Christian theology

Review: The Pursuit of Safety

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Cover image of "The Pursuit of Safety" by Jeremy Lundgren

The Pursuit of Safety (Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture), Jeremy Lundgren. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514008010) 2024.

Summary: A theology of safety as creational good, tempered by what living by faith means in a world never free of risk.

If you’ve been a parent, it is an instinct to care for your child’s safety. You look out for physical danger, illnesses, and stranger danger. However, any honest parent will also admit that despite one’s best and most diligent efforts, our kids get cuts, bruises, break bones, get sick, and sometimes encounter harm from others. And what’s true for our kids is true for ourselves. In fact, the pursuit of safety is often a reflection of our sense of the precarity of life.

Jeremy Lundgren explores that tension and then does something not often done. He thinks theologically about the creational good of safety and the realities of risk and danger in our lives. Lundgren begins by noting the signposts or tokens of safety-consciousness in our modern culture and the tension in parenting between protecting children and helping them develop resilience and independence. He distinguishes between absolute safety, an ideal often striven for but found only in Christ, and ordinary safety.

Part Two considers the sources of risk throughout history. In the pre-modern era, the danger was posed by the various gods believed to inhabit the world, and life involved negotiating one’s way to stay on their right side. In early modernity, the risk was from nature, particularly as we moved from an enchanted to disenchanted world. Everything from micro-organisms to the laws of physics posed danger to be reckoned with. Finally, in late modernity, humanity becomes the risk. Examples include environmental, lifestyle, medical, interpersonal, economic, criminal, and political risks.

Part Three, then, turns to the avoidance of harm. These include probabilistic tools reflecting our ability to anticipate the future. Yet our faith calls us to live in light of God’s promises as we prepare, but without anxiety. In addition, we resort to technological tools (consider seat belts and air bags). Yet such means may also be idolatrous and can end up controlling us. In contrast, Lundgren explores the right ordering of technology under Christ rather than under autonomous humans (or even artificial Intelligence!). Third, he considers the rise of proceduralism in accident prevention, especially in workplaces. The problem is that proceduralism, while reducing the number of accidents, cannot eliminate them. We cannot always foresee what will cause an accident until it occurs. In contrast, Lundgren commends the wisdom of both Mosaic law and Ecclesiastes, along with means for forgiveness and reparation, when accidents occur.

In the final part of the book, Lundgren turns to reflecting on what safety means for disciples of Jesus. Fundamental to discipleship is the way of the cross. Jesus speaks of losing our lives to save them. Thus, safety can only be truly understood on the other side of the cross. The way of the cross means risk and danger–and the promise of life! So for Lundgren, we can only understand safety within the wider context of following Jesus. Safety is only a proximate and not an ultimate good. We live both prudently and by faith. We keep safety in its place.

I appreciate the tension Lundgren maintains throughout between the creational good of safety and the impossibility of absolute safety apart from Christ. Ultimately, following Jesus is more important than being safe. Christian faith offers a basis for prudent care for both our and others’ well-being out of love rather than anxiety or mere economic calculations.

As a former leader in a Christian ministry, we were trained to assess and mitigate risk in mission-related activities. A case study applying his theological analysis to a risk management scenario might have been helpful to many readers in similar real life situations.

That said, I appreciated this thoughtful exploration of our culture of safety and how we engage with this as disciples walking in the way of the cross,

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: To Gaze Upon God

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Cover image of "To Gaze Upon God" by Samuel G. Parkison

To Gaze Upon God, Samuel G. Parkison. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514007662) 2024.

Summary: An exploration of the importance of the beatific vision in scripture and church history and its contemporary significance.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure” (I John 3:1-3, New International Version).

As a young Christian reading through scripture, this passage stopped me in my tracks. It told me that a day was coming where I would see Christ as he is, in all his glory. What’s more, it assured me I would be like him and that this was a great motive for cleaning up my act in this life. What I caught a glimpse of in that day is the beatific vision that is the telos or end toward which our lives as followers of Jesus is directed. As a result, it gave me an intense motivation to grow in Christ-likeness. I’ve likened it to preparations for my wedding day. I wanted to look my best and be my best for the woman I was marrying! And so it is with Jesus.

In To Gaze Upon God, Samuel G. Parkison retrieves for the contemporary church a doctrine that has given comfort and joy to Christians through the ages. He begins by asking what is the beatific vision. Parkison observes that as creatures in the image of God, we exist from, through, and to him. He is our source, our life, and our end. And this end is nothing less than to “dwell in the house of the Lord” and to “gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. It is this one thing for which the Psalmist asks in Psalm 27:4.

Parkison then devotes a chapter to elaborating that vision. First he considers the Old Testament theophanies and promises of the beatific vision. Then he considers a number of New Testament passages including the Transfiguration and the passage cited above. In conclusion, he argues that the desire for the beatific vision is good and godly. Not only this, it is seeing “the invisible,” connects with our faith in this life, and walks hand in hand with our transformation. Finally, we fully realize the beatific vision in the resurrection.

