Abstract
Holy Communion in Contagious Times: Celebrating the Eucharist in the Everyday and Online Worlds
by Richard A. Burridge
Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2022. 300 pp. $35.00. ISBN 978-1-7252-8577-4.
While Reformed readers of this book may not share all of Burridge’s concerns (chief among them, questions around the proper consecration of elements), there is much to glean in this thoughtful and critical reflection on the role of sacraments in our changing times. Burridge makes his case in ways that are generous and winsome. While I am not persuaded by his emphasis on intentionality as a primary criterion in terms of defining the experience of eucharist, it is nevertheless a book that raises important questions about the virtual and hybrid worlds that we all now inhabit. In terms of the broader issues concerning the eucharistic celebration, we all have important questions to resolve around the role of the clergy and the emphasis placed on the words of institution. Even though the book has been shaped by the crisis of the pandemic, the questions that are generated run much deeper and revolve around cultural and technological shifts that have already redefined what it means to be the church.
Care: How People of Faith Can Respond to Our Broken Health System
by G. Scott Morris
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022. 174 pp. $18.99. ISBN 978-0-8028-8237-0.
As a physician who works in nursing homes, I have seen the ultimate cost of a healthcare system that leaves the uninsured broken, disfigured, and prematurely disabled. Universal healthcare is a distant dream for millions of people who will live shorter, more painful and desperate lives because we are truly deaf to Jesus’s voice asking us to care for the weak, the poor, and the lonely. Morris is right—Christians must stand in the gap, and this book is important reading for any church leader who wishes to incorporate healing into their mission. Although effective for self-reflection, it can easily be used in adult education programs, as it includes a group discussion guide. Jesus continues to speak to us when he says, “The poor will always be with you” (Matt 26:11). This book asks us to hear and respond, as Jesus did, with healing.
Dust in the Blood: A Theology of Life with Depression
by Jessica Coblentz
Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2022. 248 pp. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-8146-8502-0.
Coblentz delves deeply into the biblical imagery of wilderness, noting that “unlike the story of Abraham’s sojourn. . . this tale of wilderness wandering features a consistently despairing community. The desperation and doubt of these wanderers may resonate especially well with depression sufferers who struggle to interpret their condition in view of the Christian worldview” (p. 133). Her reading of the story of Hagar (Gen 16:1–15 and 21:8–19) makes available a counter-narrative to the story of Exodus. Hagar is not offered liberation, only the possibility of survival eked out in the most arid and lonely of places. Coblentz argues that in this story, divine presence offers neither meaning nor escape but appears as the “God who sees” (Gen 16:13), the one who makes survival possible. But even this sparse consolation is not available to everyone. She invites theology to acknowledge that some stories end badly, when some people are able to find new life, while others do not. Her compassionate insistence on this truth enables theology to withhold judgment when depression wins its victories and not give up on hope or gratitude for the “God who sees.”
This book is important and timely. It is clearly written, and theologically sophisticated yet accessible to a wide audience. Coblentz does not allow us to escape from the sorrow of intense suffering by imposing theories that explain it away or justify it. But her clear-eyed analysis of depression also witnesses to the appearance of God in the most harrowing of places and offers glimmers of possibility for those who need it most.
Fractured Ground: Preaching in the Wake of Mass Trauma
by Kimberly R. Wagner
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2023. 184 pp. $28.00. ISBN 978-0-664-26784-1.
While there is not a playbook for preaching and ministry in the wake of mass trauma, this new book by Kimberly R. Wagner can help us plan, even practice, faithfulness and effective pastoral leadership in such times. This book delves into the complex subject of trauma. Professor Wagner writes to fortify pastors in our uncertain world. Wagner strives to build resiliency, offering careful advice to sustain pastors and church leaders who might well find themselves walking with their congregations “between brokenness and hope, . . . between loss and redemption” (p. 72).
The first section of the book, “Understanding Trauma and Meeting the Moment,” describes in helpful terms much of the latest research on trauma and its complexities that often “fracture” our sense of the world and our ability to move forward. Then the book moves into homiletics and the challenges of proclaiming the gospel amid mass trauma. There is a whole section on the privilege and pitfalls of preaching called: “A Trauma-Responsive Homiletic” that affirms the fractured condition of the community and navigates the way between suffering and hope. There are helpful insights about preaching and caring for oneself amidst the crisis. The final section is entitled “Responding to Trauma in and beyond the Sermon.” We are called to be transformers of society, working for God’s full reign. This is not just a book about preaching in challenging times but also faithfulness and discipleship amidst the complexities of life.
Life and ministry often carry us into dark places. Wagner’s book reminds us that we do not go alone, and with God’s Spirit, we can be faithful servants in God’s work.
