Category Archives: Publishing

The Intersection of Evolution and the Fall

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I am about to head off to a conference at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Chicago called “Re-Imagining the Intersection of Evolution and the Fall,” to present a paper on Genesis 3 in light of evolution. This three-day conference (March 26-28, 2015) grows out of a research group I’ve been a part of for the past two years that has been tasked with addressing how orthodox Christians may think about the origin of human evil (the “Fall”) in the context of what we know about the evolution of humans on this planet.

The group has two biblical scholars (myself included), along with scholars specializing in theology, philosophy, biology, ethics, and history. Many of the scholars have expertise in more than one discipline, and many have previously written on this topic.

Here is the lineup of the research team, in alphabetical order, along with their disciplinary specializations:

  • William Cavanaugh (theology, political theory)
  • Celia Deane-Drummond (theology, biology)
  • Darrel Falk (biology)
  • Joel Green (New Testament, theology, neuroscience)
  • Peter Harrison (history of science)
  • J. Richard Middleton (Old Testament, theology)
  • Aaron Riches (theology)
  • James K.A. Smith (philosophy, theology)
  • Brent Waters (theology, social ethics)
  • Norman Wirzba (theology, environmental ethics)

Here is a list of the bios for each person on the team.

Each of us will be presenting our findings in plenary sessions at the conference. You can access the conference schedule here and you can read a brief summary of the content our our presentations here.

A more detailed summary of my own paper can be found here.

Beyond the plenary presentations, there will be multiple sessions of concurrent presentations by other scholars (twenty-two in all); some of these look very interesting. I even know some of these presenters; one of them is Matthew Hill, who has been an adjunct professor at Roberts Wesleyan College and now teaches philosophy at Ann Arbor University. A book based on his dissertation, called Evolution and Holiness, will be published by InterVarsity Press next year.

The papers from the conference (both the plenaries and possibly some of the concurrent papers) will be collected in a volume published by Eerdmans, scheduled to appear sometime in 2016. The volume will be edited by William Cavanaugh and James K. A. Smith, who are the co-chairs of the research team.

I’ll post some reflections about the conference when I get back.

Current Issue of the Canadian Theological Review is the Best Yet

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The current issue of the Canadian Theological Review, the journal of the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association (CETA), is now at press and should be ready shortly.

The issue consists of five papers that were presented at the Fall 2013 CETA theology conference held at Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, NY, plus another paper that wasn’t presented at the conference. In my opinion, this is the best issue of the journal yet. The papers, though diverse, are uniformly thought-provoking and insightful.

This is the lineup of articles:

  • J. Gerald Janzen, “Ecce Homo: The Servant of YHWH as Imago Dei in Second Isaiah”
  • Steven Bouma-Prediger, “Eschatology Shapes Ethics: New Creation and Christian Ecological Virtue Ethics”
  • C. Cord Sullivan, “Introducing the Incarnate Christ: How John’s Logos Theology Sets the Stage for the Narrative Development of Jesus’s Identity”
  • James Pedlar, “‘His Mercy is Over All His Works’: John Wesley’s Mature Vision of New Creation”
  • Andrew Van’t Land, “(Im)Peccability amid the Powers: Christ’s Sinlessness in a Culture of Sinful Systems”
  • Anthony G. Siegrist, “Moral Formation and Christian Doctrine: ‘The Conjunction against Which We Must Now Struggle’”

Old Testament scholar Gerry Janzen engages in a superb intertextual study of the Servant of YHWH in Deutero-Isaiah to illustrate the profound theology articulated in this figure; the Servant is both the human image of YHWH (even in his suffering) and the alternative to Babylonian idols (false images).

Theologian and ethicist Steve Bouma-Prediger asks what sort of virtues we need in order to manifest the Bible’s eschatological vision of a new creation; his unpacking of this biblical vision and his interaction with the field of ecological virtue ethics provides an excellent grounding for contemporary earthkeeping or creation care.

Cord Sullivan, graduate student at Northeastern Seminary, shares part of his thesis research, illuminating the background to the Logos theology of John’s Prologue by recourse to the distinctive use of memra (Aramaic for “word”) in Jewish Targums; this background then becomes the clue to the unity between the Prologue and the rest of the Fourth Gospel (an issue that has been contested in Johannine scholarship).

The paper by James Pedlar, who holds the chair of Wesley Studies at Tyndale in Toronto, is a detailed exposition of John Wesley’s mature understanding of the redemption of creation; by examining a series of relevant primary texts Pedlar clarifies Wesley’s vision of God’s love for all creatures.

The paper by Drew Van’t Land (student at the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto) won the CETA theology award for best graduate student paper. Van’t Land addresses the knotty problem of how we can understand Jesus’s sinlessness given what we know of systemic evil; how did Jesus (if he was truly human) avoid being conformed to the pre-existing societal corruption he was born into? His concluding exegesis of Jesus’s two visits to the Jerusalem temple constitutes an enlightening exploration of the paper’s central theological claims.

Theologian Anthony Siegrist addresses how we get from the truth of doctrine to ethics, arguing these are not two separate categories (as often conceptualized), but that doctrine is meant to be morally formative; his analysis of the role of teachers in the process of communicating biblical truth for life-change is both insightful and encouraging to those who embrace this calling.

These articles are followed by a series of in-depth book reviews.

This issue of the Canadian Theological Review is currently at press and will be mailed out shortly. If you are not a CETA member, but would like to purchase a copy, please check out contact information for the journal on the CETA website.

Two other issues of the journal are currently being worked on, one incorporating papers from the Canadian Theological Society meeting given at the 2014 Congress at Brock University, the other showcasing papers from the Fall 2014 CETA conference at Wycliffe College on evangelical feminism.

The Canadian Theological Review is actively seeking submissions of both articles and book reviews for future issues.

Preparation in Heaven for Revelation on Earth – The “Apocalyptic” Pattern

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Today Baker Academic began their weekly series of blog posts “Beyond the Book.” Each week during March I will be discussing interesting things I learned about eschatology while working on A New Heaven and a New Earth. My first post, Preparation in Heaven for Revelation on Earth – The “Apocalyptic” Pattern, focuses on how I have come to interpret the many “heaven” passages in the New Testament, which seem to be associated with the Christian hope.

This is a very short post, which just scratches the surface of the topic. The full discussion can be found in chapter 10 of my eschatology book.

Also, as part of this series Baker is giving away three copies of A New Heaven and a New Earth. The winners will be announced at the end of the month, and you can enter here.