Interview with Dr. Peter Enns

Dr. Peter Enns is the professor of Old Testament and Biblical Hermeneutics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He's the author of the NIV Application Commentary on Exodus and contributed to the D.A. Carson edited Justification and Variegated Nomism, Vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism with his excellent essay on expansions of Scripture. I recently had an email exchange with Dr. Enns, whose most recent book Incarnation and Inspiration: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament I reviewed in three parts (which are available here, here and here). Actually, it might be more accurate to say that I responded to some other reviews - the book in question has raised no small amount of controversy in the Reformed world. Having recognized popularly prevailing gnostic notions of Biblical inspiration, Enns seeks to balance the equation with a robust explanation of Scripture's humanity - not with a view to canceling out it's divine nature, but in the hopes of deriving a nuanced analogy with the incarnate Word of God Himself. In our exchange he kindly agreed to be interviewed for the blog, which I promised my readers I'd reproduce here earlier this month.

Here it is!

Raja: Can you say a few words about the theological tradition that you currently inhabit and why it’s important to you?

Dr. Enns: As a young Christian I was introduced to the Reformed faith quite “accidentally” by stumbling into a PCA church in central Pennsylvania (New Covenant Fellowship in suburban Harrisburg). My fiancé, now wife, Sue and I began attending a Bible Study led by the pastor on Revelation. He was a WTS grad by the name of John Woll who opened up the book for us in fresh and exciting ways (“You mean the locusts aren’t helicopters?!”). That was my introduction to the Reformed Faith: a serious and honest engagement with Scripture, to go where it leads, to see it as an unfolding drama culminating in Christ, and to see how relevant and exciting God’s word is to his people here and now. This remains very important to me as I continue to work toward reflecting Reformed convictions in my own work and everyday journey. Also, what is central to me in faith and life is the Reformed emphasis on God’s sovereignty, his deep love and mercy, and my being given a new life in union with the crucified and risen Christ.

Raja: What are some conscious weaknesses of the tradition which inform your own work?

Dr. Enns: Well, any tradition has weaknesses, since we are all fallen creatures and articulate truth imperfectly. What I greatly admire about the Reformed faith in general is intellectual depth and breadth, which are of great service to the God’s people. But that strength has also been a weakness: when combined with spiritual immaturity it can lead to spiritual pride expressed in an uncharitable or even condescending tone toward other Christians who do not share those convictions or who do not hold them in the same sort of way. I think the Reformed faith needs to be extra careful to reflect Christ’s humility and think of its great tradition as a tool more than a weapon.

Raja: Is there a theological tradition outside your own that you particularly appeciate?

Dr. Enns: I appreciate different traditions for different reasons, and I feel that the various traditions all have things to learn from each other while also offering criticism when necessary. I wouldn’t say there is any one or two that make the top of my list; I try to maintain a posture of open-mindedness toward other Christians while also embracing the tradition to which I have committed myself. C. S. Lewis’s analogy in the preface to Mere Christianity has always struck me as a healthy, mature, Christian outlook. He speaks of Christianity is a grand hall out of which doors open into several rooms. We are not meant to live in the hall for long but to choose the door that we are convinced best reflects the truth. But, as Lewis continues, “When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different door and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under order to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.”

Raja: Do you think Christian academics are often insensitive to the needs of the Church, and if so, how do you address this in your own writings?

Dr. Enns: I think they certainly can be insensitive, but it may be a bit of a caricature to hold all of us guilty. Still, I had a conversation with Scot McKnight about this not too long ago and he reminded me that, in the not too distant past (before the 1970’s), evangelical academics wrote much more to lay audiences. It was seen as their duty to write books that people not of the academic guild could benefit from. For whatever reason, McKnight detects a shift in the 70’s where establishing oneself in the academy became more of a priority. It is very hard work to combine a life of rigorous academic work and service to the church at large (add to that how highly specialized the various disciplines have become), but we must try to make that happen (McKnight actually pulls this off very well). But to do so means, for most of us, making decisions about what to publish and where. I would also add that part of the insensitivity can stem from academics failing to remember that they are servants above all. Sometimes we think more of what it is we know and the urgency of bringing all of that at once to people who are not prepared to hear it. If we think first, however, of what will be of benefit to others, it may affect the questions we ask and how we go about answering them.

Raja: To what degree does the evangelical debate over modernism and postmodernism in theology enter your discussion of inspiration in Inspiration and Incarnation?

Dr. Enns: I’m not sure how well that distinction captures it, at least not in a strict academic/philosophical sense of the words, but it may be appropriate from a, let’s say, temperamental point of view. For example, I&I is clearly a missional book, and so lines can be drawn to the emerging movement. I would hope, however, that a missional mindset not be exclusively associated with any one movement. (While I was in seminary, I was encouraged to think along missional lines by my professor Harvie Conn, who was quite intentional about a missional hermeneutic throughout his nearly thirty years at Westminster Theological Seminary) Also, my thoughts on inspiration are deeply influenced by what I refer to in my book as an incarnational approach, which was always lurking in the background in my seminary education, and a desire (begun in seminary and augmented in graduate school) to account for how the Bible looks as a function of its historical contexts. It is a bit interesting to me that these two influences are anything but postmodern: Reformed orthodoxy and training in modern biblical studies. Simply studying the Bible is itself an introduction to a missional hermeneutic (Chris Wright’s recent IVP release The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative is a wonderful and timely summation of this notion.)

Raja: Where do you feel that critics have misunderstood you most? What would you say have been the best or most helpful criticisms?

Dr. Enns: I think where the criticism have been most helpful is in pointing out some ambiguities and imprecise (and therefore misleading) aspects of the book. For example, even though I feel I qualify the matter at junctures, I can also see how I can leave the impression that evangelicalism as a whole has been misguided and in need of sweeping correction. I actually say the opposite at the outset and the bibliographies include evangelical authors, but there are a few phrases in the book that fail to make that distinction and have led to understandable confusion. Similarly, the book is not calling for a complete overhaul of Christian doctrine, only a more deliberately positive accounting of its complex human dimension, and how that accounting can influence Christian doctrine. Where I think the book has been most misunderstood is in its missional dimension. I think some critics expect a book that deals with inspiration to have a certain look and use certain vocabulary, and so respond to a book that I actually had no intention to write. Another area where the criticism has been helpful is in helping me articulate more clearly in my own mind where the divide might be among evangelicals, and I think it may have to do with the role historical study plays in how we think about Scripture, or perhaps to what extent historical context will contribute to doctrinal formulations that were made before the serious influx of historical information over the past 150 years or so. That is an exceedingly complex matter to untangle, in my opinion, but it is a task waiting to be done.

Raja: Do you read Christian blogs, and do you see theological blogging as a worthwhile enterprise?

