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| The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception | 
 enlarge | Author: John Macarthur
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Category: Book
List Price: $22.99
Buy New: $7.90
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Avg. Customer Rating:  54 reviews
Sales Rank: 66949
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
Dewey Decimal Number: 239
ASIN: B001AQY036
Publication Date: April 3, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 The importance of fighting for Truth June 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
John MacArthur is one of the most well rounded pastors in America today. He has a great understanding of the bible as well as a good knowledge base in greek, hebrew,Christian Apologetics and the history of Christianity, most of which he uses to write this book. In the Truth War John MacArthur addresses some of the key issues going on in the church today. This book is based off of the book of Jude where we are asked to contend for the faith.
The Truth War deals with the emergent church, relativism, post-modernism, apostasy, false teachers and more. As a college student I see that my generation really is suffering from a lack of understanding and a lack of willingness to comit to absolute truth. This book is a great encouragement to those who are discouraged by the direction the church is headed in.
This book does not only cover the issues stated above but shows us how as Christians we are to engage these issues. I recommend this book to all Christians.
ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! June 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
John MacArthur is among my heroes and this book is one of the examples why! He is an uncompromising voice of Truth who loves God's Word no matter the cost. This book is riveting and unsettling. It should be read by every authentic and truly regenerate Christian who is concerned by how many are being "taken captive" by lies and false doctrines - and in the church itself. I have led amazing small groups through this book and it increased our faith and challenged us to action. Thank you, John MacArthur, for being the Lord's servant. You are a beloved brother and I pray God will protect you and your family as you speak the truth in a hostile world.
Great book on discernment May 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Discernment is lacking in today's church. Mararthur does a great job expressing the need for need discernment and defending the Bible as true and relevant.
In this book we are encouraged to "earnestly defend the faith" while "teaching the TRUTH in love."
Great for Meditating on Truthiness April 30, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
If you want to understand the mind of a contemporary, mainstream Protestant fundamentalist, John MacArthur's book is an interesting read.
MacArthur's thesis is that the Bible is "pure truth"--without any error of any sort whatsoever--and that Christians, by reading it prayerfully and systematically, can arrive at absolute, certain, and final knowledge about many of the things that it says. The basis for such a thesis is supported by an appeal to various passages of scripture that assert themselves to be the "truth." In other words, MacArthur begins his book with a definition of truth that constitutes a logical fallacy: The Bible is true because the Bible tells us that it is true.
With this bit of arbitrary and tidy circular reasoning out of the way, MacArthur then proceeds to attack contemporary trends in philosophy, religion, and culture for its arbitrariness and relativism. I hope you caught that. In other words, MacArthur begins his book with an arbitrary proposition, not amenable to proof, arrived at by circular reasoning, and then proceeds to attack people who begin with different arbitrary propositions, arrived at by circular reasoning, and not amenable to proof.
In a move that Orwell would have admired, he then calls his gestures toward the Bible a commitment to "truth"--while those, such as Gnostics, Muslims, or Mormons, who might engage in identical gestures toward a different set of holy books, MacArthur calls being trapped in "falsehood."
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this book is that MacArthur subjects none of his own assumptions about the Bible to reality testing. In other words, anything that appears to disagree with the Bible is simply false (such as evolution), and anything that the Bible says that strikes you as absurd or unjust (such as the eating of forty-two children by two she-bears in II Kings) is your problem, not the Bible's. The Bible says it, so it must be true, and that settles it. This is what MacArthur means when he uses the word "truth." It is the moral equivelent of sticking your fingers in your ears and closing your eyes and singing "la, la, la" when someone is trying to reason and dialogue with you, or present you with an inconvenient fact.
