Over Christianity Today, I interview N.T. Wright about his book The Day the Revolution Began. I ask him some juicy questions, like “If you had to preach one biblical text on the cross, what would it be, and roughly what would you say?” Read more

Over at Relevant is a great article on Multi-Faith Leaders Ask Pres. Obama to Reject a Report That Calls Religious Freedom Discriminatory. It opens by saying: “Last month, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report on the topic of religious liberty called Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles With Civil Liberties. Recently, faith leaders including evangelicals Russell Moore and Leith Anderson asked President Barack Obama to reject the report‘s definition of religious freedom.” Because of recent events in the USA... Read more

Over at TGC, Michael Horton reviews N.T. Wright’s The Day the Revolution Began. Quite a positive review in many ways, Horton comments at one point: My impression is Wright has somewhat moderated his own view of justification. Deuteronomy makes clear, he observes, that in covenant justice God punishes his people, hence the exile (304). In Romans 3:21, dikaiosynē theou means “God’s covenant justice,” and sinners are “freely declared to be in the right [dikaioumenoi], to be members of the covenant, through the redemption which is found in the Messiah,... Read more

If you haven’t listened to Unbelievable please do, because this week Justin Brierly interviews novelist/history Tom Holland about how he changed his view on Christianity as expressed in an article in New Statesman and Larry Hurtado on his book Destroyer of the God. They discuss some great stuff: Ancient religion. The roots of western ethics. Slavery. Read more

Scot McKnight chimes on in the “apocalyptic Paul” view at his Kingdom Roots podcast, which is a great introduction to what all the fuss is about. Scot suggests that Richard Hays might belong somewhat to the apocalyptic Paul view. In some ways, yes, because Hays sees Paul’s hermeneutic as robustly christological, he does lean that way at times, and he says: “God’s ‘apocalyptic’ act in Christ does not simply shatter and sweep away creation and covenant; rather, it hermeneutically reconfigures creation... Read more

I’ve been reading Larry Siedentop’s Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (UK: Random House, 2014), where Siedentop notes the role of Paul in the process: He says that Paul saw Jesus’ crucifixion “as a moral earthquake” (p. 58) and “Paul’s conception of the Christ overturns the assumption on which ancient thinking had hitherto rested, the assumption of natural inequality. Instead, Paul wagers on human equality. It is a wager that turns on transparency, that we can and should see ourselves... Read more

I’ve just heard reports of the passing of William J. Dumbrell, an Australian biblical scholar known for his work in the area of biblical theology. Bill Dumbrell (Th.D., Harvard University) taught at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, Regent College in Vancouver, the Presbyterian Theological Hall in Sydney, Macquarie University in Sydney, and Trinity Theological College in Singapore. He is the author of several works including Covenant and Creation, The Search for Order, The End of the Beginning, The Faith... Read more

Folks, this is not a drill, Craig Keener’s Romans commentary in the NCCS is the FREE BOOK of the MONTH thanks to Logos. This is vintage Keener, his array of background sources is correct, and it not insanely long, but very readable. A must have! If you haven’t signed up to Logos, do so, just to get this free book!   Read more

I just learned that N.T. Wright has yet another book just out – in addition to his The Day the Revolution Began – about God and politics. N.T. Wright God in Public: How the Bible Speaks Truth to Power Today London: SPCK, 2016 [released in October]. Available at Amazon.com What has Christianity to do with power? Why must the church remind those in authority of their responsibilities? What can Christians do to act as the voice of the voiceless? How can... Read more

I’m reading through Charles Taylor’s Secular Age with the help of James K. A. Smith’s How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor and I was intrigued by their predictions for the future. According to Taylor, our secular age stresses a closed order where meaning and activity are entirely immanent and this-worldly. However, because of suspicion and longing for transcendence, Taylor thinks this will change.  First, the secularization thesis will become less plausible when it is realized that other societies are not following... Read more