Calvin: A Brief Guide to His Life and Thought, by Willem van ’t Spijker (Westminster John Knox, 2009)

The author is “one of today’s leading John Calvin scholars” and author of many books (the vast majority in Dutch and, unlike this one, not translated at least as yet—including one on the Westminster Assembly). He also has taught at the Theological University at Apeldoorn. Professor Thomas Davis of Indiana University—Purdue University Indianapolis says: “This brief guide is long on insight and information. In a very readable manner it serves as a ready entry into the life of Calvin, fully embedding that life in the currents of sixteenth-century society and culture. The life and work of Calvin is on fully contextualized display here, as is the erudition of the author and the skill of the translator. Highly recommended.”

Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross, by Michael J. Gorman (Eerdmans, 2001)

Asbury’s M. Robert Mulholland says: “Gorman masterfully conjoins knowledge and vital piety [… and] interacts creatively and effectively with past and current scholarship on Paul and Pauline theology, and he provides cogent arguments against some of the special-interest readings of Paul. This book has the potential to challenge both the academy and the church to a reconsideration of Paul that could revolutionize Pauline scholarship and transform the life of the church in the world.”

Genesis, by Bill T. Arnold, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge, 2009)

The author teaches at Asbury. He did Who Were the Babylonians? (‘04) and 1 & 2 Sam. in The NIV Application Commentary (’03); he co-authored (with J. Choi) A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (’03) and co-edited (with H.G.M. Williamson) the Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books (‘05). The series builds on its popular predecessor, the Cambridge Bible Commentary.

God’s Word In Servant-Form: Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck on the Doctrine of Scripture, by Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. (Reformed Academic Press, 2008)

This is a reprint (with minor revisions) of a two-part article in the fall 1982 and spring 1983 Westminster Theological Journal under the title “Old Amsterdam and Inerrancy?” and written in connection with the hundredth anniversary (28 July 1981) of the birth of J. Gresham Machen. Glancing at the footnotes in Peter Lillback’s Introduction, the reader will find one (citing Jack Rogers and Donald McKim) stating that the first usage of the English word “inerrant” was in 17^th century astronomy, and the theological use began in 18^th century defenses of the Bible against deism. One piece of new information in this “reprinting” concerns the translation of Bavinck’s Dogmatiek into English. Gaffin notes (p. 50n) that a printing error resulting in two chapters numbered 13 in the Dogmatiek finally was resolved in the English translation (4 vols., 2003-2008) by adding the first chapter 13 onto chapter 12. Gaffin says the error had been retained in Dutch editions “apparently to avoid confusion among them.” A new “Postscript” concludes with this intriguing paragraph:

Presently, as the perennial “Battle for the Bible” continues unabated in the opening decade of the twenty-first century, differences over Scripture, its authority and interpretation, continue to polarize within the evangelical community, especially as a result of recent developments styled “post-conservative evangelical.” [At this point there is a footnote, as follows:]

[Note 96]  I have in mind, to cite only one example, the overall view of the Bible, no more hospitable to the central church doctrine of Kuyper and Bavinck, it seems to me, than that of Rogers and McKim, [is] that [which] informs the work of J. R. Franke; see his The Character of Theology [… and his] “Reforming Theology: Toward a Postmodern Reformed Dogmatics” [… and] R. B. Gaffin, Jr., “Response to John Franke” [… and Franke’s] “Postmodern and Reformed?: A Response to Professors Trueman and Gaffin” [… Most of what has been left out are Gaffin’s full citations of these articles in the 2003 volume of Westminster Theological Journal].

On  many issues there are no quick and easy answers. But one thing is certain. We will only be able to move out of this present impasse and achieve solid grow [sic] in the doctrine of Scripture when we share at least a common mind-set concerning the past and what in fact the central church doctrine is. To the extent that the historical record is not set straight but remains uncertain or misrepresented [and Gaffin has made it clear that Rogers, McKim, Franke and others don’t help], evangelical and Reformed theology today, not only in this country but elswewhere, lacks direction, and its future, in Bavinck’s words [in light of the views of Charles Briggs and others a century and more ago], is “not rosy” – a not exactly optimistic but necessary note on which to end this study.

Infant Baptism in Reformation Geneva: The Shaping of a Community, 1536-1564, by Karen E. Spierling (Westminster John Knox, 2009; originally published 2005 in the UK by Ashgate)

The author is at University of Louisville but was visiting prof at Ohio State when she wrote this. Aberdeen’s prof William G. Naphy says: “This is a most welcome and informative volume, which combines the skills of a first-class social historian with the insights of a keen theological mind.”

Philippians and Philemon: A Commentary, by Charles B. Cousar, The New Testament Library (Westminster John Knox, 2009)

Since 1960 the author has been a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and a prof at Columbia Theological Seminary. Apparently illness caused this book to be shorter than is typical for this series. In 1976 and again in 2000 Cousar served as interim president of his seminary.

