Mike Wittmer

Category: book review

  • doubt away

    My working title for my doubt book was Doubt Away:  Believe What You Know, It’s More than You Think. I liked the double meaning of “doubt away,” because on the one hand there are benefits to doubt, so go ahead and do it, while on the other hand believers need to put their doubt away…

  • despite doubt

    My book on doubt is officially out. I’ll say more about it in the weeks ahead, but here’s why this book is different than anything else you’ve read on the subject. 1. I emphasize what you know, not what you don’t. Most books on doubt emphasize how hard it is to believe in God, Jesus,…

  • salvation history for kids

    I enjoy the challenge of communicating theology to a general audience, but Jim Hamilton has taken this to a whole new level. He has published an illustrated storybook for children that winsomely presents the main turning points of salvation history. The Bible’s Big Story covers creation, fall, the protevangelion, flood, Abrahamic covenant, Exodus, conquest, David’s…

  • compelling conversion

    I just finished Rosaria Champagne Butterfield’s moving testimony, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. I read the first chapter before bed, and then, against my better judgment, I read the next chapter when I awoke, and then I couldn’t stop until I had finished it. What a timely story for today, honestly told with…

  • God’s good world?

    We’ve waited a long time for a worthy successor to Langdon Gilkey’s theology of creation, Maker of Heaven and Earth, so I was excited to read Jonathan Wilson’s new book, God’s Good World: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Creation (Baker). Unfortunately, I think we’re still waiting. The book is a solid piece of scholarship suited for…

  • bound together

    Friend and super pastor Chris Brauns has an important book coming out this week. Bound Together confronts the radical individualism of our day that not only scandalizes us when we read Scripture but also blinds us from understanding its most important points. We struggle to understand why Achan’s entire family was killed because of his…

  • VeggieTales

    Two weeks ago I spoke on faith at a men’s retreat in Lombard, Illinois, and I met a man who recommended a book that told the story of a once successful company in that town. I started Me, Myself, & Bob last night and finished it this morning. Wow. What a powerful, honest story about…

  • mysterious mystery

    This is my second post on the superb new book by Steven Boyer and Christopher Hall, The Mystery of God. Steve sent me a link to their book’s website for those who want to learn more, and you really should. I want to blog mostly through the specific issues that occupy the second half of…

  • deja vu all over again

    I saw in the paper yesterday that Rob Bell will begin his new book tour in Grand Rapids next month, and his slightly pretentious trailer (I read books! I take notes! I am creative!) is already drawing comments from a few blogs. If history is any guide, here is what is about to unfold, again.…

  • the mystery of God

    In 2005 I read a paper at ETS with the title, “Divine Mystery as Theological Method.” My thesis was that when trying to resolve difficult theological questions—such as how the Trinity could be one and three or how to integrate divine sovereignty and human freedom—we should choose the option with the most mystery, the one…