Historical theology

Review: Faithful Exchange

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Cover image of "Faithful Exchange" by David W. Opderbeck

Faithful Exchange

Faithful Exchange, David W. Opderbeck. Fortress Press (ISBN: 9781506467016) 2025.

Summary: Economic life through biblical and historic lenses with attention to current debates on capitalism versus socialism.

How might one think Christianly about economic life? How have Christians thought about these matters through the centuries? Among the contemporary systems, is one more inherently Christian? And what resources do we find in the ancient texts of the Bible that speak into our present realities? David W. Opderbeck, a professor of law at Seton Hall University has set out to address these questions in this book.

He describes this book as offering a narrative theology of economic life. After an introduction and overview, chapters 2 through 5 explore the economy of biblical narrative. Specifically, he covers the periods from creation to Babel, the patriarchs through the exodus, the judges, kings, and prophets, and then Jesus and the New Testament.

The next five chapters concern historical and contemporary discussion. Chapter 6 explores property and economics from pre-Constantine through the Reformation. Chapter 7 centers on influences contributing to American capitalism: Locke, Hobbes, Hume, Blackstone, and Smith. Then chapter 8 turns to Marxism and socialism, including Christian socialism and social teaching. Chapter 9 covers the period from the Great Depression, the postwar settlement and our more recent internet-based and global economy. Finally, the last chapter, titled “Toward a Contemporary Constructive Christian Economics” gestures toward how Christians might think about capitalism and socialism. And he draws all this narrative and historical material together.

As you can see, Opderbeck sets himself a huge task. Consequently, much of what he does is, indeed,, narrative and descriptive. The final section of each of the biblical narrative sections offer syntheses summarizing the economic material. The history up to the Reformation addresses private property in tension with a “the earth is the Lord’s perspective.” The discussion of influences upon the American experiment was fascinating, particularly in how all this failed to resolve the vexing problem of slavery, even as it laid the groundwork of commerce and capitalism. For those who conflate communism and socialism, his overview of both movements, and particularly, the Christian socialists is important in understanding the distinctions. He also shows how these challenged the exclusive emphasis on private property in seeking the economic welfare of all.

In the final “constructive” section, Opderbeck first engages a number of contemporary thinkers (Sirico, Waters, Tanner, Milbank, Pabst, and Turner). His skill as a legal scholar was on display in a section on “Critical and Constructive Threads” where integrates biblical material, economic theory, and discussions of corporate practice. Then he illustrates these threads in a case study on land and MOSFET chips.

His approach throughout is to show how the biblical hope informs, critiques, and transcends our earthly economic systems, whether capitalist or socialist. Opderbeck captures this well in his concluding words:

“Freedom for generosity and freedom from the love of money and the lust of the eyes is offered in the waters of baptism and at the table with Jesus in the community of his people. Every -ism, including capitalism and socialism, is here exposed as unworthy of devotion. In every time and place discerning the Kairos and listening to the Spirit of Christ, we are called to act with grace and wisdom, affirming but relativizing private property rights, prioritizing the poor, emphasizing fairness, and actively waiting for the coming of Jesus, when God will be all-in-all” (p. 258).

My sense is that Opderbeck, as a legal scholar, has assembled a careful set of “briefs” summarizing both biblical and historical theology with regard to economics. Then he applies them to our contemporary situation. This is a tremendous resource on Christian economic thought, concisely summarizing, without sacrificing nuance, a vast amount of material. It’s a great place to begin if one wishes to discover the landscape of Christian economic thought, and how it has addressed questions of property and profit, moving beyond slogans, sentiments, and prooftexts to substantive thought.

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

Review: The Concept of Woman

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Cover image of "The Concept of Woman" by Sister Prudence Allen, RSM

The Concept of Woman, Sister Prudence Allen, RSM, edited by Sister Mary Cora Uryase, RSM, foreword by John C. Cavadini. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883889) 2024.

Summary: Surveys philosophers and theologians from ancient Greece to today tracing the concept of woman.

What does the word “woman” signify? I suspect the question might elicit some snide quips, most likely from men. However, this volume surveys the ways philosophers and theologians from ancient Greece, the early church, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and down to the present have answered this question. This work constitutes a synthesis into one volume of a three volume work by Sister Prudence Allen, RSM. In all, she summarizes, if my count is correct, the thought of 163 people!

A key element of this work is Allen’s use of John Henry Newman’s Development of Doctrine. Newman proposes a process of development of Christian doctrines from their first appearance in scripture through the history of the church. His proposal is that while while the truth of a doctrine is fully present in its origins, it also has the capacity to develop as Christians address different contexts. Yet all these developments may be anticipated in the earliest form, which enjoys a “chronic vigour” through time.