Discerning the Way: Lessons from Parkinson’s Disease
by Allan Hugh Cole Jr.
Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2021. 218 pp. $29.00. ISBN 978-1-7252-9957-3.
Cole was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) in 2016 at the age of forty-eight and remained “in the closet” for nearly a year. He describes the experience of misdiagnosis, the agonizing words that confirmed the eventual PD discovery, holding a dark secret, breaking the news to those he loved most, and the first year of anger, terror, tears, and denial. He speaks of his fears of identity loss, his sense of pending diminishment, and his nostalgic memories of life before the diagnosis. The description of this first year is conveyed in small sound bites that compose the makeup of the entire book, and that is exactly as it should be. The book covers the first four years of the author’s journey with PD in a way that reveals the progression of the physical symptoms of PD alongside the transformation of a human being who is open to suffering as our best teacher. The chapters are dotted with insights from well-known authors such as Robert Frost, Brené Brown, and Frederick Nietzsche, among others, which I valued. But the most riveting insights were from the author himself, who is walking through this journey with a heightened sense of the shortness of life, a recognition that the best life is measured by how we walk it as opposed to how long, the value of authentic and vulnerable friendships, and so much more.
The narrative is at times repetitive, but so is the ongoing nature of living with this diagnosis. The short chapters are not entirely chronological, but neither is life with a disease that offers at once diminishment but also enlargement of one’s humanity. What I love about the book is the way in which Cole keeps his eyes open to the reality of his experience throughout this journey. He understands that honesty about his reality will determine his degree of authenticity, freedom, empathy, and opportunity. He pulls no punches about the gut-wrenching blow of this disease, but does not remain on the mat. He consistently gets up for another round and invites the reader to do the same. I cannot know what it would be like to read this book without lived experience of this reality, but I suspect that Cole’s buoyant, humorous, authentic, and non-scholarly style will effectively convey the lessons of his experience to those on the outside of the PD community. The book will be very useful for pastors walking with those experiencing chronic illness, terminal disease, or any kind of human deprivation and sudden disorientation. This book is a road map, a GPS, a guide from one who is out in front of most us. The reader will gain much by listening carefully.
Discovering Exodus: Content, Interpretation, Reception
by Ralph K. Hawkins
Discovering Biblical Texts. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021. 308 pp. $22.00. ISBN 978-0-8028-7262-3.
In this accessible introduction to the book of Exodus, Ralph Hawkins covers vast territory, from a clear argument for a thirteenth-century date for an historical exodus, to motifs of Exodus in U.S. politics, from the Mayflower to the Civil Rights Movement. Throughout, Hawkins demonstrates particular gifts in exploring ways that the ancient eastern Mediterranean context can inform and illumine our interpretation of Exodus. For example, Hawkins investigates the traditions about Moses’s early life and the revelation of the divine name against their ancient background; he also compares the tabernacle and ark of the covenant, according to their blueprints in Exodus, with what is known of architecturally similar structures in the ancient world, finding close parallels in Late Bronze Age II Egypt. Hawkins gives a reasoned critique of the documentary hypothesis associated with Julius Wellhausen, suggesting that Exodus be considered “Mosaic” in the sense that all of the traditions contained therein and collected from a variety of sources can in some sense be connected back to the figure who looms so large in the book. At the same time, Hawkins recognizes the late-twentieth-century turn toward reading the Bible as literature. He gives a nuanced account of the portrait of Moses that emerges from the book, and he lingers over interpretation of Exodus 32–34, arguing that the revelation of the divine name according to the thirteen attributes in Exod 34:6–7 constitutes a clear witness to the “good news” for ancient Israel following the golden calf episode. Other chapters include investigation of the minor characters in Exodus, the presence and power of God in the book, and “echoes” of Exodus throughout the two-testament Christian canon and in Western art.
Discovering Exodus is best read as a topical introduction of the contents of Exodus in relation to its ancient background, alongside a survey of its reception history from a Western (especially U.S.-American), Protestant Christian perspective. It could be assigned as an undergraduate or seminary textbook with complementary readings.
Power and Emotion in Ancient Judaism: Community and Identity in Formation
by Ari Mermelstein
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 350 pp. $99.99 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-108-83155-0.
Linking these works in Mermelstein’s study is the discourse of emotion that both reflected and reforged the dynamics of power experienced by Jews under Greek and Roman rule. Since emotions and power are “conceptual twins” affecting the “feeling rules” and “emotional habitus” of a community’s social-political identity and practical way of life, what did it mean to “feel Jewish” in situations of powerless subjugation? More specifically, how did colonized Jews negotiate emotions such as fear, anger, grief, shame, and disgust to be able to move toward a proactive stance to shape their own histories and destinies (pp. 6–15)?
