Carl Raschke, The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 235 pages.

Perhaps no other word is feared (or misunderstood) by evangelicals in the current theological vocabulary than postmodernism. Read most any evangelical Christian publication and you will read some article or editorial warning about the dangers of postmodernity. For good measure, the naysayers of postmodernism will throw in names such as “relativists” and “nihilists” when speaking of those who adhere to a postmodern way of thinking. Sadly, though, very few evangelicals have seriously and critically dealt with postmodernism and its consequences for theology and the church. The work of Stanley Grenz, John Franke, and Brian McLaren stand out as examples of evangelicals attempting to deal honestly with what postmodernity means for evangelical Christianity. Carl Raschke is another example, although he is by no means a newcomer to the conversation. His seminal work, The End of Theology, is believed to have started the postmodern debate within evangelicalism.¹ In The Next Reformation he continues his intelligent and thought provoking work in postmodern theology.

Raschke’s critique of evangelical theology is at times biting, but one senses a refreshing honesty and concern. The hypothesis of the entire book is that evangelicalism has bound itself too tightly to the modernist “isms,” including foundationalism, presuppositionalism, and common-sense realism. Raschke believes, and rightly so, that modernism is the spawn of the Enlightenment Project and that the idealism and extreme rationalism of that movement have failed and are passing away. On the horizon, or right here and now—depending on varying dates and definitions, postmodernism looms as the intellectual amniotic fluid of our time. Evangelicals, Raschke argues, have been down right resistant to the postmodern metamorphosis in thought, reacting the same way they did to liberalism and secular humanism. Raschke does believe that postmodernism is congenial with evangelicalism and can help the evangelical church stay true to its Reformation roots.

Carl Raschke (PhD, Harvard University) is professor and chair of the department of religious studies at the University of Denver, where he has taught since 1984. In addition, he serves as an adjunct faculty member at Mars Hill Graduate School and is the author or editor of twenty books.

For Raschke, the Reformation triune theology of sola fide, sola scriptura, and the priesthood of all believers (here worshippers) is best understood from the postmodern perspective. Faith is not based on reason or epistemology, as the post Enlightenment movement would have us believe. To the postmodern, faith “Shatters the idols of the age” (114). Faith is not a presupposition or a foundation, but the foundation. Out of this grows the concept of sola scriptura. Raschke is right to point out that evangelicals have too easily equated inerrancy with the Reformation doctrine of “by scripture alone.” A postmodern reading of this doctrine sees that the authority of scripture lies in the fact that it is promissory speech of the Almighty (135). The bible is true and authoritative because it is the word of God, not because it can be verified factually or historically as modernist liberals and fundamentalists like to think. If this is true—and we as Christians, particularly evangelical Christians, really believe it to be true—we will live it out. Postmodernism also provides the church the chance to actually implement the priesthood of all worshippers. Thinkers such as Michael Foucault tell us that modernism structures things hierarchically or vertically, while postmodernism views things relationally or horizontally (149). It is in this setting that all the church ministers to all the church and the world.

Gerald Hovenden, Speaking in Tongues: The New Testament Evidence in Context (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 181 pages.

In this book Hovenden provides a well balanced and informed study into a phenomenon that is gaining increasing interest and acceptance within the Christian community. What started has a distinctive among Pentecostals in the early 20^th century and later spilled over into the charismatic communities of Mainline and Evangelical churches is now the topic of much scholarly discussion. This is something that was rare in the past among biblical or systematic theologians.

Hovenden himself is a prime example of the expanding use of tongues in both the private and corporate spheres of spirituality. In his introduction Hovenden relates how this work grew “out of a long-standing interest” (1) in the phenomenon of tongues. He then goes on to tell of his early experiences as an Anglican discovering and then experiencing tongues. This window that Hovenden has opened on himself gives his study an added aspect of respectability. For Hovenden, tongues is not simply an academic study, although he does top notch academic work on the topic. It is, though, a dynamic and personal experience of the divine Spirit; one that he says is a “regular and … valuable part of my personal prayer life” (1). Academic study that flows out of such a profound experience is a breath of fresh air to an often stagnant discipline.

In this small work Hovenden bravely attempts to establish what Luke, Paul, and the earliest Christians actually believed tongues to be (3). In short he is trying to determine if tongues was viewed by the above mentioned groups as glossolalia, xenolalia, or something other than human language, i.e. angelic languages. He does this by examining the evidence of tongues in the ancient world, both historical and textual, to determine whether the early Christian communities understood tongues in light of what they knew of such occurrences in the Pagan and Jewish worlds. He admits that such a study will inevitably lead to comparisons of the Lukan and Pauline understandings of tongues, although this is of secondary importance with only a small section in chapter 4 devoted to such comparison.

The first section of his book is devoted to ‘tongues like’ activity in the pre- and para-Christian material. This is a survey of examples of ecstatic speech from both Pagan and Jewish literature. In dealing with Pagan examples Hovenden takes the reader through such ancient writers as Euripides and Plato, as well as fragments from the Delphic and other ancient oracles. He also deals with movements and groups that were more contemporaneous with first century Christianity such as the Mystery Religions and the writings of Livy (59 BCE – 17 CE). Hovenden shows that while there is ample evidence in the ancient Greco-Roman world for ecstatic speech there seems to be little hard evidence of such speech that was unintelligible. Instead they were almost certainly in Greek.