Allen’s aim is to demonstrate that Pope John Paul II’s enunciation of “integral gender equality” reflects a true development of the concept of woman through the history of the church, surviving corruptions, along the way to coming to its fullest (so far) exposition in the works of recent Catholic theologians, culminating in Karol Wojtyla’s (Pope John Paul II) work.

She traces the development of four key ideas, beginning with scripture:

  1. The equal dignity of men and women (Genesis 1:26).
  2. The significant difference between a man and a woman (Genesis 1:27).
  3. The synergetic relation of a woman and a man (Genesis 1:28; 2:24).
  4. Intergenerational fruition (Genesis 5:1-32).

Through history she traces various ideas reflecting equality with or without complementarity, forms of polarity that usually devalued women, and forms of complementarity that affirmed equal dignity. Among the ancients and medieval thinkers, Hildegard of Bingen stands out as a defender of integral.

The Renaissance, Modern, and Nineteenth century are a mixed bag. On one hand, satires reinforced ancient polarities that diminished women. By contast, humanists affirmed women’s identity and women were found to be writing, speaking, and in the case of Joan of Arc, fighting. Cartesian dualism strengthened gender equality but fractured any sense of unity.

The final part shows the “chronic vigour” of integral gender complementarity while confronting what the author considers corruptions in modern sex/gender ideologies. She introduces many of us to formidable Catholic thinkers from Lonergan and Maritain, to von Balthasar and von Speyr, as well as to her own formulations and Karol Wojtyla’s personalism.

It is nothing short of an intellectual tour de force to summarize over twenty centuries of thought into four hundred pages. Thus, Allen offers the reader what amounts to a comprehensive intellectual history of the concept of woman. What is striking is that the contemporary discussions of egalitarian and complementarian positions within evangelicalism do not warrant mention. By the same token, evangelical discussions don’t mention the development of the doctrine of woman (and man) in the Catholic church. What is striking to me is the absence in the idea of integral gender complementarity of the sharp bifurcation that exists between the two evangelical camps. Equality and complementarity are held together.

At least mostly. The question of the priesthood is not discussed, a glaring silence it seems to me. At least here, the difference between women and men overrules equality. Some discussion of this seems warranted.

Nevertheless, this is an important resource, particularly for its trenchant critique of modern and post-modern sexual and gender ideologies. The synthesis of her earlier three-volume text makes it useful as an academic text. Along the way, she acquaints us with the centuries of rich thought from Augustine, Aquinas, Hildegard, the Maritains, and Wojtyla. There is much of benefit for Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike.

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

Review: The Priesthood of All Students

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The Priesthood of All Students, Timothée Joset. Carlisle, Cumbria, UK: Langham Global Library, 2023 (Also available in French and Spanish editions).

Summary: Contends from historical, ecclesiological, theological, and missiological perspectives that the idea of the priesthood of all believers has been essential to the student-led, non-clerical character of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, and helps account for it global spread to 180 countries.

In 1947, ten evangelical (in theological, not political terms) student movements in North America, Europe, East Asia, and the South Pacific united to form the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). They united to foster similar movements, led by students in other countries around the world. Today, 180 countries are represented in IFES. [In the interest of full disclosure, I work as a campus staff minister in the IFES member movement in the United States, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA.]

This work considers how a basic biblical premise of the Reformation, the priesthood of all believers, has been vitally important to the character and spread of student movements under the umbrella of the IFES. The work is a published version of the doctoral dissertation of Timothée Joset, PhD, who serves as IFES Engaging the University Coordinator, residing in Switzerland. As such, it represents one of the most extensive archival research projects on the history of the IFES as well as an analysis of the theological and missiological outworkings of this biblical premise.

The first part of the work, then, focuses on the history of the IFES, showing how the idea of the priesthood of all believers has been the implicit rationale for the ministry of students with other students within the ten founding movements and their pre-history before 1947, subsequently in post-colonial Africa, amid the student activism and revolutionary impulses of the 1960’s, the rise of the global south in the 1970’s, and partnerships between movements in the 1980’s and the changes in the world up to the beginning of the new millenium. The history more briefly considers the years since.

