Evangelical Review of Theology 45, 1 (February 2021)

The latest Evangelical Review of Theology, published by The World Evangelical Alliance, is now online and available in its entirety as a pdf here.

Editor’s Introduction

The Young, the Not-So-Young and the Very Old

Efraim Tendero

As I Hand Off the Baton

Wesley Hill

When Christians Disagree

In this essay, a widely respected author, known for both his defence of traditional marriage and his irenic treatment of those who view the issue differently, probes the problem of sharp divisions amongst professing Christians and challenges some of the prevailing approaches to these divisions.

Frank Hinkelmann

The European Evangelical Alliance: An Historical Sketch

In the April 2020 ERT, Frank Hinkelmann, Austrian church historian and president of the European Evangelical Alliance, told the fascinating tale of how the EEA, now part of the World Evangelical Alliance, was originally founded as a counter-movement to it. In this sequel, Hinkelmann continues the story by describing the EEA’s evolution and significance up to the present.

Benjamin Isola Akano

Promoting Quality Worship Experience in Contemporary Nigeria

Many churches around the world struggle to recognize diversity in ways that overcome racial and ethnic barriers and unify the body of Christ. This article draws on concepts from communication studies to develop ways to intentionally improve intercultural relationships, with illustrations from Nigeria where the presence of hundreds of distinct ethnic groups makes virtually every congregation intercultural.

Francis Jr. S. Samdao

A Baptist Quadrilateral? A Filipino Outsider’s Perspective on Baptist Identity

Baptists are a particularly diverse stream of Christians, partly because their theological convictions empower individual decision making. This article discusses colourfully how the diversity of Baptists is reflected in the Philippines today. It seeks to articulate the core features of the Baptist identity and encourages Baptists both to enrich and to be open to learning from other parts of the body of Christ rather than isolating themselves.

Wayne Detzler

J.B. Phillips: From Paraphrase to Translation

Eighty years ago, there were few modern Bible translations. In the 1940s, J. B. Phillips initiated a modern translation of the New Testament. But his work gets little notice today. This article tells the story of Phillips and his project, offering important insights on the value and limitations of attempts to modernize the Bible message.

Mary Douglas

God and Humanity Brought Together: The Incarnation as Gospel

The Incarnation is celebrated at Christmas but do we really grasp its full import? This essay draws on the fourth-century church father Athanasius – one of the greatest defenders of the orthodox Christian conviction that Jesus Christ was truly God and truly man – to support its claim that evangelicals today impoverish their gospel witness by highlighting Jesus’ death and resurrection and overlooking the essential contribution of the Incarnation to our redemption.

Benjamin Marx

Clothing and Exchange of Garments in the Bible, as a Picture of God’s Dealings with His People

This article investigates the imagery of clothing and exchange of garments through the entire Christian canon (in nine books from Genesis to Revelation) to identify the redemptive analogies drawn by the biblical writers. From the beginning, God takes the initiative to clothe his people and thus restore our dignity, worth and relationship to him.

Jim Reiher

Did the Gospel of Matthew Come First? An Historian’s View

This essay takes us on an enlightening trip through numerous early church fathers to explain why the author believes Matthew was the first Gospel and why this issue is important. It provides a valuable introduction to and critical examination of what we know about the origin of the Gospels.

Book Reviews

The Beautiful Story

Following on the heels of the Church of England’s ‘Living in Love and Faith’ (see here) is a 32-minute video from the Church of England Evangelical Council – ‘The Beautiful Story’.

According to the blurb:

‘Christians believe that the gospel is good news for all people and for all time. But since the narratives of our contemporary culture don’t always echo a biblical worldview, the church needs to be clear about how the gospel challenges and transforms human experience – including in our relationships and sexuality. The Beautiful Story is a 30 minute film that explains how a biblical vision for human sexuality is good for individuals, the church and society as a whole. It is intended to galvanise and support discussion in local churches around sexuality and relationships and to provide the case for what many call a traditional Christian viewpoint.’

Update: The CEEC has provided (here) some background on the video, along with a message to clergy and lay leaders about using it in parishes, with a promise of a shortened version of the film to come in the near future.

Living in Love and Faith

Several years in the making – and not without controversy – the Church of England has today released a set of resources on Living in Love and Faith, billed as ‘Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage’.

The main website is here, which has more information about the project, and from where the Living in Love and Faith Learning Hub can be accessed (including access to the book, podcasts, a course with films and discussion questions, and other resources) in return for an email address.

Update: Andrew Goddard (a consultant on the Co-Ordinating Group of Living in Love and Faith) provides a very helpful introduction and overview here: ‘LLF for Dummies: 10 FAQs about the Church of England’s new teaching and learning resources on identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage.’

Further Update: A pdf of the full book can be downloaded here.

