I do hope and pray that I write is edifying rather than critical...
As probably with some others in this forum (I imagine), served at Redeemer NYC in the 1990's, and have been personally blessed to have sat under and learned from Dr. Keller's wisdom. Many of my own thoughts have been shaped by things and analogies that he has given from the pulpit.
What I also appreciate, is that the original vision of Redeemer was the anti-mega church model which was have the "mother-ship" plant churches all over, and not have the main person become the star, etc. Something a lot of other mega-churches now a days don't even think about tnat - as "Solomon's palaces" are being built all over to support the numbers.
I also know for years, magazines like Christianity Today when doing the annual "most popular pastor pool" (totally unbiblical but we'll not digress), Dr. Keller would refuse to send his photo in and be part of that kind of circus. So again, lot of respect for that man.
Now at the monthly leaders meetings (open to all to come), I recall visibly cringing when he was expounding some of his thoughts there, especially in regards to evolution. I remember asking myself, why open up this can of worms and confuse people (ie: your own leaders) about Biblical creation? I could accept his thoughts that maybe the world isn't like 10,000 years old or whatever the literal number is calculated from Genesis, but why throw in evolution as a "possibility" which could undermine even the doctrine of original sin if thought through completely.
I know also that what came out of the pulpit was rarely "controversial" in terms of the harder Gospel content, and a major subject like hell was never talked about when I was there. The preaching was great in terms of examining the true idols of our hearts like greed, pride, etc which in the NYC/Wall Street context is a good thing to hit. But someone like a Paul Washer, probably would not be allowed to have spoken there let's say because his Gospel presentation would have been a bit harder for the folks to sit through.
Now, I haven't been at Redeemer for over a decade at this point, as I had moved on to other daughter church plants as per Dr. Keller's own directive, so I do not know how things have changed. But I do know that he is a man of God, and greatly used, and no one has perfect theology (not even Spurgeon did, sorry), and perhaps it is a good thing (for him) to be challenged by a book like this, since the podcast said that he actually read the criticism which is the same that I had in my time there.
