Foundations 83 (January 2023)

Issue 83 of Foundations: An International Journal of Evangelical Theology, published by Affinity, is now available (here in its entirety as a pdf), which includes the below essays.

Donald John MacLean

Editorial

Andrew G. Bannister

Muslims, Christians, and God: Why Good Theology is Crucial for Effective Evangelism

This article seeks to explore the question of the relationship between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Are they all “sister religions”, or is Islam built upon entirely different theological foundations to the biblical faiths? We will also examine why this is no mere academic question but is a crucial starting point for evangelism and apologetics to Muslims – and why getting this starting point wrong risks, at best, confusing our Muslim friends and at worst, even a sloppy syncretism.

Thorsten Prill

Equipping Twenty-First Century Missionaries for Cross-Cultural Ministry: African and Western Realities and Perspectives

This article discusses the issue of cross-cultural training of both Western Christians who are called to serve as missionaries in Africa and African reverse missionaries who come to Europe and other parts of the world to be involved in evangelistic outreach and church planting. While the value of cross-cultural training for missionaries is widely recognised, both groups tend to demonstrate deficiencies in their cultural intelligence (CQ) which negatively impacts their missionary efforts. This, however, need not be the case. There are various ways in which cross-cultural missionaries can acquire and develop cultural intelligence to become more effective ambassadors of Christ. A solid foundation for mission work abroad is usually laid at home through active involvement in the local church and cross-cultural ministries. Building on that foundation, future missionaries can further increase their cross-cultural competence through short-term mission trips, missionary apprenticeships or formal training at a mission college, preferably outside their home country or in a multicultural and interdenominational setting. Having arrived in their country of service in Africa or Europe, a period of on-field orientation and, at a later stage, participation in continuing education programmes should complement their training.

E.M. Hicham

A Missiological Assessment of the Insider Movement

This paper addresses Insider Movements (IMs) within the world of Islam and presents a missiological evaluation of the principal IM paradigms. A definition of the movement will be given and discussed. We will also consider five major controversial areas that summarise the debate: 1) The legitimacy of IM members’ dual Islamic and Christian identity, 2) The openness of ‘Insiders’ towards the prophethood of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, 3) The Qur’an as Scripture, 4) The new translation of the Bible, and 5) The role of the local Church. The results of the preceding analyses will be synthesised, conclusions regarding the sociological and theological merits of IMs will be made and alternatives will be suggested.

Robert Strivens

Do Christians Meet for Worship? A Review Essay: William Taylor, Revolutionary Worship: All of Life for God’s Glory

This review article considers recent evangelical reflections on the nature of worship. Many evangelicals are positing that as all of life is worship it is inappropriate to speak of Christians going to church to worship. Indeed, for many evangelicals, this is now the ruling paradigm: we meet for worship only in the sense that the whole of the believer’s life is worship. If we think that we meet for worship, our language and our thinking about such meetings needs to undergo a radical transformation. This position has been argued in a recent and influential book on the subject, Revolutionary Worship: All of Life for God’s Glory, by William Taylor, rector of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate. In contrast to this view, this article argues for the historic understanding of the meeting of the local church as a meeting for the worship of God, at which the Lord’s people may expect to know Christ’s presence with them by his Spirit in a special manner.

John W. Keddie

John Davidson and the General Assembly of 1596

In this article we consider one of the most remarkable post-Reformation revivals in Scottish Church history. It concerns what happened at the General Assembly of the Scottish Reformed Church in 1596. It is little known by Christians today, even in Scotland. Yet one contemporary historian, David Calderwood (1575-1650), was to write that “This year [1596] is a remarkable year in the history of the Kirk of Scotland.” We do need to bear in mind that the Word of God is the same, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and forever, that sin is the same, essentially, in every generation, and the overwhelming need for sinners to be saved is the same in the twenty-first century as it was in the sixteenth. It is a modern arrogance that because we are in such a supposedly advanced society, we have somehow left such things as religion behind. We are in a secular world which holds out no hope for eternity, and has no recognition of answerability to God, or serious thought of judgement to come. We should therefore be moved by the experience of the Church even as far back as 1596 and, after all, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is undiminished in His power to quicken those who by nature are dead in trespasses and sins. We are always invited to believe that what He did then, He can do again in His sovereign grace. Besides this, here is a vital tenet for the Church to maintain: Christ, who has all authority in heaven and earth, is building His church so that the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). In this reconnoitre in Scottish Church history, we can therefore learn many things of timeless value.

Màiri MacPherson

Book Review: When Christians Face Persecution Theological Perspectives from the New Testament

Peter Sanlon

Book Review: Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution

Mission Frontiers 43, 2 (March-April 2021)

The March-April 2021 issue of Mission Frontiers, published by the U.S. Center for World Mission, contains a number of articles on the topic of ‘Insider Movements’.

