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National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America by Michael Auslin

Why is it that today’s shepherds know little about sheep?

In this book, pastor and author James Collins takes our contemporary interpretations of Psalm 23 and sweeps them into the dustbin, then carefully crafts a new, and I would argue more radical, approach to how we should truly approach such a significant biblical passage.

Setting it in its context within the book of the Psalms, Collins reminds us that it is placed between two Messianic psalms. Certainly, David did not know who he was writing of when he spoke of the Shepherd, for it was indeed the Lord—but it was a specific Lord: the Lord Jesus, who had not yet been revealed in full when David wrote the now-famous words.

Moving beyond mere platitudes, Collins’ genius lies in his ability to combine deep theological lessons with Southern wit and personal experiences, without getting the reader lost either in the theological definitions of so many other works on theological matters or in making light of the things of God. In reality, when you read this book, a theological treatise is exactly what you are reading, yet you may well deny it, for it feels more like you are reading the reminiscences of a Southern preacher—which, in a way, you are.

Not only does Collins include everyday experiences and stories that impart rich practical meaning, but he also includes many symbolic details of which Christians today are woefully ignorant. It is easy to conclude, from reading this, that the author did massive research into the symbology behind the Lord as a shepherd, and he writes in this book of the many parallels between the needs of sheep and the tasks of the shepherd, in contrast to the needs of humans as sheep who need a master, and the tasks performed by the Shepherd and Master. Remarkably, the symbolism is neither stretched nor overdone, and the images portrayed do not go further than an explicitly biblical and orthodox interpretation.

That said, at times the book can feel overly simplified. This is by no means a fatal flaw, nor even an unexpected one given Collins’ pastoral aim, but it does raise the question of whether clarity has occasionally been purchased at the expense of depth. While the avoidance of dense theological terminology makes the work accessible, there are moments when the reader may wish for a more rigorous engagement with the underlying doctrinal issues that the text inevitably invites. Thus, my recommendation is simple: if you wish to move beyond the platitudes of normality, then this is the ideal book. If you wish to move into the profundity of theology, then this is not it. The purpose of this book is not to educate the educated, but, as I perceive it, to call the uneducated to a fuller and more accurate understanding of the truth claims of Christianity.

Collins does not offer a theological tower, but he reminds us of the base upon which such a tower must inevitably be built. It is a call for each of us to remember that only when we recognize that we are sheep can we recognize who our Shepherd is.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 12th, 2026

First Principles: What America's Founding Fathers Learned From the Greeks and Romans and How that Shaped Our Country by Thomas E. Ricks

Is it possible to remake the founders in the image of progressive liberalism? In this book, purportedly focusing on the Greeks and the Romans but using almost any excuse to move away from the actual influence of the former to illustrate examples of the founders as modern-day, anti-populist progressives focused on social welfare, author Thomas E. Ricks attempts to recast the debate of constitutionalism versus progressivism as a debate between constitutionalist progressivism and populist conservatism.

Although the author is talented and clearly understands the Greco-Roman world deeply, and although his writing style is both clear, informative, and intriguing, the opinions which he presents as facts make this book both unreliable and intellectually frustrating. He discounts, as an example, any religious influence on the founders, presenting them as thoroughly secular deists skeptical of organized religion and worshipping instead the goddess of what he labels “virtue,” as seen in the Greco-Roman world. To be clear, there is nothing wrong, per se, with his representation of the civilization of antiquity. His descriptions of Cicero, Cato, and Cincinnatus are enlightening; the problem is when he makes the startling claim not that these figures played a role in the lives of the Founders, but that nothing else did. Straining against the historical narrative, Ricks recasts the revolutionary period not as a conflict between monarchical belief and natural rights, which indeed it was, but rather as a conflict between the force of progress, which he paints in an almost Hegelian way, and the populist frenzy which he claims dominated the next century, in contrast to the founders’ desires.

Furthermore, interspersed within the narrative is a social commentary on today’s political arena which makes unsubstantiated claims, such as the assertion that white supremacy is both alive and thriving, and the claim that the current presidency of Donald Trump is comparable to the treason of Aaron Burr and something which the founders, although providing for it, would have dreaded. Also adding his personal opinion that the welfare state would have been wholeheartedly endorsed by the Founding Fathers, he makes claims about their perceptions of morality, such as asserting that they supported homosexuality and that it was only later, with the advent of religious fervor in the nineteenth century, that this came to bear a moral stigma, a claim which ignores both the religious context of the founders and the actions of the government of the time.

