Will the real St. Nick please stand up?

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"Towers" features C.S. Lewis

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New Towers explores the church's mission

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Sleek new design, same great content

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Wisdom Christology is here

Late this week I got it in the mail. Then, about mid morning today, I got it in my hands (insert mail-receiving realities of apartment living). Here's what I saw first:

"Two features of this book merit particular praise. ... Ebert carefully demolishes the 'Jesus as Lady Sophia' Christology ... and fulsomely displays how true wisdom is rightly connected to Jesus Christ. Moreover, the author writes well." - D.A. Carson

...

"A marvelous example of biblical theology ... grounded in solid research, yet very accessible." - Douglas J. Moo

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"Pastoral, insightful, and significant. ... Models how careful exegesis ground sound theology and shoes how sound theology must be applied." - Christopher W. Morgan

...

"Demonstrates persuasively how wisdom, a central Old Testament theme, played a constraining role in the apostolic era's first-order question, 'Who is Jesus?'" - Mark S. Gignilliat

And the above recommendations are only truncated versions of the high praise for Dan Ebert's new book I found when I turned the first page. Then, when I navigated to Amazon to grab a link for this post, I saw the world's largest online retailer announcing to shoppers that Wisdom Christology is almost sold out.

A great cloud

Systematic theology is important. Taking the Bible’s teaching and answering questions about God’s nature, the Bible’s presentation of anthropology and what exactly this thing called church should be provides applications of Scripture that instruct the church and prod her toward godliness. But systematic theology is necessarily done by people.

So theology is a decidedly human project, complete with all of the influences and experiences to which all people are bound. For instance, the Christian formulation of the Trinity, came as a response to those who questioned the deity of Jesus. For this reason, it became imperative for the church to articulate the teaching of the Bible concerning Jesus’ function within the godhead. Without at least a cursory knowledge of its history, one cannot fully understand the importance of clearly and deliberately promoting a Trinitarian Christology.

For this reason, Gregg R. Allison, professor of Christian theology at Southern Seminary, provided the church with a resource tracing the growth and development of the foundational doctrines of Protestant theology.

“Such concentration on the accumulated wisdom of the ages provides great benefit to Christians and churches today as they seeks to live faithfully and obediently to Jesus Christ,” writes Allision.

Allison’s new book Historical Theology, closely follows Wayne Grudem’s popular-standard Systematic Theology, tracing the historical development of the doctrines Grudem presents. Billed as “companion” to Grudem, Allison’s book resembles Grudem’s in both its organization and format.

In his introduction, Allison lists eight reasons for studying historical theology: (1) the church owns a long history of guarding orthodox Christianity against heresy; (2) faithful and diligent Christians in the past contributed foundational biblical interpretations and theological formulations on which the church still relies; (3) church history is home to admirable examples of Christians living as examples of Christ; (4) studying Scripture with personalities from history combats individualism; (5) historical theology informs the church’s communication to her current context; (6) history naturally emphasizes the most important issues -- majors on the majors; (7) the past shines with examples of God’s promise-keeping faithfulness to his people; and (8) historical theology places the church in a long-standing tradition of learning, preaching and living the gospel.

Allison, following Grudem, treats the primary areas of theology: the Bible, God, humanity, Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, the church and the end of time. For each area, he surveys teachings on the subject from the early church, the middle ages, Reformation and post-Reformation and modern times.

“My hope is that the church, and evangelicals in particular, will become as familiar with the giant of the past -- clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, John Wesley, Karl Barth -- as they are with Billy Graham, John Piper, J.I. Packer, Chuck Colson, Ravi Zacharias, Tim Keller, Al Mohler, and Mark Driscoll.”

As an introduction to historical theology, Allison’s new work will not disappoint the reader who seeks to learn from that great cloud of witnesses in church history.

Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Zondervan 2011, $44.99), Gregg R. Allison

Chilling in culture's living room

Coffee shops function as the pop culture living room. And often, especially in urban areas, these living rooms attract a large diversity of people.

In his 2010 book, The Diversity Culture, author Matthew Raley, senior pastor of the Orland Evangelical Free Church in northern California, uses the word “diversity” in two different ways: diversity referencing the multitude of backgrounds and perspectives of people in the coffee shop, and the diversity of influences shaping the perspectives of those in the cultural living room.

Raley’s thesis is that too often Christians tie themselves down to textbook-type conceptions of unbelievers and their beliefs and thus fail to acknowledge that complex factor that shape most people’s beliefs.

He points to the fact that most of the people labeled with a postmodern worldview rarely, if ever, interact with such postmodern thinkers as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Rather, their thoughts and attitudes toward politics, religion and ethics come from a cultural attitude formed from the diversity of voices in society.

“In trying to deal with the most significant cultural shift of our time, therefore, evangelicals are not sure what they face. They aren’t sure how the shift affects the individuals they talk to. Nor are they sure what their role should be in relation to those individuals,” Raley writes. Should they educate them about postmodernity? (Probably not a wise posture.) Should they try to accommodate their views? (Definitely not wise.) The sheer diversity of attitudes on the street is daunting. ”

He teases out the tensions accompanying this daunting diversity in his book’s three self-explanatory sections: “Understand the tension,” “Formulate the message” and “Apply the model.” Raley calls his readers to faithfully communicate the good news to those who need it.

“There is always pressure to redefine the faith so that it fits ungodly prejudices betters. For instance, some are experimenting again with the notion that people of other faiths will be saved as long as they are sincere. Some others want to blur the biblical standards on sexuality so that we seem less prudish,” he writes. “None of these faux-biblical positions will lead people to Jesus.”

In his conclusion, Raley tells the story of being in college and realizing that his cookie cutter perceptions about people and their beliefs hindered his communication of the gospel.

“My gospel was self-indulgent too. It consisted of the points I wanted to make rather than the truths people needed to hear. I wanted to say that there were moral absolutes, and I wanted to pile up the evidence. I wanted to prove the inerrancy of Scripture. I wanted to expound the doctrines of total depravity and election,” he writes. “All of the things I wanted to say are true. But most of my peers were trying to figure out if their parents loved them. They needed to truth of the gospel applied to them specifically. (Abstract coherence is one of the most insidious forms of self-indulgence I have. It allows me to ignore the hot problems around me in favor of cool formulas.)”

This others-conscience focus drives the gospel-formulations in The Diversity Culture.

The Diversity Culture: Creating Conversations of Faith with Buddhist Baristas, Agnostic Students, Aging Hippies, Political Activists, and Everyone in Between (Kregel 2010, $12.99), Matthew Raley