For example, amid harsh conditions in the Jewish homeland under the tyrannical Hellenistic rule of Antiochus IV (175–164 BCE), 1 Maccabees wrestled with various dimensions of anger: God’s “very great wrath” against Judahite collaborators with Antiochus’s anti-Jewish campaign (1 Macc 1:51–52, 64); Antiochus’s intense rage at the militant rebellion of Hasmonean freedom fighters under Judas Maccabeus (3:27); and these fighters’ zealous anger against Hellenistic hegemony that motivated them to act as agents of God and to serve God freely and faithfully (2:24; 3:8). Although fervently felt and violently expressed, the Maccabeans’s anger-fueled revolt was no mere impulsive overreaction. Following ancient and modern emotion theory, Mermelstein interprets Maccabean anger as “a judgmental [evaluative] emotion [that] reflects beliefs about hierarchy and who is in a position to judge” (p. 131). Feelings-thoughts-actions interconnect and interact, for good and ill.
This network operates not only within individuals but between and among people and their environments. The Jewish literature examined by Mermelstein focuses on the social function of emotions, especially their role in communal formation. The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit strikingly vehement emotional discourse—concentrated on fear, hate, shame, and disgust, on the negative pole, and joy, love, and honor, on the positive end—for the purpose of solidifying a strict sectarian worldview against both unfaithful fellow-Jews and unjust gentile powers. An array of ritual practices—ablutions, liturgies, codes of conduct, and modes of scriptural interpretation—serve as vehicles of emotional management.
This carefully argued volume marks a significant contribution to the study of emotion in biblical scholarship, stimulated by burgeoning emotion research across the humanities and sciences. Although writing for the academy, Mermelstein’s work is clear and convincing, supported by many quoted primary texts (with English translations) and suggestive of intriguing implications and applications for modern, tension-filled religious life.
The Bible in the Early Church
Justo L. González
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022. 204 pp. $19.99. ISBN 978-0-8028-8174-8.
Readers will learn much about the Bible from this clearly written and accessible book, including that the chapter and verse divisions found in today’s Bibles were fully introduced only in the sixteenth century, that the shift from parchment to the codex was tied to the expansion of Christianity, and that there were significant differences among early Christians regarding how to interpret the Bible. The chapter on private reading of the Bible provides a fascinating glance into an aspect of the text’s role in Christianity that is rarely considered. A strength of the book is the way that González draws upon and cites from the writings of important early Christian authors like Ignatius of Antioch, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria to demonstrate the diverse ways the Bible helped to shape the beliefs and practices of the early Christian community. These citations from non-biblical sources are often illuminating and place González’s topic in a broader context. This approach is particularly effective in three later chapters in the book titled “Crucial Texts” that treat the themes of Creation, the Exodus, and the Word and show how they figured prominently in early Christian biblical interpretation and doctrinal debates. The “Cast of Characters” appendix is a useful resource that contains brief entries on forty-four figures and early Christian writings mentioned in the book.
The Cambridge Companion to the New Testament
edited by Patrick Gray
Cambridge Companions to Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 454 pp. $34.99. ISBN 978-1-108-43770-7.
The book achieves its purpose very well and with consistently lucid, engaging, and insightful essays written by a stellar team of biblical scholars. In his essay on Luke and Acts, for instance, Mikeal C. Parsons addresses the question of how these books are related to each other and to other New Testament books. After stating the current consensus that they are two parts of one work, he proposes that Acts is a sequel to Luke and other gospels. As another example, in his essay on the general epistles, Patrick J. Hartin indicates the scholarly divide regarding the dating and authorship of James and argues why he believes it is an early writing (before the Gospels) that should be attributed to someone closely associated with Jesus’s brother James.
A work that surveys the current state of scholarship in New Testament studies will have its limitations and omissions. Some may disagree with a particular perspective or wish to hear another viewpoint. Some may wish the book had included more scholars of color and contributors from more nations and that it had addressed interpretive approaches such as womanist and reception history. On the whole, however, it is a current, concise, and fine overview that will be especially beneficial to graduate students in biblical studies and to pastors and others who want to update their knowledge of an ever-developing field of study.
Performing Early Christian Literature: Audience Experience and Interpretation of the Gospels
by Kelly R. Iverson
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 230 pp. $99.99 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-316-51622-5.
