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J. V. Fesko
Individualism marks the age in which we live. Carl Trueman’s Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed with Individualism and Identity is a welcome volume that provides important biblical truth that pertains to the need for creeds and confessions within the life of the church in this age of individualism in Western culture.
Trueman’s book began life as The Creedal Imperative, published in 2012, but a mere twelve years later, as the ground has dramatically shifted beneath the church, this new and updated edition helpfully addresses several recent cultural developments. The book consists of ten chapters if you count the introduction, conclusion, and two appendixes that cover a wide range of subjects.
Set against the backdrop of individualism and the wider evangelical world’s rejection of creeds in favor of a “No creed but the Bible” point of view, Trueman opens his book with the claim that creeds and confessions are not merely helpful but necessary for the well-being of the church. This does not mean that creeds and confessions supplant the chief authority of Scripture but that they help the church understand the sound form of words, so that the church can rightly understand God and his Word.
In a subsequent chapter Trueman argues that there are four basic assumptions that underlie the need for creeds and confessions: human beings bear the divine image and have an external relationship to God, the past has important things to teach the church today, language is a suitable vehicle for communicating truth, and the church is the institution that can write and enforce creeds. Trueman’s four presuppositions run against the grain of our individualistic culture, but this is precisely the reminder the church needs. We are all human individuals, but God has saved us in Christ to be joined to his body, the church, and the church does not merely exist in the present but exists across millennia. It behooves us, therefore, to listen to the collective voice of the church across the ages as we heed creeds and confessions.
Trueman surveys various biblical passages to demonstrate the necessity for a confessional backbone to the church. He then surveys church history to examine the creeds of the early church and historic Protestant confessions of the Church of England (Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer), Lutheran (Book of Concord), Continental Reformed (Three Forms of Unity), and Presbyterian (Westminster Standards) traditions. He also has helpful chapters on confessions and worship, their utility in the church, with concluding appendixes on revising and supplementing confessions and suggested books for further study.
Trueman writes in an accessible and easy-to-read style, and yet his easy style does not diminish the depth of his subject. He writes as one who is intimately familiar with the material he covers, a knowledge that equips him to explain detailed history in an understandable way. This book can serve as an excellent introduction to its topic for people in the church as well as seminarians. While many Reformed Christians are familiar with their own confessional heritage, many know very little about the early church and the ecumenical creeds. Trueman’s book is a superb tonic for this deficiency. In this revised edition, Trueman also draws on his recent research and publications on individualism, including The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self and Strange New World, where he orients the reader to the latest cultural developments that pose challenges to churches and pastors seeking to instruct their congregations in a corporate confession of faith and practice.
As a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Trueman takes creedalism and confessionalism to the wider church. He is the rare breed of confessional churchman
who has narrow convictions but wide associations that allow him to promote Reformed theology to a large audience. He demonstrates its biblical nature and ecclesial wisdom, and as such, Trueman’s Crisis of Confidence is a welcome publication that will hopefully teach Presbyterians the vitality of their confessional faith as well as help draw anti-creedal Christians into the confessional fold.
The author is an OP minister and professor at Reformed Theological Seminary Jackson.
Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed with Individualism and Identity, by Carl R. Trueman. Crossway, 2024. Hardcover, 216 pages, $27.99.
Alan D. Strange
Glorifying and Enjoying God: Fifty-Two Devotions through the Westminster Shorter Catechism is a collaboration of three younger pastors, one in the URCNA (Boekestein) and the other two (Cruse and Miller) in the OPC. Among these three, they’ve already written some quite useful volumes, and this last one proves to be no exception.
The title, of course, reflects the first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which reminds us that while all mankind will ultimately glorify God (in mercy and grace or in wrath), only those who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ will be those who enjoy the triune God here and hereafter. The tone of the book is properly that of outreach (evangelism) and discipleship, which is to say that it serves both as a good introduction to the faith to those who are not Christians and as a tool of growth in grace for those who are.
That first question, and commentary thereon, comprises the first chapter of the book. The remaining Shorter Catechism questions and answers, and commentary on them, comprise the rest of the book, formatted suitably for a year’s study. In other words, the 107 questions and answers of the Westminster Shorter Catechism are divided into fifty-two chapters, allowing one to read a chapter a week, and, if desired, memorize the catechism at the same time. This is an excellent tool, then, not only for memorizing the catechism but also for coming to terms with its main teachings. Insofar as the Shorter Catechism is, like the Confession of Faith and accompanying Larger Catechism, a brief compendium of the faith, whether one takes a year to read it, or does so more quickly, it will furnish such a reader (or a family, church class, etc.) with a good survey of the Christian faith as we understand it as confessional Presbyterians.
Several strengths may be particularly noted in this volume. Physically, it is a well-produced hardcover volume with a ribbon marker for the kind of use anticipated. In terms of content, it well expresses the federal theology of the Westminster Standards, as given voice in the Shorter Catechism, explicating the covenant of works as the original covenantal arrangement that God condescended to make, and then the covenant of grace, once man had forfeited life in that first covenant by sinning. Man’s utter need and God’s initiative shines through it all, as Christ is set forth as prophet, priest, and king both in his humiliation and exaltation, the basis of our redemption being the active and passive obedience of Christ applied to the elect by the Holy Spirit in the ordo salutis, appropriated by faith-union with Christ in the use of the means of grace. The law is explicated in its proper uses: showing us our need and the only One who could meet it, as well as furnishing us, upon renewal, a guide for expressing gratitude in the Christian life. The authors carefully exposit Scripture as well as other secondary standards, giving personal and historical illustrations, all while warming the heart. This is devotional theology properly done.
I frequently get asked about helpful family or personal devotional materials. Here is a volume suited for both. It would also be useful for church classes, for school or homeschooling use, and for candidates preparing for the ministry. I would entertain a motion of “filling the blanks” with respect to the uses that may be made of this fine book. As Ko-Ko (in Mikado) sings in his List Song, “The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you,” dear readers. I’m sure that you can think of many ways to use an outstanding book like this!
The author is an OP pastor and professor at Mid-America Reformed Seminary.
Glorifying and Enjoying God: Fifty-Two Devotions through the Westminster Shorter Catechism, by William Boekestein, Jonathan Landry Cruse, and Andrew J. Miller. Reformation Heritage, 2023. Hardcover, 256 pages, $30.
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