‘Urban Legends of Theology’ is a profoundly useful book for a wide audience. Pastors and seasoned saints can, like I have, become overconfident that they wouldn’t fall prey to urban legends, especially if they’ve spent years in theological study. This book can also serve the church well as an early introduction to theological thinking. Newer believers and prospective teachers can observe the precision Wittmer uses in making arguments and thus learn to carefully approach challenging doctrinal questions.

“God will never give me more than I can handle.”
The grieving spouse sighed in resignation as we sat together preparing for a funeral.
The moment didn’t call for theological precision, so I turned the conversation to prayer; however, I left the room saddened by the reliance on a theological urban legend during a time of loss. God’s Word has so much more for us than these common misconceptions allow.
In Michael Wittmer’s book Urban Legends of Theology: 40 Common Misconceptions, he examines false beliefs in light of Scripture. As a pastor, professor, and author of many books, Wittmer brings a wealth of experience to the task.
The book covers an array of issues in four sections: (1) God and theological methods, (2) humanity and sin, (3) Jesus and salvation, (4) the church and last things. Wittmer’s consistent pastoral sensitivity guides his theological precision as he serves as both myth buster and caretaker of the soul.
Confronts Obvious Problems
According to Wittmer, an urban legend is “something popularly believed—in the church or culture or both—that is not true” (xi). Some of these legends rob us of peace and joy, while others have more damaging consequences for our souls.
Urban legends of theology range widely. Wittmer argues against heady assertions like “doctrine doesn’t matter” and more practical contentions like “God helps those who help themselves.” He undermines the culture’s rejection of shame and dismantles the myth that Jesus never addressed homosexuality.
Constructively, Wittmer weaves his robust theology of creation through the chapters. This positive work is necessary because many of the urban legends relate to the nature of this world and truths about death, heaven, and the new creation. Preachers and teachers will be helped to avoid errors common among evangelical believers.
Corrects Subtle Errors
As I read this book, my own theology didn’t escape correction. My heart experienced “oomph!” moments as I recognized urban legends that have accumulated in my theology.
For example, the book critiques the myth that Christians are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. As Wittmer writes, “Paul does not use the body metaphor to depict the church’s witness to the world (as the hands and feet of Jesus) but to describe our mutual belonging and interdependence” (226).
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We hear that hate and inhumanity in the throngs of people chanting “Gas the Jews!” outside the Sydney Opera House. We watch it as privileged 20-somethings aggressively tear down Israeli hostage posters. We witness it as U.S. members of Congress refuse to condemn the ruthless murders of 1,300 Jewish civilians. The war resulting from the Hamas attack is a reminder of a world befallen by sin and sadness—that the sin that entered the world through one man still flourishes today. We are, so it seems, doomed to repeat the darkest elements of history until Jesus returns. 

In a terrifying scene at the Dagestan airport in Russia, pro-Palestinian crowds stormed an airplane carrying passengers from Tel Aviv. More than 20 people were injured, 60 were arrested, and flights from Tel Aviv to Dagestan are suspended indefinitely. 
Elsewhere in the world, at Cornell University, police are investigating a series of online threats against Jewish students, prompting the school to hire extra security for the Jewish Center and kosher dining hall.
Two weeks ago, 40-year-old Rabbi Samantha Woll was murdered outside her home in cold blood, and synagogues across the country are doubling up on security measures in the face of rising and blatant antisemitism. 
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has recorded 312 antisemitic acts between Oct. 7 and Oct. 23 alone, and the group reports that such acts are up by 388 percent since 2022. 
In the streets of New York City, London, and Washington D.C., among others, activists rally to support Hamas’ bloody attacks on Israeli civilians, calling them “freedom fighters” as reports of murdered families, beheaded babies, and tortured hostages continue to roll in. 
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Written by David S. Steele |
Sunday, June 25, 2023
Bunyan’s pedigree was among the lowest of the low.  Indeed, he was an everyday “Joe!”  But God rescued him from his sin and used the British tinker as a powerful instrument in God’s hands! Who would have thought that as he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress from a Bedford jail that it would become the number two best seller in the world?  

What is the rationale for unearthing the dead guys?  In his introduction to Athanasius’s masterpiece, On the Incarnation (a book written over 1,600 years ago), C.S. Lewis discusses the propensity of many people to gravitate to the new when all the while neglecting the old: “This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology.”  He goes on to describe the reason he advises people to select the old over the new.  The reason is this: “… He is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet.  A new book is still on trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it.  It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to the light.”  So Lewis essentially argues that most people simply do not have sufficient resources to sift through the sludge of contemporary writing.  Thus, he is vulnerable to worldviews that are spiritually dangerous.
Lewis rightly says that every culture is unique.  Each culture comes with a certain amount of baggage that does not square with Scripture.  So he makes an appeal to old books, what I call reading the dead guys: “We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period.  And that means the old books.”
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