Several things stand out. One is the parting of the InterVarsity Fellowhip in the UK from the World Student Christian Federation, a once-evangelical student movement that did not share the IVF understanding of the authority of the Bible and the centrality of the atoning work of Christ, reflecting a drift to a more intellectual and liberal theology. This is crucial because in ensuing years, the founding movements of IFES arose from the UK movement and shared the theological convictions, which are reflected in the IFES Doctrinal Basis.

Joset traces how this difference was reflected in the years subsequent to the formation of IFES, tracing questions about its decisions to eschew the ecumenical movement, questions about IFES relationship to the church, and doubts about how a movement primarily led by students with limited staff counsel could remain sound. He traces the responses of both how students were encouraged to active church participation, and the focus on campus mission, where students were most effective in reaching other students, and how the mission-focused doctrinal basis allowed students to come together across denominational lines.

An important part of this work also traces the impact of IFES on broader evangelical thinking relating evangelistic and social concerns, as they wrestled with the response to the turbulent sixties. He features how IFES leaders Rene Padilla and Samuel Escobar helped articulate a gospel-centered social ethic that, with the help of John Stott, shaped the Lausanne Conference of 1974, all of this arising from the grapplings of Latin American students. Likewise, the redefinition of partnership between movements, particularly between the West and the rest of the world was rooted in the importance of indigenous student leadership, the priesthood of all student believers.

A briefer second part looks at how IFES groups practically function. Joset develops the ideas of immediacy, mediation and membership to describe how the theological premises of priesthood of all believers works out in these groups–groups gather on the basis of their immediate faith, they mediate it to their campus environment in both witness and intellectual engagement, and they maintain membership with their local congregation. I personally appreciated his recognition of the complex role of campus staff ministers who are not clergy–helping maintain focus on doctrine and mission, yet without overstepping the role of students.

The third part focuses on ecclesiology. Much of this focused on how the doctrinal basis both articulated how IFES is a part of the church but also provided a basis for mission in the university world which actually enriches the church rather than simply arising from it. Joset then turns in the fourth part to the theology behind the idea of the priesthood of all believers, from Old Testament, to Christ, to the early church, in which all believers are part of a kingdom of priests. He brings this to bear on the discussion of these student movements as “para-church,” contending that a missional ecclesiology that sees such movements as a natural response to God’s redemptive movement is not bound by ecclesiocentric structures. I was also fascinated by his exploration of Roland Allen. Allen’s book on Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours was formative for many of us in student ministry in the 1970’s and 1980’s in arguing for the ability of students to advance and multiply the movement, a version of the priesthood idea. He also explores how recent discussions of apostolicity related to the priesthood idea.

In his concluding section, I appreciated his discussion of the different forms of mediation in which student movements engage–priestly, intellectual and academic, to the church, and internationally. He also underscores how the priesthood of all student believers, operating within the doctrinal framework of IFES provides a basis for a vibrant mission in the university world, not diffused by the theological differences among churches, and in turn, enriching the church in its own mission.

I value Joset’s rigorous study of these matters, which offers what I think is the most far-reaching theological and historical discussion I have seen. He affirms what I have long thought, that a mission like that of IFES groups just makes sense, rather than every denomination trying to have its own ministry, which is often more about conserving rather than advancing belief. Far from being a threat to churches, as it has often been perceived, the products of such mission have deeply enriched the church and the wider fulfillment of its mission in the world. Furthermore, the robust discussion of the priesthood of all believers not only undergirds the approach of IFES student movements but can be empowering to broad swaths of the church that have ceded ministry to professional clergy rather than being affirmed that they have a vital role in mediating the gospel of Christ in whatever context they are placed. It is also striking that it was this “priesthood” approach that enable IFES to adapt to a post-colonial world, with 170 countries joining the initial ten.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary e-galley of this book from the author.

Review: A Bond Between Souls

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A Bond Between Souls: Friendship in the Letters of Augustine (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Coleman M. Ford. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2022.

Summary: A study of the correspondence of Augustine revealing the qualities of his friendships and a vision of friendship rooted in God, encouraging one another in Christian virtue and the love of God.

Coleman M. Ford has come up with a great idea in this book. Study Augustine’s ideas about friendship in the context of his friendships for what we might learn about them through his extant correspondence.

He sets this against the classical Greco-Roman ideas of friendship, difficult for some to define, as was the case with Socrates, who valued his friendships. Aristotle defined friendships based on utility, pleasure, and virtue, with the latter being the highest form. Epicureans saw friendship in terms of mutual dependence, a willingness to lay down one’s life for the other. Stoics believed only the truly wise and good could know friendship. Cicero saw friendship involving mutual accord accompanied by good will and affection.