Then Parkison turns in two chapters to consider the “cloud of witnesses: through church history, dividing between those pre-Reformation, and those who were Reformation or post-Reformation. Gregory of Nyssa wrestles with the incomprehensibility of God and for him we ever thirst, find satiation that only feeds our thirst. Many wrestle with in what sense we “see” God, culminating in the ideas of Aquinas of not merely physical, but spiritual sight. Among the reformers, he considers Calvin, the Lutheran Gerhard, Turretin, Owen, and Edwards. While each of those considered offer rich nuances and some critical differences on the doctrine of the beatific vision, Parkison traces a continuity throughout church history in this doctrine.

Some contemporary commentators note a fault line between Aquinas and Owen. Aquinas focuses on knowing the essence of God, Owen on the vision of God in Christ. However, Parkison seeks to reconcile the two through the doctrine of inseparable operations. He writes,

“Therefore, it seems best to conceptualize the beatific vision as a vision of the divine essence in the person and work of Christ, the incarnate Son, by the illuminating and gracious operating principle of the Spirit as the eternal divine subsistence of the Father and Son’s love. The beatific vision, in other words, is made possible by the inseparable operations of the Trinity, and is therefore a truly trinitarian vision. We shall behold the glory of God in his essence, and we shall behold this glory in the face of Jesus Christ by the unveiling and illumining ministry of the Holy Spirit” (p. 156)

Parkison also offers his own take on a number of the questions explored in his historical survey.

All of this is toward an evangelical retrieval of the doctrine of the beatific vision. In a concluding chapter, Parkison considers the implication of the beatific vision for prayer, worship, missions, sin and sanctification, suffering, and our communion with one another. He longs to enliven Christians in all of life by this vision. In a postscript, he argues that the beatific vision tells a better story in the context of global Christianity.

I found this work both devotionally and theologically rich. For evangelicalism that is so earthly minded that it is no heavenly (or earthly) good, it offers a vital corrective. I do believe our fascination with political power reflects the paucity of our vision of Jesus. Likewise for our fascination with health and prosperity gospels. We exist to gaze upon God, and to reflect what we see in the world. Now we do so but dimly, but one day, face to face, in the new creation. We all live toward some vision. Is it toward the beatific vision? This book lifts our eyes toward our beautiful Lord.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Hope for God’s Creation

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Hope for God’s Creation: Stewardship in an Age of Futility, Andrew J. Spencer.Brentwood, TN: B & H Academic, 2023.

Summary: A theology of creation care that grounds an ethic of stewardship and hopeful practice, anticipating the new creation.

Many Christians in the evangelical community are either cautious or even skeptical of concern for the creation. They think of it as either a re-arranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic, or grounded in a pagan belief system. So it was interesting to read this account of creation care written by a Southern Baptist educated supervisor of training at a nuclear power plant. I found it an account tempered by caution against excess while actively advocating for our responsibility as God-appointed stewards to care for creation and proposing active steps one may take. Most of all, I found an account that grounded creation care ethics and praxis, not in the urgent cries of the moment, or the current findings of science, but in a theology for creation care.

Spencer begins with the idea that we care for creation for the glory of God. He addresses the idea of “creation subject to futility” by observing what follows, the hope of redemption for our bodies and all of creation. That hope means we live in hope, leading to actions that anticipate that renewal without the illusion that we will accomplish it, actions that in some cases bring substantial cleanup, as has been seen in many of the rivers, skies, and resurgence of some endangered species. This hope counters the despair in much of the environmental movement.

With that, Spencer contends both for the necessity of care for creation and against the danger of environmentalism becoming an all-encompassing ideology, supplanting the gospel of the kingdom for Christians, stifling evangelical proclamation and other worthy concerns. He weigh’s Lynn White’s classic article blaming Christianity for exploitation of the environment, arguing that while aspects are accurate, the story is far more nuanced, and much environmental depredation may be traced to a modernity that removed God from the picture. He traces environmentalism in the US, how evangelicals both engaged in environmental efforts and how environmentalism became entwined with the culture wars, resulting in increasing evangelical suspicion

The second part of the work focuses on theology. He proposes four doctrinal questions that serve as the basis for creation care ethics and practice:

  1. What are the sources of authority for environmental ethics?
  2. Why does creation have value?
  3. What is the human role in creation?
  4. What is the end goal or final state of the created order, and how does it come about?

The following four chapters discuss each of these in turn. As one might expect, scripture is the Christian’s final authority, and yet we may learn from science as a form of general revelation without being compelled to accommodate scripture to science or undermine its authority. We learn from science without succumbing to scientism. He turns to the value of creation, which he argues has both instrumental value for its use and inherent value as good because God made it so. Only God has intrinsic value and is worthy of worship. Spencer traces the effects of the fall and what has, is, and will be restored in redemption, the value of which is signaled to us in the incarnation. Given this framework, we are warned against both pantheism and dualism.