Following a brief introduction, he identifies in ch. 2 key characteristics of performance events that distinguish them from reading events. These include proximity, community, transience, perception, participation, and interaction between the audience and performer. Three chapters follow, each dedicated to one specific aspect of audience experience in performance: the emotional, the nonverbal/sensory, and the memorial. Iverson draws on a broad range of theoretical works from communication theory to cognitive studies in his exploration of the relationship between message and medium in the oral sphere. The author then offers questions and considerations that differ from those raised by historical-critical approaches typically adopted by biblical scholars and taught in seminaries. Iverson’s intent is not to prioritize one approach over the other, but to invite considered reflection on ways in which auditors and readers experience words differently.
Despite the technical nature of this study, there is much here of interest to pastors. It will enrich their experience of the biblical text and stimulate their thinking about how the medium they choose for presentation of the text will shape its reception. Iverson works hard to make this complex topic accessible. He limits the use of technical terms, and his approach is systematic, employing a similar structure for each chapter that helps guide the reader through the material. Major points are well illustrated by commonplace examples. It is a text that could be adapted for and lends itself to group study.
First and Second Thessalonians
by Timothy A. Brookins
Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021. 256 pp. $30.00. ISBN 978-0-8010-3182-3.
In the introduction to 1 Thessalonians, Brookins considers typical introductory matters such as authorship and genre, identifying the letter as a personal letter and giving attention to how information from the letter can be reconciled with the narrative of Acts. In the main commentary Brookins provides helpful analysis that focuses especially on Paul’s pastoral relationship with the Thessalonians. Another strength is the way in which Brookins supports his interpretation with quotations from extrabiblical ancient sources, especially Greco-Roman philosophers and thinkers. Overall, Brookins interprets 1 Thessalonians as a letter that seeks to strengthen the Thessalonians’s identity in Christ, and this rhetorical work in the letter is supported by Paul’s theology to a greater extent than is sometimes recognized by commentators.
In the introduction to 2 Thessalonians Brookins lists eight arguments for why some scholars think the letter is pseudonymous. Brookins then gives counterarguments for each of these and concludes that Paul is the author who stands behind the letter. However, Brookins considers it likely that a co-sender took an active role in composing the letter, which would explain its linguistic differences from 1 Thessalonians and other undisputed letters of Paul. The introduction argues that the letter was written a few months after 1 Thessalonians, addressing problems that had gotten worse since the writing of the first letter. Brookins proceeds with a close analysis of the text with attention to pastoral care strategies and the Greco-Roman context. Those who do not believe Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians will naturally find some things to critique in this part of the commentary. However, even for these readers, there is much to be commended in Brookins’s literary and rhetorical analysis of the text, even if his historical conclusions are not shared by all.
Abject Joy: Paul, Prison, and the Art of Making Do
by Ryan S. Schellenberg
Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2021. 248 pp. $74.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-1900-6551-5.
Abject Joy first reexamines Paul’s social station in light of his own reports of multiple imprisonments and instances of corporal punishment. Schellenberg shows that the Acts of the Apostles’ depiction of Paul as an elite man who commands crowds and confronts local magistrates does not match the historical experiences Paul shares in his letters (ch. 1). Paul has more in common with slaves, freed persons, and non-elites, whose bodies are subject to violence by local administrative powers. Seen in this context, Paul’s longing for Christ’s resurrected glory (Phil 3:21) reveals a desire to be united with Christ and, Schellenberg argues, a desire to obtain the promised Christ-like “inviolable” body that offers relief from Paul’s immediate suffering (ch. 2).
Schellenberg combines methods of social reconstruction with a psychological understanding of somatic affect. In ch. 3, Schellenberg reconstructs four types of Roman prisoners and interprets which type Paul most resembles. Paul’s “contentment” is less an assertion of philosophical independence than it is a means by which he asserts control over the only part of his life prison guards do not control: his own will (ch. 4). Schellenberg invites us to honor Paul’s emotional responses, as well as those of others in prison, rather than dismiss them. Understood as real, Paul’s authentic joy becomes a way of regulating his emotions and cultivating shared affect with his friends (ch. 5).
Schellenberg immerses the reader in Paul’s experience as a human being under duress while challenging more idealized readings of Paul and offering nuances to the scholarly conversation. Those who minister to the detained and incarcerated or who serve those released from confinement will find here abundant resources for biblical understanding and theological reflection. Ultimately, Paul’s response to extreme vulnerability and existential threat helps us to see how we, too, can cultivate joy and accompany others experiencing abject joy.
You Shall Not Bow Down and Serve Them: The Political Economic Projects of Jesus and Paul
by Richard A. Horsley
Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2021, 244 pp. $31.00. ISBN 978-1-6667-2706-7.