Questions of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief, by John Polkinghorne and Nicholas Beale (Westminster John Knox, 2009)

A Nobel Prizewinner in Physics, Tony Hewish, writes the foreword, and, another winner of the same prize, William D. Phillips, says (back cover): “For sampling a wide array of topics or digging down into a few, this little book is a refreshing contrast to the polemic and misinformation that have characterized much of the writing in this area.” Francis Collins, former director of the Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God, says: “Standing on the rational bedrock of faith as the ‘evidence of things not seen,’ Polkinghorne and Beale provide richly nuanced responses to the questions that many seekers are asking. This is simply a fantastic resource.” Here are the chapters as well as samples of the sections within them:

First: Leading Questions (sections range from “Creation and Evolution” to “Jesus Christ” and “Final Destiny”)

Second: The Concept and Existence of God (sections range from “Is God the Source of All Morality?” to “What About the Trinity?”)

Third: The Universe (sections range from “Why Is the Universe So Big?” to “Is a Unified Theory of Everything Possible?”)

Fourth: Evolution (sections range from “What About Intelligent Design?” to “Why Is Evolution so Wasteful?”)

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, by Matthew B. Crawford (Penguin, 2009)

The author is currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He also owns and operates Shockoe Moto, an independent motorcycle repair shop in Richmond. An associate editor of The Atlantic deems this book to be “easily the most compelling polemic since The Closing of the American Mind [by David Bloom, 1987].”

Crawford offers a stunning indictment of the modern workplace, detailing the many ways it deadens our senses and saps our vitality. And he describes how the educational system has done violence to our true nature as Homo faber. Better still, Crawford points in the direction of a richer, more fulfilling way of life. This is a book that will endure.

One of the of the books that the author quotes is the interestingly titled The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past, by Barbara Garson (Simon & Schuster, 1988). In an NPR interview he spoke of the nobility of the crafts and other work with one’s hands and whole self. This book may hold appeal especially to any who took the elective Covenant offered several years ago on labor and work, taught by Esther Meek and Mike Williams.

Faith and Philosophy 26, no. 1 (January 2009)

“As far as I know, this book is the all-time most sophisticated, well developed, and plausible defense of the idea that Christians may rationally believe and know apparently contradictory doctrines.”  So begins a review of James Anderson’s Paradox in Christian Theology: An Analysis of Its Presence, Character, and Epistemic Status (Paternoster, 2007). Although the reviewer sees no future in Anderson’s “mysterian defense of Christian belief” in the Trinity and Incarnation, for example (which Anderson deems paradoxes), “others will take it as presenting an exciting, well-motivated, and genuinely different apologetic option.” Anderson “relentlessly dismisses recent attempts to render these doctrines seemingly consistent, by the likes of Barth, Rahner, Cornelius Plantinga, Swinburne, Brown, Martinich, Rea, Brower, Feenstra, Davis, and Morris.” Anderson believes such efforts to avoid both paradox and heterodoxy can’t help failing on either count or even both.

DePauw U’s Erik Wielenberg writes “In Defense of Non-natural, Non-theistic Moral Realism,” in which he argues “that there are sui generis objective ethical facts that do not reduce to natural or supernatural facts.” And, “objective morality does not require an external foundation of any kind.” He defends this against objections posed by William Wainwright, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland. Other articles deal with Kant’s religious argument for the existence of God, with “The Sense of Deity and Begging the Question with Ontological and Cosmological Arguments,” and one on Kierkegaard and natural reason, and one on inductive evidence.

Faith and Philosophy 26, no. 2 (April 2009)

“The Vice of Pride” by Baylor’s Robert C. Roberts clarifies “pride by distinguishing it from emotions that are symptomatic of it and from virtuous dispositions that go by the same name, [and also] by identifying the disposition (humility) that is its virtue-counterpart, and by distinguishing” the “kinds” of pride.

In “A Leftovian Trinity” William Hasker argues that Brian Leftow’s proposed “Latin” doctrine of the Trinity—according to which “the Father just is God” and so are the Son and Spirit—is unorthodox because it renders the three identical. A “minor modification would enable Leftow to avoid this untoward consequence.” But even then his doctrine would “retain a strongly modalistic flavor” by implying, e.g., that Jesus’ prayers are instances of God-as-Son addressing himself, i.e. God-as-Father.  Hasker’s article begins: “The past half-century has seen a revival and outpouring of theological work on the doctrine of the Trinity that may be unmatched since the early centuries of Christianity.”

“Perhaps the most interesting and fruitful development in recent epistemology has been the renewal of interest in the intellectual virtues.” So begins a review of Intellectual Virtues: an Essay in Regulative Epistemology, by Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood (Oxford: Clarendon, 2007). The reviewer is St. Olaf College’s Anthony Rudd. Because other books have tended to address general issues that this new work treats in Part One (the importance of the intellectual virtues, “their relation to the goods of intellectual inquiry,” etc.), it is Part Two that makes this book distinctive, dealing with the specific virtues themselves: Love of Knowledge, Firmness, Courage and Caution, Humility, Generosity, etc. And what the authors have to say is “fascinating, thought-provoking, and very readable.” The reviewer says that their “critique of traditional epistemology” and “their call for a reorientation of the discipline towards the regulative and the humanly relevant is enormously valuable.”  Other reviewed books deal with Pascal’s wager, immortality, the liberal conscience, John Locke (a new biography), the birth of secular ethics, and The Meaning of Theism.

