Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology

The posting has been slow recently becuase life has been getting busy. I haven't been doing any writing, so I have little to show what I have been doing, but the amount of reading that I am doing is simply enormous. Some of the books will have reports written on them, so some of them might make it on here in the future. I'm also doing a fascinating project for Daniel Master (for whom I TA) making a list of all the times Ashkelon is mentioned anywhere up until about 1900. He wants the list since he is the dig director for Ashkelon. But not only is there the reference, there is also a paragraph context needed. So I am putting my search skills up for a serious test trying to find the random Egyptian papyrus and Crusader conquest testimony. But it is quite interesting.

 The review included here is for another volume in the Cambridge Companion series: Evangelical Theology. They define evangelicalism much more broadly than I am used, a trend that is becoming familiar to me at Wheaton. In the past I have associated evangelicalism with ETS: inerrancy. But a phrase that seems almost a technical phrase is used on occasion here: "big-tent evangelicalism." This includes non-inerrantists as well as inerrantists. There are some interesting articles here, including another fine piece by Vanhoozer. The strength of the book is its world-wide focus and so it is helpful to understand what is going in the rest of the world. 

            Like the other volumes in the Cambridge Companion series, this book seeks to provide an introduction to its topic, in this case, contemporary evangelical theology. There is no introduction in the book that explicitly states the intended audience of the book, but it seems to have the same two intentions as The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine: an introduction for those uninformed about evangelical theology and original explorations for the scholars of evangelicalism. The volume also intends to show how historic evangelicalism can be relevant to today’s situation. “This companion offers an up-to-date articulation of evangelical theology that is both faithful to historic evangelical convictions and in dialogue with contemporary intellectual contexts and concerns” (Back cover).

            After an introductory essay, the book is broken into two main parts. The preliminary essay by Timothy Larson helps to identify what exactly evangelicalism is today. The first main part gives the evangelical views on various points of doctrine, although it is not a survey of various evangelical positions on the doctrine, as Roger Olson gives in The Mosaic of Christian Doctrine. Instead, it is a constructive presentation by each author of their view of the doctrine. The second main part deals with the “contexts of evangelical theology,” which includes essays on the interaction of evangelicals with such topics as culture, gender, race, and other religions, as well as the state of evangelicalism in various broad geographical areas in the world, such as Asia and Africa.  

In addition to original and creative essays on central Christian doctrines such as Christ, the Trinity, and Justification, it breaks new ground by offering evangelical reflections on issues such as gender, race, culture, and world religions. This volume also moves beyond the confines of Anglo-American perspectives to offer separate essays exploring evangelical theology in African, Asian, and Latin American contexts. (Back cover)

            One of the prime contributions of this book is its worldwide focus, from the cover art to the chapter selection. While the strength of The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine was church history, the strength of this book is its worldwide focus. The cover art combines two works of art, one from South Africa and one from Japan. The chapters include entire selections devoted to the state of evangelical theology in various places across the world. However, even with this focus, only one of the chapters which are not focused on a geographical area is written by an author based outside the United States or Europe (“Conversion and Sanctification,” by Miyon Chung).

            The opening chapter by Timothy Larsen very helpfully clarifies just what identifies an evangelical. This is a question I have pondered many times over the years, and Larson’s answer is relatively easy to use as a heuristic model. Larsen adds a historical context to “Bebbington’s Quadrilateral” which places evangelicalism into the metanarrative of church history.

            The conclusion to Kevin Vanhoozer’s chapter on “The triune God of the Gospel” contains several excellent correctives for the average North American evangelical. One key idea is the move away from knowing God through propositions to knowing God through stories. “We best come to know other persons not through charts that list their personality traits, properties, or vital statistics, but by listening to stories about what they have said and done or, better yet, by watching them in action” (26). He also talks about theo-drama instead of theology. “Christianity is first and foremost a theo-drama: an account of what God-Father, Son and Spirit-has said and done in creation and redemption” (29).  These ideas I assume are explicated to a greater deal in his recent book about The Drama of Doctrine and compel me to add that book to my list of books to read.

            A worldwide focus shines through in the chapter on the human person by Cherith Fee Nordling. She argues against a purely individual view of salvation, as it is so commonly presented in the United States, and shows that salvation is both communal and individual. She has a constructive essay and concludes by saying that “being human, human being, is concomitantly individual and communal ‘being in relation’ based on a robust Trinitarian understanding of God” (75). The communal mentality, as well as the tendency to “conflate the gospel with a nationalistic ideology that enhances the flourishing of a few at the expense of multiple ‘others’” (75), are areas in which Americans have much to learn from those outside our cultural sphere.

            The Old Testament basis in the chapter on conversion and sanctification by Miyon Chung is an excellent model for systematic theologians. She presents the relevant Old Testament data in a succinct manner and then actually uses that data in her theology of conversion and sanctification, unlike some authors who make a biblical survey and then apparently completely ignore that survey when they make conclusions.

