Book Review – Salvation and Sovereignty by Dr. Kenneth Keathley

Though published just a few months ago, Dr. Keathley’s Salvation and Sovereignty – A Molinist Approach is a book I’ve been searching for since 1999. It was then that I first really engaged on the subject of Calvinism with an advocate of the approach, whom I was partnered with in ministry. We were co-chaplains of Roush Racing, one of the elite NASCAR teams. We had traveled to the Saturday night Richmond race together, and following the race (Tony Stewart won), drove back to Charlotte directly in hopes for an hour and a half of sleep before church. During that car trip, my friend argued for a Calvinist view of salvation with me. He was a seminary trained principal of his church’s school. Although I did not become a Christian until adulthood, I was your typical “grassroots” Southern Baptist. I had studied the Bible, and memorized verses, but had not ever really engaged my mind with the Calvinist approach. Upon hearing the T-U-L-I-P acrostic and their meanings, three I could buy, but two I couldn’t. But, as Paige Patterson points out in his Foreword, though the Reformed systemization was appealing, there were “disturbing implications” of the approach.