Martin Davie on Glorifying God in Our Body

Martin Davie, Glorify God in Your Body: Human Identity and Flourishing in Marriage, Singleness and Friendship (London: CEEC, 2018).

The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) has published the above book, written by Martin Davie with some collaborators.

I happily ordered the hard copy today, but have just discovered that the book has been made freely available in various formats from this page, with a pdf here.

The back cover blurb is as follows:

‘This study, written by Dr Martin Davie in collaboration with a representative group of other Evangelical theologians, is commended by the Church of England Evangelical Council as a resource in the discussions taking place in the Church of England in relation to the House of Bishops’ “Living in Love and Faith: Christian teaching and learning about human identity, sexuality and marriage” project.

‘It explores a Christian approach to human identity, marriage, singleness, friendship, sex and family life in the light of the worldview that is laid out for us in Scripture and the classical Christian tradition. It considers the current challenges to this approach arising from the sexual revolution and from technological developments in the fields of birth control and infertility treatment and looks at how Christians should respond to them in ways that will enable them to fulfil St. Paul’s injunction to “glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20).’

Vine Journal 2 (December 2015)

Vine Journal is published three times a year in both digital and print form by GoThereFor.com, the digital ideas and resources division of Matthias Media. According to the blurb, ‘GoThereFor.com exists to explain and promote a Bible-based, Reformed-evangelical vision of Christian life and ministry, and to equip Christians everywhere with resources to be disciple-making disciples every day’.

More information about Vine Journal is available here. Volume 1 can be downloaded as a pdf here, and volume 2 (containing the below essays) can be downloaded as a pdf here.

Editorials

Tony Payne

Cross or Glory

Mike Allen

Agreeing to Never Disagree

Articles

Mark Thompson

The Theology of the Cross for Today

“A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.” With these typically startling and paradoxical words, Martin Luther summarized the difference between two diametrically opposed approaches to knowing and serving God. His insight is as relevant today as it was at the time of the Reformation.

Phillip Colgan

The Cross and Christian Ministry in the New Testament

The cross challenges many of our most cherished ideas and idols. But, as Phil Colgan argues, perhaps the most profound challenge of the cross to our ministries is its call to live an uncomfortable, insecure, cross-shaped life.

Mike Allen

Review Essay: One for Many

Ed Loane

From King’s College to Kingsford: Charles Simeon’s Enduring Influence on Australian University Ministry

Most of us are aware of Charles Simeon of Cambridge as a name in the pantheon of evangelical heroes. But as Ed Loane explains in this fascinating essay, Simeon’s influence on university ministries around the world was more profound than many people realize.

Sandy Grant

Defining and Defending Marriage

In a climate of controversy, slogans and emotive appeals, where clear thinking about the nature of marriage is hard to find, this essay by Sandy Grant is a breath of fresh air. In it he not only explores the most frequently unasked question in the same-sex marriage debate (“what is marriage?”), but offers helpful advice for how Christians can put their point of view intelligently and graciously.

Danny Rurlander

Clear and Good
1 Corinthians 11 is a perfect storm of problems for modern Bible readers. It seems hard to understand, and its message (as best as we can read it) grates with our cultural sensibilities. However, as Danny Rurlander argues in this careful and insightful reading of the passage, God’s word in 1 Corinthians is like the rest of Scripture: clear in its message, and thoroughly good in its effects.

Centre for Public Christianity (March 2015)

Among other items, the Centre for Public Christianity has posted a video interview with Craig Keener on ‘the credibility of the miracles recounted in the gospels – and those that happen around the world today’, and an audio interview with Wesley Hill on ‘same-sex attraction, singleness and marriage, and spiritual friendship’.

Centre for Public Christianity (December 2013)

There’s the usual collection of helpful items from the Centre for Public Christianity this month, including a two-part video interview with Sherif Girgis, co-author of What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, on ‘marriage, body-self dualism and contemporary belief in the West’. There’s also a video interview with Michael Goheen on ‘the importance of knowing what stories we are living by and how this is crucial for knowing who we are’, and another video interview with him in which he discusses how ‘the West has been shaped by Christian faith and what interest the Christian story has for the postmodern age’.

Centre for Public Christianity (September 2013)

The latest newsletter from the Centre for Public Christianity contains links to several interesting-looking features:

• A video interview with William Lane Craig, discussing the New Atheism and issues with its understanding of the universe.

• An audio interview with Byron Smith on climate change and sustainable living.

• A lengthy review by John Dickson of Reza Aslan’s Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

• An article by Simon Smart and Justine Toh on how ‘Kevin Rudd's comments... about slavery and same-sex marriage display the worst kind of literalistic fundamentalism’.

