Reviews

Reviewed by Daniel R. Miller, History, Calvin College This is a book about voices crying in the wilderness. It describes “progressive evangelicals,” more specifically a small but vocal group of writers and academics and popularizers such as Jim Wallis, James Skillen, Tony Campolo, John Anderson, and others who promoted their ideas in publications such as…

Reviewed by Jonathan Huggins, Chaplain, Berry College Kevin Vanhoozer is Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. His 2006 book, The Drama of Doctrine, was a well-received articulation of Christian theology that made use of the theatre as a controlling metaphor. That work was written for academic theologians and…

Reviewed by Kelly M. Kapic, Theological Studies, Covenant College How should one react to the following claims? “Jesus was an ingrate” (68); or “‘ingratitude’ is one of Christianity’s great contributions to Western civilization, precisely the contribution Christianity made to the formation of modernity” (225). Such lines, scattered through this volume, may strike the reader as…

Reviewed by Kent Dunnington, Philosophy and Religion, Greenville College The ideas in God and the Multiverse are important for thinking Christians to consider, but this book is written at a high level of specialization and picks up in the middle of a scholarly conversation. The conversation is about whether we have good reasons to think…

Reviewed by Gregory S. MaGee, Biblical Studies, Taylor University Richard Hays, Dean of Duke Divinity School, has a long track record of thinking creatively about the Apostle Paul’s appropriation of the Old Testament in his writings. In his latest book, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness, Hays explores similar tendencies among the…

Reviewed By Henry Hyunsuk Kim, Sociology and Anthropology, Wheaton College Most people regardless of their religious affiliations are familiar with aphorisms such as “the giver is more blessed than the receiver” and “it is better to give than to receive.” Perhaps for some persons whether biblical exegesis or eisegesis was employed is a salient issue.…

Reviewed by Chris Willerton, Language and Literature, Abilene Christian University Lundin’s Beginning with the Word will serve both experienced and less-experienced readers who work at connecting modern literature and theology with modern theories of art, language, and culture. Lundin links theorists like Ferdinand de Saussure, Jean-François Lyotard, and Hans-Georg Gadamer with writers such as Frederick…

Reviewed by Dennis L. Sansom, Philosophy, Samford University R. Scott Smith primarily argues that the supposed fact-value split (that is, between scientific truths and religious-ethical truths) is philosophically unfounded because it rests on the mistaken notion that we do not have direct cognitive access to reality. Consequently, the many ethical theories and approaches that presume…

Reviewed by Gerald L. Sittser, Theology, Whitworth University Academic historians rarely reach a wide audience. A few (Peter Brown comes to mind here) become widely known, but not many. Diarmaid MacCulloch belongs in that elite company. His previous books, such as Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, have won major awards, and his popular BBC-TV…

Reviewed by Alice L. Laffey, Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross In the past 35 years this reviewer has read many books in the field of biblical studies and many books on the environment. There has been an occasional book that has combined biblical studies and the environmental crisis, but these usually have been…

Reviewed by Sean F. Evans, Political Science, Union University In The Good of Politics, James Skillen argues that politics is not a necessary evil in our fallen world but an essential component of our Christian calling and a means to create a more just social order. By promoting a more positive view of politics, Skillen…

Reviewed by Douglas V. Henry, Great Texts Program, Baylor University Imagine that most of the major achievements of the modern age grew out of a fundamentally flawed assumption about human understanding. Suppose that the assumption in question, for all the evident successes built upon it, gave rise to circumstances in which alienation from nature, isolation…

Reviewed by Paul R. House, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University Editing a good festschrift is analogous to integrating faith and learning in a university context. Both must balance research and application. They must show deference to the past while holding out hope for the future. Milestones must be duly noted without leaving the impression that…

Reviewed by Todd C. Ream, Higher Education and Student Development, Taylor University and Aaron Morrison, Student Development, Nebraska Wesleyan University Power is not what it used to be. At a point in time we now vaguely remember, a handful of newspapers provided an authoritative look at the affairs of the day. Such details were then…

Reviewed by Robert C. Bishop, Philosophy and History of Science, Wheaton College Shaun Henson’s God and Natural Order: Physics, Philosophy and Theology should be praised for pursuing science-theology relations from a thoroughly Trinitarian perspective rather than the usual bland, generic monotheism. As Colin Gunton has diagnosed, many problems in Christian engagement with creation and the…

Reviewed by Matthew Hill, History, Liberty University Much ink has been spilled in recent years rediscovering many “forgotten founders” and arguing for a more diversified range of ideas of the founders on church and state issues. Excessive devotion to the likes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison as well…

Reviewed by Michael Buratovich, Biochemistry, Spring Arbor University Stephen C. Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, is one of the most prolific and articulate proponents of the theory of Intelligent Design (ID), which holds that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause…

Reviewed by Barry Hankins, History, Baylor University Molly Worthen has given us the first intellectual history of twentieth-century American evangelicalism. Apostles of Reason should be a standard for the foreseeable future and take its place alongside other fine books such as Joel Carpenter’s Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism and Darren Dochuk’s From…

Reviewed by Pamela Jordan-Long, The Center for the Study of C. S. Lewis & Friends, Taylor University Of making many books about C. S. Lewis there is no end. Even Lewisian scholars say that everything there is to say about Lewis has already been said. Yet, remarkably, Alister McGrath’s The Intellectual World of C. S.…

Reviewed by Philip Smith, Christian Studies, George Fox University Virtues and Their Vices is a collection of twenty two essays, freshly written for this volume, addressing that region of ethical theory called “virtue theory.” Most of the authors are philosophers, with two essays contributed by psychologists and one by a theologian. Some of the essays…