Humans are called to steward creation for God’s glory. Spencer challenges the anti-human bias in some strands of environmentalism. Despite our limitations and failures, we have a role as God’s redeemed to point toward the healed and restored contours of the new creation. As we look toward new creation, we pursue the substantial healing both in our own life and the creation while realizing that only Christ will purge all evil from the world and fully renew all things. Spencer argues on the basis of word studies that all will not be burned but rather disclosed–a judging and purifying prior to restoration.

So how then does this theology say we ought live? First he addresses the church and environment. He is careful not to allow the environment to usurp the mission of the church but argues, a la Francis Schaeffer, for the church as a “pilot plant” in which creation care is part of the holistic discipleship that encompasses all of life. The aim is not to allow green practices to take over church life but rather to ask how God may be glorified in all things including our facilities and grounds management.

He then turns to conspiracy thinking and political conflict, both of which undermine the gospel. Rather than contend about climate change, he uses a “Pascal’s Wager” argument that a life of restraint will be good for us and the creation even if climate models don’t prove out. Rather than becoming embroiled in political conflict at the national level, he calls for a localism that brings people together to solve ground level problems that often is much less divisive and corrosive.

Finally he addresses how we may live hopefully in our own practices: thinking about the costs, environmental and otherwise of missions, sharing resources (do we all need snowblowers?), considering our landscapes and the suburban ideal of emerald lawns, living with wonder, leading quiet lives, exercising restraint on consumption, care in purchasing and growing food, and sabbaths, which give us and our infrastructure a rest.

While some environmentally-minded readers will balk at his warnings about mission drift and the risk of a big ideology of environmentalism usurping the church, what Spencer does is lay a basis for churches that are suspicious or concerned about such things to take steps of creation care. He invites us to do so not because it is culturally relevant or that “science tells me so” but because the Bible tells us so and it glorifies God and is part of following Jesus.

While some would consider this insufficiently “progressive,” it would be a great leap forward for many churches to so theologically form their members and instruct them in whole life discipleship. I think he wisely de-centers our hyperfocus on national politics to think about the old axiom that “all politics are ultimately local.” Noting the push for example toward electric vehicles, he raises the question of local charging sites in our communities–where will we put them? Spencer moves us away from the memes and soundbite debates to the kind of thoughtful and nuanced thinking and praxis that Christians must become better at both to honor God, win others, and serve the common good.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Creation Care Discipleship

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Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping Is an Essential Christian Practice, Steven Bouma-Prediger. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023.

Summary: A discussion of why and how earthkeeping is integral to following Christ, drawing upon scripture, Christian theology and Christian thinkers throughout the breadth of the church.

Steven Bouma-Prediger is a professor of theology at Hope College who also overseas the environmental studies program at his college. In this work, he brings those seeming disparate worlds together in framing a comprehensive argument about why Christians should care for creation. He argues for the term “earthkeeping” as the best term to express our call as disciples, going back to the call in Genesis to “serve and protect” the garden. There is much of creation we can’t care for–galaxies for example! “Stewardship” smacks of funding campaigns for the church, or a human-centered marshalling of creation’s resources for the development of the human economy.

He begins with a biblical vision of creation, focusing on how scripture begins and ends with rivers and trees. He then turns to theology and ethics, that we are holy creatures of God among his creatures, caring for a world he will come to restore and over which we will share in his rule. He then turns to the contributions made by the church’s theologians of various traditions. He references Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ but also contributions from Patriarch Bartholomew concerning creation as an integral whole, Lutheran theologian Paul Santmire, who emphasizes our partnership with creation, Rosemary Reuther’s ecofeminist and Randy Woodley’s indigenous theology emphasizing the Harmony Way and Shalom.

Having the right words is not enough if not coupled with action. Here, Bouma-Prediger’s work with students offers examples of developing ecological literacy. Bouma-Prediger places a significant emphasis on eco-justice, recognizing how often injustices fall on the backs of the powerless. He discusses simplicity, and particularly thinking less about results than doing what is right. He includes helpful practical of the small things that can make a difference. He speaks of the challenge and call to be people of faith and fruitfulness in a time of fear. He concludes the book with an extended reflection on a vision for shalom that involves not only flourishing but that understands how integral the flourishing of all creation is to our flourishing.

Between chapters, Bouma-Prediger offers biblical reflections, some of which are creative passages situating the reader within the passage. Throughout, Bouma-Prediger helps us realize how much the scriptures are set within the created order, and how deeply this matters to God. What makes this book unique, I believe, is its starting place with God’s care of creation to which we are invited to join in as earthkeepers. While the book is cognizant of our environmental challenges, far from burdening, the book holds out the deep joy of living out are calling as earthkeepers. Freeing us from results-oriented thinking, he bids us into the work of caring for our backyards, our own places, as well as seeing the neighbors for whom the call of love is to relieve them of the burdens of environmental injustices. Instead of seeing earthkeeping as something for eccentric tree huggers, Bouma-Prediger casts a vision of serving and protecting the earth simply as part of the joy of following Jesus.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: After Dispensationalism

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After Dispensationalism, Brian P. Irwin with Tim Perry. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023.

