Foundations 84 (July 2023)

Issue 84 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

Peter Sanlon

Glories That Form and Deform Identity: The Roads Ahead

This paper seeks to analyse what has become the main presenting issue of the day for western culture, that of identity. This question penetrates a good deal deeper than the vexed matters of gender, sexuality and ethnicity; essentially it comes down to a clear and binary choice: whom do we love, worship and glorify – self or God? The quest for self-realisation and self-fulfilment may take many forms, from pornography to conspiracy theories to a culture of ‘victimhood’, but each of these are diverse expressions of the same fundamental motivation – to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever – Amen! (Rom 1:25). Against all this, the next generation is summoned to walk ‘The Road Less Travelled’, where we gather under the cross of Jesus Christ.

Robin Gray

Divine Light and Holy Love: Genuine Conversions in the Works of Jonathan Edwards

This paper opens up the key question of genuine conversion by delving deep into the mind of Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) on the subject, and in particular, his Religious Affections, which were the mature fruit of Edwards’ deep reflection, years after many striking and ‘surprising’ events in his own ministry. Few minds have thought as hard and as deeply as Edwards about the subject of conversion, but fewer by far have written about the subject as incisively as he did. Whilst many other scholars and pastors have very helpfully brought Edwards’ thinking to the attention of the contemporary church, this paper, as it succinctly summarises Edwards’ main observations, will undoubtedly prove to be a precious additional resource in the hands of twenty-first-century pastors, not only in evaluating professed conversions in their own churches but in keeping a close watch on their own souls (1 Tim 4:16).

Phil Heaps

Sanctification and Consistent Godly Living

This paper will lead us to the Sermon on the Mount and to the Beatitudes in particular (Matt 5:3-12) demonstrating that this ‘Jesus Seminar’ is unparalleled as ‘a discipleship course for the 2020s’. Here is material which is intensely practical and yet is addressed directly to the human heart; here is a masterclass for the formation of Christian character but one which is to be worked out in the corporate context of the church. The Lord Jesus Christ – and the Beatitudes are, supremely, a delineation of Christ’s own spiritual character – calls his people to a radical obedience which is motivated by humility, ‘poverty of spirit’ (Matt 5:3) but which is the only path to the growth for which God looks, growth in holiness.

Mark Thomas

Pastoring the Twenty-First Century Church

This paper begins with the tremendous, transcendental reality that God himself is the Pastor of his people (Ps 23:1, 80:1), and then fleshes out in detail how the pastoral office of the undershepherd is described in Scripture. Throughout, the calling of the pastor is described and illustrated with many examples in the Reformation and Puritan tradition – not least from the ‘three Bs’ of Bucer, Baxter and Bridges. The climactic feature of this paper is its recognition and analysis of contemporary culture and how it impinges on young people attached to churches. Whilst there are timeless issues and considerations that every pastor and church must face, there are some that are peculiar to today, and pastors are urged to face up to these – they include anxiety, exhaustion, ‘influences’ and, as in Paper 1, the whole question of ‘identity’.

Patrick Fung

Faithfulness Amidst Trials and Persecution

This paper begins with an in-depth treatment of the narrative of persecution in Luke-Acts, showing how it was first directed against Jesus and then against his disciples. The key consideration is not simply that persecution happened, but that the early church needed to know how to respond to it. The next section of the paper we describe in detail the Boxer Uprising in China in 1900 and in particular the response of the church, exemplified in the approach of Dixon Edward Hoste (1861–1946), Hudson Taylor’s successor as leader of the China Inland Mission. Hoste’s approach was humble, gracious, visionary and deeply instructive for the church today. We conclude with a survey of the state of anti-Christian persecution in the world today, both ‘east’ and ‘west’, and calls us to prayerful, patient, self-denying witness.

Sarah Allen

Review Article: Complementarianism

Book Review

Foundations 79 (Autumn 2020)

Issue 79 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

Lee Gatiss

Pleasing the Impassible God

The Bible says, “find out what pleases the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10). But is God not already perfectly happy, and therefore not susceptible to changeable emotional reactions as we so often are? This article unpacks issues of accommodation in divine speech, anthropopathism, and the doctrines of immutability and impassibility (the idea that God is “without passions” as some confessions put it), in order to understand better the scriptural metaphor of pleasing or displeasing God.

Sarah Allen

Complementarianism, Quo Vadis?

This article examines the current state of complementarian practice and attitudes within UK churches, seeking to understand how, where and why change might be occurring. The research is twofold: the first part is an overview of recent publications and online discussion of complementarianism and related matters. Here questions are raised about the causes for and possible consequences of dis-ease with some theological models and cultural expressions of sex-difference. The second part of the article is an examination, by way of interview and surveys, of practice in churches which could be described as complementarian. Here we consider the way the Church is responding to contemporary culture’s growing concern for equality of opportunity and representation, as well as the influence of different ecclesiologies and social settings on practice and change.