            The background on the history of the evangelical view of ecclesiology by Leanne Van Dyk (“The Church in evangelical theology and practice”) was valuable for understanding the current state of the evangelical church. The current evangelical church did not arise out of a vacuum, and Van Dyk helps to show how the background of such mentalities as the voluntary society shape the current contours of the ecclesiology of the evangelical church. She has a positive opinion of the emerging and missional movements, but she argues (I think correctly) that these movements are not the answer. Instead of arguing for a specific model, she presents five characteristics which should be found in any evangelical ecclesiology. While I found these characteristics a little vague, they are helpful in presenting a direction for the church to go.

            The ambiguity of evangelicalism towards culture is demonstrated nicely by William Dyrness in “Evangelical theology and culture.” On the one side is the traditional Anabaptist view of the church as a separate society, called out from the world. As represented by Yoder, they view themselves as striving to change the world by being the church. Many evangelicals have this view of the world, although unfortunately without the theological acumen of Yoder, when they advocate Christian versions of all cultural items (music, books, movies, etc.). On the other side is the more Reformed view of actively changing the world directly. They engage culture and seek to change it directly. Due to the activist background of evangelicalism, many find themselves acting out this viewpoint, although, once again, many do so uncritically. The future of evangelicalism is very cloudy in this area, due to the two seemingly mutual incompatible influences from evangelical church history.

            The chapters on evangelicals in their particular geographical were a wonderful addition to the book. One of the themes throughout these chapters is that even the specific categories were not detailed enough. Hence, for example, one cannot speak of “African theology” (215-216), because there are multiple African theologies which are quite different from each other. The same is true for the other areas covered: the world is complex and broad generalities cannot be made, or at least cannot be that helpful.  Another contribution is that defining evangelical outside the United States is just as difficult as it is within the States. Is the name “evangelical” required, or is it a certain set of beliefs, or is a worldview? Tienou believes that the mainline churches in Africa are actually becoming more evangelical (214), throwing all the categories into confusion. A similar type of movement is being seen in Asia, according to Chan (225).  

The contribution made in these chapters is that they show which kind of issues need to be dealt with in each particular area. For example, for the African context the important issues include “the burden of being African; poverty; ethnicity; religious pluralism” (221). Chan shows the problem of Asian Christians when they become successful as corruption and that other problems include taking primal religions too seriously and reducing Christianity to “magic” (234). The temptation towards a prosperity gospel, ignoring present suffering, is also noted by Chan in Asia (234).  

            The character of the book made it a fairly disjointed book. Some of this naturally must be expected from a multi-author book, but it seems that the directions for the authors were not detailed or were simply not followed. For example, Cherith Fee Nordling’s chapter on the human person is largely a constructive essay which builds a presentation of the human person, while John Webster’s chapter is primarily a critique of the current work done by evangelicals about Jesus Christ. These differing methodologies throughout the book give it an uneven feel.

            Interestingly, the NRSV is used for Scripture quotations (xv). While not a bad choice, it is intriguing that the NRSV was used instead of one of the translations which have been more associated with evangelicals, such as the NIV, NAS or ESV. There were also a few editorial oddities, such as the use of transliteration for a Hebrew word on one page (110) and another word written in a Hebrew font just a few pages later (119).

            The length of the chapters was problematic in my opinion. The chapters were from 10-15 pages in length on average, with the longest chapter at 21 pages (“Race and the experience of death: theologically reappraising American evangelicalism,” by J. Kameron Carter). While the brevity made the book easier to read and forced the authors to be more succinct, it did not allow room for much development of themes. I think it would have been better to cut a few of the chapters and allow the authors more room to show their themes in action.  

            One chapter that was not helpful to me was the longest chapter, “Race and the experience of death: theologically reappraising American evangelicalism,” by J. Kameron Carter. While I am glad for constructive presentations of the topic under consideration, the ideas in this section were not appropriate for an introductory text since they required more background knowledge than I possessed, and I would guess more than most of the readers of the book. Carter is also unhelpful in his manner of presentation: I never really understood just what exactly he was trying to say throughout the chapter. This perhaps might be because I have simply not had enough exposure to those outside my own race, but more help from the author in understanding his point would have been helpful. Further, since race is not an issue that is usually discussed in evangelical theologies, a brief survey would have been helpful about how evangelical theology has viewed the issue of race throughout the past few centuries, an especially important survey since the Civil War is ancient history for most of us but is actually very near us in history and in its effects.

The approach of the chapter on evangelicals and the religions (by Veli-Matti Karkkainen) presents what I think would be the ideal model for this type of book of historical overview followed by a constructive proposal. His historical outline and sources were succinct but effective in showing how the various evangelical views toward other religions had developed. He ends the chapter with his own proposal of how to go about interacting with the religions: a Trinitarian foundation must be maintained. But while the proposal is helpful as far as it goes, it felt vague to me. What exactly did he mean? Which position did he even occupy? He never states which view he follows, and there were hints toward both sides in his presentation. While this may have been his intention (finding a middle ground), the result left a certain unhelpful vagueness.

One small complaint with Stephen Holmes’ chapter is that European evangelicalism gets only a very small amount of attention. While it is true that it is not the primary focus of the chapter (“British (and European) evangelical theologies”), it would have been nice to see more interaction with other streams of evangelicalism.

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