To all this Augustine adds the recognition that spiritual friendship is the gift of God, grounded in the love of God for the encouragement of one another in both Christian virtue and in faith, hope, and love. Its intent is to prepare us for the heavenly city. Friends also add to one’s happiness in this world and the happiness of our friends is to be prayed for. Friends also exhort one another to pursue greater holiness and virtue, as was the case with Augustine and Martianus.

That brings us to a study of his letters to various persons. Perhaps the most interesting, and first in this monograph, is the study of his correspondence with another great church leader, Jerome. Augustine, the younger of the two, but already a bishop, desires spiritual and intellectual friendship with Jerome. He has an interesting way of going about this, sparring with Jerome over Jerome’s interpretation of Galatians 2. What was grievous was that his initial letter went astray and was read by others as a criticism of Jerome rather than an effort to engage with a respected intellectual peer and to have an honest friendship where no idea was off the table. Jerome was not pleased and subsequent correspondence reveals Augustine’s attempt to heal the misunderstanding, and his genuine sorrow for the grievance. We see someone interested in both their mutual spiritual improvement and deeply committed to his fellow leader. Ford doesn’t say this, but I have a hunch that Augustine could have been a demanding friend, but also one that could call one out to greater intellectual and spiritual depth. We see the two of them strive toward a mutual love that could stand disagreement and difference.

With others, Augustine could be an affectionate and perceptive friend, as was evident in the long correspondence between Paulinus and Therasia, and Augustine, calling them deeper into their union with Christ and the forsaking of the world’s riches for the hope of heaven. We see similar qualities in other correspondence with clergy, as they deal with various disputes including the Donatist controversy. While remaining faithful to Christ, they must also minister out of holy love, the real foundation of their office.

He also corresponds with civic officials, bidding them to Christlike virtues as they sought the common good. They could only offer ordered leadership out of ordered lives. His writing reflects a love of truth rather than an attempt to wield influence over those in power. He writes with affection and intellectual seriousness.

What impresses me in all of this is how Augustine combines warm affection, intellectual substance, and spiritual devotion to foster Christ-likeness in his friends, and how he invites this from them as well. There is no mere sentimentality or a casual “best buds” attitude. Caught up in the pursuit of the heavenly call and the City of God, Augustine rigorously wanted friends who challenged him to his spiritual best, and this is what he offered others. Strong stuff to be sure.

Coleman M. Ford has given us a fine piece of scholarship in this monograph that shows us dimensions of Augustine’s life of which many of us are unaware. I’m left thinking how this challenges our casual and utilitarian approaches to friendship and the shallowness of many of our relationships in the body of Christ, where “hanging out” substitutes for spurring each other on to “love and good works,” to the Christ-likeness that is God’s intention for each other, that is willing to exhort and correct out of deep affection and uncompromising longing for the other’s progress in Christ.

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

Review: Evil and Creation

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Evil & Creation: Historical and Constructive Essays in Christian Dogmatics, Edited by David J. Luy, Matthew Levering, and George Kalantzis. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020.

Summary: An essay collection considering the doctrine of creation and how theologians and others have grappled with the emergence of evil.

The doctrine of creation is foundational for so many other elements of Christian theology. That includes our understanding of evil. Often this is posed as a problem. If God is good and all-powerful, and God’s creation is very good, whence evil? This collection of essays considers first early Christian explorations, and then recent thinking from theology, literature and other fields. These are the essays included;

Introduction; Evil in Christian Theology, David Luy and Matthew Levering. Two of the editors frame the discussion, noting the trend in modern theology to modify either the classic understanding of God or the destiny of the unrepentant evil.

Evil in Early Christian Sources

Judgment of Evil as the Renewal of Creation, Constantine R. Campbell. Considering the testimony of Paul, Genesis, Isaiah, Peter, and Revelation, argues that evil is intertwined with creation both in its corruption of creation and the obliteration of evil in the new creation.

Qoheleth and His Patristic Sympathizers on Evil and Vanity in Creation, Paul M. Blowers. Outlines the patristic understanding of this book as simultaneous flourishing and languishing, wisdom and vanity pointing toward Christ as the true Ecclesiast.

Problem of Evil: Ancient Answers and Modern Discontents, Paul L. Gavrilyuk. A survey of approaches to the problem of evil from ancient to modern times noting six major shifts.

Augustine and the Limits of Evil: From Creation to Christ in the Enchiridion, Han-luen Kantzer Komline. Considers how the Enchiridion holds together creation, fall, and Christology in addressing evil.

