questions than typical readers may wish, and there will be sections some may want to skim through (skim through a full half, and you still get your money's worth!)  Still, the vast amount of material, the lucid account of how decisions are made and ethics developed, and the deeply pastoral desire to help folks address relevant contemporary topics makes this the sort of significant resource that isn't often published.  Kudos to the publisher, Presbyterian & Reformed,  for their brave commitment to such sound thinking, for vital book publishing, and for daring to release such a massive volume of such serious stuff.  May many find it worth owning, and may many learn to live out this vision of the Lordship of Christ, across every sphere of life and culture.
 
Frame unpacks all of this carefully---exploring what we mean by culture, explaining various schools of thought about spiritual maturity, teaching solid stuff about church, world, Kingdom... Sadly, not many church folk know this kind of material very well, but it is a splendid example of the renaissance of thoughtful evangelical literature, and it would be a useful resource to have in church libraries.  (His long and detailed study of the application of the Ten Commandments is itself for thorough than many lesser books on the subject. Anybody teaching on this subject will have to consult this.)  I am not using bookseller hype when I say this is magisterial;  I am aware that I disagree with the good doctor on several important matters, but that is just beside the point.  This book is an amazing contribution to the scholarly field of Christian living, ethics, and seriously Christian witness in public life. 

One need not have read the previous two, but I thought I'd name them, here.  The first was The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God and the next was The Doctrine of God.  It is in these seminal texts that he develops his thought about multi-dimensional knowing, applied, then to our relationship with God.


Hearts & Minds 234 East Main Street  Dallastown, PA  17313  717.246.3333