Erwin McManus has had a significant impact on my church. My pastor reads him a lot and takes a lot of theological insights into ministry from this emerging pastor and “cultural architect”. So after reading this sobering review of his latest book “Soul Cravings“, I am left very disturbed by the emerging missional theology that Mr. McManus preaches and writes. I know my pastor has read this page-numberless book, has lent it out to many high schoolers in our congregation, and thus I am scared that the understanding of sin and salvation our young generation has could very well be skewed and incomplete.

Just because a book is labeled as “Christian” and sold in a Christian bookstore does not ever mean it fully bears the marks of true, Christianity — the historic, Christian orthodoxy kind.

In Soul Cravings, McManus has thrown out the doctrine of original sin, human depravity, and completely missed the mark at trying to share the Gospel with non-Christians through this bok — a half-Gospel masquerading as the whole Gospel that has become a complete un-Gospel (along the lines of J.I. Packer’s vernacular).
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Fellow Reformed Baptist, the famous Christian Canadian blogger, Tim Challies has recently relaunched his Christian book reviews website, Discerning Reader. New book reviews will be added every week, and coming soon is Subscription content for those among us who want more than just book reviews.

If you do not know already, Tim is a prolific reader of Christian literature and as such, is also a prolific blogger. Prolific, as in he has now blogged for 1321 consecutive days — that is daily for over 3 and a half years! And his posts are no fluff too. Along with commentary on Christianity and book reviews, Tim is also a commentator on blogging itself — most recently sharing tips for better blog writting.

Furethermore, Tim has spent the last year or so writing a book that will be published by Crossway on January 7, 2008 called “The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment“. As the title testifies, the book is about spiritual discernment–the ability to decide between truth and error, right and wrong. He just received back the first endorsement for his book, from none other than the renowned, Pastor-Teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, Dr. John MacArthur!

If you do not yet frequent Tim Challies blog (www.challies.com) or his Christian book review website (www.discerningreader.com), then I commend these two great web resources to you!

• Southern Baptist Todd Schaffer of Montreal has a blog called “Faith by Hearing” which collects and categorizes a huge selection of Christian audio.
• Desiring God has released 20 years of Pastors Conference audio on their web site.
• Resolved 2007, theme around Jonathan Edwards, has conference audio available free.
• The ground-breaking book, Pierced for our Transgressions, has some great sermons on penal substitution on its website.
• Josh Harris’ church, Covenant Life Church, has a strong Christ-centered singles ministries called “One” that has relevant sermons on singles issues.
• And New Attitude, the annual conference for singles & young married couples on humble orthodoxy, has a continuously growing free Downloads section of sermons, music, and workshops.

Passion Conferences has recently released a free EP that can be downloaded from www.hopeforthehokies.com. The songs are in prayer and support of all affected by the Virgina Tech tragedy.