Writer of Fancy: The Playful Piety of Jane Austen

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

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History: A cheer for Thomas Reid

Thomas Reid’s “commonsense realism” gets beat up a lot, especially in contemporary evangelicalism.  But in their history of the Bible in modern culture, Harrisville and Sundberg point (with some unnecessarily pejorative language) to some of the accomplishments of Reid’s philosophy in American church life and theology:

“For three generations, commonsense realism helped to negotiate the thorny paradox of teaching divine election and human depravity while at the same time affirming American optimism in the great experiment of a new nation founded on Enlightenment ideals.  It did so by aiding theology in teaching that the common man, listening to the preaching of the church, is capable by the use of reason of assessing the full scope of his moral predicament as a lost creature under the judgment of God who has nowhere to turn but to the love of Christ.  Commonsense realism thus helped to accommodate Augustinian faith  to the peculiarities of the American mission field, thereby making the heritage of the Reformation accessible to a broad public.  Doctrinal rigorists might argue the differences between ‘consistent’ Calvinism and ‘Arminian’ tendencies in the rhetoric of conversion, but such conflicts pale in comparison to the pervasive consensus of American evangelicalism that minimized denominational differences, preached the sovereignty of God, shared in the exuberance of the revivalist tradition, and held to the conviction that America was a chosen nation.”

Reconciling Augustine with the American frontier in a way that promotes inter-denominational consensus - that is no mean achievement.