The library staff have noticed that a lot of books, especially in Reference, are getting put back on the shelves in the wrong place. This is one reason why we ask everyone not to reshelve books. The LC call number system can be a little tricky and can trip up even the sharpest person unless great care is taken. We understand that many of you feel bad about not cleaning up after yourself, but a misshelved book is effectively lost, and that doesn’t help anyone.

Furthermore, even if you are 100% sure that you know exactly where a book belongs, we still ask you not to reshelve it. The reason for this is because the library likes to keep track of which books are getting used on-site. When the library staff reshelve books, we scan each book to indicate in the library system that it has been used. This helps us make decisions about what kinds of books to buy, replace, or remove in the future. Therefore, by leaving books on the designated return carts and shelves, you are providing valuable data that helps the library serve you better.

So the next time you’re in the library, please remember to leave the reshelving to the library staff. We promise we won’t think you’re being lazy. On the contrary, by refraining from reshelving you will have helped both the staff and your fellow students.

EMQ 45, no. 1 (January 2009)

• “How Cultures Work: A Roadmap for Intercultural Understanding in the Workplace” by Richard Lewis “asks what effective and efficient multinational partnership looks like and how multinational teams can function practically.”
• “Cutting the Purse Strings: How to Avoid and Overcome Paternalism” by Steve Murdock offers dos and don’ts for supporting any type of mission effort.
• “Toward a Cross-cultural Identity of Forgiveness,” by Gary Fujino looks at individualist and collectivist worldviews and “how the Church can move toward a cross-cultural identity of forgiveness.”
• Among several other articles is one dealing with witness to Muslims and one dealing with short-term mission experience.
• Valuable help appears in a regular section titled “Mission Resources on the Web”—under which the editor (Wheaton’s A. Scott Moreau) and the president of Global Mapping International (Mike O’Rear) this time list “Online Member Care Resources.” Among key sites are those found at www.membercare.org and www.missionarycare.org.

EMQ 45, no. 2 (April 2009)

Under “Mission resources on the Web” Moreau and O’Rear treat “Folk Religions” this time. Church planting is the cover theme. Welcoming international students, having sustainable theological education, and other topics also appear in this issue. The article “Decontextualization—A Much Neglected Element of Mission” argues that “there is a time and a place for challenging the cultural context with countercultural values of the Kingdom of God.”

EMQ 45, no. 3 (July 2009)

“Mission Associations” are the focus of “Mission resources on the Web” in this issue. “Finances & Money” is the cover theme, including funding of mission work.

If you need some serious Thanksgiving break reading, you might want to check out the Post-Reformation Digital Library put together by Calvin College. From the press release:

The Post-Reformation Digital Library (PRDL) is a select bibliography of primary source documents focusing on early modern theology and philosophy, spanning publicly-accessible collections from major research libraries, independent scholarly initiatives, and corporate documentation projects.

The core of the PRDL project involves the organization of thousands of documents available in digital form from sources including Google Books and the Internet Archive. Also included are the offerings of select libraries from Europe and North America, which are beginning to make digitized forms of their holdings available to the public. The project covers the work of hundreds of authors from a wide variety of theological, philosophical, and ecclesiastical traditions, from figures like John Calvin and Martin Luther to the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) and Jacob Arminius (1560-1609).

So, although the PRDL isn’t providing any novel content, it serves as a central place to find primary sources related to Post-Reformation studies, pulling together resources from a number of disparate digital collections.

Would you like a good overview of your research topic, and maybe a bibliography to point you to some key resources? The Covenant Library is currently evaluating a trial version of Reference Universe—a searchable, online tool that can help you find relevant entries in our specialized encyclopedias and other reference sources.

Reference Universe allows you to search the article titles and index entries from the authoritative reference sources on the library shelves, as well as our reference eBooks. Reference books are a great place to start your research, and with the help of Reference Universe they are even easier to find and use. Try it out today, and send us your feedback.

The September acquisitions list was recently posted on our website, and here are a couple highlights:

• Mastering APA style: student’s workbook and training guide by the American Psychological Association.
• Africa Bible commentary — A great way to add some non-Western perspective to your exegetical research.
• Encyclopedia of the Bible and its reception — This is going to be a huge work, but only the first couple volumes are currently available.
• Jeremiah: a commentary by Leslie C. Allen — This is probably going to end up on our revised commentary guide once we work our way to Jeremiah.
• A reader’s guide to Calvin’s Institutes by Anthony N.S. Lane.

Be sure to check out the full list.