Ethics in Brief Volume 18, Nos. 3, 4, 5 & 6 (2013)

Further issues from Volume 18 of Ethics in Brief, published by The Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, are now available online:

Roger Abbott and Robert (Bob) White, ‘Haiti – An Unnatural Disaster’, Ethics in Brief 18, 3 (2013)

This article brings geophysical and theological perspectives to bear on the historic influence of social, economic, and political factors that turned Haiti’s 2010 earthquake into an unnatural disaster. These factors have disabled the native endurance of the majority of Haitian people, and the necessary adaptive requirements of the state, in developing disaster mitigation strategies.

Andrew Goddard, ‘Reframing The Same-Sex Marriage Debate’, Ethics in Brief 18, 4 (2013)

In addition to opposing the government’s flawed proposals to allow same-sex couples to marry, Christians need to see these derive from more fundamental differences in understandings of marriage. We therefore have to consider the place of such different views in British society and the respective roles of religion, the state, wider society and marriage law in this new situation.

Mark Campbell, ‘Strasbourg, Conscience and Religious Belief’, Ethics in Brief 18, 5 (2013)

This issue of Ethics in Brief assesses the meaning and possible impact of the recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights in four well-publicised freedom of religion cases arising in the UK. While the decision demonstrates the limitations of the European Convention on Human Rights in protecting religious freedom, it does contain grounds for cautious encouragement. The article also addresses some of the general issues raised by the decision.

Jonathan Chaplin, ‘Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice in Love – A Review and Response’, Ethics in Brief 18, 5 (2013)

Nicholas Wolterstorff’s book Justice in Love (2011) is an important new exploration of the relationship between these two vital and often misunderstood ethical concepts. This article surveys the book and assesses some of the issues it raises.

The City 6, 1 (Summer 2013)

The latest issue of The City, from Houston Baptist University, is available online here.

This edition includes several essays around the theme of ‘Marriage and Religious Liberty’, including Ryan T. Anderson on ‘Twelve Theses on Redefining Marriage’, Susan McWilliams reviewing the significant book, What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, by Sherif Girgis et al., Fred Sanders on ‘Wendell Berry and the Poetry of Marriage’, Paul D. Miller on sex and modesty (‘Between Burqua and Mini Skirt’), and Andrew Walker on why neutrality is not an option (‘In Defense of Christian Partisanship’). There is also conversation with Eric Metaxas on Bonhoeffer and religious liberty, along with some other pieces and book reviews.

Andrew Sullivan and Douglas Wilson Debate on Same-Sex Marriage

The video of a debate on same-sex marriage (‘Is Civil Marriage for Gay Couples Good for Society?’) between Andrew Sullivan and Douglas Wilson, held on 27 February 2013 in Moscow, Idaho, has now been posted online here.

The first I saw of this was last week when Peter Leithart commented on the debate here and then here.

Leithart writes:

‘I came away from a debate on gay marriage between Douglas Wilson and Andrew Sullivan deeply impressed with the difficulties that Christians have, and will continue to have, defending a biblical view of marriage to the American public. It will take nothing short of a cultural revolution for biblical arguments to be heard, much less to become persuasive.’

The debate was moderated by Peter Hitchens, author of The Rage Against God, who reflects on the debate here.

At one point he says:

‘My own view, which I have recently come to after changing my mind,  is that the demand for same-sex marriage is not itself an attack on the nature of marriage, but a *consequence* of a general change in the institution, which was actually achieved by pressure from a post-Christian heterosexual society and (as Mr Sullivan rightly says ) by the contraceptive pill.’

Roger Scruton and Phillip Blond on Marriage

One of the pieces I read as preparation for my own short piece on same-sex marriage last week was by Roger Scruton and Phillip Blond – ‘Marriage Equality or the Destruction of Difference?’, first published on 4 February 2013.

I don’t finally agree with all they say, but I found many of their arguments fairly compelling, particularly around what they call ‘competing visions’ of marriage – ‘conjugal marriage versus mere partnership’.

‘Put simply, there are two competing ideas of marriage at play in the current debate. The first is traditional and conjugal and extends beyond the individuals who marry to the children they hope to create and the society they wish to shape. The second is more privative and is to do with a relationship abstracted from the wider concern that marriage originally was designed to speak to. Some call this pure partnership or mere cohabitation.

‘The latter view is what marriage is becoming: a dissolvable contract between two individuals who partner purely for the sake of the partnership itself. It has little or nothing to do with children, general education or social stability.’

They provide a potted history of marriage and its secular unmaking, before reflecting on the ever-increasing conception of ‘equality’ in our time:

‘Equality no longer means – as it ought to mean – the equal opportunity to participate in the benefits of society. Instead, it means the removal of all forms of social difference, all the ways in which people have tried to define and maintain institutions and paths through life that require something more than mere humanity of their members... Marriage has grown around the idea of sexual difference and all that sexual difference means. To make this feature accidental rather than essential is to change marriage beyond recognition.’

