Review - Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters
Timothy Keller (Author)
Binding: Hardcover
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Penguin (Dutton)
ISBN#: 9780525951360
Review by – Joe Fleener
“Description: The New York Times bestselling author of The Reason for God and The Prodigal God and a nationally renowned minister, Timothy Keller exposes the error of making good things “ultimate” in his latest book, and shows readers a new path toward a hope that lasts.
Success, true love, and the life you’ve always wanted. Many of us placed our faith in these things, believing they held the key to happiness, but with a sneaking suspicion they might not deliver. The recent economic meltdown has cast a harsh new light on these pursuits. In a matter of months, fortunes, marriages, careers, and a secure retirement have disappeared for millions of people. No wonder so many of us feel lost, alone, disenchanted, and resentful. But the truth is that we made lesser gods of these good things —gods that can’t give us what we really need. There is only one God who can wholly satisfy our cravings— and now is the perfect time to meet him again, or for the first time.
The Bible tells us that the human heart is an “idol- factory,” taking good things and making them into idols that drive us. In Counterfeit Gods, Keller applies his trademark approach to show us how a proper understanding of the Bible reveals the unvarnished truth about societal ideals and our own hearts. This powerful message will cement Keller’s reputation as a critical thinker and pastor, and comes at a crucial time—for both the faithful and the skeptical.”
Purchase from Monergism or Grace Books
Watch a YouTube Video of Keller giving some background to the book here.
You can watch a video of Keller delivering his recent lectures @ The Washington National Cathedral on Counterfeit Gods here.
Like Keller’s previous two books, The Reason for God, and The Prodigal God, this book is quite excellent and highly recommended.
In this book, possibly more than either of the other two, Keller shows himself to be familiar with an incredibly wide range of issues, literature, and fields of study. Keller has established himself as one of the more important voices in Evangelicalism as a capable communicator (written or spoken), thinker, and evaluator of current cultural trends.
In this book, however, he models for all of us 1) how to effectively communicate the truths of Scripture, particularly the narrative portions of the Old Testament and the Gospels, in such a way that the historical purpose of the passage is made clear and we are left standing before the Cross of Christ captured by the Gospel and 2) to apply the Gospel from all of Scripture directly to those sins most seriously plaguing Western culture, the church, and Christians today.
Keller argues that idolatry is a matter of the heart and not (nor was it ever) limited to the use of physical statues, bowing in homage, etc. Idolatry is simply when we take a good thing and make it an ultimate thing in our lives. God is to be ultimate and anything that replaces Him as ultimate in our lives is an idol.
As he dissects some of the more powerful idols of our hearts today, he does so by weaving in the stories of real people who have succumbed to such idols, historical evidence of the destruction of such idols, philosophical ideologies which feed of such idols; all the while pointing the reader back to Scripture and the Gospel of Christ as the only answer for any and every idol of the heart.
“Idols cannot be removed from our hearts/lives, they must be replaced.” And Christ is the only answer for our sin filled lives.
Like The Reason for God, I am disappointed in Keller’s lack of discernment in granting support to a theistic view of evolution. He seems determined not only to not address the issue, but to continue to claim that one’s view on this subject is not important. The Genesis account of creation and evolutionary theory could both be right, and in the end it probably doesn’t matter a whole lot. (my paraphrase)
With that one caution I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
While sailing the Atlantic to reunite with his wife after the death of their girls, he penned the beloved hymn, It Is Well with My Soul (the original manuscript is pictured to the right).