American Apocalypses: The Image of the End of the World in American Literature, by Douglas Robinson (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985)

The author is Professor of English at the University of MS, did his B.A. & M.A. in Finland and another M.A. and Ph.D. at the U of WA in Seattle. If there weren’t ample MOBIUS copies we’d probably get this for Buswell Library. Here’s a sample…

Let us enter the hermeneutical fray, then, through R. W. B. Lewis’s “Days of Wrath and Laughter,” a seminal essay on the “comic-apocalypses” of contemporary American literature. Lewis begins by setting up a pair of apocalyptic hermeneutics, which he calls the “Lutheran” and the “Augustinian” strains, and placing himself in subtle opposition to the (considerable) exegetical authority of R. H. Charles [Lewis (1917-2002) was an author and scholar, winner of Pulitzer and other awards, and taught at Yale; R. H. Charles (1855-1931) is of course the English biblical scholar and theologian]:

“It was,” Charles argues, “from the apocalyptic side of Judaism that Christianity was born.” The statement is probably true, but it is misleading. The Christian vision of history is undoubtedly apocalyptic: if we grant the latter term a high degree of dialectical flexibility. But Charles tended to identify apocalypse with catastrophe, and hence with an uncompromisingly glum view of moral and spiritual potentialities of mankind. Given that identification, I should prefer to say that a certain great phase of Christianity was born out of Judean apocalyptic—and I am tempted to call it “the Lutheran phase,” as against the Thomistic phase, for example, or even the Augustinian; using quotation marks to indicate a strain as old as Christianity and one which seems to be in the ascendancy today, and not on unreasonable grounds. (195-96) [from Lewis’s Trials of the Word (Yale, 1965)]

[…] Lewis takes his own interpretive stance by identifying the “Lutheran” strain as a reductive or distortive interpretation of the Book of Revelation and the “Augustinian” as the representative or intended interpretation.  […]

[Lewis’s view] is, mutatis mutandis, Augustine’s allegorical interpretation of John’s Apocalypse from Book 20 of De civitate Dei. The cosmic battle depicted in the Book of Revelation is no historical prediction, as in the “Lutheran” strain, but a spiritual allegory, a narrative metaphor for man’s inner ethical growth toward God. […]

[…] True, predictive apocalyptic is a booming and vulgar industry these days; grocery store bookracks overflow with slick paperbacks promising swift retribution to the quiescent and eternal redemption to those who buy the books. But this is irritating, not threatening. Why is Lewis so concerned to take a stance against the predictive “Lutheran” strain?

[…] Exegetes now generally believe that the writers […] did believe that the end was near. […] The New Testament writers, for example, are unanimous […] 1 Cor. 7:29 […] 1 Pet. 4:7 […] 1 John 2:18 […] Rev 1:1 , 3 […] Rev. 22:20 […] Mark 9:1. […]

This suggests that Lewis’s “Augustinian strain” of apocalypse is a strong misreading of the Apocalypse. […] But […] the “Lutheran strain” too is a strong misreading […Robinson along the way here (writing in 1985) observes that Hal Lindsey “predicts the end of the world in 1988”].

In another sense, however, Luther and Hal Lindsey (along with many others who have adopted the same hermeneutic) remain firmly within the apocalyptic tradition of the Bible; for as Lindsey revises Luther’s revision of St. John, so too did St. John revise “Daniel’s” revision of Jeremiah [Jer. 25:12 is referenced in a lengthy endnote; in the preceding note, Robinson says that Lindsey “is by far the most rhetorically restrained and scholastically cautious of recent prophets of doom”]  […]

[…] What Augustine offers Lewis [who was a socio-political conservative with trepidations about the 1960s and so on] is not doctrinal credibility but a secure conservatism that stresses learning over revolution, through the infinite deferral of apocalyptic crisis.

Robinson has a good bit more to say about biblical material, but mostly proceeds through his book to treat certain noted American authors (e.g., Emerson, Melville, Poe, Twain) and some more recent figures such as novelist and short-story writer John Barth.

The most important mediation in a discussion of American apocalypses, however, is the mediation that is operative in the Romantic hermeneutic. American literature is a Romantic literature; its deviations from Romanticism are themselves definitively Romantic; and the American Dream as most mythically dreamed by our greatest Romantic apocalyptist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, is clearly the umbrella covering the entire range of apocalypses.

The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, edited by John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim (Cambridge, 2008)

Four major sections comprise a total of 20 essays by as many contributors. Various geographical loci are included as well as everything from theology and devotional praxis to gender, literature, politics, and popular culture.

Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond: A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life, by Jane Brody (Random House, 2009)

Although this is not a Christian book it has much to impart. Even ministers and medical personnel can say or do things that are very unhelpful amid both the facing of death and during bereavement. And the book also covers helpful things to say and do—as well as much, much more—for the dying, the family, and all concerned. As with most books, there are weaknesses as well.

