Experiencing the Trinity - Darrell Johnson
This book was assigned for my men's group homework as we're studying some theology, particularly the doctrine of the Trinity. It's a short book, barely over 100 pages long, and was adapted from a series of sermons given by Johnson in 1998. There are definitely parts that I think work better as sermon than as printed book: Johnson tends to repeat phrases and sentences, and gets particularly stuck on one which starts to grate after a while. It's plain to see that he is very enthusiastic about the Trinity and is really excited to share it, but the combination of poor editing and repetition makes me feel like he's trying to teach theology to a sixth-grader.
The first part of the book, where he explains the three persons of the Trinity and some of the common heresies surrounding it, contained some illustrations I hadn't heard before and were all right. But then he finds his favorite sentence, and the rest of the book is just wrapped up in repeating it with slight variations. For the record, this sentence is from Thomas Torrance's Trinitarian Perspectives, and here it is: "God draws near to us in such a way as to draw us near to himself." Hey, it's a nice sentence, and I'm sure (since this is on the second page of Torrance's own book) that Torrance probably does a nice job of fleshing it out. It's just strange that Johnson relies so heavily on this one sentence from someone else's book. I think if I want to learn a bit more about the Trinity, I may check out Torrance's book instead. Johnson may be a good preacher, but I don't care for his writing.
Fed to jonathan's brain | February 17, 2005
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