In his book Medicine, Miracle and Myth in the New Testament, J. Keir Howard has a simple aim, “to apply modern medical knowledge” to the study of miracles and illnesses recounted in the New Testament (vii). His intended audience consists of the modern reader, ministers and students. Howard holds doctorates in medicine and theology and therefore possesses the necessary background to converse about these topics.

Howard writes that disease and pathology have not changed significantly through the centuries, but the understanding of the causes of illness, their prevention and treatment have changed (viii). Consequently, he feels medical explanations are better suited to interpret the miracles in the New Testament instead of what many scholars usually employ—details of magic and spirit possession (viii).

Medicine consists of five chapters, a glossary, bibliography and a Scripture index. Howard’s use of medical terminology throughout the work, which will be unfamiliar to most readers, makes the glossary a nice feature of the book. The first chapter serves as an introduction to diseases and medicine in the first century. In this chapter, Howard introduces the term “abreaction,” defined as a type of treatment, which results in a discharge of emotion leading to a rapid and often temporary resolution of medical symptoms (9). This term is important for many of Howard’s conclusions about the miracles recounted in the New Testament.

In the each of the remaining chapters, Howard addresses the miracles described in the Gospel of Mark, the remaining gospels, the book of Acts and the Epistles. A final chapter is dedicated to medical metaphors and allusions in the New Testament.

One criticism of the book is the absence of references at important junctures in the text. While Howard shares some important background about medicine in the first century, he fails to provide references for this information. For example, he discusses some of the techniques utilized by folk healers, supposedly practiced during the time of Jesus’ ministry (7). One of these techniques, known as couching, purportedly would grant some healing or relief of cataracts. However, the reader is not provided with the source of this information. The entire work, consisting of one hundred and twenty-one pages, contains less than a dozen footnotes.

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future

Professor Carter unpacks what relativism is to give us a better understanding of what postmodernism really is.

Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future
A Pneuma Review discussion about how the church should respond to postmodernism

We are told frequently today that the great problem of the postmodern world is relativism. This problem is said to take two related forms: moral relativism and epistemological relativism. The first says that there are no moral absolutes, no fixed and eternal right and wrong. Something may be right at one point in history but wrong at another point in history. Something may be right for me and wrong for you or vice versa. We have to look at each situation, try to predict the likely outcomes and then make some sort of rational cost-benefit analysis before deciding what course of action is best to take in a given situation. The second, epistemological relativism, is closely related as the actual foundation of moral relativism. Epistemological relativism says that we as human beings simply cannot know ultimate or absolute truth. We are limited by our finite human reason and our inability to comprehend all the relevant facts simultaneously with the result that our knowledge of any given aspect of reality is always partial and limited. Therefore, we cannot have any absolute knowledge. Our very perception of the world inevitably shapes what we perceive and is never simply and totally equivalent to the way the world actually is.

We are furthermore often told that these two forms of relativism are the essence of postmodernism. Postmodernists, we are told, are those people who reject absolute truth and who deny absolute moral values. Once upon a time, Western society as a whole embraced absolute truth and absolute values, but now postmodernism has taken hold and begun to exercise a perverse influence. This is said to be the reason for so much of the moral decline that any observant person can see all around us. Western culture is in decline because of postmodernism, the essence of which is moral and epistemological relativism.

Christians, we are told on the other hand, are people who believe in absolute truth and absolute values. Christians join with other people of good will from all faiths and no faith who affirm that there are certain absolutes to which we all can hold, including a generalized belief in some sort of deity (Theism) and a natural law implanted in nature and conscience by the deity that we can all discover and obey by the light of reason and by the strength of our will as we seek to bow before the Deity and the Natural Law.

Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 207 pages.

When you were a child did your mother ever make you take bad tasting medicine? And when you complained about the bad taste did she ever tell you “That’s because it’s good for you”? If so, then you may recognize a similar response to this book by Greg Boyd. At least I did. Gregory A. Boyd is founder and senior pastor of Woodland Hills (mega) Church in St Paul, Minnesota, founder and president of Christus Victor Ministries, former professor of theology at Bethel College (St Paul), and author of numerous books, including the international bestseller Letters from a Skeptic. And he is no stranger to controversy. For example, he has been embroiled in the debate over divine omniscience as a proponent of openness theism. Considered by some a post-evangelical liberal, Boyd here bucks the tide and attacks the religious right for over identifying the Kingdom of God with partisan politics. While many Pentecostal/charismatics will undoubtedly disagree with much of what he says about specific issues, perhaps they will intuitively agree that he may be right about his main point: Kingdom-of-God citizens ought to be dramatically different from kingdom-of-the-world citizens in their approach to power.

Boyd begins by explaining how this particular book arose out of a split in his Woodland Hills congregation over a series of sermons he preached about religion and politics. His central thesis is that American Evangelicalism is “guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry.” Then he argues that the kingdom of this world is a “power over” kingdom exercising rule over others as exemplified in human governments and nations, which are to a large extent diabolically backed, while the Kingdom of God is a “power under” kingdom practicing submission as exemplified in the cross. Their stark contrast calls for Christians to make a clear choice. Next he argues that Kingdom-of-God citizens ought to be more concerned with keeping their kingdom holy than gaining political clout. He chides the Church for behaving more like “conquering warlords” than “resident aliens,” that is, for a history of militancy, and insists the “taking America back for God” ideology is misguided and mistaken. For him the country never has been Christian, and probably should not be so anyway. This explains his title and recurring theme on “the myth of a Christian nation.” For him, the idea of America being Christian in anything but the most general sense is a foul fabrication of a national civil religion designed to get the people to do the government’s self-serving will for supposedly altruistic purposes. And he really becomes inflamed on “chief sinners” acting as “moral guardians.” In his judgment the Church has little or no business concerning itself with issues of national morality. Christians who speak out against abortion or gay rights are simply exposing themselves and the Church to charges of hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Boyd concludes the book with an argument that under no conditions could a Christian justifiably participate in any form of violence. That would exchange the “power under” Kingdom of God for a “power over” kingdom of this world. Not only does he prohibit participation in war, but also any level of membership in the military or the right to defend one’s own life and family—though he admits to a personal struggle on this last issue.