Dr. Enns: If done “right.” Blogs can be helpful if the rhetoric and posturing are toned down. I do not think, however, that the internet is a helpful venue for any sort of really serious theological debate but more of a place for musing and dialog. Debate requires a patience and distance that are not encouraged by the “tyranny of the urgent” inherent on the internet. When we have instant access to others—without the subtleties that accompany a face-to-face meeting—we are more prone to say things that upon further reflection we would likely not say (and email may even be worse). The internet is instant yet impersonal, even anonymous at times. That encourages posturing more than a true meeting of the minds.

Raja: Is there anything else you’d like to say?

Dr. Enns: I’m glad the Yankees got Pettitte back, although I hope his back problems are a thing of the past…. Although I will always owe a deep and inexpressible debt of gratitude to “The Simpsons,” it has been losing its edge for some time now, and so “The Office” has become my favorite TV comedy…. I am really hoping I can stick with my workout schedule for more than two months into the new year.

Sacred Sexuality

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A Hegelian Forray into Calvinism

Caution: Intramural Aside Ahead!
Those who could care less about debates in the Reformed blogosphere, skip this and read the posts below.

Okay, so the title of this post doesn't make any sense, but since the subject of this post is mostly dead around the blogosphere, I had to think of something - not to mention that it sounded smart, and that's enough to prop up my ego (which, let's be honest, is precisely what blogging is all about anyway). But the reason I thought this title might fit was because of what I've seen going on at one of those blogs I read semi-regularly - namely the web-home of Phil Johnson and friends, proudly blogrolled to your right. The atmosphere there lies somewhere between genuinely encouraging and noxiously abrasive - but there's enough of the former to keep me coming back to read the Godward musings of men loosely connected with my alma mater. Beyond the odd (as in occasional) devotional (in a good way) post, every once and awhile something very interesting takes place. Without making any value judgments about it (yet), you'll notice that from time to time some not-so-distant theological cousins show up and wreak the same kind of havoc on the PyroManiacs that others have accused of the PyroManiacs of unleashing on them. A strange role-reversal takes place whereby SOMEONE ELSE plays the role of the PyroManiac TO the PyroManiacs. It's enough to blow your mind, like when you find out that all of the characters John Cusack is interacting with in the movie Identity are actually some demented fat guy.


Man, I'm really not hitting with these analogies today.


In the past it's been those more fundamentalist than Phil and crew, but as of late it's been those who are more professedly Calvinist than the bunch. The kerfuffle erupted over a Francis Chan gospel presentation mentioned at the BHT which, apparently, wasn't hardcore enough for some of TeamPyro's Calvinist readership. The exacting, theologically Pavlovian terminology was conspicuously absent from his presentation, causing some Reformed watchdogs to foam rather than salivate, and the result was a basic defense of the video's integrity on the part of the TeamPyro crew. In a really great series of posts Phil, Frank and Dan all showed their dismay at the hair-splitting over-shrewdness of the critics.

The Pyros insisted that there is essential agreement, objected to vacuous labelling of their nuanced position, protested exaggerations about their view, balked at the bumper-sticker rhetoric being used against them, accused the opposition of not actually reading their posts and called for a greater appreciation for Christian conduct over an obsession with doctrinal precision. The Calvinist vanguard stood their ground, which (of course) was the self-professedly more consistent, more Biblical and more God-exalting position, to the exasperation of their "conversation" partners.

And the broadly-Reformed universe collapsed on itself.

This is where my opaque title comes into play - an over-simplified summarization of Hegel's philosophy of history involves a thesis sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Some previous TeamPyro posts (which Phil helpfully linked in his excellent article) warn against what he considers excessive listening and dialog. He's not a big fan of conversation. These posts also warn against being too narrowly divisive, of course - but they fail to create criteria by which someone is being "narrowly divisive" as opposed to "fighting for the Gospel" - instead they supply a kind of ad hoc criteria which defines divisiveness as "anyone to my immediate right" and heresy as "everyone to my immediate left". What becomes clear in all of this is that the Pyro's critics could have easily written the previously linked post about "conversation" with reference to the defenders of Chan. It's this kind of methodological problem that not only allows Phil to characterize me as one of the "doctrinally freewheeling TMS graduates" who "seem enthralled with certain currently-stylish flavors of epistemological skepticism", but also leaves himself wide open to the spirit of his critics' accusations (i.e. that he denies the absolute sovereignty of God, and possibly the Gospel itself).

Death to the Pixies

I still remember the first time I caught a glimpse of Frank Black on a poster at the local record store. I had just started getting into The Pixies and the raw wailing of the 90's alternative punk god, my mental projection of him being the typical screaming Seattle waif of a front-man. What I saw was a portly balding lumberjack. The delightful wrongness of that image sort of represents the quirky greatness of The Pixies, and my appreciation for them has only grown as of late. After my conversion to Christ I predictably threw away all of my CD's, including a lot of Pixies I now wish I still owned (it usually takes you a few years in Christ to "get" the idea of common grace). A few years ago I picked up the compilation, Death to the Pixies, in the hopes of replacing what I'd lost in the most economical way possible. The result was both glorious and satisfying.

The compilation consists of two CD's, one recorded and the other live. The recorded CD seemed to be a haphazard selection, with representative tracks from their albums just flung together without any discernible arrangement. But from the opening track I was instantly reminded just how BIG their sound was. The guitars tear at your face and Black's shredding vocals are just as beautiful as I remember. I probably would have chosen a different opening track (Cecelia Ann from Bossonova), but "Planet of Sound" is probably one of my favorite rock songs of all time. One thing I hadn't noticed from my high-school days was the amount of Biblical allusion in their lyrics, with darker themes of Old Testament narrative (like incest and rape) being parodied in various songs ("Nimrod's Son" comes to mind). But the lyrics aren't Marilyn Manson-ish tripe - it's an intelligent wrestling with absurdity that provokes more than it defiles. Much like their lyrics, their explosive vocals and careening guitars never dissipate into chaos or lose their melodic energy.

The live recording shows just how well-deserved their reputation for stellar stage presence really was, with many songs mirroring the tracks on the recorded portion of the compilation. The comparison helps to highlight the points of departure and improvisation ("Wave of Mutilation" is slower, for example). Even though a few songs sound somewhat "phoned in", with "Monkey Gone to Heaven" as an obvious example, there are a number of renditions that make you want to run around flapping your arms like a chicken - "Broken Face" and "Isla De Encanta" chug with all the power of a speeding train. Their incredible sensibilities for pop rock are on full display in "U-Mass", "Dig For Fire" and "Allison".

