Review and Response

We are grateful for Ben DeVan’s review. He offers two major critiques of Paul Behaving Badly and three smaller, more granular critiques. We will begin with the simplest issues and work up to the more complex. Early in the essay, DeVan notes that the series could be improved by—or at least would benefit from—contributions by…

I want to thank Ben DeVan for his review of the “Behaving Badly” series. Iron sharpens iron, and any constructive critique is welcome. I also appreciate the opportunity to respond to his review. I found Jesus Behaving Badly particularly challenging to write for a variety of reasons. For one thing, a certain standard had already…

Ironically, for many Christians, the IVP “Behaving Badly” trilogy focuses on what is essentially their “trinity”: God, Jesus, and Paul. As much as I love Paul, I would never put him on the same level as the God of the Old Testament (YHWH), or the God of the New (Jesus). But perhaps the fact that…

I am grateful to David T. Lamb, Mark L. Strauss, E. Randolph Richards, and Brandon J. O’Brien for their responses to my review essay in this short symposium concerning their books. I thank each scholar for specifying which of my critiques they find persuasive and for responding to my other critiques by strengthening or elaborating…

In his Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, the eighteenth-century founder of Methodism, John Wesley, strove for biblical commentary that penetrated deeply yet remained concise and clear. Discontent with mere intellectual insights, Wesley yearned to assist the “learned and unlearned” to understand better God’s ways so that they would progress in joy and character development…

We are grateful to Brandon M. Hoover for taking the time to engage and extend our argument about educating students for homemaking rather than upward mobility. In large part, we agree with his call for more robust sustainability programs, but our hopes are at once more modest and more radical than Mr. Hoover’s seem to…

Introduction The purpose of higher education has been argued for centuries, and is currently on the hot seat in public discourse for its high costs and debt in the midst of wage stagnation and reduced upward mobility. The response to this hot seat has been for increased attention to the role of higher education in…

I appreciate this opportunity to respond to Steven Harmon’s response to my review. Such responses can become meta quite quickly, and I think a response to a response can grow like kudzu. So I will highlight only a few remaining matters of relevance having read Harmon’s very thoughtful reply. First, I would reiterate that I…

Kimlyn J. Bender is Professor of Christian Theology, George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University. In 1905 at the Baptist World Congress, a precursor to the Baptist World Alliance, Alexander MacLaren led the participants in a recitation of the Apostles’ Creed. Since that moment, Baptists have wondered and debated exactly what that event signified.…

Steven R. Harmon is Visiting Associate Professor of Historical Theology, School of Divinity, Gardner-Webb University. I am grateful to Kimlyn Bender for his perceptive review of Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future and to Christian Scholar’s Review for publishing not only such an extensive review of the book, but also my response to it along…

Paul Sullins raises interesting questions about my critical realist personalism. But his critique reflects some confusions. Let me answer his easier criticisms first. I indeed make no distinction between human soul and spirit, seeing no need for such a difference either theologically or psychologically. I also, in fact, do not theorize religion in the two…

Paul Sullins is Professor of Sociology at The Catholic University of America. Introduction As is well known, in contrast to Plato’s theory that the universal forms of the things we experience exist in an ideal realm (idealism) of which we had knowledge prior to experiencing them, Aristotle thought that they did not exist apart from…

Christian Smith considers it “too narrow and exacting” to require that Christian scholarship seek to “weav science and theology integrally together.” I, on the other hand, consider that to be the sine qua non of scholarship that is Christian. I am not suggesting that every individual work of Christian scholarship needs to articulate theological or…

Jack Mulder, Jr. is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hope College. I am pleased to see that my argument for the Immaculate Conception generated a response, although I am a bit surprised at the sort of response it generated. R. Gary Chiang and Evelyn M. White present an interesting analysis of the biological data surrounding…

Jack Mulder Jr. challenged Christians to accept the Immaculate Conception of Mary (“Why More Christians Should Believe in Mary’s Immaculate Conception,” Christian Scholar’s Review 41.2 :117-134) because it provided the psychological freedom for her to consent to the Incarnation. In this paper R. Gary Chiang and Evelyn M. White take up this challenge by showing…

Steven R. Guthrie is Associate Professor of Religion at Belmont University. We have reached a decisive moment in Western culture, a moment of monumental consequence, for the church generally and for its practice of music specifically. This claim is at the heart of C. Randall Bradley’s From Memory to Imagination: Reforming the Church’s Music. Bradley…

C. Randall Bradley is the Ben H. Williams Professor of Music at Baylor University, where he is also the Director of the Center for Christian Music Studies and the Church Music Program. I offer my deep appreciation to Steven Guthrie for his engagement with my book and for his perceptive affirmations and critiques. Likewise, I…

Os Guinness, a graduate of Oxford University, is an author and social critic. He lives with his wife Jenny in the Washington DC area. All publicity, it is said, even bad publicity, is good publicity. How much more so is it an honor for one who is not a scholar to be reviewed by Mark…

Mark A. Noll is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. Os Guinness’ A Free People’s Suicide is a vigorous jeremiad that paints a dark picture of contemporary U.S. society while offering an equally dark account of the American presence in the world. Although in a last short chapter…

Jacob L. Goodson is Professor of Religious Studies, College of William & Mary, and Quinn T. McDowell is a recent graduate of the College of William & Mary with degrees in Religious Studies and Economics. Jennifer McBride.The Church for the World: A Theology of Public Witness. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. xv + 320…