Augustine on Animal Death, Gavin Ortlund. Augustine, it turns out, had no problem with animal suffering and death before, or after, the fall, seeing it “as a beauty to be admired–a cause for praising God more than blaming him. Ortlund assesses both the helpful and unhelpful aspects of this stance.

Contemporary Explorations

The Evil We Bury, the Dead We Carry, Michel René Barnes. Proposes that evil is an experience, is ineluctable for human beings, and the first evil, which we cannot escape, is the immediate evil of our personal experience.

Creation and the Problem of Evil after the Apocalyptic Turn, R. David Nelson. With the contemporary focus on the apocalyptic–the death, resurrection, and in-breaking kingdom-Nelson considers the shift in thinking about evil in light of the creation.

Creation without Covenant, Providence without Wisdom: The Example of Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing, Kenneth Oakes. A reflection on the Cormac McCarthy work, and the response of God to evil in the absence of his covenantal relationship with his people culminating in the incarnation, and a providence that is mere inscrutable purpose apart from wisdom.

The Appearance of Reckless Divine Cruelty’: Animal Pain and the Problem of Other Minds, Marc Cortez. Another essay on animal pain, considering the mental experience of suffering through the lens of the philosophical problem of other minds that finds the “no animal suffering view” untenable.

Recent Evolutionary Theory and the Possibility of the Fall, Daniel W. Houck. Reviews the traditional “disease” view of the fall in light of evolutionary theory, proposing a Thomist view of the fall as the loss of original justice.

Intellectual Disability and the Sabbath Structure of the Human Person, Jared Ortiz. Seeks to retrieve the distinction of person and nature in disability discussions and argues that the powerful impact the disabled often have on others reflects the “sabbath structure” inherent in all of us.

As is evident, this is a wide ranging collection of articles loosely tied together by the doctrine of creation and the existence of evil. Perhaps one other thread that connects a number of the articles is the movement from creation to Christ in our attempts to come to terms with evil. In some sense, we never quite find the emergence of evil explicable; it is only the hope of a new creation in Christ that can give meaning to the suffering that often attends evil. The essays on animal suffering and death are important in relating Christian hope to a world where animals are often afforded increasing dignity, as is the moving essay that concludes this volume on disability. Finally, the thread of how we hold ancient understandings in the light of modernity as reflected in philosophy, critical theories, evolutionary science, and literature recurs throughout this collection. Contrary to the tendency warned of in the preliminary essay, these writers do not jettison the scriptures, the councils, and the creeds, even as they grapple with modernity.

This is another valuable addition to the Lexham Press’s series of Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology.

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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: God Has Chosen

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God Has Chosen, Mark R. Lindsay. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020.

Summary: A survey of the development of the doctrine of election throughout Christian history, including discussions of human freedom, those who are not of the elect, and the status of Israel as chosen.

The idea of election, that God chooses a people for God’s self, is one precious to some, an assurance of belonging and of God having done something we could not do. It is threatening to others–how may I know I am among the elect, and how can God save some and not others?

From the writers of scripture to the present day, the church’s theologians have wrestled with these ideas. What Mark R. Lindsay does in this work is to trace the development of this doctrine throughout Christian history. After an introduction in which he differentiates his approach from other contemporary scholars, he begins with some of the key texts on election from both testaments, emphasizing that any idea of chosenness has to draw upon what this meant for Israel. This is followed by a consideration of the early fathers: Ignatius of Antioch, Origen, Cyprian, and Augustine. This was a formative period for the church’s doctrine and the corresponding question of who is “in” and who is “out” that reflect their convictions about election.

In subsequent chapters Lindsay considers two or three key thinkers in each chapter. Chapter three focuses on Aquinas and Duns Scotus, where the elect and citizens of the state were more or less one and the same. Chapter four focuses on three Reformation figures: Calvin, Beza, and Arminius. Striking here is the relatively limited space devoted to this by Calvin, the expansion and extension of Calvin’s thought by Beza, and the responses of Arminius regarding human agency and God’s salvation.

Chapter five addresses early modernity and Lindsay offers an interesting pairing of Schliermacher and J. N. Darby. On the face, they could not be more different but Lindsay argues for an expansive vision of God’s electing will as something they had in common. Chapter six focuses on Barth alone, and the development of his thought over the course of his career, particularly as his thought focused on Christ and the community formed in him, and its resistance to Nazi ideology. The final chapter then considers the Holocaust. If God chose the Jewish people in some way, what then do we make of the near extermination of that people? Does this deny the existence of God, or is the remnant that survives one more evidence of God’s continuing relation with this people? Or is this one more place to argue for a free will theodicy? And how ought Christians think of the Jewish people given the dangers of supercessionism?