The book is also cultic in tone because the author presents himself as a man who is confident in his absolute possession of truth. This is an appealing stance to doubting, insecure people, to read someone who seems so sure of himself, but this is also the way that charlatans gain psychological power over others. MacArthur also attempts to frighten the reader away from free thought and reality testing with verses that threaten apostates with damnation. Further, he maligns those who doubt Biblical inerrancy, or openly deny the inerrancy of the Bible, as doing so out of sinful motives, and not because of intellectual integrity. In other words, MacArthur uses biblical passages to engage in ad hominem attacks on his opponents without honestly addressing the substance of his opponents' positions.
Thus this book, in the way it uses scripture to bludgeon its enemies, is, deep-down, authoritarian, and an interesting study in the contemporary authoritarian mind. You are not likely to discover the truth reading this book, but you will discover what it's like to encounter the mind of an authoritarian who positions himself as one possessing dogmatic certainty, and who seems glibly free of irony, doubt, nuance, or a perceived need to reality test. It's not a pretty picture.
I wish that I was as certain of anything as John MacArthur is of everything.
 Overall - Much too Vague April 5, 2008
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
What MacArthur said regarding truth is true; it certainly is based in God and revealed in the Bible. His warnings against apostates and heresies are timely - particularly in a time when these terms have fallen out of favor under the pressure of political correctness and inclusiveness. No one can come away wondering where Dr. MacArthur stands.
Unfortunately much of MacArthur's polemic is vague and nearly pointless. Not pointless in the sense that his warnings need not be heralded, but pointless in any substantive application. His accusations are often so generic, vague, and broad-brushed they become irrelevant. Throughout the book I kept wondering, who is he talking about, what churches and what movements does he oppose... or is it all of them? For example, though he varies the nomenclature, MacArthur routinely starts phrases with "In some circles...", "The typical evangelical leader...", and "...well-known evangelical leaders..." - followed by the particular accusation. Sometimes these accusations rang believable, other times they rang rather hyperbolic- but there was no place to hang them except on the hooks your own mind created. The application of his areguments are, ironically, too subjective; if you already dislike someone - all you need do is insert their name.
Dr. MacArthur did interact with the writings of Brian Mclaren. When doing so MacArthur's arguments became much clearer, specific, and therefore relevant. He pointed our some significant flaws in McClaren's teaching. He brought to light some teachings of McClaren's that are downright unbiblical. In this, MacArthur created some very specific hooks on which to hang his arguments and applications. As well, Dr. MacArthur reviewed some ancient heresies such as Sabellianism and Arianism. Here again when he got specific he made a very good case that modern day Oneness Pentecostals are basically contemporary Sabbellianists.
These are the exceptions to the The Truth War norm. MacArthur makes veiled and passing references to Emergent Churches, but fails to define or describe who they are or what makes them "Emergent." He quotes Rob Bell in his Introduction, but fails to deliver on the anticipated interaction with Bell's beliefs. Mark Driscoll is also referenced in The Truth War but only in passing and even then it's a third-party description of Driscoll. MacArthur never quotes Driscoll directly nor makes any definitive comments himself.
Topically, MacArthur takes on homosexuality, women in the ministry, and other such issues. But like his dealing with the emerging church (I should say "Emergents" since The Truth War is void of any distinctive between Emergents and the emerging church) he speaks out against each, but never adequately deals with just who is promoting what heresy... or even what makes it a heresy in the first place.
Bottom line; this book is neither good nor bad... it's neither hot nor cold. If you're of the mind that anything postmodern is probably heretical - this book will back that up. If you think the evangelical church in America is soft and too focused on doctrinal minutia - nothing in this book will challenge you. In the Introduction Dr. MacArthur says that he has already written a complete commentary of Jude and that the work in chapters 3 and 4 prompted him to write this book. I came away feeling that he wanted to get into the mix of addressing modern day heretics and end-times false prophets - so he dusted off his commentary, hastily inserted some generic accusations and went to press. This would have been a much better book had Dr. MacArthur taken out half of the repetitive arguments in defense of truth, and inserted more original work dealing with the nuances and actualities of various evangelicals and the emerging church.
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