Difference, they say, matters:

‘Same sex couples want marriage because they want the social endorsement that it signifies; but by admitting gay marriage we deprive marriage of its social meaning. It ceases to be what it has been hitherto – namely, a union of the different sexes and a blessing conferred by the living on the unborn. The pressure for gay marriage is therefore in a certain measure self-defeating: in seeking equality with something unlike yourself, the thing that you join to is no longer what you joined.

‘What is needed here is equity that respects difference not equality that destroys it...’

There is a fuller ResPublica paper by Scruton and Blond available here.

A Bigger Perspective?

I contributed this week’s ‘Connecting with Culture’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

For David Cameron and his supporters, Tuesday’s vote to back gay marriage was ‘a step forward for our country’. Newspaper coverage, meanwhile, seemed more keen to highlight the seeming implosion of a divided Conservative Party. Indeed, whether we see the outcome as a victory for ‘equality’ or a step toward an antidemocratic redefinition of marriage, perhaps even a contravention of natural law, depends on the perspective from which we look.

As it happens, with this as with other issues which divide Christian and non-Christian alike, ‘connecting with culture’ may involve probing the bigger ‘stories’ that lie behind the headline sentiments. How we now respond to Tuesday’s vote will also reflect our larger outlook.

For some Christians, it’s bound up with the inevitable decline of Christendom, where the church no longer enjoys a privileged position at the centre of society. For others, it’s a further indication of Paul’s repeated declaration in Romans 1 that God has ‘given us over’ to the outworking of his judgment against a society which has continually suppressed and distorted his creational design.

Even here, though, Romans 1 is the first chapter not the last chapter. What follows is the promise of redemption through Jesus, available to all through faith. This salvation produces a new people who find their identity in Christ, through relationship with each other, and as ambassadors of God’s mission of reconciliation to the world, themselves harbingers of the restoration of creation!

This being the case, the gospel is not just one perspective on reality, but the true story of the world as being in the hands of the Lord of all. The hope and confidence that comes with this neither sanctions a crusading zeal to enforce our views on society, nor allows us to sink into silent despair or settle into smug quietism.

In keeping with Romans 12 and 13, our identity in Christ produces a community where genuine love is exercised, which extends – like God’s does – even to those who oppose us. But it’s not a love without moral backbone, which papers over differences or is unprepared to challenge. Engaging with this issue will doubtless involve ongoing conversation and debate, but it will be done best by those whose lives demonstrate the beauty of Christ’s relationship with the church, where – in the words of Romans 12:21 – we are not ‘overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good’.

Ethics in Brief Volume 18, Nos. 1 and 2 (2012)

The first two issues from Volume 18 of Ethics in Brief, published by The Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, are now available online:

Tom Miller, ‘The Folly of Attributional Personhood’, Ethics in Brief 18, 1 (2012)

Following the Enlightenment and Empiricist movements, neuroscience has become increasingly harnessed by secular philosophers and ethicists in an attempt to determine scientifically who or what a person may be. However, such an approach is problematic given that the history of cognitive neuroscience is littered with patients who, after sustaining brain damage, lose focal cognitive abilities without apparently diminishing their value and worth as a person. This article explores the historical foundation of this materialistic approach to personhood and its scientific, philosophical and ethical consequences.

Jonathan Chaplin, ‘A Time to Marry – Twice’, Ethics in Brief 18, 2 (2012)

This article argues for a separation between the two stages of the solemnization of marriage: the civil and the religious. While this would be a good thing in itself, the possibility that same-sex marriage could soon be legalized adds greater urgency to the question and requires the church to reflect more urgently and boldly than it has done so far, both on the relation between church and government with respect to marriage and on its own distinctive theology of marriage.

Julian Rivers on Redefining Marriage

The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online, this one by Julian Rivers:

Julian Rivers, ‘Redefining Marriage: The Case for Caution’, Cambridge Papers 21, 3 (September 2012).

Here is the summary:

‘The Government’s proposal to introduce same-sex marriage seems to rest on reasons of equality, stability and convenience. But on closer inspection, these are respectively incomplete, speculative and negligible. As currently defined, marriage secures the equal value of men and women. It also promotes the welfare of children. By contrast, the new definition of marriage will unavoidably call into question its exclusivity, its permanence and even its sexual nature. Such an unravelling of marriage is too high a price to pay for a proposal which fulfils no practical legal need.’

Centre for Public Christianity (June 2012)

The latest email newsletter from the Centre for Public Christianity contains links to video interviews, one with John Dickson on gay marriage and one with Nancey Murphy on the relationship between science, superstition and rational belief.