Foundations 74 (Spring 2018)

Issue 74 of Foundations: An International Journal of Evangelical Theology, published by Affinity, is now available (here in its entirety as a pdf), with the following contributions:

Martin Salter

Editorial

Jamie A. Grant

Crisis, Cursing and the Christian: Reading Imprecatory Psalms in the Twenty-First Century

Many Christian readers of the Psalter balk at the psalms that call down curses on particular people in response to wrongs that have been perpetrated by them. We are uncomfortable both with the language and the ethical implications. Effectively, these psalms are omitted from the life and worship of the church. This article argues that this should not be the case. When understood in the light of the constraints of genre and when understood as prayers offered to the Sovereign, these psalms provide us with a spiritual vocabulary which enables us to deal with the horrific injustices of life before the throne of God.

Heather R.F. Harper

The Book of Job as a Theology of Isolation

Suffering is an inescapable part of life. As Christians it is difficult to comprehend that a God who is both omnipotent and benevolent could allow his people to endure such agony. This raises the issue of how Christians should respond to suffering. To answer the question this paper will firstly reflect on the aspects of isolation caused by suffering in the book of Job, paying particular attention to chapters 2, 3, 29, 30 and 31. Secondly, it will consider Job’s response to isolation caused by suffering, with particular attention to his lament and Job 42:7-17, and use this as a paradigm of how Christians should respond to God, our own thoughts and emotions, and others during times of suffering.

Jon Putt

Culture, Class and Ethnicity: A Theological Exploration

Christian discussion of culture, class and ethnicity are as important as they are heated. Often they fail to properly define terms or reflect deeply within theological categories. This paper is a theological exploration of the ways in which the concepts of class, culture and ethnicity are understood in biblical terms and subsequently interrelated. It is part of an attempt to uncover and confront our own cultural blind spots and biases, and in turn value the other more highly than ourselves.

Fiona R. Gibson

Overcoming Listlessness: Learning from Evagrius of Pontus

Early and medieval Christian writers cautioned believers against the Seven Deadly Sins. Even today most Christians could probably name most of them. However, the one that was considered one of the most deadly and complex – acedia – is now virtually unknown and little understood. This paper will briefly examine the nature of acedia by engaging with the writings of Evagrius of Pontus, who was one of the first theologians to deal extensively with what acedia is, and how to overcome it. Some of his remedies may be surprising, and have unexpected contemporary applications.

Daniel Stevens

Review Article: The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge

Book Reviews

Christian Reflection on Acedia

The latest issue of Christian Reflection, published by the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, is now available, this one devoted to ‘Acedia’, or sloth. The whole issue is available as a pdf here, and an accompanying Study Guide is available here. The main articles, with their abstracts, are as follows:

Robert B. Kruschwitz

Introduction

Despite its prevalence in our culture, acedia may be the least understood of the seven capital vices, or ‘deadly sins.’ Our contributors trace its symptoms through daily life and commend remedies for it from the Christian tradition.

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

Resistance to the Demands of Love

At its core, acedia is aversion to our relationship to God because of the transforming demands of his love. God wants to kick down the whole door to our hearts and flood us with his life; we want to keep the door partway shut so that a few lingering treasures remain untouched, hidden in the shadows.

Dennis Okholm

Staying Put to Get Somewhere

We believe the ‘grass is greener’ in another marriage or church or vocation or place, but often it is the same hue. What is worse, we remain the same. Conversion and growth happen when we remain, not when we run (which is precisely what the ancients associated with acedia – a cowardly running away).

Andrew A. Michel

In Pursuit of Sophia: On Pilgrimage with Depression and Acedia

All persons will face acedia in their lives; some also face clinical depression, and it seems that depression and acedia tend to occasion one another. Depression, with the disruption it causes life and its general effect on overall temperament, allows a foothold for acedia to thoroughly ensnare one’s life.

Amy Freeman

Remedies to Acedia in the Rhythm of Daily Life

The primary remedy for acedia is being faithful in the demands of daily life that God’s love calls us to face. When we perform them with the humility of prayer, even quotidian works can enkindle the fire of God’s love in us and thereby strengthen us against the temptations of this vice.

Heather Hughes

An Unconditional Surrender: Evelyn Waugh on Acedia

Evelyn Waugh’s The Sword of Honour Trilogy is an engaging modern narrative of acedia. This saga of sloth-filled English officer Guy Crouchback is enlightening – not only for its disturbing depiction of the damage this vice causes, but also for its potential remedy in virtue.

Heidi J. Hornik

Intimate Separation

Heidi J. Hornik

A Wearied Explorer

Burt L. Burleson

Worship Service

Burt L. Burleson

I Lift My Prayer to Thee

Other Voices 

Kyle Childress

Sloth: Who Cares?

As we refuse to be involved with hurting people or with God, our refusing eventually becomes habitual. It is a joyful thing to find true rest from having gotten what our hearts desire. But there is also a sad, tired rest of sloth that comes when desire dies.

Alvin Ung

Acedia in the Workplace

His desire to quit was so overwhelming that all he could do was to go to work, one day at a time, and pray for help. Unwittingly Alvin Ung was cultivating a rhythm of work and prayer. By not quitting, he was becoming a Christian mystic in the marketplace.

John Spano

The Capital Vices: Acedia’s ‘Deadly’ Cronies

The capital vice tradition – with its origins in the ancient Christian practices of self-examination, confession, mutual correction, and penance – identifies acedia and its cronies as barriers to love. The books reviewed here introduce the tradition and offer hope for healing through God’s grace.

Jonathan Sands Wise

Diagnosing Acedia and Its Spiritual Neighbors

We have a problem of acedia, these three authors agree. It is personal and communal, innate and institutional, as old as the desert and as new as the iPhone, hard to recognize in ourselves and yet impossible to miss in our culture as a whole. And most of all, it is deadly to our spiritual lives.