Summary: A study of the history, key beliefs, and teachers of dispensationalism with an assessment of the movement’s strengths and weaknesses along with a treatment discussing reading prophetic and apocalyptic books within their context.

Dispensationalism has been an influential movement within American Christianity, influencing presidents and shaping policy on everything from Israel to the environment. Dispensational readings of scripture for many is understood as Christian orthodoxy, even though much of the theology is of relatively recent origin, and by no means accepted through much of church history or by much of the global church.

Brian P. Irwin, with Tim Perry, provide a text that is at once an orientation to the history, teachers, key beliefs of dispensationalism and a critical assessment, framed against a backdrop of how we ought read prophetic and apocalyptic writing. They argue that our starting place must not be today’s newspaper but rather that context and worldview of the intended recipients of these works–how they would read these works.

The first part offers a study of dispensationalism on its own terms. The authors explain and illustrate with charts the idea of dispensations. They trace history of end-times predictions throughout church history, offering these conclusions:

  • Don’t make a prediction about the end of the world.
  • Remember that the books of the Bible were not given to us first.
  • Read a biblical book as a whole for its meaning.
  • Remember that Jesus himself told us not to bother.

Irwin and Perry then discuss the key teachers of dispensationalism: J. N. Darby, C. I. Schofield, Lewis Sperry Chafer, J. Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, and Tim LaHaye, and their distinctive emphases. They offer an extended summary of the dispensational end-times story including the restoration of Israel to the promised land, the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple, the rapture including the pre-tribulation belief of many, the judgment of the saved, the marriage feast, the great tribulation, the false prophet and dragon, the 144,000 and the two witnesses, Armageddon, and the return of Christ, the millennium and great white throne judgment, the new heaven, earth, and Jerusalem. They show the key passages for these beliefs, which helps make the case for how these are often used in isolation of their context in the books of which they are a part.

The final chapter in this section offers an assessment, both positively and negatively. They focus on the literalism that fails to read literarily, failing to recognize poetic speech and symbol, even while fostering dedication to Bible reading and study. They note the somewhat arbitrary character of “dispensations.” While the Israel/church distinction has protected the movement from anti-Semitism it has led to forms of Christian Zionism and an uncritical support of modern Israel, though it is both secular and often has unjustly treated Palestinians (including Palestinian Christians who seem invisible to much of the American church). On the one hand, this movement has fostered vibrant evangelism because of the belief in a pre-tribulation rapture. On the other hand, it has been suspicious of creation care, development, justice, and peace efforts.

Part Two focuses on how we read prophetic and apocalyptic literature. They show the connection between prophecy and the covenantal blessings and curses in the Pentateuch. Many warn Israel, in its idolatry and injustices, that God is both withdrawing blessing and bringing promised curses. They also offer material on apocalyptic passages, such as those found in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation. (It should be noted that the writers accept recent scholarship on Daniel as a second century work, referencing both sixth century and near future events.)

Part Three offers three chapters of more extended studies (not commentaries) on Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation. The writers show the structure of each book (including a chiasmic structure for Revelation 4-19). They treat key passages cited by dispensationalists in their larger contexts, refusing to “daisy chain” references. With Revelation, they discuss historicist, preterist, futurist, idealist and their own eclectic approach to the book.

The book concludes with “thirteen theses for encountering the end of the world” encompassing both their critiques of dispensationalists approaches and their own positive approach. This is too lengthy to list here but I would particularly single out numbers 11 and 12:

11. To live in expectation of Christ’s return does not require knowing when Christ will return.

12. Questioning the idea of the rapture or other dispensational teaching is not to question the hope of Christ’s promised return in glory to a creation made fit for eternal life.

This book takes on an ambitious agenda. The writers offer both an overview and critique of dispensationalism and an alternative approach to prophetic and apocalyptic books. Each would warrant its own book. What they offer is a readable and usable resource for pastors and teachers in the church who may not have roots in dispensationalism who are confronted by those immersed in such teaching who want more teaching on “the end times.” This work helps people understand both what may be meant by this and offers approaches to favored texts in their contexts that address both our hope for Christ’s return and how early readers may have read these texts. It’s a book that matches the passion of dispensationalists for Bible study while grounding that study in sound interpretive practices that guard us from reading the newspaper into scripture while helping us read our times in light of scripture.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Christianity and Critical Race Theory

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Christianity and Critical Race Theory, Robert Chao Romero and Jeff M. Liou. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023.

Summary: A critical and constructive engagement with Critical Race Theory in light of the Christian faith.

The fallacy of the excluded middle seems present in most conversations I’ve observed concerning Critical Race Theory (CRT). Either someone is utterly dismissive saying things like, “You’re a Marxist, divisive and if you don’t like the United States, you should leave.” Or there are those who are so wounded by their experience of racism that they have withdrawn, believing the United States as incorrigibly corrupt and that Critical Race Theory not only describes what was and is, but also will always be. Sadly each set of voices often feeds off the other, often without real understanding of what Critical Race Theory is and isn’t. There is no middle ground.

