Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter Paperback – 7 April 2022

I used this book for my own personal growth in my belief in Jesus ‘s resurrection and my own

Excellent

Beautiful, enthralling, and convicting. Keller at his best.The author goes into detail about the Resurrection as historical fact, citing luminaries like N.T. Wright and Dr Richard Bauckham, draws on his own experience, and looks at the Resurrection's impact on how we live our daily lives.Throughout, Keller speaks to the genuine Hope of the Gospel and God's providence over and against the banal deceits of progressivism: socialism, fascism, consumerism or technopoly. Exposing the untenable presuppositions of each and calling for greater personal and historical reflection.Calling upon Lewis, Lyotard, and others, Tim demonstrates clearly that myths of progress and materialist reductionism are profoundly and ultimately anti-human. For example, dehumanising people in the past and those now on 'the wrong side of history', without mercy, falls into a similar trap to the one that the Nazis or Communists fell into.They each worked under a similar 'progressivism' as they manoeuvred against, say, the Jews or Kulaks and used this worldview to justify shunning and even killing them.For those 'arch-villains' of history, whom we imagine ourselves to be so much better than, 'had' to 'ensure a better future' by purging those 'undesirables' or 'enemies of progress' or 'enemies of the state'. The myths condemned those who allegedly robbed the Aryans or Bolsheviks of their imagined past and fictional present. Thus, they were not to get a future. These myths are rooted in rotten philosophies and Tim covers the likes of Hegel and their crushing dialects. As Richard M. Weaver cautioned about nominalism and its fatal aftermath, ideas have consequences.The contours of our historical Christian story and Hope are so very different. We need to remind people of this promise. Jesus offers the ends and the means which free us from slavery to these ideological or technological idols.He frees us from death-cults every bit as much as He frees us from death. The Resurrection is the corner stone for the culture of life.How might we do better? Keller offers a number of ways. First however, we must follow Christ in what Paul E. Miller has called 'the J-Curve', and live through death and receive the commensurate offer of new and higher life.Tim says that we discover love and meaning not just in spite of suffering but even through it and points to the scriptures to back this up. Whether that is the death of our ego or whatever. This changes our whole mindset and timeline, which as Keller shows, is eternal. That matters. It matters for the individual, it matters for the society, and it matters for history.Moreover, our Hope for the next world enriches and transfigures how we live now as much as any plan effects how we meet our goals.Moreover, there is a rich storehouse of Biblical morality that flows from these central insights. Keller looks into that and cites scholars such as the brilliant Richard B. Hays to lay this out briefly.By grace, in Christ we are justified and will rise to new life. In the church we are deified and participate in making the world just, precisely through love. This is our personal and ultimate Hope in the risen Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.

Excellent