Following an introductory chapter on “What Texts Included in the Bible Were About,” the book contains four parts. The first highlights “The Dominant Insistence on Justice in the Bible”; the second, consisting of four chapters, explores “The Political Economic Project of Jesus vs. the Roman Imperial Order”; the third includes three chapters on “Paul and Political Economy”; while the fourth part offers (in three chapters) both a serious critique of biblical scholarship’s bourgeois tendencies and brief forays into potential ways that biblical interpretation (of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament) might, perhaps by way of indirect analogy, inform and shape concrete action in the face of neoliberal capitalism’s imperial (and, in effect, religious) domination.
This is an important book by a seasoned scholar near the culmination of a prolific career, and it should be read by anyone concerned to interpret biblical texts accurately. Horsley’s analysis of the intrinsically economic nature of biblical texts, particularly given the ascendancy and consolidation of capital in our own interpretive contexts, is bracing, unflinching, and timely. Horsley routinely urges his readers to rethink overly facile, spiritualized readings as well as what “religion” itself entails. As he notes, “The way we can tell what is sacred in a society is what is off-limits to criticism. Today we can call God into question, but we cannot criticize capitalism” (p. 162). Indeed, as Horsley reminds us, our contemporary idolatries are not narrowly religious, but also deeply economic. Our biblical interpretation must not continue to gloss over the kinds of imperial economic realities that are reflected in the texts and faced by its current readers.
Redemptive Kingdom Diversity: A Biblical Theology of the People of God
by Jarvis J. Williams
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021. 224 pp. $24.99. ISBN 978-1-5409-6462-5.
There are many things to admire in this book. The call for Christians to come together as a diverse and multiethnic people of God is timely, as is the caution that ethnic diversity is not the goal of Christianity but rather one of the beautiful fruits of God’s redemptive work in the world. I would note two minor criticisms. First, Williams addresses issues of race and racism head-on in his introductory and concluding chapter, while the rest of the book largely refrains from doing so. Williams’s comments on race and racism were solid, and he might have integrated these themes more effectively into the middle chapters of the book. Second, at times the idea of the “people of God” seemed forced when working through the biblical passages—not everything needs to fit into this framework. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book. It is a call both to grasp a biblical and theological vision of a multiethnic people of God and to live out this redemptive kingdom diversity as the people of God.
Forbidden Fruit and Fig Leaves: Reading the Bible with the Shamed
by Judith Rossall
London: SCM Press, 2020. 288 pp. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-334-05920-2.
Rossall is not primarily a biblical scholar; she teaches church history and preaching at an ecumenical theological college in England. Nonetheless, she offers close, careful, and creative readings of a number of key texts across the canon, focusing on the Adam/Eve and Cain/Abel stories in Genesis 2–4; assessments of the themes of Israel’s exodus and exile as they arise in Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel; accounts of Bathsheba’s abuse by David (2 Samuel 11–12), and Job’s ridicule by his supposed friends; Gospel reports of Jesus’s dealings with shamed individuals (the Canaanite woman [Matt 15:21–28], the hemorrhaging woman [Mark 5:22–42 and par.], ten lepers [Luke 17:11–19], Peter [John 21]); epistolary interpretations of Jesus’s own shameful death (Phil 2:5–11; Heb 12:1–4); and images of adoption as an antidote for shame (Rom 8:15–17; Gal 4:4–7; Eph 1:3–14).
Amid these various provocative probes into Scripture, Rossall’s approach to Cain and Abel stands out. She not only reads Cain’s “fallen face/countenance” (in tandem with his anger in Gen 4:6) as expressive of his intense social and emotional shame (loss of face) over God’s rejection of his offering, which Cain then compounds into shameful murderous action. Rossall also calls for a “recovering Abel project” (pp. 46, 53) that keeps hearing, as God does, Abel’s blood “crying out. . . from the ground” (4:9), that gives attention-demanding voice to those shamed into paralyzing silence by violent rejection. This point underscores a principal thesis of Rossall’s book “that, in general, Christian theology has said too much about the sinner and not enough about those damaged by sin,” those who have been sinned against, like Abel (p. 46).
Informed by modern psychological research as well as current biblical scholarship, this work offers much practical guidance—and not a little hope—for “shame-ache” sufferers and those who love and minister to them.
The Doctrine of Scripture
by Brad East; foreword by Katherine Sonderegger
Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2021. 228 pp. $30.00. ISBN 978-1-5326-6498-4.
Chapter 1 (“Source”) explores the claim that Scripture “comes from the sovereign Lord, who is both its source and subject matter” (p. 10). East helpfully and creatively explores who this sovereign Lord is—through his own re-articulation of the Church’s historic Trinitarian convictions and the Rule of Faith—and how this Lord has “inspired” Scripture. He ends the chapter with a fascinating discussion of Scripture as a (human) artifact.
