Evangelical Manifesto

An Evangelical Manifesto has recently been released. And I'm sure there will be much discussion about its content over the next days all over the blogosphere. And rightly so. The document, written by a committee of prominent "Evangelicals," seeks to define who they are as evangelicals and the to set out a vision for evangelical engagement with the world.

Many others are likewise responding to the document. See, for instance, Darrel Bock.

On first reading, the document seems to be one with which I enthusiastically agree. It begins by defining what evangelicalism is, reclaiming the title as a desire to be biblically, historically Christian. They are careful to define the distinctives of "evangelicalism" but are equally careful to emphasize the commonalities with Christians across time and space, dual emphases that are absolutely essential to our Christian identity.

They then lay out a vision for evangelical social engagement, a vision for what it means to actually live as an evangelical. Amongst the current ills of much current evangelical practice, they point to replacing "meeting real needs with meeting felt needs." What a great and incisive critique of a detached gospel (it smacks of Dallas Willard's influence). In short, they disect the distance between much evangelical rhetoric and much evangelical living. It is a great call to reformation.

The document then moves to something that has been growing closer and closer to my own heart: moving beyond single-issue politics to a broader and fuller vision of how God would have us act in the world. Beside the traditional evangelical concerns, there are so many issues that demand our immediate attention: "the global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness." Along with this, I've found myself noticing more and more noticing the too-easy equation of "evangelical" (or, often, even Christian!) with Republican.

In the end, the document is a well-reasoned and faithful call to a faith that is neither "privatized nor politicized." I hope it can be an occasion for evangelical reflection and reformation, and hope it can guide the continuing transformation of evangelicalism in America and beyond.

The Doctrine of Scripture at Westminster

Those of you who read Biblioblogs have probably followed the saga unfolding at Westminster Theological Seminary over the past year regarding Peter Enns, prof of Biblical Studies, and his book, Inspiration and Incarnation. In that engaging and thoughtful book, Enns tackles head on "problems" in the Scriptures that are often glossed over in formulating our doctrines. In short, he looks at the phenomenon of Scripture (that is, what Scripture actually is and says and does) to see what it has to contribute to a doctrine of Scripture. This is opposed, or maybe better, in addtion, to focusing on the "self-witness" of Scripture, that is, what Scriptures specifically says it is. This discussion has led to the dismissal of Professor Enns from Westminster, after the decision that he has gone outside the bounds of the Westminster Confession. Many learned people on all sides of the discussion have commented at great length. I recommend, among others, the round-up by Michael Bird of Euangelion, and the comments by Ben Meyer of Faith and Theology, though many others have commented as well. Especially interesting is also the fact that Westminster has now released the theological documents surrounding the dismissal, which shed some interesting light on the split within the faculty. The Hermenutics Faculty Committe precis is especially interesting.

I myself have been wrestling with how to forumlate the doctrine of Scripture in light both of what Scripture says and what Scripture is, and I personally really enjoyed Enns' honest approach to the phenomenon of Scripture, taking him at his word that it was an investigation into these matters with an eye to how they may contribute to a doctrine of Scripture, and not a full-blown doctrinal statement. And while I don't necessarily completely agree with how he has used the incarnational anaolgy, nor necessarily agree with all of his points, I thought his book was well done and much needed study into these matters.

I'm saddened by the tone much of this discussion has taken, and hope it can open up some fruitful dialogue on what it means to be confessional but also Biblical, on what it means to be evangelical without closing off continued study and learning. I think this controversy simply extends one that has been going on in evangelicalism for a long time, in organizations such as the Evangelical Theological Society and elsewhere. I have profound respect for many of the traditional formulations of the doctrine of Scripture, but also hope our investigations can continue.

For the love of books

Anyone who knows me well, or who has read much of my blog, knows that I love books. I love to read them, to look at them, to hold and smell and feel them. I love the typesetting and layout, the covers and jackets, the thickness of the paper. I've even spent part of my life making a living off making books, first working for a religious publisher (Fortress Press) and now working freelance. And while I am of course interested in various technological advances regarding the dissemination of information (I love to read blogs, for instance), I would be panicked and grief-stricken if the book in its current form were to go away. So I was heartened (though not surprised) to read this great piece in the Chicago Tribune (HT: Scot McKnight at JesusCreed):
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0420_bookfutureapr20,1,4796966.column

Enjoy.

