Foundations 87 (February 2025)

Issue 87 of Foundations: An International Journal of Evangelical Theology, published by Affinity, is now available from here (requiring an email address for a link to a downloadable pdf, though check here) which includes the below essays (abstracts posted where available).

Donald John MacLean

Editorial

Ian Shaw

Slavery, the Slave Trade and Christians’ Theology Part Two: Theological Themes

Stephen Steele

Garnishing the Sepulchres of the Righteous: Textual Criticism in the Free Church Fathers

The continued publication of the “Textus Receptus,” for example, a new edition by Grange Press, the publishing arm of the US Presbytery of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing), provides the incentive to investigate the text-critical principles of the Free Church fathers. How did they view the Textus Receptus? Did they defend it in the face of new manuscript discoveries in their own century? The clear evidence is that they did not hold to a “Received Text” that was “fixed”, indeed, the leading figures among the Free Church Fathers explicitly disowned such a view. Advocates of the so-called “Textus Receptus” have a track record of claiming support from figures in church history who were far from claiming its perfection. Famously, the Anglican Dean John Burgon (1813-1888) would not be admitted to the Dean Burgon Society (founded in 1978). The society named after him exists “To Defend the Traditional Received Greek Text of the New Testament which underlies the King James Version.” Yet while believing the TR to be “quite good enough for all ordinary purposes”, Burgon was “far from pinning my faith to it”. “In not a few particulars”, he wrote “the ‘Textus receptus’ does call for Revision”.

Alison Umpleby

Review Article: She Needs

Nick Meader

Resurrection: Apologetics and Biblical Theology

Mark Roques and Steve Bishop

The ‘Christian’ Mysticism of Meister Eckhart and Terese of Ávila

In this article, we probe the so-called “Christian” mysticism of Meister Eckhart and Teresa of Ávila. We scrutinise the Orphic creation myth and Neoplatonism’s roots. We unpack how these two mystics would answer the six worldview questions. What is God like? What is the universe like? What is a person? Why do we suffer? What is the remedy? What happens after death? We conclude with a critique of “Christian” mysticism and show how it is both world-denying and auto-salvific. Neither option is Christian.

Book Reviews

Evangelical Review of Theology 47, 1 (February 2023)

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

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More Great Reading from the WEA

Evert Van de Poll

Towards a Recognition of the ‘Jewish Church’: the Messianic Jewish Movement and Christianity in Dialogue

The Messianic Jewish movement presents unique theological and diplomatic challenges not just to the Jews whom they hope will come to honour Jesus Christ but to other Christian groups as well. This summary of a July 2022 conference clarifies the issues in a dispassionate, definitive way.

James R. Edwards

The Significance of the Reformation for the Global Church Today

We are all indebted to the 16th-century Reformation for its recovery of the biblical norms of faith and church. However, this message (delivered at a global conference last October) argues that today’s church must fully recover the biblical norms of mission and evangelism to complete the Reformation vision of the church.

Andrew Messmer

A History of Biblical Textual Criticism

Textual criticism of the Bible is not a new science. It has been used by Jews and Christians for over 2,000 years, as a natural outworking of their belief in divine inspiration: if God has inspired a text to teach us about salvation, then we should preserve it as carefully as possible and restore it whenever necessary. This article surveys the history of biblical textual criticism, primarily in the Patristic and Modern periods. The Patristic period contains instructive examples of early textual criticism in practice, whereas modern textual criticism has relied heavily on published editions of both Testaments.

Alan J. Pihringer

C.S. Lewis’ Use of Myth to Convey a Christian Worldview

This article insightfully analyses the apologetic strategy inherent in Lewis’ fiction, including his intent to appeal to the imagination as well as to rational argument and his method of embedding opposing worldviews in his stories so that he could critique them. Lewis’ approach carries lasting value for our efforts to communicate the gospel to our postmodern and entertainment-oriented culture.

Richard L. Smith

The Gospel in Three Dimensions

This study of 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10 reveals that the passage presents the Christian life in simple three-point fashion, in terms of repentance, service to God and others, and our ultimate eschatological hope. These three points can be linked to God’s work on three levels—personal, corporate (within the body of Christ), and cosmic, respectively.

Prabo Mihindukulasuriya

Towards a Theology of Race and Ethnicity

Contemporary confrontations on ethnic identity, racial justice, and the challenges of life in multicultural societies make it imperative for Christians to examine how Scripture teaches us to view race and ethnicity. This article identifies fundamental theological orientations that can help us live faithfully as disciples of Christ amidst the conflicting winds of polarization, ethno-religious nationalism, systemic racism, and hyper-sensitive political correctness.

Book Reviews