And, we’re back. After a long break, Mere Fidelity returns with a doozy. We invited Joshua Ryan Butler on to talk about his new book The Skeletons in God’s Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, and the Hope of Holy War.
Listen in to our conversation and if you’re still not persuaded you should read the book, check out Derek’s review of it. Then go ye forth, take up, and read.
If you enjoyed the show (AND ONLY IF), leave us a review at iTunes. If you didn’t enjoy the show, let us know and we’ll work to make it better. Or we’ll ignore you. And if you want to subscribe by RSS, you can do that here.
Finally, as always, follow Derek, Alastair, and Andrew for more tweet-sized brilliance.
I added this book to my wishlist off a recommendation from Twitter, but forgot who. It was probably Derek and TGC! I got it for Christmas and finished it a little while ago. I thought it was great. It confirmed and strengthened my view of Hell and opened my eyes to how scripture talks about heaven and earth so much. The take on holy war was good too, it snapped that narrative into place, where it fits nicely with what I know of God’s character otherwise. The take on judgement was challenging, to be sure. It’s funny, at one point he claimed he doesn’t think the “who’s in?” question will depend on our evangelistic efforts. To me, this was simultaneously the logical conclusion of reformed election and a challenge to assurance of the saints. I like that about death and judgment, we can say with hope, “we don’t know, but God is good and we can trust him.” I might have to reread that part and think about it more.
I will listen to this this week. :)
Thanks so much Bethany! Really grateful for the feedback, and so glad you checked out the book and found it helpful.
[…] being on one of my favorite all-time podcasts Mere Fidelity–you can check out the podcast here, where we talk about The Skeletons in God’s Closet, tackling hell, judgment and holy war. And […]
[…] Fidelity has finally returned after a very long break. On this week’s podcast Derek, Andrew, Matt, and I are joined by Joshua Ryan Butler, to discuss his latest book, The […]