New Commentary series from Cascade Books

On his blog, Euangelion, the prolific Michael Bird notes one of his own forthcoming titles as follows:
"Colossians: A New Covenant Commentary. Oregon: Cascade, July 2009. This will be my summer project (along with writing a course on "Reformed interpretation of Romans from Calvin to Cranfield"). I'm longing to write a commentary on my favourite epistle of the New Testament and dive into Markus Barth's own commentary as well as recent commentaries by M.M. Thompson, Ben Witherington, and Doug Moo too. It is part of a new commentary series edited by myself and Craig Keener with a line-up of great scholars from around the world (I mean Asia, Africa, America, Australia). I'll blog more on that in the future."

K. C. Hanson, the Editor-in-Chief at Wipf & Stock, has done quite a job of building up the Cascade imprint, and I look forward to this new and promising series. I can't find any info on the W&S web site about it yet, but just the brief comments above peak my interest. I guess now patience will be a virtue.

N. T. Wright on the Anglican Communion

The Anglican Evangelical Web magazine Fulcrum has a lecture recently given by N. T. Wright about the position the Anglican communion currently finds itself in the months before the upcoming Lambeth Conference. I am not Anglican myself, and don't have a full enough understanding of the polity of that communion to comment on the deep and tragic split that has been developing over especially the church's understanding of homosexual activity and the ordination of Gene Robinson by the Episcopal Church in America. But I do commend to you N. T. Wright's lecture, which, in its second half, very helpfully uses 1 and 2 Corinthians as a way to illustrate how Paul himself dealt with difficult issues of unity, diversity, holiness, and love. I'm personally troubled by the direction the Episcopal Church has taken over the past decade in its open embrace of practicing homosexuals and in its open thwarting of the views of its own worldwide communion of Anglicans, not to mention the worldwide catholic church. And I continue to watch and hope and pray that biblical reflection can lead to a true, robust, biblical solution within the Anglican communion that can be a model for many other churches, such as the ELCA and the worldwide Lutheran World Feeration, can follow.

Book Reviews Index

One of my favorite activities is reading and reviewing books. So I'm working on putting together a list of the books I've reviewed. I'll try to keep this post updated as I keep on going.

Craig Allert, A High View of Scripture?
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses
Richard Bliese and Craig Van Gelder, The Evangelizing Church
Donald Bloesch, A Theology of Word and Spirit
Donald Bloesch, God the Almighty
Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy, Across the Spectrum
F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free
James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, pt 1, pt 2
Gordon Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians
Stanley Grenz, Prayer: The Cry for the Kingdom
Stanley Grenz, Renewing the Center
Gordon Kaufman, In the beginning . . . Creativity
Soren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity
Tuomo Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith
I. Howard Marshall, Biblical Inspiration
Alister McGrath, A Scientific Theology, vol. 1: Nature, vol. 2: Reality, vol. 3: Theory
Scot McKnight, Jesus and His Death
J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind
Leon Morris, Revelation (TNTC)
Mark Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis
Alan Padgett, Science and the Study of God
Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places
Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book
Clark Pinnock, Most Moved Mover, The Openness of God
Peter Schmiechen, Saving Power
Kevin Vanhoozer, First Theology
Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy
David Willis, Clues to the Nicene Creed
Albert Wolters, Creation Regained
Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God
N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God
N. T. Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective

Forthcoming book about Atheism

Fortress Press is coming out with the third volume in their series of books to accompany the Greer-Heard Point Counterpoint Forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The new book, which is scheduled to release in October, is The Future of Atheism, and is a debate between Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett. I haven't had a chance to seek out a recording of the debate (I know you can buy one from NOBTS), nor have I looked over the list of respondents, but this promises to be an interesting book, even if this ground has been pretty well tread in the past year or two. McGrath is a very erudite respondent to the new influx of Atheist writing, as a former atheist himself, as a credentialed scientist, and as a historical theologian. I've enjoyed listening to him talk, especially about Dawkins' new book, and look forward to delving into this discussion.

Wright on the Resurrection

CT has a great article by N. T. Wright on Heaven and the resurrection. It is a great condensation of his numerous thoughts and studies on this topic. He advocates, to put it simply, that the common popular focus on life after death as simply consisting of going to heaven or hell, as too simplistic, failing to take into account that there is instead an intermediate state that will one day lead to "life after life after death," a bodily resurrection in the mold of Jesus' resurrection, with a renewed existence on earth. This means that the bifurcation of the "gospel" of going to heaven after you die from "doing good in the world" is a false choice that is instead united in a robust eschatology.