For Christians like the authors, who come out of a Reformed background fond of saying “all truth is God’s truth,” the question is whether there is truth in Critical Race Theory, even if, as in so much of scholarship, there is an admixture of error. Are there insights which ring true with scripture? Perhaps more tellingly, as is sometimes the case, are there truths that open our eyes to truth in scripture, that have been cultural blind spots? And are there insights from scripture that correct what is in error or supply what is missing? The subtitle of this book is “a faithful and constructive conversation.” And this is what I found the authors doing. Beginning with the Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation framework of a Reformed Christian faith, they assess key ideas of Critical Race Theory for where these resonate (or not) with scripture. Furthermore they bring their own racial background helpfully into this discussion as an Asian-Latino American (Robert) and an Asian-American (Jeff).

First of all, they offer a brief introduction to the history and basic tenets of CRT. It arose among legal scholars who asked why there was a failure of racial progress despite advances in civil rights. A key insight is the recognition of racism as ordinary, baked into the way we do business as a country, that it advances the interests of the white majority, that “race” is a social construction not based on biological realities, and the “voice of color thesis” that says that people of color may be able to communicate with white counterparts about realities not a part of white experience (if whites are willing to listen).

They begin with Creation and the CRT concept of “Community Cultural Wealth.” This idea contends that rather than some cultures having deficits vis a vis other cultures, that every culture has cultural capital. This recognizes the cultural mandate and blessing of Genesis 1 to fill all the earth, reflected in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 and God’s judgment against the mono-culture of Babel. This diverse wealth is reflected in the glory and honor of the nations brought into the new Jerusalem of Revelation 22. The writers also observe that Jesus as a Galilean was also part of a marginal community, not considered to have the cultural capital of Judean Jews, and as today’s Galileans, they bring a richness to our understanding of Jesus from their own experience.

The Fall is evident in the analysis of racism as the ordinary business of society. A true understanding of the doctrine of the fall understands that sin is more than our individual sins. Sin pervades the human order and how things are done. Even when we say we do not have hatred toward a person of another “race,” sin manifests itself in a system which is set up to benefit some over others, whether in real estate deed restrictions and redlining, differentials in property tax education funding, policing patterns and practices and more. The good news of the gospel in this is that the effects of the fall are remediable, contrary to the beliefs of many secularists. But we have to see it first, and CRT helps us with this.

Turning to Redemption, the “voices of color thesis” offers hope of understanding the realities to which those of us identifying as white may be blind to. More than that, this thesis reflects the idea of the body of Christ in which every part is needed for the health of the whole body. We dismiss voices of color to our own loss. A major part of this chapter focuses on how one of the authors was the lead candidate for a top diversity, equity, and inclusion position at a Christian university, which would have meant leaving a recognized role at a public university. Sadly, top leadership at the school subverted the search committee, choosing an internal candidate who was not a person of color. The author reflects on how his secular institution seemed to recognize the worth of his voice of color more than the Christian institution. He writes tellingly of the role “color blindness” played in this decision and the model Acts 6 of recognizing minority voices, with the resultant flourishing of the church.

Under Consummation, the authors argue for the one of the distinctive contributions Christians may make to CRT. They contend that CRT offers no grounds for an eschatological hope. And sometimes, the resistant response of dominant culture results in deepening alienation, a critique that only envisions divides with no hope of healing. Instead, the authors point to King’s idea of “the beloved community.” In contrast, the authors identify the “gloomy eschaton” of CRT. Christians with a biblically informed eschatological hope live toward a vision of a diverse multitude worshipping a common Lord in Revelation 7:9, sustained by the resurrection of Jesus as the foretaste of his final victory.

Sadly, “Critical Race Theory” has become a rallying cry of our political right. The phrase, unfortunately, lends itself to this, even though few who rail against the theory understand what they are railing against. And because of political alignments, many dominant culture Christians join them. The writers of this book occupy that neglected middle ground, appraising CRT fairly, recognizing both the way it reflects biblical insights into the human condition as well as its shortcomings. They denounce any association of CRT with Marxism, one of the author’s parents having fled the Marxist revolution in China and seeing the havoc it wrought. Perhaps their most original contribution is the recognition of the hope of the gospel rather than the counsels of gloom that prevail in some CRT circles. CRT exposes the insidious character of racism beyond our personal acts, the ways it has been woven into society. The scriptures understand that this, too, is sin. As God’s people, we know a remedy for sin. But we have to face it and repent and lament and confess and turn away, finding pardon and restoration in Christ. That’s painful, but that is often the way it is with healing, whether of our own lives or our nation’s soul.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: From Plato to Christ

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From Plato to Christ, Louis Markos. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: A discussion of the most significant ideas of Plato, summarizing his works and the influence Platonic thought has had on Christian theology.