With so much obvious talent compressed together, it's no wonder that the sheer mass of such singularity would result in the Big Bang that threw the band in all different directions. I've gone and purchased a Breeder's album (Last Splash), which I've thoroughly enjoyed - but the contrast in Kim Deal's sweet, airy melodies and Frank Black's powerful barking is an indelible loss. Even the tracks in which she provides the only vocals, such as the live version of "Into the White" on the second CD (and "Bone Machine" on the first CD), where her voice washes over you in dreamy waves, it's the juxtaposition with Black's grounding, gravelly contribution elsewhere on the album that makes it like apples of gold in settings of silver.

There are some tracks I wish would have been included, of course - "Alec Eiffel", "Hey", "Is She Weird?" and "Letter to Memphis" stand out in their absence (for me, anyway). But in the end, this is the reason "Best of" albums are such a good idea - it makes me want to slowly begin buying back the albums I've since destroyed or given away.

A Few Antitheses on Same Sex Relationships

Having enjoyed Kim Fabricius' continuing propositions series at Faith and Theology, I was excited to see him recently address the issue of homosexuality in the Church. Same-sex relationships, of course, remain one of the most divisive issues in Christendom (as demonstrated by the gaining fissures within Anglican Communion), producing far more heat than light on all sides of the debate. Given such an atmosphere of off-putting rhetoric, any salient theological insight should be received with gratitude, and I'm thankful for Kim's efforts to crystallize the deeper issues which concern both the ancient voices and those of contemporary dissent.

Antithesis #1 Kim addresses the nature/nurture issue in proposition 2, and provides what I think is the bedrock for an inclusivist case - namely, that homosexuality is about identity, not a set of practices or learned behavior. It's at this point where the discussion can get unnecessarily bogged down in scientific analysis about genetic predisposition - but one has to ask whether the "natural" can provide much help for Christians who are discussing the normativity of certain behaviors. Demonstrating that a behavior is "natural" requires further distinction (both in contemporary discussion and the use of Biblical arguments from "nature"), since Christian ontology is a complex of two elements - namely, the divinely stamped image of God and the fall of man into sin. All sorts of activities can also be shown with confidence to be genetically predisposed, yet Christians passionately affirm them as defective of the image God, not representative of it. Describing homosexuality as a congenital disposition, then, merely restates the debate, not advances it.

Antithesis #2 The use of the Bible in resolving these sorts of questions has been an axiomatic problem for theologians, for which homosexuality is a banner example. But Kim doesn't resort to the common tactics of simply dismissing the Bible on the grounds of interpretive impossibility - he actually acknowledges (in proposition 3) that the Bible clearly prohibits homosexuality. His real objection in appealing to Biblical authority is that it's not exactly clear whether the phenomena the Bible condemns is actually the same phenomena as is currently conceived. But this tabling of the Scriptures on the topic may be premature, on two fronts. The first is what seems to me to be an undervaluing of the sophistication of Greek sexuality. Kim's point about the difference between ancient and modern conceptions of same-sex love seems to assume the reduction of homosexual behavior to cult prostitution or episodic erotic encounters. But a few biblical scholars (and not a few classicists) acknowledge the warm, loving, and committed variety of ancient same-sex relationships. Kim is right to assume that the issue of identity bound up with homosexuality is much more pointed today than in ancient times, where activity and identity were conflated - but its important to note that these notions weren't pit against one another. Identifying oneself as "homosexual" would have certainly been foreign to Greek ears - but the "natural" attachment to the same sex celebrated by the ancients doesn't seem too far from our understanding of homosexuality (and much closer to Paul's than some are willing to admit).

Secondly, though, the Bible's teaching on sexuality goes far beyond apophatic pronouncements and prohibitions. The positive teaching of Scripture gives a theologically nuanced affirmation of heterosexuality, out of which these prohibitions grow. Jesus' teaching about man as male and female, mysteriously fused together in marriage is God's institution of a normative social convention. The imagery projected by this union is explained by Paul as the mystery of Christ's love for the Church. Far from being one metaphor one could choose among many, this is a "mystery" - the same word used in Ephesians to describe the amazing union of Jew with Gentile in the dissolution of national ethnic barriers in the Church. The Biblical language of idolatry as a diversion from this monogamous heterosexual union isn't incidental. Both adultery (Ezk. 16) and homosexuality (Ro. 1) illustrate idolatry and corrupt this intended projection. Exactly how all of this works, as Paul says in Eph. 5:32, is a mystery. But what remains clear is that he is "speaking with reference to Christ and the Church". If these connections to the imago Dei were ad hoc constructions of the later church, I might agree with Kim about the exegetical difficulty of Gen. 1:26-28 as a proof-text - but as it is, the Biblical writers themselves have seen the sexual prohibitions as having grown out of God's ideal design. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of Romans 1 to see the listing of homosexuality as just another Jewish polemic against Gentiles, or as just another sin which emerges from idolatry. Same sex relationships are given a par excellence place in his argument against idolatry because it pictures the replacement of the Other - God - for that which is the same - created things (a very Barthian critique).

Antithesis #3 Kim appeals to a trajectory principle to marshal Biblical warrant for the inclusion of practicing homosexuals in the Church - an approach with as conservative prestige as to attI. Howard Marshall and William Webb. But this is a controversial concept, to be sure. Kevin Vanhoozer has aptly warned, "One problem with this approach is that the interpreter has to assume that he or she is standing at the end of the trajectory, or at least further along (or better at plotting line slope intercept formulas!) than some of the biblical authors in order to see where it leads." Again, this is a very Barthian concern, in that it puts the interpreter in His place, in the driver's seat of the redemptive-historical train. At best elusive, and at worst prejudicial, the trajectory approach toward inclusion is capable of casting nets wider than anyone might wish, depending on the judgment of the one who happens to be "plotting the slope".

Antithesis #4 I hesitate to add to Kim's eloquent call to live in the truth and witness to Christ in proposition 12. It is a beautifully stated fact of Christ existence, namely our reliance on the Spirit for words and actions tempered with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Yet, in the context of the Churchly warring over this issue, it should probably be said that no one has the corner on this particular market. Not so much an antithesis as a clarification, it should be said that for those who see homosexuality as fundamentally unbiblical, there is a vast difference between our view of the morality of homosexuality and our view of the Church's moral obligations to homosexuals. That is to say that the warmth of contact and fellowship of Spirit-filled Christians with lesbian and gay people can be a reality for those who, despite their views on homosexuality as sinful, take very seriously their ethical responsibilities toward these commonly mistreated individuals. If there is any hint of antithesis here, it's at the notion that inclusion be defined in terms of a coupling of divine grace and ecclesial ontology with the moral acceptance of homosexuality - which is an all too infrequently mentioned bully tactic.

Remarkably, though, Kim Fabricius has managed to contribute to the Church's wrestling with these explosive issues without resorting to anything like the tactics he decries, delivering with the same characteristic grace and insight as we have come to expect from him.

