There is a certain honesty in the title I Believe. Help My Unbelief! that immediately signals both the ambition and the vulnerability of Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’s book. Borrowed from the anguished prayer of the father in Mark 9:24, the phrase functions not merely as a rhetorical hook but as a hermeneutical key for the entire project. What follows is neither a defensive apologetic nor a diluted catechism. Instead, Kärkkäinen offers a theologically confident yet dialogically open exposition of Christian doctrine for readers who inhabit a world shaped by religious plurality, scientific rationality, and pervasive secular suspicion.

Kärkkäinen is uniquely positioned to undertake such a task. A long-standing professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, he is widely known for his five-volume Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, a massive academic achievement that few theologians would dare to condense. This book is precisely that condensation, though “simplification” would be the wrong word. What is offered here is rather a careful transposition: the intellectual architecture of a major constructive project rendered in a register accessible to pastors, students, and reflective believers without forfeiting conceptual rigor.

The introduction sets the tone by refusing the false dichotomy between faith and knowledge. Kärkkäinen rejects both naïve fideism and scientistic dismissal, proposing instead a chastened epistemology influenced by Michael Polanyi’s notion of tacit knowledge. Belief, he argues, is neither blind assent nor empirical certainty but a reasoned trust that remains open to testing, critique, and growth. This epistemic humility becomes a recurring virtue throughout the book and helps explain its unusual generosity toward secular interlocutors and other religious traditions alike.

Chapter 1, on revelation, is among the strongest in the volume. Kärkkäinen navigates the post-Enlightenment crisis of authority by articulating revelation as trinitarian, incarnational, and historically mediated. His treatment of Scripture as “God’s Word in human words” avoids both fundamentalist inerrancy and reductionist liberalism, framing inspiration instead as divine–human synergy. Particularly noteworthy is the comparative engagement with Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist accounts of revelation. Revelation here is not domesticated; it remains scandalous, yet intelligible.

Chapter 2 turns to the doctrine of God, where Kärkkäinen’s ecumenical breadth and conceptual discipline are on full display. Rather than beginning with abstract metaphysical attributes, he situates Christian talk of God within the lived realities of religious plurality and philosophical contestation. Classical trinitarian theology is presented not as an inherited formula in need of defense, but as Christianity’s most daring and constructive proposal about ultimate reality: that God’s being is irreducibly relational, communicative, and self-giving.

What gives this chapter its distinctive force is the sustained comparative engagement. Jewish covenantal monotheism, Islamic tawḥīd, and Buddhist non-theism are treated not as foils but as serious theological interlocutors. Kärkkäinen responds to Islamic critiques of the Trinity not defensively but by clarifying how, in Christian theology, relationality does not dilute divine unity but intensifies it. Likewise, his engagement with Buddhist critiques of personal theism exposes how deeply Christian claims about God are bound to incarnation, history, and relational love rather than metaphysical abstraction.

In Chapter 3, creation is explored in sustained conversation with the natural sciences. Kärkkäinen affirms evolutionary accounts without surrendering theological claims about divine purpose, goodness, and providence. Creation is not treated as a closed past event but as an ongoing, Spirit-sustained reality. The chapter’s refusal to pit faith against science gives it particular resonance for readers formed by contemporary cosmology.

Chapter 4 addresses theological anthropology, asking what it means to be human in light of evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and cultural diversity. Kärkkäinen’s insistence on the imago Dei as relational and dynamic allows him to integrate scientific insights while retaining moral and theological depth. His engagement with Buddhist and Hindu views of the self is especially illuminating, clarifying both points of convergence and irreducible difference.

Christology, the focus of Chapter 5, is treated with careful balance. Kärkkäinen affirms classical Chalcedonian orthodoxy while exploring how Christ can be meaningfully confessed in religiously plural contexts. He resists both relativism and triumphalism, presenting Christ as uniquely revelatory and salvific without reducing other religious figures to mere negations. The chapter models a Christology confident enough to listen and humble enough to learn.

Chapter 6 deepens this trajectory by interpreting reconciliation through a plurality of atonement motifs rather than a single controlling theory. This integrative approach reflects both biblical diversity and pastoral sensitivity, particularly in a global context marked by violence, injustice, and historical trauma.

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, explored in Chapter 7, bears the marks of Kärkkäinen’s Pentecostal formation without becoming sectarian. The Spirit is presented as active not only in the church but in creation, culture, and beyond ecclesial boundaries. This expansive pneumatology reinforces the book’s overarching vision of a God who remains dynamically engaged with the world.

