I am currently finishing Leland Ryken’s biography on J.I. Packer: An Evangelical Life. The biography is a non-critical approach to Packer’s life and ministry, allowing Packer to be the voice in the biography. For those who enjoy understanding the prominent figures in church history, I would recommend the book. Here are two quotes from the book for thought. The parenthesis gives the page number.

“Spiritual health is analogous to physical health; listening to teaching and preaching is like eating a meal; ‘spiritual anorexia (not taking in the food we need) and spiritual bulimia (not letting ourselves digest it after we have received it however large the quantities) will keep us from real spiritual health.” (228)

I close with this sober assessment.

“Christianity in all its forms has lost its grip on the West, which now leads the world in materialistic, relativistic, and hedonistic secularization. … The size of its abortion industry is the measure of its paganism. The global culture that has established itself is not a Christian ideology but a technological monster. … Our era has turned into an age of atrocity, in which the barbarian obscenities of terrorism, genocide, torture, and religious and political persecution have re-established themselves on a grander scale than ever before.” (229-230)