The Problem with Evangelical Theology: Testing the Exegetical Foundations of Calvinism, Dispensationalism and Wesleyanism, by Ben Witherington III (Baylor, 2005)

The author teaches at Asbury Seminary and his publications are widely recognized as many of you know. Donald McKim is quoted on the back cover as follows: “Evangelicals of all stripes need to take account of Witherington’s contentions here—to make us exegetically honest and theologically responsible. He takes on three streams of evangelicalism. […] The result is critique, but also a call for biblical orthodoxy and proclamation of biblical truth in postmodern society. His perspectives should gain a wide hearing.” (McKim edited Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith (1992). In 2001, entries from it were used for the Westminster Handbook to Reformed Theology.) Trevor Hart of the University of St. Andrews also lauds Witherington’s book. The book’s Part One is: Augustine’s Children: The Problems with Reformed Theology [he means both Lutheran and Calvinist expressions of Augustine].  Part Two: On Dispensing with Dispensationalism.  Part Three: Mr. Wesley Heading West.  Part Four: The Long Journey Home —Where Do We Go from Here?  Then there’s a “Coda” titled: Rebirth of Orthodoxy or Return to Fundamentalism? There are extensive endnotes and a bibliography of works Witherington cites. For Witherington, “Augustine owed something to Manicheanism, and fatalism.”

Unfortunately, when this heritage was brought to bear on interpreting the Scriptures, Paul in particular suffered. It took Paul out of his Jewish context and read him as an exponent of a later and, one might add, a largely non-Jewish theology, which muffled the Jewish focus on orthopraxy, on how the believer should live. […]

Paul’s conception of election is a corporate one, and it does not predetermine which particular individuals can be in or out of the group. Furthermore, Paul does not operate with an “invisible elect” amidst the people of God concept. The Israelites or Christians who are true are all too visible and evident. The tree is known by the fruit it bears. Second, Paul fully affirms that perseverance is necessary to salvation, and that it involves human effort. He also affirms that apostasy is possible for a true believer….One is not eternally secure until one is securely in eternity.

Third, Paul believes that Christians are under a new covenant, not any administrations of the older ones. He does see the new covenant as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic one. Among other things, this means that Christians, whether Jew or Gentile, are no longer under the Mosaic law. They are rather under the law of Christ.

Fourth,…Paul also does not operate with a concept of imputed righteousness, if by that phrase one means that Christ’s righteousness is counted in place of ours. A careful reading of Galatians 3 and Romans 4 will show that what Paul says on the basis of Genesis 12-15 is that Abraham’s faith was reckoned or counted as righteousness. This is a very different matter than Christ’s righteousness counting in the place of that of the believers.

Paul affirms that believers are initially set right with God by grace through faith, but that they must go on with the aid of grace to be righteous, to manifest holiness, indeed even to go on to completion or perfection at least at the point of the resurrection of the believer when in body as well as in spirit they become truly whole.

Witherington concludes Part One as follows…

Now, however, it is time to consider a much more recent theology—Dispensationalism—that has spread like kudzu throughout the conservative Protestant Church and is threatening to overrun and overwhelm traditional Protestant theology of various ilks. As we shall see, it is exegetically by far the weakest of these three theologies we are critiquing.

In Part Three he critiques his own tradition, the Wesleyan, beginning with: “I was always taught that it is not polite to sass your mother. Well, I am a cradle Methodist.”

Just before his “Coda” Witherington lays out a “desideratum list” for those aiming to be “capable of doing theological work on the New Testament”:

1. Read the text in the original
2. Study it in its original contexts and “If you are not a scholar, then you must be able to do the hard work of reading commentaries and gaining some critical acumen so you can sift the material”
3. Interact “with non-Evangelical treatments” and patristic ones before “Augustine and the Latinizing of the church” or “In other words, you need to get out of your own bubble”
4. Give your full attention and a long period of study, as it “cannot be a part-time or pastime kind of thing”
5. You must not water down or dumb down the text
6. Do the work in community, “in close consultation with others working in the field”
7. “Western theologians who live in an individualist society that does not understand a collectivist biblical culture, much less an honor-and-shame one, need to do NT theology with the help of those in two-thirds of the world who do live in such cultures”
8. Listen to the voices of the poor and oppressed, and of women, as the Bible often is addressed to the former, and, its world as well as today’s is generally patriarchal so the latter need to be heard;
9. “[S]ystematic theology needs to never be done in isolation from deep exegetical treatments of the Bible”
10. “[T]heologizing needs to be done across denominational and theological lines”
11. The effort “requires humility, not hubris”
12. Lastly, he suggests:

Perhaps, too, it is time for us to redraw the boundaries, and not just continue to nurture and appreciate our differences, theologically speaking. The world is laughing at us because our witness is so divided and we speak with forked tongues. Perhaps all Evangelicals need to spend more time sitting at the same table, sharing communion, serving one another, loving one another, and leaving behind triumphalism based on our ecclesiological and theological differences. […] We need to offer the world Christ once more, the real Christ of the NT. But this implies that we in turn know him in a profound way, have studied the Word deeply, have encountered the Word personally, have embraced the Word passionately.

Now here are some lines from the “Coda”, Rebirth of Orthodoxy or Return to Fundamentalism?

We have not been helped by the fundamentalist takeover of some of our major schools and seminaries, nor by the media attention given to fundamentalist televangelists, which makes most of us look like people who have zeal without knowledge, even of the Bible. This has not helped the progress of orthodoxy amongst Evangelicals. […]

You know something is badly wrong with your NT theology when you oppose Middle East peace plans and efforts because it messes up your eschatological timetable.