Throughout the book, Lindsay explores the differing ways thinkers understood the elect and “the reprobate.” In his conclusion, he shows his own hand in expressing a tentative hopeful universalism grounded in our own incapacity to fully understand the mind of God. He cites Revelation 22:17: “Let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life” (Italics in the author’s citation of this verse). The author warns against “definitive pronouncements,” which is warranted. Given the testimony of the whole of scripture, and particularly that of our Lord, I think there might also be a caution against “speculative suggestions” that may soften the plain warnings of scripture. I believe we may hope and find comfort in the wideness of God’s electing grace while never presuming with regard to the warnings of judgment.

However one sorts these things out, this work is helpful in offering incisive summaries and comparisons of the thought of different key figures as well as an extensive bibliography. For a survey of two thousand years of thought, Lindsay has presented the reader with a work that is at once introductory and of significant depth on this important doctrine.

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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 Reformation and the Irrepressible Word of God

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the reformation and the irrepressible word of god

The Reformation and the Irrepressible Word of God, edited by Scott M. Manetsch. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019.

Summary: A collection of eight papers on the vital role of scripture in Reformation thought and practice.

“Irrepressible.” What a great word to use in a title. Mirriam-Webster’s definition of the word is “impossible to repress, restrain, or control.” The Reformers often pointed to Hebrews 4:12 which says, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (NIV).

I suspect for many, “irrepressible” is far from the first word that might come to mind as they think of scripture. Some might consider it ancient, confusing, irrelevant, or even tedious. Yet many others (I would include myself here) have experienced the power of scripture to convict, to comfort, to open one’s eyes in wonder toward God, to assure in one’s hope in life and death, and to “equip for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17). It is not so much a matter of understanding the Bible as discovering that I am understood by the Word of God, as God speaks through the words on the page, knowing me better than I know myself, facing me with those things of which I’ve been blind, deluded, and sometimes willfully oblivious.

Beginning with Martin Luther, it has been contended that the Reformation was driven by the study of and preaching of the scriptures as the Word of God for the people of God. This drove translation of the scriptures into the vernacular in countries where the Reformation took hold, particularly in Germany and England. In more contemporary scholarship, the power of the “scripture principle” has been eclipsed by other factors — economic, sociological, and political. However, recent scholarship has seen a resurgence of the Bible as a key factor in the Reformation, and this volume, consisting of eight papers plus an introduction by Scott Manetsch and an afterword by Timothy George, is a significant contribution to that scholarship. The papers were first presented at a conference at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 2017 on the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation.

The collection consists of four parts, each with two papers (complete table of contents at the publisher’s website):

  1. Biblical Interpretation in the Reformation
  2. Preaching and Pastoral Care in the Reformation
  3. Justification and the Reformation
  4. The Christian Life in the Reformation

Space does not permit discussing every paper, all of which were both accessible and rich in insight. David S. Dockery discussed Christological interpretation as central to the authority and interpretation of scripture. Scripture is not the final authority but Christ to whom all of scripture points and through which Christ speaks to us. Michael A. G. Haykin’s paper on Hugh Latimer highlighted his passion for the preaching of the Word of God. Latimer urged people to pray for both him and themselves that by God’s Spirit:

“…I may speak the word of God, and teach you to understand the same; unto you that you may be edified through it, and your lives reformed and amended; and that his honour and glory may increase daily amongst us.”

The following essay by Ronald K. Rittgers featured the devotional literature of the Reformation, which usually consisted of quoting one text of scripture after another, without commentary. It was believed that scripture read and meditated upon in this way was powerful to minister to hearts, a kind of “sacrament” as it were.

Michael S. Horton’s essay on justification makes a striking proposal that I could see as serving as the basis of a more extended research project. He observes that the idea of justification by faith was not discovered in the Reformation, but is evident in the church fathers. He focuses particularly on Chrysostom, who recognized Paul’s distinction of works of the law and faith, the difference between justification and sanctification and the idea of justification as the “great exchange” between Christ and sinner.

I also thought the last essay in the collection, by David Luy helpfully discussed both what is meant and not meant by the “priesthood of all believers,” a key Reformation tenet. He shows both that this was not meant to replace church offices or hierarchy, but rather that all Christians, having the Word of God, may share the grace of God in Christ with others.