Here are the opening paragraphs of Rick Wood’s Editorial, which set the scene:

‘What is it about Insider Movements that is so controversial and makes so many people in the church and mission world uncomfortable? Is it simply the fear of syncretism or is something else going on?

I think some of the problem comes down to the fact that as human beings we like clear categories and definitive boxes with bold labels to put things and people into. We do not like being forced to deal with the gray areas where people don’t fit easily into neat categories or boxes.

‘The reality is that regardless of the label we put on the box, we are always going to have variations of what is in the box. Most people would assume that people in the box labeled “Christian” are followers of Jesus vs. something else like Muslim or Buddhist and they would generally be correct. But within every Christian box there will be an amalgam of faithful followers of Jesus and merely cultural adherents. It is a mixed box.’

The issue is available here, from where individual articles can be downloaded.

The Bavinck Review 4 (2013)

The Bavinck Institute have just made available online volume 4 of The Bavinck Review. The contents are listed below, with the summaries of the articles taken from Laurence O’Donnell’ editorial. Individual articles are available here, or the entire issue can be downloaded as a pdf here.

Editorial

Articles

Henk van den Belt

Religion as Revelation? The Development of Herman Bavinck’s View from a Reformed Orthodox to a Neo-Calvinist Approach

Professor Henk van den Belt leads the way with a thorough historical analysis of Bavinck’s formulation of the revelation-religion relationship. He inquires into the theological grounds for Bavinck’s affirmations of the truth, goodness, and beauty evident in non-Christian religions. In what senses does Bavinck consider non-Christian religions and religiosity itself to be divine revelations? How can a Reformed dogmatics with its affirmation of a religio vera nevertheless find theological grounds for affirming proximate goods in non-Christian religions? His historical findings lend themselves to further dogmatic reflection on the religio vera within the contemporary context of religious pluralism. They also help to clarify the meaning of certain controversial passages within the Reformed Dogmatics wherein Bavinck makes positive statements about pagan religions in general and Muhammad in particular.

Brian G. Mattson

A Soft Spot for Paganism? Herman Bavinck and ‘Insider’ Movements

These intriguing passages [where Bavinck makes positive statements about pagan religions] are the subject of Dr. Brian Mattson’s essay on the ‘insider’ debate in contemporary Reformed missiology and Rev. J. W. Stevenson’s response. Mattson argues that misguided appeals to these passages such as Stevenson’s suggest that Bavinck’s view of non-Christian religions in general and Islam in particular downplays the doctrine of total depravity in order to highlight the goods found in these religions. Against these appeals he argues that, rightly understood in context, Bavinck’s statements regarding the goods in non-Christian religions have the opposite effect, one that is grounded in the catholic tradition and is non-controversial. Further, he argues that Bavinck’s statements – when interpreted in light of his view of the relation between nature and grace – do not provide theological grounds for ‘insider’ models of missions.

J.W. Stevenson

A Brief Response to Mattson’s ‘A Soft Spot for Paganism? Bavinck and Insider Movements’

Stevenson’s reply challenges Mattson’s reading of his appeal to Bavinck’s statements as misguided. He further argues that his view of Herman Bavinck’s theology and J.H. Bavinck’s missiology in relation to contemporary ‘insider”’ movement missiological discussion is not at odds with but in harmony with Mattson’s.

Laurence O’Donnell

Bavinckiana digitalia: A Review Essay

O’Donnell’s review essay takes a turn to the technological. After surveying the current array of digitized Bavinck resources, sampling their functionality, and sharing some tips for rewarding digital research, [he reflects] upon the ways in which these digital tools can provide a boon to Bavinck researchers.

John Bolt

Herman Bavinck on Natural Law and Two Kingdoms: Some Further Reflections

Professor Bolt’s essay revisits the VanDrunen-Kloosterman duplex regnum debate with a significant revision of his earlier Bavinck Society discussion guide in light of two recent dissertations by Drs. Brian Mattson and James Eglinton. The underlying theological question in this debate is one that Bavinck calls the hardest theological question of all; namely, the proper relation between nature and grace. This difficult question comes into expression in smaller, even simple, questions such as whether Bavinck, who designated a portion of his student budget for ‘Glas bier,’ would consider those Leiden pints to be Christian in any sense; or whether in Bavinck’s view a fundamental, creational institution such as the family can be properly qualified as Christian, as the title of his recently translated book suggests. Though seemingly simple on the surface, such questions have a profound depth when viewed in light of the nature-grace relation. Bolt offers his own perspective on this discussion.

In Translation

James Eglinto

Letters to a Dying Student: Bavinck’s Letters to Johan van Haselen

Pearls and Leaven

John Bolt

The Imitation of Christ Is Not the Same in Every Age

Bavinck Bibliography 2012

Book Reviews