Oval Forum

Bryce Wenger

  • Five lies of our anti christian age

    Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age [Rosaria Butterfield]

    This month we’re looking at “Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age,” by Rosaria Butterfield. No doubt many readers are already familiar with Butterfield, the former lesbian activist and tenured professor, now an author, pastor’s wife, and homeschool mom. (For those who are interested, she recounted her powerful story of coming…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  3 min read

  • Fight like a man

    Fight Like a Man [Emeal Zwayne]

    The epidemic of Christians consuming pornography is one of the defining failures of our time. While lust has always been a besetting sin, the convergence of smartphones, the internet, and the ethics of the sexual revolution have created a perfect storm. Over the years, I’ve reviewed a number of good…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  3 min read

  • Fault lines

    Fault Lines [Voddie Baucham]

    Along with reviewing Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice earlier this year, I’ve been reading a number of books related to Social Justice and Critical Race Theory. This month, we look at Fault Lines, a recent book by Voddie Baucham. For those unfamiliar, Voddie Baucham is a pastor, professor,…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  2 min read

  • Encountering god through expository preaching

    Encountering God Through Expository Preaching [Brian Payne; Jim Scott Orrick; Ryan Fullerton]

    Think of a time when you have experienced the power and presence of God. (Perhaps a time of prayer, or singing, or solitude in nature.) Often, however, we experience God through his Word – and specifically the preached Word. Have you ever asked yourself, “How did the preacher know I…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  2 min read

  • Disappearing church

    Disappearing Church [Mark Sayers]

    Christianity laid the foundation of Western society, but cultural shifts have left the church looking more like an eccentric great-uncle: outdated, embarrassing, and unacceptable. In Disappearing Church, Mark Sayers chronicles the church’s many attempts to regain popularity and prominence, but also explains why they won’t work. Sayers challenges us to…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  2 min read

  • Digital liturgies

    Digital Liturgies [Samuel James]

    When was the last time you were more than fifty feet from your smartphone? I’m just old enough to remember a time when people would have replied, “What’s a smartphone?” But, it’s time we reckon with the reality that we don’t live in that world any longer. In many ways…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  2 min read

  • Dear daughter

    Dear Daughter: Letters From the Father’s Heart [Dorcas Stutzman]

    This month’s review looks at Dear Daughter: Letters from the Father’s Heart, women’s devotional book written by Dorcas Stutzman. Together, Dorcas and her husband Steve Stutzman run a counseling ministry called Strait Paths Foundation and travel the country singing and teaching in Anabaptist communities. Along the lines of the popular…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  3 min read

  • Closing the window

    Closing the Window: Steps to Living Porn Free [Tim Chester]

    There is a cancer – pornography – metastasizing in the Church today. And our silence, our failure to diagnose only helps strengthen porn’s grip and weaken those struggling in our midst. In Closing the Window: Steps to Living Porn Free, Tim Chester takes a straightforward look at the porn plague,…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  2 min read

  • Christianity and liberalism

    Christianity and Liberalism [J. Gresham Machen]

    It’s tempting to feel that the problems of our own age are somehow different from any other, that Christianity faces a unique battle in this post-truth world. When we feel that temptation, we do well to look back at history. This month we look back at Christianity and Liberalism, written…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  2 min read

  • Version 1.0.0

    Christ’s Kingdom Commission [David Anderson]

    In our politicized times, it’s not uncommon to hear an evangelical leader throw their support behind some political measure to save religious liberty or to preserve Christian values. And to be honest, the dinnertime conversation of your average Anabaptist might not be much different. Christ’s Kingdom Commission by David Anderson…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  2 min read

  • Generic book review cover

    Christ’s Atonement of Blood [Chris Good]

    If you read the FCM Informer, you should have received a copy of Christ’s Atonement of Blood, by Chris Good, in your mailbox recently. Good wrote this paper fifteen years ago, but FCM recently published it in booklet form because “the atonement issue has re-emerged as an even more important…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  2 min read

  • Can we trust the gospels

    Can We Trust the Gospels? [Peter J. Williams]

    Do you ever question whether the Bible is true? If not, you ought to; everything hinges on it. To be sure, I don’t mean to stir up doubt, but any truth worth believing should stand up to scrutiny. When it does stand, we can confidently stake our life on it.…

    Bryce Wenger

    August 14, 2025  ·  3 min read