One of the things readily apparent to anyone who reads the theology of the church fathers is their indebtedness to the Greek philosophers, and particularly Platonic philosophy. Eusebius even believed that Plato’s work was a preparation for the gospel.

In this work, Louis Markos does two things. One is that he offers an introduction to Plato for those unfamiliar with him (and a good refresher for those of us who are). The first part reviews his major works and the key ideas that early Christian thinkers believed anticipated the coming of Christ. Of particular interest is the Cave and the rising path from the shadows of the forms to the forms in all their perfection, the sum of goodness, truth, and beauty. All this serves as a basis of our moral awareness and striving, and may become the basis of our awareness of our need for grace. He understood that we are both physical and spiritual beings. In The Laws Plato comes near a Christian understanding of a God intimately involved in his creation and a cosmology with which Christians deeply resonated. Markos notes where Christians part ways in the Platonic idea of the transmigration of souls, the relative denigration of the body, and the inferiority of women (although I suspect this also had an influence on Christian theology that Markos doesn’t discuss).

The second half of the book treats the Christian thinkers who draw upon his ideas beginning with Origen, the three Gregorys, Augustine, Boethius, and Dante, and more recently, Erasmus, Descartes, Coleridge, and finally C. S. Lewis, whose Professor Digory remarks in The Last Battle as they go “further up and further in” that “It’s all in Plato, all in Plato.”

The work also includes a bibliographic essay, not only of works drawn upon but comments on works and editions the reader may consult who wants to explore the connections of Greek thought and Christianity further. One of the most attractive things about this work is that Markos makes such a prospect inviting.

Aside from acknowledging some of the clear places Plato got it wrong, and some of the erroneous conclusions Origen reached, the book takes a very positive view of how Plato may prepare one for Christ. This may well be the case but I wish Markos would have dealt more with those who question the influence of Greek thought on Christian theology. While this engagement no doubt contributed to the spread of the gospel, the views of the body, the view of women, the “gnostic,” anti-material character of Christianity that led to a divorce of work and worship, of physicality and spirituality, are downplayed if acknowledged.

This needn’t detract from Markos’ argument. Plato undeniably influenced Christian thinkers through history, and if for no other reason (and there are other good reasons) ought to be read. At the same time, syncretism is not just a phenomena of modern missions. Christians have always faced the challenge of how to contextualize without compromising. They have always believed God has both left a witness to God’s self, and yet this is never unalloyed. I wish Markos would have done more with this which would have enhanced the instructiveness of a fine work.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Majority World Theology

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Majority World Theology: Christian Doctrine in Global Context, Edited by Gene L. Green, Stephen T. Pardue, and K. K. Yeo. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020.

Summary: A global collection of scholars discuss the major doctrines of the Christian faith considering the history of doctrines, the scriptures, and cultural contexts.

Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Newman, Hodge, Warfield, Kuyper, Bavinck, Berkhof, Barth, Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, Henry, Erickson, Bloesch, Hauerwas. These were some of the formative influences in my theological thinking. All male. All White. All Europeans or Americans. Many of my generation thought, and may still think that what they produced is Christian theology.

The global Christian church has gone through a massive transformation over the last fifty years as the locus of Christianity has shifted both south and east. Equally, in the American context, Black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous theologians are speaking, teaching, and writing of the bearing of Christian theology on their distinctive cultural contexts. Many women have joined their male counterparts. What those of my generation, race, and gender thought was the conversation increasingly is part of a much larger conversation. As a student, we prayed and mobilized to reach the nations with the gospel. Now, increasingly, the nations are evangelizing the West and both challenging and enriching our understanding of the faith. I’m delighted I’ve lived to see this, which is what makes me so excited to review this significant volume.

This actually represents a compilation of six books, representing six annual gatherings focusing on the major theological categories of Trinity, Christology, pneumatology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. Each of the six sections is introduced with an overview of the contributions for that section. This is followed by chapters written by theological scholars from every part of the world, eight chapters per section except for the final section on eschatology which has seven. The first chapter in each section surveys the historical tradition, usually the only one written by a Euro-American. The contributors affirm a commitment to scripture, tradition, and their own cultures. Having worked through this massive volume, my general sense is that the contributors hit all three of these marks and stretched my own thinking about such things as the honoring of ancestors and the meaning of one’s land. Due to length, I cannot discuss every contribution but I thought I’d highlight some of those I most appreciated from each section.

Part One: The Trinity Among the Nations: The Doctrine of God in the Majority World

Gerald Bray’s chapter on the Trinity is a masterly summary of outstanding clarity. It was delightful to read Randy Woodley offering an Indigenous American perspective, considering Indigenous ideas of deity and offering a framing of the Trinity as a “community of the Creator, existing eternally in shalom relationality.” I appreciated the care of Natee Tanchanpongs in evaluating various Asian Reformulations of the Trinity, holding orthodoxy and cultural formulations in a creative tension.