The richness of the Founders’ moral, philosophical, and theological influences—including the pervasive role of Protestant Christianity, Enlightenment notions of natural law, and classical republican ideals—is flattened into a single narrative of secular virtue and administrative foresight. This book illuminates the past only insofar as it is bent to mold the present; it is accurate only insofar as it can be contorted to fit the author’s preconceived worldview. While Ricks certainly quotes scholarly authorities such as Gordon Wood and Arthur Herman, giving a rich intellectual background to the founders in that they were influenced by both Scottish realism and English empiricism—though, interestingly, not English constitutionalism—Ricks quotes the founders themselves only selectively, refusing to even consider any religious or ethical considerations beyond an abstract Greek sense of virtuous living, something which, incredibly, Ricks pairs with Epicurean pleasure.

Ultimately, while informative, this book fails to achieve the mark of a serious critique or elaboration on the lives and ideas of the founding generation. The author, at the outset, has an evident bias against certain founders, such as Adams, and ignores potential critiques, circumventing them with quotes taken out of context. Additionally, although bias is an irreducible part of human nature, the excessive use of modern examples to illustrate past problems is both distracting and untrustworthy. It saddens me not to be able to give this book approved status, yet the central claims invalidate the benefits that the reader may obtain from a purely informative viewpoint.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 29th, 2026

The Absurdity of Unbelief by Jeffrey D. Johnson

Secularists are prone to portray the battle over worldview as a conflict between the outdatedness of religious belief and the science of progress, but what if this dichotomy is not only false, but completely reverses the reality of reality itself? Jeffrey D. Johnson sets out to prove in his book, The Absurdity of Unbelief, not only that Christianity is a viable alternative to the worldviews and religious dogmas of our world today, but that it is the only comprehensive system of thought that accurately relies upon the use of reason as proof, and not an obstacle to the radical claims made by the Biblical account.

To read this book does not require a degree in advanced philosophy or theological thought, though it does require a clear head, a concentrated mind, and a willing spirit, as well as a healthy dose of caffeine. Jeffrey Johnson does a masterful job not only at defending his central thesis, but at anticipating objections to it, and addressing them properly.

Beginning, in part one with a critique of the significant worldview of today, including those which would seem to the naked eye to not conflict with the truth claims of Christianity -such as Pascalian existentialism-, but which in reality are a substantive threat to the progress of the gospel.

As Johnson writes in the introduction to the book: “Because all non-Christian worldviews are indefensible, it is not sufficient for skeptics to attack Christianity without also defending the foundation for their own unbelief. Everyone has a worldview, even atheists and skeptics, but only the Christian worldview is not self-contradictory.” The author digs into the premises upon which the rival religions that threaten Christianity are based, and with Schaefferian rigor exposes them as frauds, self-contradictory theses which are indefensible from the start when we clearly identify what they state and why they state it. From naturalism to existentialism, to Nietzschean nihilism, Johnson progressively shows the decline, or devolution of these worldviews, not as coherent systems of truth, but as intellectual cul-de-sacs that collapse under the weight of their own presuppositions. When followed to their logical conclusions, Johnson argues, these systems ultimately undermine the very tools they depend upon. Naturalism erodes the basis for reason itself by its denial of a designer or law-giver; existentialism dissolves truth into subjective preference; nihilism, as articulated by figures like Friedrich Nietzsche, leaves humanity stranded in a universe devoid of meaning or moral grounding which calls into question the very reason for which they proposed their system of thought in the first place.

In part two, Johnson illuminates the truth on some of the greatest objections to systemic Christian theology; from the Trinity to the reliability of Scripture, and the bogeyman called Evil. Destroying both the dualistic Christianity which sees evil as an equal force with good -in a very Thomist way, though the author, an avowed anti-Thomist would reject the label-, and the existentialist experience-based faith that treats reality as that which is true for the inner self and ultimately leads to the Christian nihilism of figures like Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann, Johnson instead proposes the central thesis of Christianity as a revelation of reality, and reason as an instrument, and not a master of the created order. Using the presuppositional apologetics approach of Francis Schaeffer and Cornelius Van Til -a system, which, as a classical theistic apologist, I find problematic but still useful-, Johnson sheds light on the fact that the doctrines of Christianity are not simply doctrines, but facts. The Trinity, as an example, is, by necessity present, for, if God is love, and to love implies a lover and one who is loved, then it is necessary that God should have loved prior to creating us; yet who else could He love if he was not the trinitarian God presented in Scripture?