Because “the Bible comes from God” and is “more (though not less) than a human product,” East next explores what Scripture is (ch. 2, “Nature”). Among other topics—such as Scripture’s ontology and covenantal role—East’s discussion of reading Scripture as a “sacramental act” is particularly instructive (pp. 43–49).
Having discussed what Scripture is, East next explores Scripture’s “attributes” (ch. 3). He creatively pairs rich, post-Reformation reflection on Scripture’s properties with the creedal attributes of the church in order to emphasize the twofold relationship in which Scripture exists: God and the Church. His discussion of Scripture’s clarity/perspicuity is especially rich and nuanced.
Chapter 4, “Ends,” turns to the teleological aspect of Scripture, which is soteriological from beginning to end: conversion, instruction/edification, sanctification, and contemplative delight. If Scripture’s telos is primarily intimate knowledge of Christ rather than the communication of discursive knowledge, then “spiritual exegesis” is indispensable for a fitting reading of the text (e.g., pp. 91, 108).
If spiritual exegesis is in order, ch. 5 (“Interpretation”) tackles what such exegesis might entail. East engages a host of difficult hermeneutical issues in this chapter and advocates for a number of positions that hearken back to interpretive practices in the pre-modern Church. Relatedly, he argues forcefully against what he calls “Jowett’s rule,” i.e., that the one true meaning of the text is found in the human author’s original intention (pp. 127–33).
The final chapter (6) addresses Scripture’s authority, again articulating Scripture’s eschatological and sacramental role of mediating the word of the Lord to the people of God. Much of the chapter is occupied with the issue of how Scripture’s authority is to be exercised properly, including a lengthy section arguing that “the authority of Scripture generates and requires the interpretive authority of the church,” which entails a definite “no” to sola scriptura (pp. 158–168).
This is undoubtedly an excellent book, from which anyone hoping to reflect carefully—indeed devotionally—on the gift of Scripture will profit greatly. That is not to say that I agreed with everything in it. It seems to me, for example, that East leaves too little space for the disruptive potential of Scripture, i.e., its ability to stand over the church and rebuke it. Or, as another example, while East certainly does not reject tout court modern academic approaches to Scripture, he tends to lump together “biblical scholars” and their aims (e.g., pp. 183, 135, 137 n. 62) as problematic. Those concerns notwithstanding, this is a beautifully written, compelling theological articulation of the doctrine of Christian Scripture.
Unspeakable Cults: An Essay in Christology
by Paul J. DeHart
Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2021. 271 pp. $44.99 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-4813-1555-5.
Articulating his arguments leads DeHart into conversation with many notable interlocutors. He spends time engaging with Ernst Troeltsch, D. F. Strauss, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, and Thomas Aquinas. The highlight of the volume is the remarkably cogent thought-experiment concerning Christian origins conducted through a retrieval of Morton Smith’s work on Jesus as magician located within the theoretical context of Jonathan Z. Smith’s work on the dynamics of “anthropologization” and “eschatologization” in the Greco-Roman religious environment (p. 79).
Less successful is the conceptual description of the relationship between divine and human agency. DeHart’s argument would seem to imply a noncompetitive account of this relation, but his appeal to Thomas on instrumental causality remains too broad while his account of what we might call the semiotic prolongation of the incarnation and his appeal to “God’s providential shaping of historical causality” (p. 185) suggest God’s function as one node in a larger causal nexus. As he puts it, there is “an infinitesimal torque in the network of innumerable causally interconnected microevents” even though “the causal chains of history remain unbroken” (p. 207).
Unspeakable Cults is an extended meditation on the Chalcedonian Definition under the conditions of modern historical consciousness concerned with “faith’s contemporary situation” (p. 212) and committed to “the adventure of a strong faith in Christ that remains fully open to the verdicts of history” (p. 214). It is to be hoped that more theology and preaching in the United States join in this adventure.
The Philosophy of Christology: From the Bultmannians to Derrida, 1951–2002
by Hue Woodson
Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2022. 420 pp. $48.00. ISBN 978-1-5326-8153-0.
Following Bultmann’s declaration of the impossibility of determining more than the “that” of the existence of the historical Jesus, a group of his students, beginning with Ernst Käsemann and Günther Bornkamm, spearheaded a movement known as the “new quest” for the historical Jesus. In their writings, they reflected on ways that the kerygma affirms the continuity between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. This points to a new methodological approach that avoids attempts to conjure up psychological readings of the inner life of Jesus while affirming that the church’s proclamation of the message and ministry of Christ is inextricably woven to the Jesus of history. Woodson demonstrates the different ways in which new questers and others who followed afterwards responded to Bultmann’s question of the existential meaning of the kerygma: for Ernst Fuchs, it is the conclusion that the historical Jesus cannot be separated from his message; for Hans Conzelmann, it is in preaching that we encounter the ongoing witness of the life of the Jesus of history; or for Leonardo Boff, it is in terms of how the Word of God moves one beyond oneself.
