Themelios 49, 1 (April 2024)

The latest Themelios is online here (and available here as a single pdf), containing the below articles.

Editorial

Brian J. Tabb and Benjamin L. Gladd

Announcing the Carson Center for Theological Renewal

Strange Times

Daniel Strange

Baggy Trousers: Approaching Theological Study

Dave Brunn

Gender in Bible Translation: A Crucial Issue Still Mired in Misunderstanding

This article argues that much of the controversy surrounding gender in Bible translation is unnecessary. One reason is that many of the discussions about this issue have focused almost exclusively on the way nonliteral versions translate gender, giving insufficient attention to the way gender is handled in versions that identify as literal. A careful, objective examination of both kinds of versions together will show that the two sides of this discussion are not as far apart as some have supposed. While there are differences between the various versions, this article will demonstrate that the most significant distinction between the way literal and nonliteral versions handle gender in translation lies in the frequency rather than the nature of the adjustments.

Melvin L. Otey

The Ancient Pedigree of Homosexuality as the Sin of Sodom

Scholars disagree about the precise nature of the sin that provokes God’s wrath in Genesis 19. In fact, multiple transgressions are involved, including fornication, rape, and inhospitality. Christian exegetes traditionally emphasize the apparently homoerotic aspects of the Sodomites’ demand to “know” the angels inside Lot’s home. However, some modern scholars isolate the aggressors’ inhospitality to the exclusion of any potential sexual deviance and allege that the emphasis on fornication, especially homosexual intercourse, is a historically recent phenomenon. This article critiques this assertion by demonstrating that a tradition within Second Temple Judaism and the primitive church attributes sexual sins, including homosexuality, to Sodom and its neighbors.

Dan Martin

Pedagogy and Biblical Theology: Tracing the Intertextuality of the Book of Proverbs

This paper articulates a provisional thesis, namely, that we need a pedagogical category within our biblical theological frameworks, on the basis that such a category was in the New Testament authors’ minds. I begin by outlining the challenges of integrating the book of Proverbs into biblical theology to date, before highlighting the value of intertextuality as the primary inductive method for constructing biblical theology. I then demonstrate through a ‘worked example’ the mutually interpretive canonical relationship of a Proverbs text with the New Testament, providing a tentative basis for a pedagogical biblical theological category. I conclude by outlining how this thesis can be tested and developed through further research.

Adam Friend

Filial Revelation and Filial Responsibility: (Dis)obedient Sonship and The Religious Leaders in Matthew 11–16

Sonship appears in every section, at every turning point, and on the lips of every character in Matthew’s Gospel. In determining the motif’s function, the religious leaders have largely been neglected. This study analyzes Matthew’s development of the motif of sonship in Matthew 11:1–16:11, arguing that the religious leaders clarify the positive concept of sonship from their provision of its negative example. For Matthew, sonship must be actualized in obedience.

Garrett S. Craig

The Divine Identity in 1 Peter: The Father, Christ, and the Spirit in Relation

Traditionally the discipline of New Testament studies has not been welcoming to a Trinitarian understanding of God. In recent years, however, some scholars working in the discipline have argued for the positive exegetical benefits for what they have called a “Trinitarian hermeneutic.” While working within the historical-grammatical paradigm, a Trinitarian hermeneutic seeks to understand the text’s God-talk by attending to the relations between the Father, Christ, and the Spirit. By using this method, the article argues that the divine identity found in the letter of 1 Peter puts pressure on its readers to articulate an understanding of God that agrees with later Trinitarian confessions.

Christopher Osterbrock

The Spiritual Utility of Calvin’s Correspondence during the Strasbourg Years

Calvin’s letters are no mere collection of personal correspondence but served him in his lifelong spiritual formation. Of note are those letters collected during his time in Strasbourg (1538–1541). This study argues for and assesses the unique spiritual utility of Calvin’s correspondence during the Strasbourg years. The reformer is observed in these letters examining himself, seeking counsel and companionship, and recording the evolution of his philosophy of ministry, all this while shepherding his French refugee church under Martin Bucer’s mentorship. Calvin’s letters evidence a desire for theological implication through reciprocated dialogue, which pastors and laypersons alike ought to consider.