War of the Words

One of the hallmarks of evangelical Christianspeak is a term upon which our patron saint, Billy Graham, has built his career - it's the word "saved". You might recognize its usage in popular phrases such as, "Are ya SAVED tonight?", "When did you get saved?" and (my favorite) "That guy needs to get saved". It is, in fact, such a ubiquitous stand-in for describing evangelical Christians that a satirical movie by Brian Dannelly could lampoon us (rather successfully) under that simple monosyllabic banner. To be a Christian is to have been "saved". The more doctrinally fastidious would be quick to point out all of the corresponding components to that past event, to be sure - namely, present sanctification and future glorification; but generally salvation should be regarded as a past-tense fact. Sanctification is a term that belongs to the outworking of that past fact, and glorification is a term that belongs to the consummation of it.

It might strike you as strange, then, that in comparison with today's evangelical terminology that the word "saved" is in considerably modest circulation within the pages of the New Testament. Not only is this the case, but to the chagrin of the more dogmatically inclined, the salvation terminology of the Bible doesn't comport with the rigidly chronological categorization everyone is so familiar with (justification, sanctification, glorification). In fact, the Biblical word "salvation" speaks primarily not of a past event, but a (certain and secure) future hope (cf. Mt. 10:22, Ro. 13:11, 2 Tim. 2:10, Heb. 9:28, 1 Pet. 1:9). The lesson here is that theologians, even very good theologians, use Biblical words differently than the Bible uses that same terminology. This isn't because they're doing something evil or underhanded, but because they are trying to draw together all of the diverse strands of Scripture into one discernible whole - and that can be very helpful. But if people don't understand that the Biblical writers themselves didn't mean exactly the same thing these theologians mean by these words, it can result in confusion - and even more often that that, contention.

Before listing some passages to prove that point, though, it's important to notice that the Biblical passages which contain those words most familiar to systematic theology - words like justification, sanctification, adoption, regeneration, etc. - are not the only passages in the Bible which speak to those theological topics. Justification, for instance, deals with concepts of judgment, wrath, righteousness, law and covenant. Studying about justification, then, means more than just looking up every time the word shows up in the Bible. It means rooting out the concepts attached to that word. But more to the point, once you do find all the occurrences of these words, you need to know that they aren't even used the same way in every passage. The word "sanctification", for example, doesn't mean the same thing in 1 Co. 6:11 as it does in 1 Co. 7:14. That's an incredibly important point. It means that not only do theological words (like justification, sanctification and glorification) not mean the same thing in the Bible as they do in systematic theology - but they don't always mean the same thing even in the Bible itself.

With those caveats out of the way, and getting back to the issue at hand, once you begin looking up words like "salvation", "justification" and even "glorification", the time line mentioned above unravels. In fact, every term used by systematic theologians to describe our salvation - all of them - have an “already—not yet” pattern. Whatever saving activity is being described, it is generally (and variously) presented as beginning at a point in time, carried through the present and brought to final fulfillment or realization at the end. Numerous passages could be listed, but I'll list just a few - notice in the passages selected how the word differs both from usage in other passages listed and from common theological currency among Christians.

Salvation is past (Eph. 2:8), present (1 Co. 1:18) and future (Mat. 10:22).

Redemption is past (1 Pet. 1:18), present (Col. 1:14) and future (Eph. 4:30).

Regeneration is past (Titus 3:5) and future (Mat. 19:28, Rev. 21:5).

Forgiveness is past (Jn. 20:23), present (1 Jn. 1:9) and future (Mt. 18:34-35).

Adoption is past (Eph. 1:5) and future (Ro. 8:23).

Justification is past (Ro. 5:11), present (Ro. 6:7 - "freed"= lit. justified) and future (Mt. 12:37).

Sanctification is past (1 Co. 6:11), present (Ro. 6:22) and future (1 Thess 5:23 - see also 2 Thess. 2:13).

Glorification is past (Ro. 8:30, i.e. proleptically), present (1 Pet. 1:8) and future (2 Thess. 1:10-12).

Much carnage has resulted among Christians because of the fundamental failure to ask what someone means by the words they're using. So the next time the theologically meticulous and doctrinaire among us (yeah, I'm included) are tempted to take someone to task for their theological imprecision, we can ask ourselves whether it's wise to indict the New Testament writers along with them.

Just Took a Break

Usually courteous bloggers who value their readership announce their intentions to take a break for awhile. Some even tell them when they can be expected to be back. If anyone is still reading this cyber-rag, which I highly doubt, they'll have to settle for much, much less -but at least they're used to that - namely, the announcement that I just took a break. Not a very useful report, I know, especially since that blogging vacation was time off from what was some rather infrequent posting in the first place; but the break is over and I'm resolved to make 2007 much more fruitful.

One of the posts I'm looking forward to in January will be an interview with author and professor of Old Testament and Biblical hermeneutics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Dr. Peter Enns (whose book I reviewed here and here as well as responding to criticisms of my review here) - so look for that.

The result of posting more frequently will probably be an increase in rabid raving about some topic or another. The new blogger allows for labels, so I've added them to all of my previous posts for easier access - so now I can finally be properly cited in magazines dedicated to interior decorating, budget haircare and preteen gossip. In any case, please accept my apologies, dear hypothetical readers, and expect your compensatory gift baskets to arrive soon. In the meantime, accept the offering of my slightly updated template.

And now, with the sole interest of drawing attention to myself via the magic of technorati, I will insidiously link the posts of various Christian blogs that I'd like to use in order to get myself mentioned or attract their readers:

Mike Bird has some interesting comments on Tom Wright's Simply Christian.

The illustrious internet monk, Michael Spencer diverges from many critics in his review of Apocalypto.

Phil Johnson charitably links someone who only mentions him in order to get linked. How shameful, yet shameless.

Regardless of the odd (as in occasional AND strange) post on postmodernism, Doug Wilson proves once again that his voice is worthy to be heard.

Ben Myers lists several outstanding moments in blogging from 2006.

Scot McKnight comments on a book called The End of Memory by a theologian named Miroslav Volf, who my brother has really enjoyed at Yale.

The Tall Skinny Kiwi discusses the merits of John Piper's book on depression, which after reading his post, I think I'll be picking up immediately.

John Frye breaks the pattern of dismal reactions I've heard about the Christmas release of The Nativity Story.

Alan Bandy, who was into the word Apocalypto before it was cool, had a fantastic Christmas post that I think you'll enjoy as much as I did.

Chris Tilling posted a fantastic series featuring Richard Bauckham - who actually went to the trouble to respond to some commenters. Go back and read parts 1 and 2 as well.

Ben Witherington enjoyed The Pursuit of Happyness, as did my wife and I when we saw it this last weekend.

