A Time to Build
Mother Kirk: Essays and Forays in Practical Ecclesiology, by Douglas Wilson
Reviewed by Rick Saenz

Perhaps at this point the vision of a holy catholic church has engaged you, and you are eager to engage in the building of such. But how to even begin the project, when the only blueprints you'll find on the bookshelves of your local Christian store are for contagious, connected, equipping, dynamic, purpose-driven churches, trademarked catchphrases and all? How does one go about repairing the ruins and recovering the historical church when one lives in an age that despises history and tradition?

In his book Mother Kirk, Doug Wilson does not provide the solution to this dilemma-and a good thing that is, since our love of off-the—shelf solutions is a large part of our problem. What you'll find in Mother Kirk is a compendium—a short, complete summary-of truths about the holy, catholic, historic church, truths that must be digested and internalized by anyone who wants to engage in rebuilding that church. And even though Mother Kirk clocks in at 280 pages of fairly small type, it is still fair to call it a compendium, given the scope of the book, which is astonishing.

Beginning with the fundamental question—what is the church?—it proceeds in proper order to examine every element that constitutes the church: creedal belief; the Word; proclamation of the Word; the sacraments; the Lord's day; the worship service; church government; ministers and elders; the life of the church; outreach.

Each of these areas is examined in a brief yet thorough fashion. Brick is laid upon brick, precept upon precept, with each precept extracted directly from Scripture and carefully placed. Doug Wilson has the heart of an engineer, and so Mother Kirk ends up a treatise on the church that will withstand careful scrutiny. Come to this book with your hard questions, as long as they are genuine questions. Come prepared to study, ponder, argue, underline, write in the margins—Mother Kirk can bear up under such efforts, and will reward them.

Not yet ready to sign up for an intensive course in church reconstruction? Then come to Mother Kirk as a collection of short treatises on subjects of vital interest. Need to develop a deeper understanding of Reformed evangelicalism, the Bible, baptism, the Lord's supper, the Lord's day? Each is treated here, covered in ten to twenty pages; the treatment is complete, not in detail but in outline. If you need the details, they can be found at will in the books referenced by Wilson's many, many footnotes. (Note: read the footnotes. Read them all. Small treasures await discovery within.)

The history of this book does show through at times. Some of the writing was done especially for the book, and much of it was cobbled together out of earlier writings, particularly columns written for Credenda/Agenda. In its content the book is coherent and complete, but its tone is all over the map, and the transitions are sometimes a bit jarring. Still, I ended up taking pleasure even in this. Wilson and Jones will now and then deliberately smack you upside the head with a delightfully out-of-place phrase, to keep you awake and alert as much as anything else. The head-smacks here may be less than deliberate, but the effect is much the same.

This book is not a blueprint; and we should celebrate that. You'll find no trademarked phrases within, no vision statements, no checklists, no action items, no guidelines for striping the parking lot to maximize visitor appeal. But the man who studies this book will find himself well-equipped to draw blueprints himself—blueprints for cathedrals.

A Time to Tear Down
Tearing Down Strongholds, by R.C. Sproul Jr.
Reviewed by Laurence Windham

The title reminds us of our marching orders—we are to tear down the enemy's strongholds. Were they stone and timber fortresses, our job would be simple- fire the timber, batter the stone. But our warfare is in the philosophic realm. We battle worldviews, heresies, and ideology. We must train well to breach the battlements of falsehood.

RC is in his element here, pointing out the foundational thoughts and historic development of error. The book is more than instructive, the reader soon feels as though they are in the presence of a mentor. RC's way of guiding the student to be careful in their forays, remain Christian in their dealings and never be afraid of truth give the book a relational aspect in the spirit of Paul's epistles to the churches. The text has the important information that you find in more technical tomes, without the boredom. And all through the book there's RC, winking at the enemy: "Rousseau never adequately explained how noble savages created corrupt institutions." "As helpful as Descartes is in helping us understand the necessity of our own existence...people knew that they existed long before Descartes said so..."

The enterprising individual could easily find plenty of material here to have a humorous and engaging Top Ten T-shirt on apologetics. If any of you are so inclined, I wear XL. Also included in Tearing Down Strongholds is the story of RC's argument with his father over his long hair. This is RC's own personal Waterloo. He records the debate as an illustration of how we often think as opposed to how we should think. The story ends with a trip to the barbershop.

The subject of the last chapter might surprise you, what with all the misinformation out there about my good friend. It is about loving our enemies. "...we need to remember that there, but for the grace of God, go we. We have left folly and embraced wisdom not because of our love for wisdom, but because of Wisdom's love for us." "We cannot forget that it is those who bear the image of God who believe such nonsense. And so we must respond to our foolish, hateful enemies with love."

Apologetics defines our war with the world. RC has added to our arsenal, improves our strategy, and bolsters our confidence."The goal of apologetics is to destroy falsehood and to proclaim and defend the truth" reads the introduction. The result is not only do we destroy the enemy's castle, we raise the banner of truth and claim the spoils for our King.