Timothy George concludes by asking what we may learn from the Reformation, and particularly fleshes out how the Reformers ideas about scripture as the Word of God deepen and give substance to the four distinctives of evangelicalism noted by David Bebbington, without which evangelicalism is thin gruel, neither satisfying nor enduring.

It seems to me that George and the contributors to this volume have an important word to those who wish to move beyond the Reformation or are calling for a new one. In one sense, the church is to be semper reformanda, ever reforming. For some, what needs to be reformed is a “bibliolatry” that they perceive in the Reformation. No doubt, there are some that worship the Bible rather than the Lord to whom the Reformers pointed. But such bibliolatry is evident neither in the Reformers nor in this collection. What needs to be continually reformed is us–our hearts, our structures and practices, our tendencies to self-sufficiency and self-promotion, our indifference to God and other people. Only the alive and active, double-edged sword of God’s Word, illumined by God’s Spirit, pointing to God’s Son, can do this work. In this work, I was reminded afresh of the preciousness of this irrepressible Word for the people of God.

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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: Creation and New Creation

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creation and new creation

Creation and New Creation, Sean M. McDonough. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2017.

Summary: A work on the doctrine of creation with particular attention to the connection between the creation and the new creation in Christ, but also focusing on other aspects of creation including issues of time, space, Platonic ideas and their influence on the doctrine, in each case tracing relevant scripture, and the theological contributions of theologians from the fathers to the present day.

“Creation” over the past couple centuries has been treated more as a point of contention than as one of the significant doctrines of the church, explored for what it may reveal about God and God’s relation to his world, and humanity, our relationship to the rest of creation and why it, and we, exist. Yet, in recent years, theologians have been writing more and more about the connections between creation and the new creation in Christ.

Sean McDonough contends that this is, in fact, not a new development. He writes:

“The burden of the present volume is that this emphasis on creation and the new creation has been a feature of the doctrine since the beginning, whether it be in the eschatological reading of Genesis 1 that predominated at least until modern times, or the intertwining of the narratives of creation and redemption in thinkers from Irenaeus to Barth” (p. vii).

As promised, this volume, first a part of the Christian Doctrine in Historical Perspective series, and now published on its own, elaborates the connection between creation and the new creation in its first chapter, beginning with the New Testament connections back to creation from John 1 throughout the epistles and Revelation. McDonough then introduces us to the theologians from the fathers to the present who made this connection, and explores how the end will be like, and unlike, the beginning.

Building on this base, and having established the methodology of this volume, McDonough proceeds in subsequent chapters to explore often neglected matters such as who the God is who creates, why the creation, matters of time and space, Platonic ideas and how they relate to both process and structure of creation, the place of humanity in that creation, and finally beauty and the creation. McDonough reflects both upon biblical testimony and the wrestlings of theologians to articulate these aspects of the doctrine of creation.

We join these theologians in wrestling with some of the big questions of the ages. How do we understand the work of each person of the Trinity in creation in a way consonant with our Trinitarian theology? What does it mean that God created the world in freedom and did God create for redemption or did God redeem for his creation? How do we understand the when of creation with a God who is eternal and outside time. Similarly, where are we as creatures inhabiting space in relation to an infinite God who transcends that space? And where did the stuff of creation come from?

Platonism has had a big influence on the life of the church (for which I thought McDonough made a convincing case) and this is certainly the case as we discuss how ideas in the mind of God and the structure of creation correspond. Also, rather than creation being a once and for all event, we find revealed a process of continuous creation, “de-creation” and new creation in Christ. How does this process unfold in the material fabric of the universe? What is the role of human beings in all this, beginning with Adam (and what are we to think about a historic Adam)? What is our destiny as creatures in the image of God redeemed in Christ? Just how far are we warranted to take talk of “deification”? Finally, what does God the creator have to do with beauty? What does beauty have to do with the presence of ugliness in the world, and what can we learn from Christ’s redemptive work?

Part of the delight of this work is seeing contemporary theologians like C. S. Lewis, Karl Barth, and Colin Gunton in conversation with Athanasius and Irenaeus, Origin and Augustine, and down through the ages with Aquinas, Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. We often wrestle with holding truths of Christ’s true humanity and full divinity in tension, or God’s sovereignty and free will. What this volume helped me see is how such things are rooted in creation, where the eternal God creates in time, where the God who is spirit speaks matter into existence, where God creates humans in God’s image, imparting a freedom that goes with that image while remaining sovereign creator. I realized afresh that as one human with a very puny brain, I am in the presence of things too wonderful for me, and yet to wrestle with such things, to listen to the conversation of others, is to think great thoughts of God, to stand in wonder afresh of God’s creative work, and to marvel that such a God would set his love and include in his purposes the likes of me! That is the value of reading good works of theology. That is what I found here.