What appears mysterious, he argues, is not therefore contradictory; rather, the difficulty often lies in humanity’s limited understanding of divine realities. The doctrines critics most often dismiss as absurd, are the doctrines which provide the basis for a coherent worldview and systematic form of belief. Unbelief, and not belief, is absurd, irrational and self-destructive. The choice, argues Johnson, is not between faith and reason, not between religion and science, but between rationality and irrationality, truth and falsehood, light and darkness.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 15th, 2026

Mere Natural Law by Hadley Arkes

A critique of modern conservative jurisprudence from a legal scholar and natural law expert. Hadley Arkes makes the argument that conservatives have been failing not because they don't have good arguments to make, but because they aren't making them. We have borrowed turf from our enemies, using their legal positivism as a defense of life and constitutional liberty instead of rejecting it as wholesale nihilism in the realm of jurisprudence. It isn't working, Arkes makes clear. The solution, he argues, is not to return to the moral ambiguity of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, but to go back still further, to the Founders of our nation, who recognized that even without a Constitution, without a Bill of Rights, without a Declaration of Independence, our rights would still exist, and would still be necessarily defensible, because, ultimately, they are founded on the unchanging law of righteousness, as President Calvin Coolidge wrote.

We must stop our treatment of moral rights as if it were a question of judicial propriety. Courts cannot avoid making moral judgements; the question is not to judge or to judge not, but rather to judge rightly, or to judge wrongly; and what we base our judgements on. What the court bases its judgements on cannot be only the law of a certain state or the letter of the Constitution; rather, Arkes understands the spirit of the laws. It was the reason for which the Constitution was drafted; the reason why the colonists of our nation broke with the British Empire. It was the reason that the founders of our nation could understand the same principles as we today can and do, yet they, of course, did not have the Constitution to guide them; they had only their souls, their inner conscience, the realization that all laws come from The Law.

Arkes makes several further points, arguing strongly against a “States' rights” understanding of abortion, and rather as a fundamentally moral issue. He also spends several chapters of this book contrasting the segregation of the twentieth century with the abortion of the twenty-first, and the Supreme Court’s correct decision but with flawed reasoning on both issues. Some of the points which he makes may seem controversial to the more libertarian-minded reader; he does not hesitate to argue that the state should punish some forms of what he terms “hate speech”—including, interestingly, the use of profanity in a public setting. While this may seem polemic, Arkes defends his thesis well, and the facts and data he uses are substantive.

Ultimately, this book is one that those interested in jurisprudence and law should read with open eyes, open ears, and open hearts; we may reject some of the conclusions he arrives at, but as an intellectually rigorous work, with flawless logic, the ultimate conclusion, the end destination at which all the strings tie together, is a conclusion that is impossible to dismiss.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 7th, 2026

The Desecration of Man by Carl R. Trueman

The Hour of the Madman has arrived.

Carl Trueman once again delivers a stunning, accurate portrayal of the problems facing modern humanity. “We have killed God,” declared Nietzsche, yet we still want to be subject to His laws. No, he urges, we have unbound the earth from the sun, and we must face the consequences of our actions. If we have killed God, we must become gods ourselves. The limits, ends, and obligations given to us by this Higher Being are no longer applicable, but the only way to prove this is to desecrate Him. We must desecrate the holy, trample underfoot the limits, create our own ends, and leave unfulfilled all the obligations that have bound us to each other and to a higher purpose. Only then can we create our own sense of purpose, our own ends, limits, and obligations.

This is such an accurate portrayal of the modern age. Why is it that there has been such a viciously anti-Christian surge in recent years? Why has that which was held sacred for generations now become commonplace, even vulgar? Why does modern culture deny the basic facts of reality when they are in plain black-and-white letters, staring it in the face?

Yet when we do this, when we defy the sacred and desecrate God, Trueman argues, the end result is very simple: we desecrate ourselves as well. The limits we seek to triumph over are still limiting us. Death is an unavoidable conclusion, a fact of life; biological sex is binding, however much modern culture seeks to claim otherwise. And the cost of denying this is great. We become like the madman; we end up insane, just as Nietzsche did. We reach the bottom, the pit of nihilistic despair.

By desecrating the sacred, we have desecrated ourselves, and the only answer is once more to sanctify the God of our fathers. By doing so, we will find the answer to the question of the ages, the anthropological question: what is man?

The choice is simple. Trueman makes it clear that there is no third route, no alternative. Many have tried, but all have failed. We must either embrace the reality of the Creator of the universe, along with His teleology, or we must go the way of Nietzsche. If we deny the former, we necessarily choose the latter, and in doing so, the madman becomes the only man among us with any sanity.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

February 27th, 2026

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