Part Two: Jesus Without Borders: Christology in the Majority World

Several of the chapters evaluated various Christologies from each continent. I appreciated Stephen Ezigbo’s discussion of African christologies by the categories of neo-missionary christologies, ancestor christologies, and revealer christologies. The second half of this section is more topical. Aida Besancon Spencer offers a sensitive discussion of the veneration of Mary vis a vis Christology. I also appreciated Yohanna Katanacho’s chapter on reading John through Palestinian eyes and the themes of holy space, holy time, holy experience, holy people, and holy land.

Part Three: The Spirit over the Earth: Pneumatology in the Majority World

I especially valued the articles that bookended this section by Amos Young and C. Rene Padilla (who recently passed). Then Wei Hua offers a thoughtful discussion of how ancestor commemoration may be integrated into Christian faith through the transforming work of the Spirit.

Part Four: So Great a Salvation: Soteriology in the Majority World

Milton Acosta offers a thoughtful discussion of salvation in the Latin American context where material and spiritual concerns often clash in “From What Do We Need to Be Saved? Reflections on God’s Justice and Material Salvation.” Elaine W. F. Goh’s “Qohelet’s Gospel in Ecclesiastes: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15; 7:15-22; and 11:1-6” draws together solid exegesis, tradition and Asian cultural insights in a credible argument for reading the gospel out of Ecclesiastes.

Part Five: The Church from Every Tribe and Tongue: Ecclesiology in the Majority World

Peter Neyende offers a thought-provoking reading of Hebrews centering on the church as the assembled on Mount Zion, which he believes a far more compelling model for the church than the family. Perhaps one of the most thought-provoking essays of the whole volume was Munther Isaac’s “Ecclesiology and the Theology of the Land: A Palestinian Christian Perspective.” speaks powerfully of what it means to be a church in an occupied land and a vision of living on a land “where people of all ethnicities and social backgrounds are treated equally.”

Part Six: All Things New: Eschatology in the Majority World

James Henry Owino Kombo’s “The Past, the Present, and the Future of African Christianity: An Eschatological Vision for African Christianity” considers how eschatology addresses concerns of ancestors, life, death, the intermediate state and Christian hope. Finally, Shirley S. Ho, in the concluding chapter discusses the affinity for Judeophilia of the Taiwanese, and how this misses the focus on the victory and reign of Christ.

This book might serve as a good text or supplementary text for a Christian doctrine or systematic theology sequence. It is also a helpful introduction for many of us educated on a diet of white, male, Euro-American theologians. It introduces us to scholars who are in vibrant conversations, whether we are listening or not. A strength of this work is its engagement with rather than wholesale rejection of the theological traditions of the church. It also explores cultural issues that are becoming increasingly relevant in the multi-cultural West. It models cross-cultural conversations about theology that evidence both our common faith and rich diversity. And it is a one-volume introduction to the global theological voices with whom we may want to become better acquainted.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Last Things

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the last things

The Last Things (Contours of Christian Theology), David A. Höhne. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019.

Summary: A theology of the last things that is Trinitarian in focus, centered on the exaltation of the crucified Lord, and the preservation of the believer.

There are many books about the last things or the end times. This work takes a different approach. The author contends that the Lord’s prayer is an eschatological prayer, that the focus of each of its petitions is the full realization of the kingdom of God in the person of the crucified and risen Lord through the work of the Holy Spirit. This includes the preservation, purifying, and protection of those whose hope is in the crucified and risen Lord.

The book is written for those (all who have ever believed in Christ), are living in the Middle. It is both about what God has promised us for the future but how this is already being fulfilled in our lives. It concerns how God has already established a relationship and a people, and how we will one day be perfected.

The chapters focus around each of the petitions in the Lord’s prayer. At the same time, he discusses these through the lens of interacting with Karl Barth’s theology of the Word and Jurgen Moltman’s theology of hope. The first three petitions for the hallowing of the name, the coming of the kingdom, and the doing of God’s will on earth as in heaven are the what, how, and why of God the Father’s purposes through the Son in the Spirit. The prayers for daily bread, for forgiveness, and for deliverance focus around what we need to make it to the resurrection, and our eternal glory with Christ.

I found this the hardest “read” in the series. I think this has to do with the author’s engagement with Barth and Moltmann throughout, and a conscious effort to emphasize the work of the persons of the Trinity throughout. The introduction to the series speaks of making this accessible to educated laypeople. The author appears to assume a familiarity with Barth and Moltmann that may be true of seminarians, but probably only a minority of others. I founded the presentation stronger where the author connected themes in the Lord prayer to the rest of scripture, establishing the eschatological “arc” of this prayer.

I had looked forward to the completion of this series, this “last” volume of which had been long-awaited. While there were elements I appreciated, particularly the structuring of the work around a prayer many of us pray daily or weekly. But I had hoped for more in a series that had set a high standard of theological reflection accessible to the educated layperson. What the book did make clear is that we will not be disappointed by the God who keeps all his promises both for the exaltation of the crucified and risen Lord, and the resurrection hope of we, his people.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Dying and the Virtues

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Dying and the Virtues

Dying and the Virtues, Matthew Levering. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2018.

