I frequently disagree with Challies, but I think he is worth paying attention to because he is well read, theologically clear (even when I disagree, I understand why he believes as he does), and because I like to read people that I disagree with because I know I have blind spots.
So I found Challies review of Mark Driscoll’s new book, Who Do You Think You Are? Finding Your True Identify in Christ interesting. On the whole Challies liked the book and affirmed Driscoll. Challies has been very negative about Driscoll in the past so I am encouraged that even when they have clear differences, they can affirm that they agree about more of their orthodox Christian faith than they disagree about. (Although Challies did this mostly by throwing Joel Osteen under the bus.)
What I am frustrated by is the comments section. The comments is filled with people that are more concerned about the minor disagreements than about the majority of agreement. So I would encourage you to read the review, but if you get frustrated by stupidity, then skip the comments.
One of the great questions of life is the question of identity. Who am I? When faced with this question””a question we must all answer at one time or another””some respond with their vocation: I am a pastor or a police officer. Others respond with deep pain from the past: I am a victim of sexual assault or I am a drug addict. Others respond with their greatest success or most shameful failure. Yet none of these get right to the heart of the matter. These may be what we do or what wehave done or what has been done to us, but none goes deep enough.
The Christian answer can and should and must be different. It is this, the matter of identity, that is at the heart of Mark Driscoll’s new book Who Do You Think You Are?. Driscoll says rightly that even as Christians “œwe’re continually forgetting who we are in Christ and filling that void by placing our identity in pretty much anything else.” The question “œWho am I?” is “œfar-reaching, belief-revealing, life-shaping and identity-forming. How you answer determines your identity and your testimony. Tragically, few people””even few Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians””rightly answer that question.”
continue reading the rest of the review at Challies.com