[…] the orthodoxy I am talking about involves a generosity of spirit. […] This is why I have insisted that NT theology not be done in the isolation of one’s private study, but in community, in dialogue with other Evangelicals, and in prayerful communion with God, listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

…The Apostle’s Creed needs to be affirmed without a redefinition of what virginal conception and bodily resurrection and the Trinity mean, without denying the second coming or fudging on original sin, and without vitiating the historical substance of the Gospels and Acts and other parts of the NT. [… But] I am saying that we listen to new ways of expressing the old and abiding truths.

In the latest issue of Anvil (vol. 16, no. 2), David Bebbington (a leading historian of evangelicalism) writes the lead article “Evangelical Trends, 1959-2009” (pp. 93–106), focusing on Britain, where over the years he sees a “decline in anti-Catholicism, Keswick teaching, premillennial eschatology, traditional missionary-mindedness and internal unity.” On the other hand, evangelicals grew as a proportion of their denominations, broadened their views, acquired ecumenical interest, and witnessed growth in the Reformed, charismatic, and black church sectors. Divisive gender and socio-political issues arose.

Open Evangelicals were generally much happier with contemporary approaches to biblical hermeneutics than members of Reform; charismatic churches were more likely to run Alpha courses while Reform favored Christianity Explored; there was normally a much more structured liturgy in an open than in a charismatic congregation; and so on. Underlying the differences […] was a more fundamental cultural orientation. Reform [I’m construing this as I would “Reformed”] promoted a logo-centric modernity, stressing accurate teaching, efficient ecclesiastical structures and resistance to contemporary fashions for the sake of the gospel. Charismatics embraced a postmodern delight in variety, authenticity and relevance to felt needs. The open grouping welcomed insights from the modern and the postmodern, being deliberately eclectic. Attitudes to cultural change fostered markedly contrasting stances. The former unity of Evangelicalism had been broken. (pp. 104–105)

In the same issue, “Britain Today: How we came to be here and what we can do about it” (pp. 107–122) by Michael Nazir-Ali looks especially at “the state of the family, the rise of homemade spiritualities and the phenomenon of scientific reductionism” (p. 107).

[The author then] sets out a vision for how the church can serve the nation by reversing our amnesia about our Christian heritage (especially in education), bringing Christian values and virtues into the public sphere and the marketplace, making our worship visible, and renewing our commitment to mission and evangelism rooted in friendship and witness. (p. 107)

Other articles deal with vibrant Anglicanism in Africa and with an analysis of the Church of England and ways to turn around its decline. Both articles have broader application. Abstracts for all the articles can be found on Anvil’s website.

Aquinas the Augustinian, edited by Michael Dauphinais, Barry David, and Matthew Levering (Catholic University of America Press, 2007)

Dauphinais and Levering are co-editors of Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas from this same press (2005) and of Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, 2002). In this new book, we have eleven essays by as many contributors, who represent five nationalities (of the 3 editors only Levering contributes an essay). The influence of St. Augustine’s thought on Aquinas is “well known. With the exception of particular philosophical controversies, however, relatively little research has been done in this area.” This book brings to our understanding of Aquinas “a renewed awareness of his extraordinary indebtedness to his fifth-century teacher.” Summaries of medieval theology that see Aquinas “as a follower of Aristotle over the traditional” Augustinians of his day are simply misleading.

Calvinus sacrarum literarum interpers: Papers of the International Congress on Calvin Research, edited by Herman J. Selderhuis, Reformed Historical Theology series, volume 5 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008)

Eighteen essays fall under four headings:

“Exegesis” has two essays, one on Calvin as a translator as shown in his 1557 Psalms commentary, and the other titled “John Calvin’s Nonliteral Exegesis” which focuses on his allegorical interpretation—but mentions the literal as well as four additional nonliteral modes:  a) replacement of problematic texts with meanings from other biblical texts; b) inferring of the author’s or character’s thoughts; c) discernment of rhetorical devices; and d) typological.

“Theology” comprises seven essays. Wim Janse is Professor of Reformation History at the Free University in Amsterdam and his “Calvin’s Eucharistic Theology” caught my eye. He opens by distilling what he will present. Here goes an attempt to convey the gist of the distilling…

[…] My own favourite one-liner is: Calvin’s pneumatological instrumentalism moved between the Scylla of Luther’s sacramental realism and the Charybdis of Zwingli’s spiritualistic symbolism. Decidedly helpful is Brian A. Gerrish’s famous characterization of Calvin’s, Bullinger’s and Zwingli’s Eucharistic views as, respectively, symbolic instrumentalism, symbolic parallelism, and symbolic memorialism. I would say that, as in all of Calvin’s theology, these also center around the bipolarity and simultaneity of God’s being both far removed and very close. […]

However, these types of summaries give rise to misunderstandings. […] In spite of Calvin’s own —polemical—claim of consistency, his Eucharistic theology is neither the sum total nor the common denominator of all his pronouncements between 1536 and 1564.  […]

Janse puts forth three theses as follows…

Calvin’s Eucharistic views […] show a historical development. In this development we may trace, in order, Zwinglianizing (1536-1537), Lutheranizing (1537-1548), and again spiritualizing tendencies (1549-1550s). […]

My second thesis is, that Calvin not only, being a good theologian, showed docility, flexibility, and development in thought, but was also able, being an astute church politician and vulnerable human being, to allow himself to be led by a desire for consensus or for dissent, reflected even in his formulations. […]

My third thesis is, that Swiss pressure during the two years preceding the Consensus Tigurinus of 1549 and Calvin’s signature under this Bullinerian document, had a lasting influence on Calvin’s Eucharistic views, if only in Calvin’s apparent willingness to use Zwinglianizing phrase[s] in the 1550s.  Vis-à-vis the Lutherans [however,] Calvin distanced himself of his Zwinglianizing position in 1549.