Summary: An exploration of scripture, theological resources, and contemporary writing that considers the virtues that help the Christian believer to both live and die well.

Death is something we don’t like to talk about and much of our culture lives in a conscious effort to deny that all of us have a terminal condition. Sooner or later, we will die. From exercise to diets to medical breakthroughs to transhumanism, we are trying to extend our lives. Sometimes, we just keep ourselves too busy to think about it. Yet the refusal to face our deaths leaves us and our families unprepared when the time comes. More than this, it leads us to neglect important virtues important for both how we live and when we die.

This last is the focus of Matthew Levering’s book. Levering, a Catholic theologian, explores nine virtues through multiple lenses of scripture, theological writing, and contemporary sources: love, hope, faith, penitence, gratitude, solidarity, humility, surrender, and courage. I found time and again that his explorations brought fresh insights to familiar passages, and new perspectives I had not previously considered.

Levering begins with Job and the fundamental fear and objection Job raises–that God would annihilate the existence of one who loves him. In God’s answer, really God’s questions, Job understands that a God who can so create and order and sustain the world may be trusted, against the horror of death, to lovingly sustain him, inviting him to live a life of love. He goes on in chapter two to consider sources from Susan Sontag and David Rieff to Josef Pieper and Robert Bellarmine and how they address the existential questions death poses of meaning in our lives, where we find the will to live, and how we might live in hope, believing and meditating on the unseen realities both of the souls we possess and the promises of our future state. Chapter three, then, focuses on faith through exploring what it is that dying people want through the work of a doctor and a hospice worker who describe the longing for closure, for reconciliation with oneself, with people, and for some, with God. Jesus, whose life and death make reconciliation and communion possible, calls us to meet him, and find in him these deep longings through faith.

I had never thought of Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7 as a speech of penitence but rather one of indictment. Levering invites us in chapter four to see instead Stephen speaking prophetically in deep penitence for Israel’s sins as well as in gratitude for the grace that is greater than our sins. He then turns (chapter five) to the dying gratitude of Macrina, sister of Gregory of Nyssa. He writes:

“Gregory and Macrina complicate this notion of ‘dignity’ and of ‘hope.’ Macrina shows that ‘who has lived in dignity, dies in dignity.’ But dignity does not reside in our achievements and merely human relationships. Macrina’s ‘dignity’ consists primarily in her participation in the church’s liturgical life, through which the people of God offer themselves in Christ as a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and which extends itself in works of mercy. Prayerful praise and thanksgiving stand at the core of Macrina’s conception of human dignity” (p. 98).

Her participation in this rich liturgical worship both enables her to live with thankfulness in life but with gratitude that she shares in the resurrection to come. Our identification with Christ and his people in both penitence and gratitude leads us into solidarity (chapter six), the experience of finding comfort in our own suffering in our solidarity with the sufferings of Christ, and compassion for the sufferings of others through our communing with Christ’s sufferings.

But why does death so often involve suffering, sometimes severe? While many of us long for a peaceful passing, this is often not granted. In chapter seven, Levering looks at Mark 10:45 and the idea of ransom as a kind of tribulation by which Jesus delivers Israel out of the exile that was a consequence of her prideful rejection of God. He explores Aquinas and how suffering, both the humbling of Christ, and the stripping us of the things by which we find honor, call us into a “new exodus” of humility that is the way of salvation. Humbling leads to surrender (chapter eight), the readiness to offer up our lives to God, a surrender we often fiercely fight. The sacrament of the anointing of the sick helps us in this in reminding us of the healing work of Christ in us, to which we surrender ourselves in death that we may be raised up in Christ. Finally, in chapter nine, Levering considers the courage involved in bidding goodbye to life as we know it. He considers the work of Richard Middleton and Paul Griffiths, one emphasizing the continuities of our future state with this life, the other the discontinuities. Courage is to face this fear of this unknown future and to “boldly go” in the promise of Christ.

Levering’s argument throughout this book is that we do not merely need these virtues in our dying hours, but that these are the virtues Christians are meant to live by. Throughout, he articulates a vision of these found in union in Christ and nourished by the liturgical and sacramental life of the church, as we live into the story of scripture, finding our own story in its pages.

While some aspects of Levering’s treatment are distinctively Catholic, as would be expected of a Catholic theologian, the existential questions he explores through secular as well as Christian writers remind us of the stark realities with which all of us must deal. His focus is one all who name Christ can affirm, our union with Christ, our fundamental belief in a God who is love, and the virtues that follow. Levering opens up a conversation we desperately need to have in the church: what does it mean to die well in Christ? It is needed not only to aid us in our final days, but also because we cannot truly understand what it is to live well in Christ, until we have understood what it is to die well in Him. The conversation has been going on for centuries, even millenia. In the pages of Levering’s book, we join those from Job to Aquinas to Mother Theresa who have wrestled with these realities and lived virtuously in the face of death through their faith in God and union with Christ.

Look for an interview with Matthew Levering in an upcoming post.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.