Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?—J.R.R. Tolkien, from his lecture titled “On Fairy Stories,” given in 1939. As a pre-adolescent kid growing up in an average American suburb, I was developing some peculiar habits. Since the age of twelve, I was watching PBS, but not for “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”... Read more
Tom Smail, evangelical and charismatic British theologian of the Trinity, died last week (Feb 15). A few obituaries have appeared from those who knew him or studied with him. I knew him only from his remarkable books, which were always exquisitely balanced between tradition and creativity. As something of an evangelical-charismatic statesman, Smail tended to write books when he wanted to make some specific change in the direction of Christian discussions. When the power or personhood of the Holy Spirit... Read more
Scott Harrower of the Melbourne School of Theology has just published a book called Trinitarian Self and Salvation: An Evangelical Engagement with Rahner’s Rule (Wipf & Stock, 2012). About a decade ago, I wrote my own “evangelical engagement with Rahner’s Rule,” so Scott asked me to write the foreword for his project. I really appreciated the drift of Scott’s argument in the book, and I found that the more I wrote about it the more I had to say. So... Read more
Last week, R. T. France passed away. There are notices of his passing at several Bible blogs, including this one at the Evangelical Textual Criticism site. France taught in numerous places over the years, and wrote many helpful works. Evangelical Bible scholars can testify to his substantive contribution to the field. I want to praise his power as a communicator. Speaking as a systematic theologian, I have long appreciated France’s ability to explain how his expert knowledge of New Testament... Read more
Just a few thoughts here, brief notes on how a doctrine of creation ought to be handled in systematic theology. I state them as theses, as if I am declaring how every theologian ought to handle the doctrine. But really I’m talking to myself in public. 1. Work backwards. The doctrine of creation occurs early in the sequence of traditional theological topics (Method –> Revelation –> God –> Creation –> Fall, etc). But if it is to be a Christian... Read more
When Kevin Vanhoozer intervenes in the recent discussion of the doctrine of God, he does so by making several strategic moves. But the move behind them all is his insistence that we’ve got to get the doctrine of the Trinity right. And “getting it right” means describing the relationship between the economic and immanent Trinity properly. How does the eternal triunity of God relate to his triunity among us in the history of salvation? Vanhoozer makes use of his key... Read more
John Hick, a major philosopher of religion, has died at age 90. Friends and students had just brought out a festschrift in his honor weeks before his death. Hick’s theological conclusions were decidedly on the liberal side of the spectrum, and his intellectual legacy will be the greatest among those who are least concerned about orthodoxy. But his best books had a sharp, critical edge that made them required reading for every serious thinker on issues like the problem of... Read more
A piece I wrote, “Sharing Our Solitude,” is one of January’s three main articles in The Examined Life. The issue is all about ‘enduring through suffering,’ and, among others, it includes an article on interacting with suffering in a classroom setting, an apology for watching sad films, and an artistic and symbolic exploration of the color black. My contribution to the issue uses an account of suffering as inherently characterized by solitude to describe how Christ’s passion and death is a... Read more
Imagine being an artist commissioned to illustrate the entire Bible. From the epic stories to the pithy proverbs, from psalms of praise to prophets of doom, from the life of Jesus to his parables, you were supposed to produce pictures for everything. Now imagine that you were limited to the most minimal of visual means for representing all those stories: stick figures. You’d be doomed to producing a forgettable set of doodles. A real why-bother heap of lines, right? But... Read more
Christmas was exactly one month ago, and now, we celebrate another birth, or should I say , a new birth: the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, once fierce persecutor of the followers of Christ, now a formidable soldier for Christ. We can say with certainty that ignorance of St. Paul is ignorance of Christ, especially since much of the New Testament is comprised of his epistles, fourteen in all. Preacher, missionary, and theologian–these activities sum up his post-conversion life. This... Read more
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