The other six essays under “Theology” treat: “Calvin’s Use of Doctrina in His Catechisms”; his Christological understanding of the Law; an overlooked aspect of the Imago Dei in Calvin; divine accommodation and transcendence in Calvin; “Opera Trinitatis Ad Extra Sunt Indivisa”; and “Baptism as a Means of Grace in Calvin’s Theology.”

The third of the four headings is “Comparisons” and three essays come under it: “Luther and Calvin—One Reformation”; “Calvin and [Johannis] à Lasco”; and one in French on Sadolet and Calvin.

The fourth header is “Reception” and comprises six essays: “Theory in Practice: Calvin’s Ecclesiology in the French Churches”; “Calvin. Saint, Hero or the Worst of All Possible Christians?”; one subtitled “Four Remonstrant Ministers Against the Falsehoods and Innovations of Calvin”; one on Calvin’s Dèclaration; “Calvin’s View of Augustine and the Donatist Church”; and “Calvin and the Reformanda Sayings.”

Deliverance and Submission: Evangelical Women and the Negotiation of Patriarchy in South Korea, by Kelly H. Chong, Harvard East Asia Monographs, #309 (Harvard, 2008)

Not only a nice bibliography and index conclude this work, but also many footnotes, most of which are lengthy and packed with insights, rich details, etc. A glance turned up this (on p. 21)…

Between 1951 and 1959, the original body of the Presbyterian church [in Korea] split several times over Shinto and other issues, resulting in the present-day existence of four major Presbyterian denominations—one liberal, two conservative, and one ultra-conservative (in addition to over 60 other smaller Presbyterian denominations subsequently established).

Now here’s part of the endnote [p. 209] referenced at the end of the above sentence…

The Presbyterian church first split in 1951, when a very conservative faction (now called Koryo Presbyterian Church) composed of those who had opposed Shinto during the [Japanese] occupation left the denomination, charging [it with…] complicity with the Japanese [….] The main body split yet again in 1954, but this time, the liberal wing of Presbyterians (now called the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea, known informally as Gijang) split from the parent body, charging that it was too conservative (A. Clark 1971: 306-07). The most virulent schism occurred in 1959 when the remaining Original Assembly—the Presbyterian Church of Korea—again split […]; the ultra-conservative group (aligned with the National Association of Evangelicals in the United States and also called the Presbyterian Church of Korea) left the main body. As a result of these splits, there are now four major Presbyterian denominations in  Korea: the Presbyterian Church of Korea […] unofficially called Donghap; the Presbyterian Church of Korea (non-ecumenical), called Hapdong; the […1954 liberal split-off named above] called Gijang; and the [1951 split-off] Koryo Presbyterian Church. It is important to remember, however, that these splits were not simply over theological issues; [for,] much of the conflict was driven by personal, political, or regional rivalries. In fact, one scholar has observed that “One can find churches…accusing each other of being liberal or conservative or modernistic or fundamentalistic, but none of them seemed to know clearly what these terms really mean” (Yoo 1988: 148).

Reformed Confessions of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries in English Translation: Volume 1, 1523-1552, compiled with introductions by James T. Dennison, Jr. (Reformation Heritage Books, 2008)

The University of Geneva’s Professor Irena Backus says: “A comprehensive collection of the main statements of faith of all Reformed communities considered as orthodox (Waldensian, Zwinglian, Calvinist, and Anglican). Many of these documents are translated into English for the first time, References to existing critical editions are provided systematically.” The Introduction states: “This multi-volume series is a compilation of many of the Reformed confessions […and for] many of these texts, this is their debut in the Anglo-Saxon vernacular.”  And, “In the highly charged political atmosphere of [the time…], the confessions also reflect the complex vicissitudes of the ecclesiastical politics of the era.” Dennison also states:

It is my intent to present these confessions chronologically from 1523 (Zwingli’s Sixty-seven Articles) to 1693 (Keach’s Catechism) in English. In the event that the translation of a document is providentially delayed beyond the deadline for publication in a particular volume, it will, Deo Volente, be included as an appendix at the close of the final volume of this series.