Nathan Sherman

A Change in Kind, Not Degree: Labels, Identity, and an Evaluation of “Baptistic Congregationalists”

How do we decide what to label people of centuries past when they had no clear labels for themselves? Should we describe seventeenth century Baptists as “Baptists” if that was not what they called themselves? Matthew Bingham has recently argued that instead of using the label “Particular Baptists” for the English Calvinistic Baptists of the 1640s and 50s, historians would more clearly describe their subjects as “baptistic congregationalists.” Is Bingham justified in his use of this neologism? While this article might be considered a book review – which several others have already contributed – it also contributes to the debates about wider religious labels of Early Modern England.

Obbie Tyler Todd

What Republicanism Is This? An Introduction to Christian Republicanism (1776–1865)

While the term “Christian republicanism” is known to most historians of the early republic, very few have attempted to explicate its unique theology or to identify its various religious, moral, and even racial permutations in the church. Christian republicanism was much more than just a set of political or social commitments. It was also a loose theological system. This article provides an introduction to Christian republicanism, tracing its beliefs, defining its boundaries, and chronicling its lifespan in the early United States when it flourished in the American mind.

Roger W. Fay

John Wesley and Faith at Aldersgate

The importance of justification by faith to the thinking of John Wesley (1703–1791) both during and after his Aldersgate Street experience in May 1738 has long been doubted by some Wesley scholars. This article demonstrates that the historical data surrounding Aldersgate is compelling and points to the validity of Wesley’s own interpretation of that occasion. A reprise of the historical data, coupled with an examination of some alternative interpretations by distinguished modern Wesley scholars, demonstrates the weak historical basis for interpretations that downplay justification by faith. John Wesley remains an important and instructive figure in the history of evangelical revivals.

Ryan Reed

The House Divided: An Assessment of the American Neo-Evangelicals’ Doctrine of Scripture

Carl F. H. Henry, Harold Lindsell, and Bernard Ramm represent three of the most formative voices within the neo-evangelical movement in America. Nevertheless, these three figures held to three different tones and methodologies on the doctrine of Scripture. Lindsell represents the evangelicals that saw inerrancy as a test for evangelical authenticity, as seen in his works, The Battle for the Bible and The Bible in the Balance. Though closer to the Lindsellian view, Henry saw inerrancy as a test for evangelical consistency rather than authenticity. Ramm represents evangelicals that affirmed a broad concept of inerrancy but did not see it as either the test of authenticity or consistency. This particular issue would cause early cracks in the unity of the new evangelical movement. By examining these three figures’ understanding of the doctrine of Scripture, this paper will show how the early neo-evangelical leaders struggled to decide how clearly they would identify with their fundamentalist roots.

Robert Golding

Swimming in a Sanctimonious Sea of Subjectivity: A Proposal for Christian Authenticity in a Made-Up World

There is a curious tendency in modern culture to simultaneously reject objective truth (e.g., “live your truth”) and to live as if it were real (e.g., “you must fight for the truth”). Objectivity has worked its way back into the subjectivity of postmodernism. This is not pure postmodernism, nor a return to the modernism that preceded it. This is a new phase, which I call metamodernism (a term coined elsewhere). This paper first explains metamodernism (sections 1–2). Then, it offers some suggestions for Christians to rebut metamodernism (section 3). Finally, it concludes with an anecdote to better explain the recommendation of the third section (section 4).

Luke Johnson

“Salvation Without Spin”: How the Gospel of Christ Subversively Fulfills the Prayer Wheels of Tibetan Buddhism

With present calls for inter-religious dialogue, Christianity must relate to major world religions in specific ways to distinguish its uniqueness in belief and practice. This article uses one of the five “magnetic points” of J. H. Bavinck, “I and salvation,” to demonstrate how Christianity carries out Hendrik Kraemer’s notion of “subversive fulfillment,” specifically with the prayer wheels of Tibetan Buddhism. The article first shows how Christianity confronts a trust in religious objects for salvation. Second, Christianity challenges a belief in mere mantras for spiritual help. Third, Christianity teaches that humans cannot gain merit through religious works. Instead, Christianity offers true deliverance through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Book Reviews

Church of England Evangelical Council on Human Sexuality

The Church of England Evangelical Council has produced a short-ish document – ‘Human Sexuality: Thinking It Through Biblically’ – available as a pdf here.