Check out James K.A. Smith and Nancey Murphy at NPR's "Speaking of Faith" in a feature called Evangelicals Out of the Box.

Joel Garver has some typically insightful things to say about the emerging stuff.

On ETS and Inerrancy

This post is a modified version of the comment I made on the group blog to which I contribute, but because it's some important news about a constituency of which I claim membership, I thought I'd post it here as well (that sentence sounds like it was constructed by Frasier Crane, doesn't it?):

Recently the Evangelical Theological Society has claimed the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy as a non-negotiable necessity for existing members. This isn't really news, in one sense, since the society has always included inerrancy, along with Trinitarianism, in its spartan self-definition. The news comes in the intended effect of such a move; namely, the expulsion of all members holding to some version of open-theism.

If you're an evangelical, as I am, you might not be shocked that they would want to do such a thing - but if you were present for the recent tribunal of Clark Pinnock and John Sanders (some of the evangelical architects of the view), you might be surprised at the ensuing discussion. Several members, most who repudiate open theism, actually opposed the motion for their removal for the same reason that I oppose the aforementioned direction the society is heading. In short, the weight being placed on the doctrine of inerrancy is far too great, doing a disservice to both the doctrine of inerrancy and the Biblical authority which evangelicals have historically defended.

The society is trying to use inerrancy to guarantee certain interpretive results, which, in the end, mutilates the doctrine. If the reliability of Scripture is functionally equated to certain theological positions there is no principal reason that, for example, Arminians couldn't be accused of denying inerrancy (they don’t believe in deterministic election). But the real problem for the largely Calvinist society is that the opposite could just as easily be said if Arminians happened to hold a more powerful persuasion. There are, of course, Arminians who hold to inerrancy, and who also happen to believe that the Scriptures inerrantly teach a certain brand of human free-will! The point is that using inerrancy to defeat their position is smuggling interpretive decisions through the back door. It's lazy at best and an egregious abuse of power at worst (which is ironic, given evangelical mistrust of ecclesiastical hierarchy).

For a good many open theists the issue comes down to differing understandings of genre and metaphor - they’re not saying that certain passages are erroneous; rather, they think that passages about God changing His mind mean what they say, and that it would be a violation of the text (!) to interpret them otherwise. Their failure, in my view (I'm not an open theist) is an interpretive failure, not a necessary denigration of the nature of Scripture. Robert Chisholm, a conservative OT scholar from Dallas Theological Seminary (also not an open theist), has made this same observation, and in various OT presentations, has been a voice of reason about the issue. The end result of this logic is that every position can claim an opposing view to be a “denial of inerrancy”, since every position will putatively be put forward as "the clear teaching of Scripture".

But the issue extends beyond the treatment of certain passages into the interpretive framework by which they are being approached. Are those who subscribe to a certain species of speech-act theory as a general hermeneutic “denying inerrancy” just because they don’t think that all language is properly binary (true/false)? Their beliefs about the nature of language make the label of “inerrant” on the whole of Scripture a simple category mistake (i.e. how can a command be “free from error”? It can be reliable toward some end, but not “true” or “false”). At this point it's clear that the doctrine of inerrancy, if used this way, has become too bloated: not only does it seek to affirm the reliability of Scripture, but a theory of language and interpretive framework as well! So not only is it the case that inerrancy shouldn’t be given a position of hermeneutical arbitration, but it can’t function in that way. Inerrancy can guard against people who say that certain texts are “wrong” in their theological import - but it can’t guard against people who say that the Bible is, in fact, infallibly claiming one thing or another.

Could I sign the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy? Absolutely. Should open theism be excluded from the society on those grounds? Emphatically not. The issue isn't whether God's foreknowledge is taught in Scripture (I believe it is), or whether its denial is theologically dangerous (it is) - the issue is the ground of such objections. The precedent of using inerrancy to combat the opposition is completely wrongheaded, and persisting in these tactics will be a course that members will live to regret.

"What the hail, Mary?! Where've you been?!"

Father forgive me, it's been almost two months since my last confession.

I keep wondering if I should just give up the ghost on this thing. It reminds me of my first few years of marriage, where I was making promises with every intent on fulfilling them, but never actually getting around to it. But I didn't pull the plug on THAT, now did I? So (look out, here comes another vain promise), I'll try to keep posting here more regularly (than never, that is). I've been thinking about posting a targum on Galatians 1, a commentary on the Haggard thing, an essay on video gaming, a reflection on Richard Dawkins, a diatribe about the Christian academy, a review of some of the books I mentioned in my last post, and a confession about my laziness.

One post down, six to go (not that any of them will be what I've mentioned here). Don't hold your breath.

Books I Just Bought

Foolishness to the Greeks is one of those books I've been meaning to read, if for no other reason than to understand the footnotes in just about every OTHER book I've already read. In this most classic of his many writings, Newbigin details the stormy interface between the Gospel and Western culture, replete with discussions of science and politics. All of the hype surrounding the word "missional" finds its substance in Newbigin, and that from an experienced missonary in (from my experience, anyway) one of the most culturally Gospel-inocculated countries in the world - India.








The Drama of Scripture is among the first books I've recieved and it is the one I'm currently reading. In the tradition of Cornelius Plantinga's Engaging God's World it's intended as a primer for college students in which Bartholomew and Green give the basic framework for interpreting all of life's experiences. Taking its cues in part from N.T. Wright and Al Wolters, the concept of story guides this treatment of the Christian worldview in six (as opposed to Wright's five) acts. Though the authors are informed by such philosophical luminaries as Alasdair MacIntyre and Nicholas Wolterstorff technical discussion never ends up hogging the camera, as the Biblical story takes center stage. It's proving to be a highly recommended read already. If you're interested in the topic, check out their website, based on this book.





Being compared to C.S. Lewis in any light is high praise, and Wright's book has recieved plenty of it. With Lewis' Mere Christianity haunting every page, Wright gives compelling reasons for intelligent unbelievers to consider taking Christianity seriously. The primary differnce bewteen the old classic and Wright's likely candidate for future canonization is that the former attempted to reason from commonly held first principles to Christianity along a track of logical necessity whereas the latter simply (note the title) presents the essence of Christian belief with all its internal logical consistency. The result is something that may have been lacking by the end of Lewis' treatment, namely the aesthetics of Christianity. If Lewis addressed the issue of truth, Wright builds upon it an edifice of beauty.






