Exploring Historic Doctrine With Tony Jones, A Review and Interaction.
Dr. Tony Jones has recently released an e-book entitled:
Beyond the Depraved Doctrine of Original Sin
His book is at the moment #3 in the Christian Soteriology and #4 in the Christology sections on Amazon. When I checked it last week it was #1 in Soteriology. I’ve never written a full blown review of a book despite being given numerous books for free with the hopes that I would review them. This book, author and title were enough to draw me in. Also for the mere price of $2.99 it wouldn’t hurt me to buy it. Once it was downloaded to my Android smart phone I began reading and was so pulled in I finished 40% of it in one day. There is something about reading a man with a Ph.d go hard after a doctrine that you’ve always held as an essential. At first glance at the title, you would assume that the book would be simply an all out slug-fest with the works of Calvinists on doctrines like Total Depravity and Original Sin. While some of that is definitely evident, the majority of the book is a quick look at the history and teachings of historical views of the atonement with the aim of making Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) look unbiblical, ridiculous and almost worthless. Tony writes very clearly about his intent and reasoning behind the book. He also immediately comes forward and shares some of his presuppositions that lead him to interpret the Bible and doctrine in a certain way. I am very appreciative for that. Readers won’t go into the book looking to be told how they should believe but they will go into it as individuals with their own mind to do what they will with the information they take in. In my review I’ll attempt to cover the parts of the book that caught my interest the most and be as brief as I can with my agreements and disagreements. So really we may not be able to call this a review, but more of an interaction/reaction. My goal is to line up 5 posts a week, Monday-Friday to enable me to have enough time to get through everything I see necessary. No promises on the time-frame, but that’s my goal.
As you can see, despite my best attempts, I haven’t found an easy way to have comments on this blog. However I may find another venue for these posts in the future where I can have comments. In the meantime feel free to comment directly to me on Twitter @21centkid , Instagram @machen , or facebook. Feel free to add me as a friend! Also, I follow back on Twitter and IG.