While the analysis is dense and at times tedious, what makes this volume worth reading is the surprising inclusion of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Woodson uses Derrida’s works to show that the question of meaning that we bring to christology already presupposes a structure on which the answer to our question is predicated. Rather than building a christology on the search for data about the historical Jesus or proposing a (de)mythological analysis of the meaning of the kerygma, Woodson turns to the space in between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith as the dynamic place where we encounter that which is primordial and authentic. Here Woodson unintentionally echoes Albert Schweitzer’s concluding words in The Quest of the Historical Jesus: “He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those [men] who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow thou me!’”
Postcolonial Politics and Theology: Unraveling Empire for a Global World
by Kwok Pui-Lan
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2021, 261 pp. $30.00. ISBN 978-0-664-2674-90.
One challenge the reader may face is that the book is a collection of essays, some of which date back more than a decade. At points, it lacks the feel of a sustained argument, but perhaps this is also the book’s strength. It offers multiple doorways into a vital conversation that in all likelihood will only become more pressing. In these eleven essays, we have access to the honed work of an experienced scholar who has spent a career in the increasingly global field of theology. If the book rings idealistic at some points in its calls for change, it also offers what we might call a hybrid theology that illumines practical questions, from the protests in Hong Kong to the art of preaching. For example, I found the chapter on “Teaching Theology from a Global Perspective” to be helpful and provocative. For any pastor or scholar concerned with better understanding globalization, the Global South, or even the increasing diversity of the United States, this book offers helpful and creative resources for reconsidering what it means to be and do church today.
Unbroken and Unbowed: A History of Black Protest in America
by Jimmie R. Hawkins
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2022. 362 pp. $30.00. ISBN 978-0-664-2673-77.
Despite its majestic historical sweep, this book serves as an answer to a specific recent event: professional football player Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling pre-game protests of police violence. In a sense, Hawkins’s book responds to the angry and confused reactions to Kaepernick. Where did his protest come from? Was it unpatriotic or anti-American? Hawkins answers “no” and contends that Kaepernick’s protest was quintessentially American, following in a stream of continual protest over centuries that demonstrate African Americans’ “unwavering love for their nation even as they demanded the rights of American citizenship” (p. 5). The complexity of Black American patriotism and protest is also not new. Since 1619 African Americans have continually struggled to define their own identity in relation to both Blackness and American-ness. Hawkins highlights this struggle by structuring his book around the terms most African Americans used for themselves during five chronological periods.
The level of detail may be overwhelming for some readers. However, this book will be immensely satisfying for those looking for a thorough treatment of Black protest history. It also will prove an invaluable resource for those researching specific topics: a student writing a paper about the Great Migration, a church educator planning a series on the connections between Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement, or a pastor drawing on the history of the Underground Railroad to undergird a sermon. In addition, this book will serve quite well as a textbook in higher education courses. Readers will benefit not only from the level of detail on the page, but also from the rich footnotes and bibliography as suggestions for further reading. Many different audiences will find powerful inspiration in the creative and courageous history of Black protest and in African Americans’ recognition that despite this nation’s “contradictions,” its ideals of freedom and democracy remain “worth fighting for” (p. 280).
Churches and the Crisis of Decline: A Hopeful, Practical Ecclesiology for a Secular Age
by Andrew Root
Ministry in a Secular Age Series. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022. 304 pp. $27.99. ISBN 978-1-5409-6481-6.
This book is both urgent and timely, given the reality of church decline in the context of modernity and post-modernity. Bringing Barth’s theology into conversation with the real and imagined church of today, Root poses critical questions of how the modern church understands its identity, mission, and praxis in the world. Root offers poignant insights into Barth’s relevance for the church in crisis today, made refreshingly accessible through Barth’s years as a pastor in the church. This work is not for those who seek to be a part of a utopian church or a church that seeks to thrive in the closed realm of modernity’s immanent frame. However, it will be particularly welcome for those within the church who face the overwhelming fears and burdens of transition, who wish to reorient back to the hope of God who is the source of all life—a God who is present and active in the world.
Body Connections: Body-Based Spiritual Care
by Michael S. Koppel
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2021. 189 pp. $24.99. ISBN 978-1-7910-1341-7.