It seeks to offer brief responses to several questions and statements that are being raised by people in local churches, such as:

We all read Scripture from our own position – it does not speak ‘on its own’.

This is who I am. God made me this way – who am I to reject or change it?

Equality and justice demand recognition of non-heterosexual relationships.

Mission demands that we change our ‘out of date’ position.

Scripture isn’t clear on a number of issues regarding human sexuality.

Inclusivity is the Jesus way.

We must avoid schism – unity is the source of blessing.

Slaves/women/homosexuality... it’s a right and inevitable trajectory of increasing freedom and justice.

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).’

Christian Reflection on Chastity

The latest issue of Christian Reflection, published by the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, is available online, this one devoted to ‘Chastity’. 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

At the heart of Christian sexual ethics is not a dour set of rules, but a fetching trait: the virtue of chastity. Our contributors examine how chastity is exemplified in married life and singleness, and why its beauty has become difficult for us to appreciate. 

Beth Felker Jones

Radical Faithfulness

Christians have always acknowledged two routes for embodying faithfulness in the way we have sex or do not have sex, two routes for publicly declaring – and displaying – that God is faithful: celibate singleness and faithful marriage. In both conditions, Christians testify, with their bodies, to the power of God. 

Wesley Hill

The Long Defeat

Within a sexually-sodden culture, the life of chastity may seem like a lonely, long defeat, especially to gay and lesbian believers. How can congregations provide the good company which celibate, same-sex attracted believers need for their Christian pilgrimage? 

Matt Fradd

Chastity as a Virtue

Chastity is not a teeth-gritting ability to avoid violating the sexual rules but a habit of reverence for oneself and others that enables us to use our sexual powers intelligently in the pursuit of human flourishing and happiness.

Donna Freitas

A Good Samaritan Response to Hookup Culture

What college students living within hookup culture need most is a listening and sympathetic ear. They need someone who sees them for who and where they really are, and who sympathizes with their uncertainties, their confusion, and, sometimes, their regret and loss. 

Stacy Keogh George

Beyond the “Ring by Spring” Culture

The “ring by spring” culture at Christian colleges and universities can pressure students to become engaged or to marry before they graduate. This may muddle their perceptions of marriage and vocation, and deflect them from receiving more formative preparation for marriage. 

Terry W. York and Kurt Kaiser

Intense the Love God Molded

Amber Inscore Essick

Worship Service

Heidi J. Hornik

Mary’s Worthy Suitor

Raphael, Marriage of the Virgin

Heidi J. Hornik

Love in Control

Sandro Botticelli, Pallas and the Centaur

Heidi J. Hornik

A Couple’s Intimacy

Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Couple as Isaac and Rebekah 

Other Voices

Mary S. Hulst

Relationships with “More than Friends”

Mary Hulst’s college students, like all of us, are regularly exposed to many lies about dating, singleness, sex, and marriage. Walking with them through the basics of why to date, how to date, and who to date, she counters some of these lies with the truths of the gospel.

Lauren Taylor

Sexuality and Spirituality in American Adolescents

Both adults and young people are hesitant to discuss the topic of faith and sexuality. Research in the three books reviewed here suggests ways to address this silent stand- off, bridge the generation gap, and start the conversation.

Julie Morris

Christian Sexual Ethics in an Age of Individualism

On the surface the three books reviewed here are about sexual behavior, but on a deeper level they address healthy and holy relationships with self, others, and God. The authors care deeply about community and intimacy and about how to cultivate them in a culture that promotes disposable relationships.

Tim Keller on the Bible and Same-Sex Relationships

Tim Keller has written a review article for Redeemer Report on the Bible and same-sex relationships, looking especially at books by Matthew Vines, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same Sex Relationships (Convergent Books, 2014) and Ken Wilson, A Letter to My Congregation (David Crum Media, 2014).

