World According to God

This is a bold, witty, deep, fun, challenging, entertaining, informative book, if you can picture all that. A major theme is that a relationship with God is about more than personal devotions. Influenced by figures like Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer and RC Sproul, Greg makes a powerful case for Christianity as a comprehensive life system. If you want to know what a toaster is supposed to do, he argues, you look to its creation. Why was it made? What was the original intent? It was created to make toast. Creation sets the pattern.Similarly, Johnson argues, homo sapiens were created to work, marry, learn, relate, talk, etc. Looking at the creation account in Genesis 1-3 (and the theme of God's good creation order as it's carried throughout scripture), he argues that our prime directive as human beings is to establish human civilization to the glory of God. Sin has devastated this original creation pattern, but the good news of salvation in Christ reorients the believer back into the original design. Work, sex, art, education, the sciences and technology--all are callings from God. Salvation is not an escape from this world, but a reorientation back to it and its creator.If most of the book focuses on how creation started, Johnson ends the book by looking at how it will end: not with destruction, but with restoration. God's presence descends to a renewed earth. We aren't going to heaven; heaven is coming to us. At history's end, all the nations bring their greatest cultural accomplishments--their 'glories'--into that city of God (Rev 21). In Greg's words, the Mona Lisa is going to heaven, as is Baker furniture, the Arc de Triomphe, the 57 Chevy and Thai food. The earth will be liberated from its bondage to decay (Rom 8), and God's people will inherit the earth. The big difference is that the garden will end as a city, the years of human dominion having been redeemed so that civilization stands and is offered to God as worship.This is a far more compelling vision for civilization than any other out there: Christian, Muslim, or secularist.Greg's book is filled with scripture. Different chapters deal with topics lile sexuality, culture, work, education and communication, as well as topics like sin, suffering and death, God, and how people should view themselves. Johnson's wells run deep (he's a PhD Candidate in historical theology), and the section on God's selfishness will leave you silent before God. Other sections, though, will leave you rolling with laughter. The book carries endorsements from Bryan Chapell (Covenant Seminary) and Phil Graham Ryken (10th Pres, Philly).This is really an introduction to Christian theology and the Christian life, but written for the average guy. It's written for people who might not buy "theology" books--a reflection on life in God's world as God's image. Johnson does popular theology, and his perspective is conservative, evangelical and Reformed. But he's contextualized theology for a postmodern audience--biblica