Having read Francis Watson's impressive and astute Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith and being a huge fan of anything by Kevin Vanhoozer, I'm really looking forward to this little book. I've been interested in the topic of theological hermeneutics since I started reading the Scripture and Hermeneutics Series (I'm currently on volume six), and though I've seen others interact with him some, I've never read anything by Stephen Fowl. With the renewed interest in the topic (even recently spawning a new SBL study group) there's a torrent of literature available, which makes collections of essays one of the more efficient ways to keep up. Vanhoozer's recent book The Drama of Doctrine attempts to maintain propositional elements lost in postliberal approaches, and seeks to give standards for normative interpretation outside an often wayward Church without falling into the pitfalls of supposedly neutral "scientific" approaches. I'm interested in seeing his interaction with Fowl and Adam on the issue.





One of the recurrent themes in Joel Green's work, both exegetical and theological, is his attempt to bridge the gap between Biblical Studies and dogmatics. Historically at odds with one another, the divide is best seen by the distrust each discipline manifests toward the other. Commentaries repeatedly warn of the danger of importing one's theology into the text while theologians warn of the danger of atomizing the Biblical text, at the same time reminding us that without theology the Bible remains nothing more than an interesting archaeological artifact. In Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology, Green and Turner have collected several exciting essays both describing the problems and paving the way for possible solutions. Contributors include Stephen Fowl, Robert Wall, John Christopher Thomas, John Goldingay, Steve Motyer, Trevor Hart and N.T. Wright, as well as an introductory essay by the editors.





I pre-ordered this book by Norman Wirzba based on the title alone. I don't know anything about the author, and I wasn't really looking for something on the subject - but the idea of a Christian theology of enjoying life derived from Israel's Sabbath practices is just fascinating. Working with youth, I've encountered two sorts of kids, both of which see relaxation as a brief worldly respite from the rigors of Christian discipline. The difference is that one kind of kid is cool with the worldly nature of enjoying life (in moderation), while the other isn't. It's the classic divide between libertinism and legalism, and everyone I know (including myself) leans in one direction or the other. I'm hoping this book helps in filling out a third way to a very practical problem.

Being "Christian"

Sin is at the root of every problem in our lives and everything that’s wrong with the world. As Christians, we are saying, by God’s mercy, that we’ve come to realize that all of the death, destruction, chaos and pain that we see on a daily basis and that we hate with intensity actually begins with us – our idolatry, our anger, our lusts, our pride and our selfishness. Sometimes its intentional, sometimes it’s not, and even we ourselves are bewildered by what comes out of our hearts – but we’ve come to see that in turning away from our Creator we have made an awful mess of this planet, of our nation, of our relationships with others and of our own lives – and it’s a mess so big and so a stain so deep that we can never clean it up on our own.

We can’t just “be better” people, because being “better” doesn’t mean that we’re “right” – right with God, right with one another, or right with ourselves. In all of our thoughts and actions we have cast Him aside, we have turned from our Maker to the things He has made in order to get direction for our lives, and in doing that we have so violated our relationship with God, so offended Him with our sin – the effects of it, the willfulness of it, the betrayal in it – that we stand in a state of total guilt and total worthiness of His just retribution. We are responsible. We are to blame. There is nowhere else to point the finger - and we must pay.

But judgment isn’t our only problem with our sin. We haven’t just come to realize that we are worthy of judgment, we’ve come to realize that our sins are, in fact, killing us. They’re destroying us. Everything that God has made, in all its beauty: food, drink, sex, the glories of nature, the creativity of human expression, all varieties of human relationships – all of these things which God has given us to enlarge our souls, to increase the capacity to have intimacy with Him, to reflect His own beauty – they’re tainted by our sin. The good in these things haven’t been destroyed by our sin, but they’ve been distorted and we abuse these things to our own hurt, which has led to the shrinking and shriveling of our souls. So instead of liberating us, we become enslaved to them.

And so our sin doesn’t just cause us to perish in judgment, it is the reason we ARE PERISHING, even now. We must answer Our Maker for our sins, and in the meantime we are being dehumanized by them. We’re not just the perpetrators of sin, we’re victims of sin – even our own. We’re not only awaiting eternal death in judgment, we’re dying now. We’re slaves to sin and the fear of death. So, what will we do?

God’s answer to that question, of course, is "nothing". There’s nothing WE can do. So He did it. Because of God’s love for the people He made, He sent Jesus to die in our place and to rise on our behalf. Jesus’ life demonstrated the freedom and beauty of man without sin. He offered Himself to God on our behalf and died on our behalf, taking the judgment we deserve and rising again in order to give us new life, a life not dominated by evil. Jesus has dealt with our sin in his death and is now dealing with our sin in the power of His resurrection. He is the lamb of God who [PRESENT TENSE] takes away [IS EVEN NOW TAKING AWAY] the sin of the world. He cancelled its penalty once and for all and He’s conquering its dominion over us even now.

Christians need the Father’s mercy to continue forgiving us for our sin, His Son, Jesus Christ, to continue interceding on our behalf and you the Holy Spirit to continue washing and sanctifying us from sin. And that’s exactly what God is doing in the Church. The Church is the place where sin is being defeated, and God’s righteousness is gaining a foothold, a beachhead, in the world. And when I say righteousness, I don’t mean some “on your high-horse” fussy, finger-wagging perfection – I mean what the Bible means by that word. I mean “rightness”. Everyone, both Christian and non-Christian, knows that something is wrong with the world. It’s broken. It’s not how it’s supposed to be. It’s not “right”. But in the Church God is making things right – He’s making right relationships, right living, right thinking, right loving, right hoping, right feeling, right sorrow, right pain, right suffering, right joy. That’s righteousness – not some weird abstract standard that’s meant to squash everyone – but the life-giving, relationship restoring “rightness” which reflects who the Creator is, and what every person and culture on earth desperately hungers for (and yet violently opposes) – it’s what Christians call “the kingdom of God” - God’s righteous rule. It’s a wonderful thing.

Be a little Jewish - Read a Book

"One thing I noticed about Evangelicals is that they do not read. They do not read the Bible, they do not read the great Christian thinkers, they have never heard of Aquinas. If they're Presbyterian, they've never read the founders of Presbyterianism. I do not understand that. As a Jew, that's confusing to me. The commandment of study is so deep in Judaism that we immerse ourselves in study. God gave us a brain, aren't we to use it in His service? When I walk into an Evangelical Christian's home and see a total of 30 books, most of them best-sellers, I do not understand. I have bookcases of Christian books, and I'm a Jew. Why do I have more Christian books than 98 percent of the Christians in America? This is so bizarre to me."

