Book Announcement: Evangelical Calvinism
Wipf and Stock has just released Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church, edited by Myk Habets and Bobby Grow. You’ll want to get your hands on this for the sake of chapter 3, written by yours truly – no, seriously all the contributions are very well written and thought provoking. The book features several up-and-comers and a few tried-and-truers in the theological world outlining a shared “mood” of Reformed thinking that, to put it over simply, is less sympathetic to the cannons of Dort and Westminster (at least for contemporary relevance) than the Scotts Confession and the more recent developments brought about by Barth, Torrance, and others.
It would be great if we could get a copy of the book in the hands of some of the other Out-of-Bounds-ers to get their thoughts….
Here is the table of contents:
Prologue: Union in Christ: A Declaration for the Church. Andrew Purves and Mark Achtemeier
Introduction
1: Theologia Reformata et Semper Reformanda. Towards a Definition of Evangelical Calvinism. Myk Habets and Bobby Grow
Part 1: Prolegomena – Historical Theology
2: The Phylogeny of Calvin’s Progeny: A Prolusion. Charles Partee
3: The Depth Dimension of Scripture: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Calvinism. Adam Nigh
4: Analogia Fidei or Analogia Entis: Either Through Christ or Through Nature. Bobby Grow
5: The Christology of Vicarious Agency in the Scots Confession According to Karl Barth. Andrew Purves
Part 2: Systematic Theology
6: Pietas, Religio, and the God Who Is. Gannon Murphy
7: “There is no God behind the back of Jesus Christ:” Christologically Conditioned Election. Myk Habets
8: A Way Forward on the Question of the Transmission of Original Sin. Marcus Johnson
9: “The Highest Degree of Importance”: Union with Christ and Soteriology. Marcus Johnson
10: “Tha mi a’ toirt fainear dur gearan:” J. McLeod Campbell and P.T. Forsyth on the Extent of Christ’s Vicarious Ministry. Jason Goroncy
11: “Suffer the little children to come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Infant Salvation and the Destiny of the Severely Mentally Disabled. Myk Habets
Part 3: Applied Theology
12: Living as God’s Children: Calvin’s Institutes as Primer for Spiritual Formation. Julie Canlis
13: Idolaters at Providential Prayer: Calvin’s Praying Through the Divine Governance. John C McDowell
14: Worshiping like a Calvinist: Cruciform Existence. Scott Kirkland
Part 4
15: Theses on a Theme. Myk Habets and Bobby Grow
Epilogue: Post Reformation Lament. Myk Habets
Nice plug, Adam. I agree your chapter is stellar (the cool thing is I think all the chapters came out really good). It would be great to hear what the other “Out-of-Bounders” thought. Exciting times
!
Thanks Bobby. Upon re-reading the post, I realized my self-congratulations didn’t quite come off quite as obviously tongue-in-cheek as I intended.
I can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy. I even like the cover!
Hey guys, excited about checking out the book at some point. Out of curiosity, does the book deal with Letham’s critiques of Torrance’s reading of the WCF and the Westminster Assembly at all?
Adam,
Oh no, I understood what you were doing with your “self-congratulations,” but beyond the tongue-in-cheek, I really do think your chapter is really good!
I really like the cover too; I am happy with how it turned out!
@Shep,
No, Letham’s critique is not covered; although I did do a couple blog posts critiquing Letham’s critique of Torrance’s book “Scottish Theology.” I did read Letham’s book on the Westminster Assembly, right around when it came out. I ultimately think Letham misses TFT’s broader Dogmatic point and critique of the theology reflected at Westminster (Letham gets hung up on a couple of TFT’s mis-steps on the chronology of the Assembly itself, and then I think Letham also over-does his point on the disparity between the Longer and Shorter catechisms, as I recall, relative to TFT’s critique. I’ll have to try and find those posts). At the end of the day, though, the critique (in our book) is made more on Dogmatic points rather than points of history. Our book, though, really isn’t all that polemical (explicitly) towards Westminster Calvinism (although there are moments for some of us). It really is a much more constructive work, that emphasis the positive points of theology that we are hoping to magnify. Adam’s chapter, for example, is a good example; he offers a development of what an Evangelical Calvinist method of bib interp looks like, through a Torrancean lens (but sense the book is made up of many authors, the reader will get many variations and expressions of what it means to work within and from what Myk and I have called an Evangelical Calvinist mood).
Thanks for the response, Bobby. It isn’t a make or break issue for me whether it is covered or not, was just curious as I read through that book a few months ago.
I’m stoked to get my hands on this gnarly dude.
Wow – congratulations Adam! I will read this book with high hopes and charity (instead of my usual rage-filled cynicism).