David Owen Filson

The Apologetics and Theology of Cornelius Van Til

This essay provides an appreciative analysis of two key, sometimes misrepresented apologetical contributions of Cornelius Van Til: the definition of presupposition, and paradox and the Trinity. Recent criticisms of Van Til tend to repeat the suggestions that he operated with a Kantian and Hegelian synthesis, accounting for inconsistencies in his theological and apologetical programme. Rather than directly addressing recent scholarship, a relatively unfamiliar debate between Van Til and J. Oliver Buswell will be examined in an effort to let Van Til speak for himself. In doing this it will become evident why he remains an important and needed figure for the Church in a post-postmodern, secular/pluralistic cultural moment, aptly described by Chares Taylor as a “...spiritual super-nova, a kind of galloping pluralism on the spiritual plane”.

Steve Bishop

Abraham Kuyper: Cultural Transformer

Abraham Kuyper was a theologian, statesman, journalist, church reformer, church historian, church pastor, founder of a Christian university and a Christian political party, and one-time prime minister of the Netherlands. He was a Reformed Christian whose writings have shaped a movement known as neo-Calvinism. Yet he is little known in the UK. In this article, I examine several key themes that shaped Kuyper’s approach to theology, culture and society. These include the sovereignty of God, the cultural mandate, the role of worldviews, common grace, the antithesis, and sphere sovereignty. These themes provided the theoretical framework for Kuyper’s neo-Calvinism. I look at how they shaped his approach to church, politics, education, art and mission.

Song-En Poon

Samuel Rutherford’s Doctrine of Sanctification and Seventeenth Century Antinomianism

This paper seeks to examine Samuel Rutherford’s particular emphasis on the doctrine of sanctification in his response to the Antinomian Controversy in seventeenth century England.

Book Reviews

9Marks Journal (December 2019) on Complementarianism

The latest issue of the 9Marks Journal, available from here in various formats, is devoted to the topic of ‘Complementarianism: A Moment of Reckoning’.

At 278 pages long, it’s a hefty beast, and appears to gather together several short articles written at different points over the last few years, making this a useful resource regardless of where one might stand on the issues involved.

Here are some lines from Jonathan Leeman’s long Editorial:

‘It seems to be a moment of reckoning for complementarianism. One can tell since the loudest questions aren’t being asked from outside the camp, but from inside... Step into a group of complementarians these days and it’s likely that one or more will say something about not being that kind of complementarian...

‘In retrospect, it was perhaps inevitable... that the complementarian tribe would splinter moving from the 1980s and 1990s to the 2000s and 2010s, as one generation gives way to another, particularly when Western culture itself has changed so dramatically on matters of gender...

‘A significant part of pastoral wisdom, then, involves self and cultural awareness. It also involves knowing which problems are the big threats and which are the small threats, which are immediate and which are long term, and knowing how to calibrate our responses to each...

‘A better path forward, I believe, means expecting the world, the flesh, and the devil to attack both gender equality and gender difference, at different times in different ways. Therefore, Christians must continue to search the Scriptures for a better understanding of each, always paying attention to new horizons and new threats.’

Andrew Bartlett on Men and Women in Christ

Andrew Bartlett, Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from Biblical Texts (London: IVP, 2019).

Having read through several drafts of the pre-publication manuscript of the above book, I was asked to write a commendation for it – and was very happy to do so. Now that the book is out, I’ve pasted the commendation below. The comprehensive nature of Andrew Bartlett’s treatment means I think many readers will genuinely change their minds on some of the pertinent passages as a result of Andrew’s reflections, even if they might end up preserving their overall stance on the topic. However, wherever we stand on the issues, it does us good to revisit them every so often. That, at least, was my experience of engaging again with the biblical texts through Andrew’s work, and I tried to capture that in my commendation:

‘If, like me, you thought there was very little new to say on this topic, here’s a book to make us think again. If, like me, you’ve become somewhat jaded by the sterile trading of arguments back and forth between the two main sides, here’s a book which invites both parties to reassess where they stand, and why. If, like me, you thought you’d pretty much settled your views on the main biblical passages, here’s a book to remind us that the Lord always has “fresh light to break forth” from his word. As befitting a scholar and writer who is concerned for unity in our witness to the good news of Jesus, Andrew Bartlett’s treatment of this most crucial of issues is elegant, clear, winsome, and gracious. Even where I disagree with him, I’m profoundly grateful for the challenge to look more closely at the Scriptures. I’d encourage you to do the same. Read it. Read it with an open Bible. Read it with others. Read it with a Berean-like curiosity to see if these things are so.’