A Faith That is Never Alone: A Response to Westminster Seminary California, edited by P. Andrew Sandlin (Kerygma Press, 2007)

This is the first publication of this press, and the book responds to Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California (P&R, 2007). The editor’s preface begins with these distressing words…

Recently I had lunch with a friend, a theologically literate layman. He expressed savage disappointment at the internecine strife presently sundering the Reformed world (and not only there) on the topics addressed in this book. I could not honestly disagree with him. I then told him that theological controversy seems intrinsic to the DNA of the Reformed tradition. The very genesis of this tradition was a reactionary controversy with the Church of Rome, and disputes with its fraternal brothers, the Lutherans and the Arminians, followed in the wake. Throughout its history, the Reformed seem to have carried on a running battle not only with non-Reformed theologies and churches but also with deviations (or apparent deviations) within their own camp. The fact that the contemporary Reformed world would be rocked with controversy is therefore not surprising. The history of the Reformed world is a history of theological combativeness.

[Why?…] There are likely several accurate answers, but one stands out. [… It is that] the Reformed [tradition] is likely the most theologically oriented, where theology is defined as “articulated rationality” (see Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions). […] This apotheosis of “articulated rationality” is not a part of other leading traditions.

Contributors are: John H. Armstrong (president of ACT 3: Advancing the Christian Tradition in the Third Millennium, adjunct prof at Wheaton, board member of Biblical Seminary and of the Institute on Religion & Democracy); Don Garlington (PhD from Durham, former prof at Toronto Baptist Seminary, etc.); our alumnus & PCA clergyman Mark Horne; Peter Leithart (PhD Cambridge, a prof and pastor); Rich Lusk (pastor whose master’s is the M.Phil. from U of TX); editor Sandlin (president of the Center for Cultural Leadership, preacher, and theological consultant to ACT 3 Ministries); and Norman Shepherd (to whom the book is dedicated, the retired CRC pastor and former WTS/PA prof). On the back cover WTS OT prof Douglas Green says that the book combines “careful, thought-provoking exegesis with a deep indebtedness to Calvin’s emphasis on union with Christ.” “While their conclusions will no doubt elicit a wide range of responses from the Reformed community, they cannot be easily dismissed.”

Pauline Theology, Volume IV, Looking Back, Pressing On, edited by E. Elizabeth Johnson and David M. Hay (Scholars Press, 1997)

This is the final volume in this Pauline Theology series. Contributors include Paul J. Achtemeier (2 essays), James Dunn (2 essays), Leander Keck, Victor Paul Furnish, Richard B. Hays, Paul Meyer, David Hay, and Steven Kraftchick. Part I: Looking Back on Romans has 2 essays; Part II: Faith in or of Jesus Christ has 3; Part III: Evaluating a Ten-Year Experiment has 4 essays; and, Part IV: Epilogue has one. The 4 essays in Part III (Ten-Year Experiment) are Dunn’s “In Quest of Paul’s Theology: Retrospect and Prospect” and Kraftchick’s response thereto, and Paul Meyer’s “Pauline Theology: A Proposal for a Pause in Its Pursuit” and Furnish’s response thereto.

Ulysses S. Grant on Leadership, by John A. Barnes (Forum, 2001)

This new book was a gift, and it has much to teach leaders or aspiring ones. Each chapter has a concluding set of bullets headed “Grant’s Lessons.” Here’s that of chapter 9, “Communications: Clear and Distinct” which is the first chapter in Part III, Management: Words into Deeds.

• Instructions to subordinates and reports to superiors should be as clear, direct, and concise as possible. Get the information across without taxing the reader’s time. (Of course military folks have greater need of this than did 17^th century divines or any number of other gentlemen living in times of what we today deem very wordy writing.)
• Where possible, spice up your communications with colorful and memorable words or phrases.
• Read widely and as much as possible. Develop good habits of concentration and memory.
• Be open to new technology and means of communication. (E.g., Grant gave high priority to stringing new telegraph wires and using that technology more than others did.)

Another glance at this book yielded the following…

…Grant was not completely free to select his own subordinates. Early in the war, Lincoln had appointed a number of “political” generals….John McClernand, who gave Grant grief in the Vicksburg campaign was one of these. Another was Ben Butler.

A HIGHLY SAUCCESSFUL Massachusetts Democratic politician before the war, Butler was one of the first to offer his services to the nation after Fort Sumter, and Lincoln appointed him a major general, eager as the president was to showcase “loyal” Democrats [his opposition party] who backed the war effort. Unfortunately, this made the military amateur Butler one of the most senior officers in the Union army.

Eager for martial glory that he hoped would lead to the White House, Butler took the opportunity to carve out for himself a military record remarkable for its ineptitude even in a war where command incompetence was commonplace. He lost what is widely regarded as the war’s first large skirmish, at Big Bethel, Virginia, in June 1861. He failed to take Petersburg in June 1864, when the city lay all but defenseless before him, a failure that necessitated Grant’s undertaking a nine-month siege operation.

Grant would have loved to fire Butler, but the reasons that Lincoln had for appointing him in the first place still applied: Butler was politically influential, and the president needed his support in the fall campaign. Grant thus tolerated Butler’s ongoing blunders until November 1864, when he was sent home to “await orders.” Butler insisted on leading one last disaster in early 1865, when he failed to take Fort Fisher, North Carolina. After that, he was out of uniform for good. The lesson of Grant, Lincoln, and Butler is, Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.