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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: Eschatology

/ rtrube54 / 5 Comments

eschatology

Eschatology, D. Jeffrey Bingham and Glenn R. Kreider (eds.). Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2016.

Summary: A compendium of essays on the future hope of Christians reflecting a dispensational premillenialist perspective.

Craig A. Blaising is a biblical theologian whose roots are in the Baptist tradition. He has taught at three southern seminaries in the U.S. and is known for his work in what is called “progressive dispensationalism.” This volume of essays, a survey of scholarship around the “last things” was compiled in honor of his 65th birthday and certainly reflects this theological tradition at its best.

Discerning what theological persuasion the writers were coming from, I thought, “O.K. here we go, prophecy charts and predictions that our conflict with ISIS is the prelude to Armageddon.” There is none of that in this book. Instead, what I found was good scholarship seeking to be faithful to scripture and relatively wide-ranging in discussing the history of eschatology through church history and the implications of this all for the church, organized into a comprehensive survey that I would suggest reflects the best of dispensational premillenialism.

After introductory essays that include a biography and curriculum vita of Blaising, the book is organized into four sections:

  1. The Doctrine of the Future and Its Foundations
  2. The Doctrine of the Future in the Bible
  3. The Doctrine of the Future in the History of Christian Thought
  4. The Doctrine of the Future and Christian Ministry.

Hence, the collection moves from theological foundations to biblical theology, to historical theology, and to pastoral and practical theology.

The first section includes a fine essay by Stanley D. Toussaint on the concept of hope and the profound basis the prophetic passages offer for hope that sustains endurance and joy. Then Charles C. Ryrie and John D. and Stefana Dan Laing address the eclipse of attention to the prophetic scriptures having to do with our future hope and the impact this has in the life of the church.

The next section explores the doctrine of the future in each part of scripture, essentially doing the spade work to construct a biblical theology from the whole of scripture about our future hope. It was interesting to see the historical books in scripture discussed by Gregory Smith, exploring the implications of the Davidic covenant and its statements about David’s, and Israel’s, distant future hope. If you want to find arguments for a future hope for Israel as a national entity, you will find it among this and other articles in this section.

Section three turns to historical theology with articles beginning with the early fathers and concluding with contemporary European theology, capped off by David Dockery’s article on Millenialism in Contemporary Evangelical Theology, which gives one of the best explanations I have seen of a-, post-, and pre-millenial positions. It was interesting that while several essays concerned Reformed, Anabaptist, and Baptist theology, there was no treatment of eschatology in Wesleyan theology, and a mere subsection of the Contemporary European Theology devoted to Catholic theology.

The final section turns to pastoral and practical concerns. J. Denny Autry discusses the place of eschatological concerns in both preaching and pastoral care. For my money, the book should have ended with R. Albert Mohler’s essay of contemporary challenges. Stephen Blaising’s contribution on the doctrine of the future and the marketplace felt like an add-in to include Blaising’s son in the collection. Mohler concluded his essay with these words, that should have ended the book:

     “The rapid disappearance of cultural Christianity in our own time will mean that Christians may soon find themselves in a situation similar to that of the early church in Rome. Preaching the Lordship of Christ and biblical eschatology rooted in the arrival of God’s kingdom will be considered culturally and politically subversive. Proclaiming a biblical eschatology that heralds the message “Jesus Christ is Lord” will lead to direct confrontation with the culture.

“While the disappearance of cultural Christianity is a cultural disaster, it is also a theological gain. It is disastrous for society because it will destroy a worldview most conducive to human flourishing. A post-Christian culture will be a very inconvenient place to raise your children, minister the gospel, or speak in the public square. Yet, at the same time, the evaporation of cultural Christianity may prove a theological gain for the church. Our lives and beliefs will only make sense if indeed Jesus Christ is Lord and our hope is not bound up in the city of man, but in a city to come. From a gospel witness perspective, that is a very convenient place to be.”

This quibble with the order and selection of these last essays aside, I would commend this collection, along with Dr. Blaising’s own work if you seriously wish to take the measure of dispensational premillenialist eschatological thinking today. This probably could be used as a basic textbook, or at least supplemental text in theology courses in Christian colleges and seminaries sympathetic with the dispensational premillenialist position. Rather than being about prophecy charts and sensational predictions, it is about the substance of Christian hope concerning the future of every believer, the church, Israel, and the world.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.