Pastoral awareness of the body is presented in two primary ways. First, Koppel discusses awareness of one’s own body. Practitioners should care for their own bodies because “in caring for our bodies, we reflect God’s image. God needs our bodies to fulfill God’s vision of the world” (p. 26). He challenges caregivers to attend to their bodies through spiritual practices and through discernment of bodily “signals and cues” (p. 47). If we are reticent about some tasks and enthusiastic about others, the body may be trying to tell us something: “At times the body can be ‘stubborn’ like a dog pulling back on a chain or hugging the ground in protest” or the body “can be ‘boundless’ like a dog freely chasing birds at the beach” (p. 47).
Second, Koppel discusses body awareness in reference to those we serve. God works through our bodies—our physical embodied nature—to reach out to people in need. In a society where many people are traumatized, marginalized, or barraged with messages that foster self-doubt, Koppel challenges caregivers to “gradually peel away layers of conditioned shame” (p. 27). People struggle with a host of emotions and sensations, including “anger” (p. 27) or “disappointment, grief, loss” and “sadness” (p. 31). Negative thoughts, emotions, and experiences take up residence in the body. Body consciousness enables us to participate in the divine act of mending “the net of God’s creation by caring for all bodies” (p. 29).
Koppel ably considers kinesthetic practices and rituals in the Christian tradition that connect us to God’s healing power. Overall, this book is an excellent resource for pastoral caregivers serving in parish or chaplaincy contexts. While teeming with spiritual vitality, it offers deep insights into the role of body-awareness in pastoral care conversations.
Predicadores: Hispanic Preaching and Immigrant Identity
by Tito Madrazo
Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2021. 199 pp. $44.99 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-4813-1390-2.
The chapters investigate the migration experiences of the preachers and churches in the study (Viajes Concurrentes/Overlapping Journeys), the conflicting roles of the preachers (Identidades Multiples/Multiple Identities), the actual sermons (La Predicacion Misma/The Preaching Itself), and the role of women preachers in the Hispanic church (Predicadoras/Female Preachers).
Citing first-person testimony, Madrazo relates the experiences of both preachers and congregants who immigrated to the United States. One pastor in the study, for example, had not returned to Mexico in almost thirty years, missing important milestone events in the life of his family of origin. Many of the collaborators worked as bi-vocational pastors out of necessity, entailing overwork that often caused tension within their families. These experiences, shared between congregation and pastor, created a bond and gave authenticity to the preaching. The women preachers typically were affirmed in their callings but often shared pastoral responsibility with their spouses.
Significant dialogue partners for this study include Justo González and Pablo Jiménez. Gonzalez critiques Latinx preaching for its tendency toward “religiosity and personal morality” (p. 74), fearing that such preaching neglects social conditions. Madrazo discerns themes in the preaching of his collaborators that have enabled their congregations to cope with their experiences as sojourners as well as with individual morality. The collaborators enabled their congregations to identify with Old Testament narratives about displacement and reconstitution. Even though only a few of them had engaged liberation theology formally, Madrazo found liberative themes throughout their preaching.
This well-researched book makes an important contribution to homiletic literature as well as to practical theology in general. It situates Latinx preaching in its context and looks for commonalities among diverse communities. It demonstrates how preachers with little formal theological education found ways to preach authentic messages to congregations in need of hope and empowerment.
A History of Contemporary Praise and Worship: Understanding the Ideas that Reshaped the Protestant Church
by Lester Ruth and Lim Swee Hong
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021. 368 pp. $44.89 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-8010-9828-4.
Ruth and Hong ground their historical narrative in “biblical theologizing” (p. 307). The emphasis on theological and biblical origins and leanings makes sense, given the commitment of these liturgical communities to understanding and following God as God, who is known to us in and through Scripture. The first half of the book begins with the origins of “Praise & Worship,” exploring its biblical grounding in Psalm 22:3 and Hebrews 13:15 and its theological grounding in praise, which brings us into the presence of God. The second half of the book explores the rise and spread of “Contemporary Worship” in liturgical communities that emphasize intelligibility, communication of the gospel, and evangelistic purpose. This movement is characterized by “liturgical pragmaticism” (p. 169). In conclusion, the authors write briefly about the ways “Contemporary Worship” and “Praise & Worship” have come together. They coin a new term (“Contemporary Praise & Worship”) to capture this confluence.
Pastors and students of worship who are in contexts immersed in contemporary praise and worship, as well as those who find themselves skeptical of it, will find this book enlightening. It demonstrates the depth, nuance, and importance of contemporary praise and worship for certain cultural contexts. I would like to hear more from the authors about two issues in particular: the role of preaching and the role of race and ethnicity in contemporary praise and worship. Overall, this well-researched book provides an engaging historical narrative that will prove insightful and useful for those who want to learn about, or make a case for, contemporary praise and worship.