He briefly explores ‘six basic arguments that these books and others like them make’:

(1) Knowing gay people personally

(2) Consulting historical scholarship

(3) Re-categorizing same sex relations

(4) Revising biblical authority

(5) Being on the wrong side of history

(6) Missing the biblical vision

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’.

Andrew Goddard on James Brownson on the Bible, Gender, and Sexuality

The Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics makes available here a 70-page critical review by Andrew Goddard (Associate Director of KLICE) of James V. Brownson’s Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013).

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.’

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’.

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.

Michael Horton on the Old Testament Law

When references in Leviticus are appealed to in discussions about same-sex sexual relationships, the argument is often trotted out along the lines of, ‘Well, what about all the other (silly/odd/outmoded) laws we no longer obey...?’ as if that becomes a clincher, barring the witness of Leviticus from having a voice in the ongoing debate.

I confess I’ve always groaned inwardly when I’ve heard or read this argument... as if no-one has ever thought before about the difficulties involved in – and thus the necessity of a hermeneutic for – moving from the ‘there and then’ of the Old Testament law to the ‘here and now’ of the Christian church.

Michael Horton offers some brief reflections here in response to that line of questioning, encouraging us to understand the law in the light of the history of redemption.

Ecclesia Reformanda 3, 1 (April 2011)

The latest Ecclesia Reformanda arrived this morning, this issue containing the following articles:

Steffen Jenkins

Served to Serve: Why Food is Central to the Anthropology of Creation in Genesis 1-3 and to the Plot of Genesis

The book of Genesis is laden with references to food. Recent scholarship has begun to pay attention to food in the Bible and especially found that it functions as a Leitmotif in the Joseph narrative which concludes Genesis. This article will demonstrate that food is central to the opening three chapters of the book. Creation and the place of people within it cannot be understood without close attention to food, which explains its prominent place and function in the rest of Genesis. We conclude with some reflections on the food imagery of redemption on the lips of Jesus, and by noting the inescapably earthy and physical contribution of food to the future hope held out in the gospel.

Neil G.T. Jeffers

Reformed Defences of God’s Righteousness in Ordaining the Fall. Part Two

This concludes the treatment of Reformed defences of God’s righteousness in ordaining the Fall begun in Ecclesia Reformanda 2.2 (2010): 154-185. The conclusion focuses particularly on the evaluation of divine permission as a defence.

Alastair Roberts

Just Cause Against Same-Sex Marriage: Why We Cannot Hold Our Peace

As the questions raised by same-sex marriage are frequently foreclosed for participants from the various sides of the debate, the particular issues that they highlight are seldom given the sustained and close attention that they merit. Placing the argument against same-sex marriage on a broad foundation, these articles explore the ways in which its legalization would transform the institution, in its relationship to individuals, the genders, marriage partners, children, society, and past and future generations. By emphasizing these distinct matters, Christians will be better equipped to establish points of contact around which meaningful dialogue can be forged.

Book Reviews

Craig Blomberg on 1 Corinthians 6:9

Craig Blomberg posts here on why he thinks the updated NIV is the best of the current options in its translation of the last phrase in 1 Corinthians 6:9:

‘Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men.’

Sherif Girgis et al. on Marriage

Sherif Girgis, Robert George, and Ryan T. Anderson, ‘What is Marriage?’, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 34, (Winter 2010), 245-87.

Trevin Wax links to what looks like an interesting, and likely controversial piece on marriage in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

The abstract reads as follows:

‘In the article, we argue that as a moral reality, marriage is the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together, and renewed by acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction. We further argue that there are decisive principled as well as prudential reasons for the state to enshrine this understanding of marriage in its positive law, and to resist the call to recognize as marriages the sexual unions of same-sex partners. Besides making this positive argument for our position and raising several objections to the view that same-sex unions should be recognized, we address what we consider the strongest philosophical objections to our view of the nature of marriage, as well as more pragmatic concerns about the point or consequences of implementing it as a policy.’

N.T. Wright on Recent Decisions by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church

Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, comments in The Times on the decision taken by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships.