Evangelical Review of Theology 48, 1 (February 2024)

The latest Evangelical Review of Theology is now online and available in its entirety as a pdf here.

Introduction: Good Theology Is Very Practical

Arie de Pater and Ville Hoikkala

Free Speech under Threat in Finland and Beyond?

In Finland, Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola and politician Päivi Räsänen have been accused of a crime for publishing material that allegedly threatened, defamed or insulted homosexuals. Both have been threatened with fines and even possible imprisonment simply for holding to the conservative Christian view on marriage and sexuality. Why has this case (currently on appeal to the Supreme Court of Finland) received so much international attention, and what impact is it likely to have on freedom of expression in Europe and beyond?

Ian Randall

Orthodox and Evangelical Missional Interaction: Insights from the International Review of Mission

Orthodox and evangelical Christians have frequently had a shared interest in encouraging traditional views of the gospel and mission within the modern ecumenical movement. In this article, one of Europe’s most respected historians of evangelical life traces Orthodox and evangelical engagement with mainline Protestants through articles in the ecumenical movement’s leading mission journal.

Narry F. Santos

Jesus’ Mission to the Vulnerable: The Power of Servanthood in the Gospel of Mark

Mark’s Gospel is carefully structured to highlight Jesus’ example of sacrificial servanthood. This article draws on sociological analysis of the first-century Jewish community to show how Mark illustrated Jesus’ mission to the low and powerless. It then pairs Mark’s key messages with real-life, parallel examples of servanthood to contemporary refugee communities.

Barry N. Danylak

A Biblical Theology of Singleness in an Increasingly Single World

All over the world, marriage rates are declining and more people have no partner. How should the church respond? This article, by a theologian and participant in the WEA’s singles initiative, elucidates Paul’s endorsement of the single life in the context of a broader argument that under the new covenant, marriage and family are not necessary to experience the full blessings of life in Christ.

Israel A. Kolade

Civil Government and Political Authority: Calvin’s Commentary on Romans 13

This article examines Calvin’s commentary on Romans 13:1–7, in contrast with early church and Reformation expositions of the text, to show how his conception of political authority provides nuance to the political theology expressed in his Institutes, particularly around the sticky question of obedience to an unjust or tyrannical government.

D.S. Martin

Poetry and Theology

Ted Turnau

The Case for Creative Cultural Engagement

What can Christians do in contexts where the culture seems to be moving away from the gospel? Ted Turnau, an expert on engagement with popular culture, argues – starting, appropriately, with a creative parable – for unleashing our imagination in ways that enchant others and attract them to oases of the imagination.

Esa J. Autero

The Parable of the Vineyard Workers and Migrant Labourers in India

Despite its simple story line, the parable of the vineyard workers (Mt 20:1–16) is difficult to interpret. This article compares the parable to a contemporary setting with remarkable similarities – the experience of India’s migrant workers. The comparison yields new insights into this parable and challenges churches to work for God’s justice in India and elsewhere.

Richard Howell

Faithfulness in an Asian Multi-Faith Context

This article, originally a presentation at a 2022 ecumenical consultation of the Global Christian Forum, reflects on the challenges Asian Christianity encounters, through the lenses of the author and other experienced observers and the testimonies of prominent Asian converts to Christianity.

Book Reviews

9Marks Journal (April 2023) on Christian Authoritarianism

The latest issue of the 9Marks Journal, available from here, looks at the topic of ‘A New Christian Authoritarianism? Christian Nationalism, Theonomy, and Magisterial Protestantism’.

In the Editor’s Note, Jonathan Leeman writes:

‘A pastor’s own theological development should include what the academic crowd calls political theology. Political theology is that area of theology that helps us to situate churches on the landscape of the nations and their governments, like pins on a map. It includes topics like the relationship between church and state, religious liberty, views on Christ and culture, the duties of citizenship, as well as what’s appropriate for preachers to preach about an upcoming election…

‘Faithful pastors rightly deplore the politicizing of the pulpit – employing the pulpit for partisan or policy-program ends. Doing so subverts the agenda of Jesus’s heavenly kingdom to earthly ones. Still, your political theology, like your eschatology and your view of the biblical covenants, will shape your view of the church’s mission. Therefore, it’s a necessary topic for pastoral study.’

James K.A. Smith on Theocracy and Kingdom

Comment has just published a great piece (here) by James K.A. Smith offering ‘a caution for reactionary liberals who hear “theocracy” whenever Christians talk about “the kingdom.”’

He particularly has in his sights those who confuses dominionism (an understanding which thinks it’s our job to impose the kingdom here and now) ‘with the Christian political endeavour of an Abraham Kuyper’.

It’s not, he makes clear, that ‘the gospel is comfortably apolitical’. The language of the kingdom is ‘a reminder that Christianity is not just some privatized message of soul-rescue that we can comfortably fence off as “personal piety.”’ Still, ‘every time we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we are reminded it hasn’t arrived yet’.

Here, for me, is the killer paragraph:

‘[T]he arc of the biblical narrative includes a very important temporal pause button that the Dominionists ignore: we await the kingdom, we don’t impose it. In the meantime of our waiting, we hope to bear witness to our neighbours about these truths... not so we can “win” or “take over” or “have dominion” but because we believe these truths are gifts of insight into common human concern. We bring these insights to the table of public debate as a proposal to consider, not a fiat to be imposed. We hope to change things, but we see democracy as a gift for the saeculum and understand we need to persuade our neighbours. The biblical narrative teaches us to expect pluralism and difference in the meantime.’

9Marks Journal (Spring 2018) on Political Witness

The latest issue of the 9Marks Journal, available from here in various formats and here as a pdf, is devoted to the topic of ‘Church Life: Our True Political Witness’.

Its North American provenance means some adjustment might need to made for other contexts, but there would seem to be wider applicability and thoughtful provocation in the articles.

In the Editor’s Note, Jonathan Leeman writes:

‘The goal of this 9Marks Journal is to redirect our political gaze from the nation to the church. Our political hope must not be in the next presidential election, or in trying to win the country “back” or “forward” to something different. Believe it or not, the political hope of the nations is in local churches...

‘Do you know where the world should first witness... just and lasting peace? In the life and fellowship of the boundary-defying local church. It’s in the local church where we first beat our swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. It’s in the church where one-time enemies learn to love one another.’

James K.A. Smith on Awaiting the King

It will come as no surprise to some visitors to this blog that I have greatly appreciated the work of James K.A. Smith over the years (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), nor that I am looking forward to the imminent release of the third volume in his ‘Cultural Liturgies’ project – Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017) – looking at how worship shapes us as citizens of the King.

There’s more information about the book here, and a series of 10 short videos here in which he talks about the book, its emphases, and its relationship with other parts of his work.

He describes the book as a remix of Augustine and Oliver O’Donovan, nourished by his location in the Reformed (especially Kuyperian) tradition, but also pushing back on that tradition by making the church more central in how we think about our political witness.

In line with the earlier volumes in this series, and with Smith’s work elsewhere, he describes citizens as ‘lovers’, not just rational information processors. Our public and political life is caught up in dynamics of desire and formation. If we want to judge the character of a people, we have to discern what they love. The book is a liturgical analysis of what we worship politically, and what we are being trained to love when we step into those places as Christians.

We are, he says, to be a people whose political vision is animated by a vision of the King who is coming. For Smith, this means learning to walk a line between quietism and activism. We’re not just sitting around, not caring our shared public life; we’re waiting for the King. But nor are we activists in the sense that we think we’re going to bring the end about. We wait actively. We are caught up in what God is doing in the world, and the formative practices of the church shape us as a people who then shape the world.

In this sense, Smith hopes the book will recalibrate our posture towards public life, and he makes some helpful comments in this respect on steering between what he sees as the dangers of the ‘court evangelicals’ (those cosying up to power) and the Benedict Option.

The Benedict Option

What began as a 2013 article in The American Conservative – and which attracted a lot of attention then and since – has now become a book, recently published: Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (New York: Sentinel, 2017).

I have a copy on order, but so great is the amount and volume of engagement with it and reviews of it – an indication of its significance – that I almost feel as if I’ve read it already!

It’s written from a North American perspective, which means that some adjustments will need to be made for other ‘post-Christian’ contexts. Still, in his own situation, Dreher suggests that American Christians should look back to the sixth-century monastic order of Benedict of Nursia for a model to help us survive life in a post-Christian society. Calling on us to prepare ourselves for darker times ahead, and warning us about the possibility of seeing the effective death of Christianity in western civilisation, Dreher offers a ‘strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church to embrace “exile in place” and form a vibrant counterculture’.

There are many early reviews of the book, including by Collin Hansen (here), Trevin Wax (here), Hugh Whelchel (here), Christopher Smith (here), Scott Aniol (here), Byron Borger (here), Jake Meador (here), Dan Edelin (here), Wyatt Graham (here), and the start of a series of posts by Douglas Wilson (here, here, and here).

Other reflections include those by Katelyn Beaty (‘Christians have lost the culture wars. Should they withdraw from the mainstream?’), Nathaniel Peters (‘Not Benedictine Enough: Rod Dreher’s Diagnosis and Prescription for American Christianity’), Michael Brown (‘Why I Have Mixed Feelings About Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option’), Christopher Cleveland (‘Theologians Were Arguing About the Benedict Option 35 Years Ago’), Jake Meador (‘The Benedict Option and Its Reviewers’), with some ‘Initial thoughts’ from Greg Forster (here), and some broader reflections by D.A.Carson (‘The Benedict Option and American Politics’), and Patrick Deneen (‘Moral Minority’).

Christianity Today asked four evangelical thinkers (Hannah Anderson, David Fitch, John Inazu, and Karen Ellis) to reflect on it, with a response from Dreher himself.

There’s a conversation here between David Kern and Rod Dreher.

In a review (here) James K.A. Smith couples it with other books which advocate what he calls ‘the new alarmism’. Dreher responds to Smith (here), in a piece in The American Conservative (where Dreher is a senior editor).

In another article, ‘The Benedict Option or the Augustinian Call?’, James K.A. Smith advocates Augustine’s eschatological caution in a call not to ‘live ahead of time’.

‘The Augustinian counsel of stability is an admonishment to stay in the mix of things, among those in error – to inhabit our callings in what Augustine called the permixtum of the saeculum, the mixed-up-ness of the time between the cross and kingdom come’. This provides a flavour of Smith’s own forthcoming volume on political theology in which he’ll argue for a hope that ‘we’ll answer an Augustinian call: centring ourselves in the life-giving practices of the body of Christ, but from there leaning out boldly and hopefully into the world for sake of our neighbors’.

Dustin Messer (‘Smith, Dreher, and the Prophet Daniel’) thinks Smith’s review is uncharitable, and yet does have concerns ‘that the BenOp may be used by believers as an excuse to evade the call to bring all spheres of life under the good rule of King Jesus’. With Chris Wright, he sees Daniel holding together two realities: ‘serving the city while rebuking the city’.

Takimg the metaphor of the body of Christ, Alan Jacobs (‘The Benedict Option and the Way of Exchange’) writes about a way of exchange as a principle where ‘Christian parents who teach their children at home should be grateful that other Christian parents are helping their children to bear witness in public schools’, that we should ‘learn from, and be enriched by, one another’s experiences’, which ‘can only happen... if each member assumes the integrity of the others’.

All of the above is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and it will be interesting to see how the discussion continues to unfold.

Theos Report on the Magna Carta

The latest report from Theos has just been published:

Thomas Andrew, The Church and the Charter: Christianity and the Forgotten Roots of the Magna Carta (London: Theos, 2015).

Here’s the summary blurb:

‘The popular story of the Magna Carta – of rebel barons forcing the hand of the tyrannical King John – is well known. But what is often lost in the tale of Bad King John is the crucial role played by Christianity in the formation and preservation of “The Great Charter of the Liberties of England”. Despite their importance to the history of the Magna Carta, neither the practical contribution of the church, nor the principled contribution of Christian theology, have received much attention beyond relatively small academic circles.

‘The Church and the Charter puts these forgotten Christian contributions right back at the heart of the Magna Carta’s story. In exploring the difficult historical relationship between the religious and secular authorities in England, it assesses how and why the church helped place certain limits on the powers of the English monarch. In practical terms, it demonstrates the role played by the ‘new Becket’, Archbishop Stephen Langton, who was so crucial to both the emergence and the survival of the 1215 Magna Carta.

‘More significantly, however, it explores the ideological relationship between Christian theology and the most celebrated of the ideas that came to be enshrined in the Magna Carta – ideas about the importance of due process, the legitimation of arbitration in the affairs of the king, and the extension of rights language to all free men. It argues that these were notions rooted, not in secular thought, but in a medieval theology that had been profoundly affected by the development of canon law.

‘In the year in which we mark its 800th anniversary, The Church and the Charter shows that the Magna Carta is a document shaped by the history of religious thought, just as much as it is an expression of ‘secular’ demands. And it deserves to be remembered and celebrated as such – as a seminal document in the development of political thought that owes a great debt to both the political clout of the English church, and to the ideological reflections of Christian theology.’

A pdf of the full report is available here.

James K.A. Smith on Rethinking the Secular

Having posted about Jamie Smith’s short piece on public theology last week – which effectively provides a taster of his work in progress for the third volume of his ‘Cultural Liturgies’ project – I thought I’d link to part 2, ‘Rethinking the Secular, Redeeming Christendom’. As with last time, he’s reworking Oliver O’Donovan here.

Here’s an early paragraph:

‘Our political institutions, habits, and practices are contingent cultural configurations that are included in the “all” that Christ redeems (Col. 1:16-17). The political is not insulated from the impact of the Christ-event and the specific witness of the church in history – including the political habits learned in the polis that is the church.’

Smith helpfully summarises what is known as the saeculum, the significance of which I think is often overlooked in discussions of pubic theology and cultural engagement more generally (for instance, in ongoing debates between two-kingdoms protagonists and so-called advocates of cultural transformation).

‘Everything is now in subjection to Christ (Heb. 2:5-8); he has already disarmed the principalities and powers (Col. 2:15). But we live in the “not-yet” where this victory is not universally recognized. It is this time – between cross and kingdom come, between ascension and second coming, between the universal scope of his lordship and its universal recognition – it is this time or season that is “the secular,” the saeculum, the age in which we find ourselves... It’s not that “secular” authorities have full authority over a limited jurisdiction; they have also only been delegated their authority for a time (the saeculum).

‘So we don't shuttle between the jurisdictions of two kingdoms; we live in the seasons of contested rule, where the principalities and powers continue to grasp after an authority that has been taken from them. The church is now the site for seeing what Christ’s kingly rule looks like – and it will be from the church that the authorities (the “stewards”) of this world might come to recognize their own penultimacy.

‘On the one hand that means relativizing the “secular” authorities. But on the other hand it also means the church’s mission can make a dent there, too. In the church’s proclamation and her embodiment of a polis in which Christ reigns... It is the very mission of the church that takes it into the imperial palace, into the executive mansion, into halls of the capitol.’

So, controversially, as Smith says...

‘This, O’Donovan points out, was the Christendom project: a fundamentally missional endeavor in which the regnant authorities recognized the lordship of Christ, recognized they were simply stewards for a coming King.

‘[A]s O’Donovan points out, most of the examples of Christendom held up for critique are, in fact, examples of something else – a church that has lost its missional, evangelical center and has forgotten how to pray “Thy kingdom come.” Once the church forgot this was still the saeculum – once it fell into the trap of thinking the kingdom had arrived in their configuration of society – the result was a “negative collusion”: “the pretence that there was now no further challenge to be issued to the rules in the name of the ruling Christ” (citing O’Donovan).

‘Christendom, then, is a missional endeavor that refuses to let political society remain protected from the lordship of Christ while it also recognizes the eschatological distance between the now and the not-yet.’

James K.A. Smith on an Evangelical Public Theology

There’s a nice piece here on Comment from Jamie Smith, effectively providing a look at his work in progress for the third volume of his ‘Cultural Liturgies’ project.

He begins:

‘A lot that traffics under the banner of “Christian” public theology has little to do with the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our imaginations have been sufficiently disciplined by the assumptions of liberalism to be uncomfortable and embarrassed by forthrightly Christian hopes for temporal government.’

He looks at Oliver O’Donovan and helpfully summarises some of his key contributions – the significance of Jesus’ resurrection as ‘the confirmation of the world-order which God has made’, and the importance for evangelical public theology to be ‘nourished by the specificity of God’s revelation in Christ, which is bound up in the canonical story unfolded in the Scriptures – the story of Israel’.

Some other excerpts:

‘Because creation is reaffirmed in Christ’s resurrection, and because “nature” is only known “in Christ,” then any Christian account of even “this-worldly” life has to be unapologetically evangelical, rooted in what we know in – and because of – the Gospel.’

‘[P]olitical theology is unashamedly rooted in the specificity and particularity of God’s self-revelation in Christ and the equally particular history of his covenant with his people Israel and the new covenant people that are the church. The body of Christ is that polis in which we participate in Christ, in which our perception is sanctified by the Spirit so that we might be able to discern the reign of God and thus be equipped for public proclamation of good but disconcerting news that submission to Yhwh’s reign is the way humanity is liberated.’

Andrew Williams on Biblical Lament and Political Protest

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

Andrew Williams, ‘Biblical Lament and Political Protest’, Cambridge Papers 23, 1 (March 2014).

Here is the summary:

‘This paper considers the pastoral and political role of biblical lament in the Christian life. The theology and practice of lament is often neglected in congregations, despite its prominence in the biblical text. Such neglect deprives churches of a pastoral resource and moreover, as this paper highlights, diminishes the church’s capacity for prophetic critique and political activism in the face of social injustice. This paper argues lament is needed in corporate worship and prayer, not only to give spiritual expression to faith wrestling with pain, but also to re-energise communities of believers to name injustice, recognise political agency and sustain prophetic action.’

Michael Gorman on Christians and Politics

Although it’s written out of a US context, much of Michael Gorman’s post on Christians and Politics seems more widely applicable, even in those points where he makes it clear he’s reflecting particularly from a US perspective.

Books on the Bible, Christianity and Politics

I recently led a day workshop on developing a biblical worldview on politics. Aside from resources on worldview, below is the list of books (mostly from a UK perspective) I recommended on politics for those who wanted to explore further. 

Jonathan Bartley, Faith and Politics After Christendom: The Church as a Movement for Anarchy (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006).

Part of the publisher’s ‘After Christendom’ series, this book explores what it means that the church no longer occupies the centre of society, providing an opportunity for the church to exercise a prophetic role in challenging injustice and undermining some of the central values on which society is built.

Richard Bauckham, The Bible in Politics: How to Read the Bible Politically (London: SPCK, 2010).

Useful for its self-conscious reflections on methodology, and in providing worked examples of ‘political exegesis’ of sample passages across Scripture.

Stephen Clark (ed.), Tales of Two Cities: Christianity and Politics (Leicester: IVP, 2005).

A collection of academic essays, offering biblical, theological, and historical reflection on political issues.

Graham Cray, Disciples and Citizens: A Vision for Distinctive Living (Nottingham: IVP, 2007).

Explores how we live as citizens of the kingdom of God and our nation, with a strong call to integrated whole-life discipleship.

Paul Doerksen, Beyond Suspicion: Post-Christendom Protestant Political Theology in John Howard Yoder and Oliver O’Donovan, Paternoster Theological Monographs (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009).

A full academic treatment and comparison of the political theologies of two major theologians.

Dewi Hughes, Power and Poverty: Divine and Human Rule in a World of Need (Nottingham: IVP, 2008).

A study of power and poverty against the background of some of the fundamental themes of the Bible as a whole.

James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

This has had an enormous level of exposure since its publication. It’s essentially three extended essays, building an overall case against misguided attempts on the part of Christians ‘to change the world’, and instead arguing for the significance of ‘faithful presence’ in the world.

Rose Lynas (ed.), Votewise Now!: Helping Christians Engage with the Issues (London: SPCK, 2009).

A collection of short essays seeking to help Christians evaluate party policies and promises wisely. A series of helpful Bible studies relating to the book are available from the Jubilee Centre.

Steve Monsma, Healing for a Broken World: Christian Perspectives on Public Policy (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008).

Written from an American perspective, but useful more widely. Seeks to lay out a Christian framework based on Scripture before applying it to areas such as poverty, human rights, disease, war and terrorism.

Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Not an easy read, but seen by many as a classic work of political theology. O’Donovan is significant given his commitment to the Bible as Christian Scripture and the possibility of a unified biblical ethic, and the place he gives to theology in formulating an ethics which can find appropriate political expression.

Elizabeth Phillips, Political Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark International, 2012).

A good way in for those who want to explore political theology in more detail.

Michael Schluter and John Ashcoft (eds.), Jubilee Manifesto: A Framework, Agenda and Strategy for Christian Social Reform (Leicester: IVP, 2005).

An excellent collection of essays flowing out of the work of the Jubilee Centre. It is biblically and theologically based, concerned especially with relationships in families, communities, and society, and explores how a ‘relational’ perspective provides insights on how to approach topics of concern such as the family, welfare, economics, justice, etc.

Nick Spencer and Jonathan Chaplin (eds.), God and Government (London: SPCK, 2009).

A thought-provoking collection of essays from a joint project between Theos, the public theology think tank, and the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, showcasing – from different perspectives – the interface between theology and politics. It helpfully explores biblical and theological foundations for Christian political thinking and considers different ideas about the role of government. This is a valuable contribution not only in encouraging Christians to see politics as an honourable vocation, but also in demonstrating something of the wealth of material in Scripture and Christian political thought.

James K.A. Smith on Two Kingdoms Theology

James Smith and Calvin Theological Journal kindly make available his recent essay engaging with ‘Two Kingdoms’ theology:

James K.A. Smith, ‘Reforming Public Theology: Two Kingdoms, or Two Cities?’, Calvin Theological Journal 47 (2012), 122-137.

On his blog, Smith writes:

‘In my little corner of Reformed Christianity, there has been a notable uptick in folks who are sympathetic to “two kingdoms” (2K) theologies of culture – a model more traditionally associated with the Lutheran tradition. There are aspects of 2K thought I appreciate, notably its robust emphasis on the church as a sacramental community as well, its critique of the idolatry of nationalism, and its goal to resist Christian accommodation to partisan politics. There are other aspects, however, that I’m less enthused about.’

He also notes that he hopes to contribute more fully to this conversation over the next few years, especially in the third volume of his ‘Cultural Liturgies’ trilogy.

Clearing the Ground Inquiry

Christians in Parliament, an official All-Party Parliamentary Group, chaired by Gary Streeter MP have launched Clearing the Ground Inquiry, a preliminary report of the committee’s findings on the question of whether Christians are marginalised in the UK.

The report is available (via the Evangelical Alliance UK) as a pdf here.

The key finding, according to the Executive Summary is that ‘Christians in the UK face problems in living out their faith and these problems have been mostly caused and exacerbated by social, cultural and legal changes over the past decade’.

The Bible and Critical Theory 7, 2 (2011)

The latest edition of The Bible and Critical Theory, now published in open-access format, contains the following essays around the theme of ‘Biblical Politics’:

Roland Boer

Editorial: Biblical Politics

Yvonne Sherwood

The Place of Religion in the Iconography of Democracy and the Politics/Aesthetics of ‘Representation’ (Race/Religion/Sex)

Looking (briefly) at a few test cases, this article raises some preliminary questions about crude and aporetical uses of the category ‘religion’ in European law, public policy, and what might be called the cultural aesthetics of the democratic. In particular I explore awkward updates of blasphemy legislation. Symptomatically, these a) pluralise religion to the point where lack of religion, or as the revised German criminal code of 1969 puts it Weltanschauungsvereinigungen (‘World-View Organisations’?) are welcomed under the canopy of protection, provided that they can prove quasi-religious status; and b) rework religion as a category akin to race in legislation against racial and religious ‘hate’. I also briefly probe anti-discrimination legislation in England and Wales, where a so-called ‘philosophical’ belief can qualify as religious belief, worthy of the same protection, if it can be proved that ‘it is a belief and not an opinion or view based on the present state of information available’; it is ‘genuinely held’; it is ‘compatible’ with ‘human dignity’ and ‘human rights’; it is ‘weighty and substantial’ and attains a ‘certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance’.

James Crossley

The Multicultural Christ: Jesus the Jew and the New Perspective on Paul in an Age of Neoliberalism

In a recent book I argued that the contemporary scholarly rhetoric of a ‘Jewish Jesus’ who consistently transcends the Judaism(s) constructed by scholarship is, in part, the product of dominant Anglo-American attitudes towards the Middle East over the past forty years and a dramatic change in perceptions of Israel and the Holocaust since 1967 (Crossley 2008). Underlying this ‘Jewish ... but not that Jewish’ Jesus is, clearly, an updated form of Orientalism and related understandings of Otherness and cultural difference. What I want to do in this article is to show how other dominant and complementary discourses and historical trends have contributed to this kind of understanding of both Jesus and Paul in contemporary scholarship, particularly multiculturalism in relation to neoliberalism and postmodernity. In addition to shedding further light on the strange ‘Jesus the Jew’ rhetoric, it becomes clear that the scholarly success of the much vaunted New Perspective on Paul owes much to its cultural and ideological contexts.

Mika Ojakangas

Becoming Whosoever: Re-examining Pauline Universalism

In my article I examine, on the one hand, the emergence of the idea of universal natural law in Greek antiquity and especially in Roman Stoic thought. On the other hand, I compare this philosophical universalism (universalism of logos/ratio) with Christian and especially Pauline universalism. I argue that the Pauline conception of universalism is very different from the philosophical understanding of it. It is not a category that transcends particular cultures and identities in the name of universal principles (as in Greek and Stoic thought) but rather a category that denotes a process of rupture of all principles (nomos, arche, and so on).

Roland Boer

Paul’s Uncertain Transitions

Focusing on the constitutive contradictions that run through the letters of Paul, this article offers a historical-materialist answer. In other words, it widens the analysis of Paul beyond mere literary or limited contextual questions, to ask what modes of production constitute the problem to which Paul attempts an unwitting but profoundly influential answer. That is, what socio-economic situation provides the question that Paul seeks to answer at an ideological level, thereby attempting an imaginary resolution of a real social contradiction?

Milena Kirova

Knowledge, Information and Power in the ‘Biblical’ Sense: The story of King Saul

By setting the story of Saul in 1 Samuel within its ancient literary context – Egypt and Mesopotamia – and by deploying and reshaping Foucault’s panopticism, now as ‘panaudiscism’, this article offers a reading of King Saul in a way that pays attention to ears and hearing, to the oral and the aural. In this light, Saul fate is tied in all too closely with his ability to hear, or not.

Rudolf J. Siebert

Toward a Radical Naturalistic and Humanistic Interpretation of the Abrahamic Religions: In Search for the Wholly Other than the Horror and Terror of Nature and History

In this sweeping work, Rudolf Siebert goes beyond and develops further and creatively applies the argument found in his recent three volume Manifesto in a relatively succinct form. Drawing upon the rich resources of the Critical Theory of Society of the Frankfurt School but also the vast tradition of critical philosophy and theology, Siebert offers a ‘critical’ analysis. A critical approach (from the Greek kritikos, able to discern) implies that religious phenomena are examined according to both their positive and negative impacts, with help from the critical theory of society. A critical approach is not neutral. Critical theorists of religion are engaged in informed assessments which enable action in the public sphere. Siebert’s focus is nothing less than some aspects of the three Abrahamic Religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – and their sacred writings – the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and The Holy Qur’an.

Nick Spencer on the Political Bible (Parts 1-4)

Nick Spencer, Research Director at Theos, the Public Theology Think Tank, is half-way through an interesting eight-part series on ‘the political Bible’ in The Guardian. The short articles helpfully summarise aspects of his recent publication, Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011).

Part 1: A foundation for British attitudes

Part 2: Justice – When is a king not a king?

Part 3: How Britain came to accept democracy

Part 4: Toleration