- Dennis Prager in an interview from The Door magazine

Wars and Warnock

I may take some time later to comment on some of the latest Christian blog war in which our loveable, if less than agreeable, friends sound off against the enemies of Truth (and by "truth", I of course mean that unique hybrid of Reformed and dispensational, premillennial theology with credo-baptist and denominationally independent distinctives, among others) and usurpers of the Bible (and by "Bible" I mean only those theological conclusions that comport with the above). In the most recent struggle against the forces of evangelical naughtiness (like Christianity Today) it's pointed out that those who accuse faithful defenders (those committed to verbal throat-slitting) of the Truth (see above) with "guilt by association" are actually guilty of guilt-by-association. Similarly it seems that those who accuse them of taking themselves too seriously are, in all seriousness, taking themselves too seriously (apply that formula to every criticism and you can create stunning likenesses of some people's posts before they put out the real thing); -but for now I'll just post this evaluation of the whole mess:

Yuck.

If you're interested in a lengthier evaluation, check out Broken Messenger for two excellent, insightful pieces.

But now for something a good deal more refreshing, I'd point you to the eminently likable and relatively controversy-free Adrian Warnock. Even in debate, he's always the model of charity, and he's recently posted a wonderful closer to a dispute about cessationism. In it he's quoted one of his heroes, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and it was such a good read that I just had to reproduce it here:

"What is being taught in Christendom today is this; that since we have got the New Testament canon, since we have got the Word now, we do not need these direct interventions, we do not need God to speak to us directly, as He spoke to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and these patriarchs. We have got the Word now! Is this superior to the direct speech of God? I think we are mad! There is no other word for this. We are mad. We are meant to be in a superior position to every Old Testament saint because of what has happened in our blessed Lord and Saviour! But this teaching would have us believe that we do not need this direct contact with God now, and that all that has come to an end since the formation of the New Testament canon . . . . .remember that the great point of the whole teaching of the Bible, of all you can deduce from it, is to tell you that God is a God who acts. And our only hope this afternoon is that this is still true. He has not finished acting. He is going on . . . There is only one hope. That is that He is still the living and the acting God. Christ is at His right hand, and He is seated and waiting until His enemies should be made His footstool . . . ."

I have been defending the faith—- and people have praised me for doing it. Rubbish! What a miserable failure it has all been! From now on I am determined to do one thing only, and that is to give God no rest nor peace, until He does prove Himself and show Himself. I have expended so much energy in reasoning with the people about this faith. We have got to do that, it is part of preaching. But if we stop at that, it will avail us nothing. But what I now am concerned about and I am concentrating on is this — asking God to show Himself, to do something,to give this touch, this manifestation of power. Nothing else will even make people listen to us . . . . Nothing is going to call the attention of the masses of the people to the truth of this faith save a great phenomenon, such as the phenomenon of the day of Pentecost, the phenomenon of any one of the great revivals, the phenomenon of a single changed life. This is something that always arrests attention, maybe curiosity — what does it matter? The people come and listen . . . .

We must not be content until we have had some manifestation of the activity of God. We must concentrate on this. This is my plea, that we concentrate on this, because it is the great message of the Bible Let us put it like this: Do we really believe that God can still act? That is the question; that is the ultimate challenge. Or have we, for theological or some other reasons, excluded the very possibility? Here is the crucial matter. Do we individually and personally really believe that God still acts, can act and will act — in individuals, in groups of individuals, in churches, localities, perhaps even in countries? Do we believe that He is as capable of doing that today as He was in ancient times — the Old Testament, the New Testament times, the book of Acts, Protestant Reformation, Puritans, Methodist Awakening, 1859, 1904-5? Do we really believe that He can still do it? You see, it is ultimately what you believe about God. If He is the great Jehovah — I am that I am, I am that I shall be, unchanged, unchanging, unchangeable, the everlasting and eternal God — well, He can still do it.”

K.J.V. Only (Well, not ONLY . . .)

As I strolled into my office this morning, flicking on the light and slapping my bag onto the desk in one rehearsed, fluid motion, I suddenly stopped and realized – I’ve got three books by the same author lying there and they happen to be three of my favorite books. The oldest is called Is There a Meaning in This Text?, the second a newer acquisition, The Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible and the third, The Drama of Doctrine – all by Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Maybe more remarkable than the fact that they were all written (or edited, in the case of the dictionary) by the same man are the range of topics involved in each book. Is There a Meaning engages postmodern interpretation in the field of hermeneutics. DTIB blends biblical, systematic and historical theology with hermeneutics to create the quirkiest interdisciplinary resource in my library. My newest addition is The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology, which (again) blends my two favorite subjects, theology and hermeneutics, into what promises to be another tasty read.

Though I’ve mentioned my appreciation for him before, I didn’t really realize that I was a Vanhoozer fanboy until today, so I haven’t given much thought as to why that is – but here’s a Rorschach-shaped reactionary first guess:

1. He’s a both a scholar AND self-consciously Christian: In every book and lecture it’s abundantly clear that Vanhoozer’s interests aren’t just academic – he sees theology as fundamentally a task for the Church to be done by the Church. While many claim to be interested in a theology which refuses to divorce knowledge from practice Vanhoozer actually makes the Church’s practice a fundamental factor in theorizing about doctrine. But beyond this, all of his scholarship begins with rigorous Christian foundations, making use of Christian resources to answer hermeneutical and theological problems. For all of his kind and critical engagement, he never pretends that Christianity is a peer among equals in the marketplace of ideas. Scripture has always taken an unapologetically central role in his work (a fact not easily recognized if all you’re doing is looking for references in an index). Moreover, his scholarship is actually an astonishing testimony of the Spirit’s work, as it intentionally aims at love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control and humility – a rare commodity in this level of scholarship (and an even rarer commodity in the robustly Reformed circles Vanhoozer resides).
   
   
2. He engages postmodernism both critically AND thoughtfully: Though Vanhoozer has, in his words, “cooled to speech-act theory” as a solution for every problem presented by postmodern criticism, his book Is There a Meaning in This Text? is near universally acclaimed as one of the most impressive and even-handed criticisms of postmodernism by someone arguing for authorial intention. His most recent offering in DoD does for postliberal theology what Is There a Meaning? did for postmodern literary theory, harvesting the wheat and leaving the chaff. His disposition of “disputation” (for an explanation, see another wonderful contribution of Vanhoozer’s in Christianity and the Postmodern Turn: Six Views) in regard to contemporary offerings is able to mine the gems without collecting rocks.
   
   
3. He’s thought-provoking AND funny: Much like N.T. Wright, there’s a subtle wit about Vanhoozer’s presentation that is fun to read and even more fun to hear. Puns, double-entendre, and other wry humor is littered through every article, book and lecture in a way my brother finds annoying, but I rather enjoy. Glance through his response to Paul Helm at Reformation 21 and the corner of your mouth is bound to curl a few times.
   
