Website of Dr. John K. LaShell
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One of the primary
purposes of a Foreword is to suggest briefly why the book should be read. With
John LaShell’s The Beauty of God
for a Broken World, that is a very easy task. You should speed-read this
Foreword in order to get quickly to the book itself.
John perceptively, graciously
and accurately describes questions we all—whether Christian or
not—have about the world in which we live.
If God is so good and loving,
why did He command the ethnic cleansing of Canaan?
Was
God asleep when the December 2004 tsunami wiped out over 100,000 people, or
when an earthquake in Haiti killed or injured hundreds of thousands more?
Is He
on vacation every time a frustrated mother drowns her children?
These are uncomfortable
questions but they are also real, and John superbly crafts his book to show
responsible, Christ-honoring answers. He has written a remarkably practical
book.
John utilizes the biblical
and theological insights of America’s (and perhaps the world’s)
greatest theologian—Jonathan Edwards—in building toward those
answers. Edwards’s discussions of the beauty and the love of God, while
profound and biblical and directly relevant to the questions mentioned above,
can seem dauntingly theoretical to many readers. But John has made Edwards
plain, and he has done so without distorting what Edwards taught (and lived).
One
of the best aspects of this book is the way in which John offers multiple
examples to help us understand the complex matters involved. Algebra, romantic
love, human blood, a toddler banging on a piano, monarch butterflies, September
11, twins named Bart and Brent, John’s telephone number when he was a
child in California and many other such examples bring “giraffe
food” down to the place where rabbits can feast. And what a feast it is!
Beginning with the hard
questions of everyday life, John moves smoothly through the complex theology of
Edwards and brings us to see the beautiful and loving God whom both Jonathan
and John would want us to worship. At the very end, after quoting a magnificent
passage in Habakkuk 3: 17-19, John concludes with these words:
God granted Habakkuk such a
vision of His greatness, goodness and glory that his aching heart was
satisfied—no, more than satisfied. To skip like a deer on the mountains
when all you hold dear on this earth has been taken away is incomprehensible to
the heart that has not seen the Lord. Pray earnestly then, Lord, show me your beauty.
This
book shows the beauty of the Lord.
Dr.Samuel T. Logan, Jr.
Former Professor of Church
History, President and Chancellor of Westminster Theological Seminary
International Director for The World Reformed
Fellowship
Special Counsel to the
President of Biblical Seminary.
February12, 2010