Book Review: What is Wrong with the World?
Timothy Keller, What Is Wrong with the World?: The Surprising, Hopeful Answer to the Question We Cannot Avoid. Zondervan, 2025. 240 pp.
First impressions and introductions influence and form us a great deal, whether we realize it or not. I remember meeting my wife, the birth of my children, and the feeling I had when I first opened Pokémon: Blue Version all those years ago (Charmander is the only acceptable choice, of course).
Sponsored
As we all know, introductions are not limited to people or objects. They often extend to concepts and ideas. For example, as a young child, I always looked forward to the annual book fair at my local elementary school. Did I buy any books? A few, to be sure, but one year I remember being most excited about a ball with a long, colorful tail attached. Give it a good whirl with the tail, and the ball went much farther than if we had thrown it normally. For those of us who were not as athletically gifted as some of our peers, it was a neat trick.
So, my mother graciously bought it for me. Being the fun, caring, church-raised child I was, I shared my prize with friends during recess. I even shared it with a classmate I did not normally play with. After all, Jesus commanded us to be generous, did he not (Luke 6:38; Acts 20:35)?
Tragically for me, he quickly threw the ball onto the roof of my elementary school and laughed about it. The teacher quickly disciplined my classmate, but the ball was lost forever. To my knowledge, it remains there to this day.
Sin, The Problem We Cannot Escape
This is one of my first memories of dealing with the problem of this world: Sin. Sin is both simple and nuanced. Sin is an action. When we do things contrary to God’s Law, we sin. Yet the first mention of sin, found in Genesis 4:7, describes Sin as “crouching at the door” and says its “desire is for you.”
How can something I do have a “desire” for me? How does it “crouch at the door?” These are just a few of the many questions that arise when talking about sin. When I first served in ordained ministry as a youth pastor, students frequently bombarded me with the classic, “Is this a sin?” question. I was happy to answer, but I wanted to explain sin as more than a simple list of dos and don’ts, and I struggled to find a way forward.
Keller on the Anatomy of Sin
How I wish I had had Timothy Keller’s recent book, What Is Wrong with the World? As Keller died in 2023, this volume is not a new manuscript but a posthumously published collection of sermons from his early years at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. Edited by his wife, Kathy Keller, the sermons gather Keller’s sustained reflections on the nature of sin: what it is, how it grows, how it distorts our loves, and why it leaves human beings feeling so uprooted in the world.
In it, Keller shows us a master at work. These sermons present sin in a theologically rich, pastorally sensitive, and accessible way while still giving readers something to meditate on.
For example, one quote from the book has stayed with me: “Sin is the suicidal action of the self harming the self.” How many times have I thought I knew best when, in reality, I was harming myself? Or, perhaps even worse, I knew I was doing wrong, and yet I did it anyway. Often, I am my own worst enemy. While Satan is the Father of Lies (John 8:44), the blame for my sin does not rest solely on him. I still chose, and often still choose, to listen to him instead of my Savior. I know eating a box of cookies from my pantry at night isn’t healthy for me, but I do it anyway.
An Anglican Resonance
Here, too, our Anglican tradition gives language that complements Keller’s. To be a Christian is to refuse to shrink sin to a checklist; it confesses that “sin has corrupted human nature, inclining me to resist God, to ignore his will, and to care more for myself than for my neighbors.” That word inclining does quiet, heavy lifting. Sin is not only the wrong thing I do; it is the bent of the one doing it. The Thirty-Nine Articles press this even further. Article IX, “Of Original or Birth-Sin,” teaches that original sin is “the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man,” a corruption by which we are “of [our] own nature inclined to evil.”
Most striking of all, the article insists that “this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated.” Suddenly, the strange grammar of Genesis 4:7 makes sense. Sin can crouch and desire because sin is not merely an act I commit; it is an infection I carry, a thing with appetite, lurking even in the baptized. Keller’s “suicidal action of the self” and Cranmer’s “infection of nature” describe the same wound from two angles.
Some Anglican Echoes
Any book that calls attention to the problem of sin is welcome in our society today. We are sinners in need of a Savior. The Church must never tire of repeating these words, whether in print, from the pulpit, or across the dinner table.
Additionally, Anglican readers specifically have much to smile at. Though a devout Presbyterian, Keller’s wider work shows his deep admiration for the Anglican tradition, especially figures like J. I. Packer and the cadences of the Book of Common Prayer. Because these are sermons, Anglican references are few and far between, but those that surface will no doubt make readers proud. C. S. Lewis is frequently pressed into service (especially The Abolition of Man), and even the Prayer Book tradition glimmers through in quieter moments, as when Keller reaches for the solemn marriage vow, “with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you,” to demonstrate giving all of yourself to God.
“We Are Not Worthy”
As wonderful as Keller’s new book is, I found myself wishing he had lingered more on how Christians respond to sin. He rightly calls us to Christ, but as an Anglican I also thought of confession to a priest, corporate confession, and the theology of mercy at the heart of the Prayer of Humble Access and Holy Communion.
Article IX’s hard sentence about the regenerate becomes a strange comfort here. If the infection remains in the baptized, the Christian life cannot be a one-time transaction; it must be a daily return. The ACNA’s Anglican Catechism asks, “Are you still affected by your sin, despite God’s forgiveness?” and answers yes: sin still harms our relationship with God and others, leaving us “in constant need of Christ’s healing grace.” That is not despair but realism with a remedy. Forgiveness pardons the act; sanctification heals the inclination beneath it.
The Prayer Book gives us the posture for that return. Kneeling before Communion, we confess that we “are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under [His] table,” while trusting the Lord “whose character is always to have mercy.” There it is: the infection that remains, and the mercy that meets us at the rail. Keller would not disagree; I only wish the sermons had lingered there, where diagnosis becomes a means of grace.
Fighting the Good Fight Against Sin
This book called my attention to the sin in my life and reminded me that, as an Anglican, I should never take for granted the rich ways I can humbly acknowledge my dependence upon Christ. The next time you pray the Daily Office, do not rush through the confession. Take your time and think about all the sins you have committed and how desperately you need a Savior. If you have never confessed your sins to a priest, I encourage you to do so.
Sin is a problem we will all wrestle with until we reach the New Heavens and the New Earth. Let us, as Anglicans, join Dr. Keller in What is Wrong with the World? and fight the good fight against Sin in our lives. I, for one, am thankful for a book that graciously gives me new tools for the fight and reminds me of the ones I already have.
Image: What is Wrong with the World? © 2025 Zondervan.
The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Book Review)
Phillip Cary’s The Nicene Creed: An Introduction is a joyful initiation into the holy mysteries of the catholic faith. Cary’s Introduction guides the reader through the logic and language of the Church’s most significant Creed. For those unfamiliar with the articles of Nicene faith, Cary shows how the Nicene Creed is the means by which…
Book Review: Tim Keller on the Christian Life by Matt Smethurst
Matt Smethurst, Tim Keller on the Christian Life: The Transforming Power of the Gospel. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2025. 240 pp. $27.99 (hardcover). ISBN 978-1-4335-9619-3. As a best-selling author and pastor in the heart of New York City, Tim Keller modeled a faith not threatened by intellectual inquiry but enriched by it. In this short, approachable…