   
4. He’s theologically creative AND traditional: One of the most encouraging things about Vanhoozer’s work is that it pushes in new directions without being detached from the various anchors of faithfully Biblical scholarship. Beyond affirming all of the vanilla creeds, Vanhoozer’s commitment to Scripture’s perfection, authority and necessary guidance for the Church stands out from other scholars of his caliber. Like so few constructive theologians, Vanhoozer is able to employ new metaphors, develop new frameworks and offer critical evaluation of older models without pulling at the fundamental roots of Christian belief and practice - and maybe more significantly, without ever losing his distinctively evangelical commitment. Even when I find myself in something less than enthusiastic agreement with him (which, of course, I sometimes do – I’m a fanboy, not a cult member), his proposals never raise my hackles as pushing the limits too far.
   
   
5. He’s profound AND prolific: The challenging and thought-provoking material isn’t only daunting in its quality, but in its quantity. As with N.T. Wright, there’s never fear that you’ll be left wanting more – there’s too much already. There are at least five books he’s edited or written which I’d still like to read, given enough time - including his Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, Biblical Narrative in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur: A Study in Hermeneutics and Theology and The Trinity in a Pluralistic Age: Theological Essays on Culture and Religion.

After Virtue, pt. 2

In After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre documents the monumental failure of morality that has characterized modern ethics in the Enlightement tradition. The historiography comes to a head in a chapter called "Nietzsche or Aristotle?" wherein the author makes the astonishing claim that the the way forward in ethical theory lies in just this sharp disjunction. Having rejected Aristotle in the 15th-17th C. (embedded in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions which appropriated it), the successive attempts to ground morality ultimately disintegrated into Nietzsche's realization that there is no rational justification for morality, and all such attempts simply conceal the irrational will rather than reveal moral truths. As he goes on to develop the case for virtue ethics, then, MacIntyre isn't just suggesting one of several ways forward - he's presenting it as the only available option! The choice to be made, though, isn't a strict exposition of Aristotle's ethics exactly as he concieved it, but a critical and constructive appropriation of the Aristotlean tradition - the pursuit of "the good life" in relationship to man's ultimate end.

Speaking of virtue, he says:

The virtues therefore are to be understood as those dispositions which will not only sustain practices and enable us to achieve the goods internal to practices, but which will also sustain us in the relevant kind of quest for the good, by enabling us to overcome the harms, dangers, temptations and distractions which we encounter, and which will furnish us with increasing self-knowledge and increasing knowledge of the good. The catalogue of the virtues will therefore include the virtues required to sustain the kind of households and the kind of political communities in which men and women can seek for the good together and the virtues necessary for philosophical enquiry about the character of the good. We have then arrived at a provisional conclusion about the good life for man: the good life for man is the life spent in seeking for the good life for man, and the virtues necessary for the seeking are those which will enable us to understand what more and what else the good life for man is.

Any account of ethics, then, that seeks to avoid descending into Nietzsche's nihilism must provide both an account of a unified human telos (which provides aribration for our actions and avoids seeing life as a series of unrelated moral dilemmas) and the appropriate social context in which human virtue can be exemplified (analagous to the polis). This suggestion is made over against modernism's unscucessful attempts to ground morality without a defensible telos, and that in a context of act-centered (rather than agent-centered) liberal individualism. The question, for me at least, is how MacIntyre's project may prove helpful for a distinctively Christian ethics.

I'm not a philosopher - and though reasonably intelligent, I'm not very well-informed on topics such as these. At best, I'm a curious fellow with too much time on his hands, so any criticism has to be taken with a grain of salt and without the expectation that Alasdair MacIntyre will fall upon his pen upon reading my critique - but I do have at least one major misgiving with his conception of ethics, as I've understood it (or, more likely, as I've failed to understand it). What seems to be lacking is the role that Truth (capital 'T') might play in moral discourse. I can't see how what MacIntyre is doing in this book isn't just a kind of pragmatism which, at best, can provide intelligibility for ethics, but is ulimately very little help in actual moral discourse. The lack of some kind of standard or rule by which both community and telos can be measured makes appropriating this sort of thing kind of difficult.

I'm interested to see how the subject of ethics comes up in Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology. Where postliberals have inserted the role of community and culture in formulating the doctrine which gives sense to ethics, postconservatives like Vanhoozer have replaced it with the canon of Scripture. Similarly, Vanhoozer seems to Vanhoozer seems to give the place narrative plays in MacIntyre and Hauerwas to a much larger framework (drama), of which narrative is only one component. As interesting as I've found After Virtue, I'm looking forward to the more self-consciously Christian conception in DoD.

Pomo Showdown

UPDATE: I've just read Macht and Joel Hunter's comments on Wilson's review, which both state that Wilson has dodged, missed or otherwise entirely avoided Smith's point - that's what I get for talking about a book I've never actually read. In any case the one thing that Wilson does bring up, which I'd like to hear someone address, is the question I raised in this post: How are people to ajudicate between rival interpretations without falling prey to stock postmodern criticisms? If everyone ultimately can only evaluate other interpretations from the standpoint of their own, what's the way out of that particular cul-de-sac? C'mon, Joel, I said HELP!!!

Doug Wilson just posted a tantalizing review of J.K.A. Smith's book, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? I've been wanting to pick this one up since it was commended to me by Sir Bryan Lee, my good friend and Captain of the Intelligently Postmodern Brigade. I have to say, at first glance, I have a feeling I'd probably be more sympathetic to Wilson's take.

I'll be posting a bit more about Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue shortly, but Wilson's comments give voice to nagging concerns even as I've enjoyed the book thus far - namely the fear that once MacIntyre has destroyed the blighted secularism which has given birth to the current moral crises of our day, his sociological analysis will be powerless to commend a truly Christian alternative. The questions raised by Wilson are all the same ones I've come up against in reading Lindbeck and Hauerwas - they are so robustly and self-confidently Christian it's positively exhilerating - until the issue of engagement comes to the fore. For all the pitfalls of "cognitive-propositional" models of doctrine, and all the benefits of a narrative approach, how does a particular person's narrative climb out of the spongy morass of pluralism to assert itself without falling prey to the same criticisms as Enlightenment positivism? How can the Gospel be proclaimed without the Sitz im Leben of one hors'dourve being offered from a tray of several equally tasty choices?

I think Reformed resources provide the the only theologically viable raw material for a Biblically sustainable alternative - Plantinga's modest foundationalism, Vanhoozer's chastised version of intentionality, and Wright's critical realism are a good start (yeah, I said N.T. Wright: there's a lot more Reformed people should appreciate about the guy, Piper's latest sermon notwithstanding). The more I listen to someone like Tim Keller, the more I'm convinced of Reformed theology's potential value in navigating the postmodern world.

However necessary and beautiful the call to community formation, these authors inevitably blunt the imperial force of the Gospel, which is wrapped up in Jesus' lordship - or do they? Joel Hunter, the resident postmodern poster-boy at the Boar's Head Tavern, if you're reading this - help!