Chapter 8 addresses salvation with notable restraint. Kärkkäinen maps the theological options regarding exclusivity, inclusivity, and hope without forcing premature resolution. Salvation remains decisively grounded in Christ, yet its ultimate scope is entrusted to divine mercy rather than theological anxiety.

Ecclesiology, the subject of Chapter 9, is framed in explicitly public and pneumatological terms and speaks with particular force to ongoing conversations in Pentecostal public theology. The church is not imagined as a protected enclave nor as a moral lobby, but as a Spirit-constituted communion whose very existence is itself a form of public witness. Kärkkäinen resists both withdrawal and domination, articulating instead a vision of the church as porous yet identifiable, hospitable yet disciplined — a communio sanctorum sent into the world without being absorbed by it. Particularly significant is his engagement with secularism and post-secularity, where the church is called neither to nostalgia for Christendom nor to anxious relevance-seeking, but to patient, Spirit-led presence. For Pentecostal readers attentive to the public implications of ecclesiology, this chapter offers a compelling reminder that charismatic vitality and communal formation belong together.

The brief epilogue returns to the book’s governing prayer. Faith, Kärkkäinen reminds us, is always accompanied by questions, and theology at its best does not silence them but teaches believers how to live with them faithfully.

In an age marked by polarized certainties and shallow dismissals, Kärkkäinen offers something quieter and more demanding: a theology that believes deeply, listens carefully, and hopes patiently — refusing to confuse faith with the absence of questions. That may be this book’s most timely gift.

Reviewed by Ciprian Gheorghe-Luca

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781725276673/i-believe-help-my-unbelief/

Trinity Western University (Langley, British Columbia) Canadian research chair of Interpretation, Religion and Culture, Jens Zimmermann, argues that mainstream discourses on humanism are grounded in the religious reality of Christianity. He further proposes to read Christian humanism as the root of the western cultural heritage. With sources from the Greco-Roman antecedents, patristic, medieval, renaissance, and post-renaissance thinkers (chapters two and three) he corrects the dominant reading of humanism as an anti-Christian project of secularism in western intellectual history, especially found in the works of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Levinas, and Gianni Vattimo. These later thinkers were the focus of chapters four and five, even as Zimmermann also re-reads Marion’s phenomenology in light of Thomist and Barthian ontological emphasis, and with insights also to correct the works of contemporary philosophical hermeneuticians such as Richard Kearney and John Caputo in chapter five. Significant personalities mentioned in chapters two and three include Jesus Christ, Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, Vico, Dilthey, and Gadamer. Chapter one provides an overlay of the current malaise of secularized western culture and its recent continental proposal about the return of religion, and argues that the exhaustion of secularism is because western civilization has cast aside its Christian roots. Theologians of culture would want to pay attention to the final chapter whereby he explains how transcendence and immanence meet as God’s presence in the world and in the church, with the Eucharist and the Sacrament of the Word understood as the heart of the Church and of incarnational humanism. Apologists and church leaders will find this publication a helpful reference, if they are not familiar with the primary canvass of secular humanism in western philosophy. Students in the philosophy of culture, cultural theological anthropology, or the ideological engagement of gospel and culture may find the introduction a good preliminary review. I suspect that scholars of religious interdisciplinarity would find the publication too concise, unless they read it with its companion-volume, Humanism and Religion (Oxford University Pres, 2012).

Protest against Ahok on March 31, 2017.
Image: Cahaya Maulidian / Wikimedia Commons

The southeast Asian country is home to the world’s largest Muslim population and has not allowed Saudi Arabia’s intolerant Wahhabism to take root. It’s not only tolerant and plural, but also a large functioning, stable democracy unlike any other country in the Muslim world. It’s a country whose religious expressions are not a top-down phenomenon.

Under the authoritarian President Suharto’s New Order regime from 1966 to 1998, Indonesia was equally moderate and tolerant but without religious freedom. Islamist groups were not allowed to function. While the process of Reformasi (reformation) that began after the fall of Suharto opened the gates for radicals to preach their versions of Islam and Islamist ideologies, the roughly 250 million people in the archipelago have largely shunned Wahhabism for about two decades.

However, Ahok’s conviction and sentencing based on a video that showed him speaking out of context about a verse in the Quran, could be a turning point for the country. It represents the biggest breakthrough in the ongoing efforts of the Indonesian cleric Muhammad Rizieq Shihab, who mobilised massive protests against Ahok, to turn the country towards conservatism.

It’s not surprising that Shihab, who leads the radical organization Islamic Defenders Front, locally known as FPI, is currently in Saudi Arabia. He fled Indonesia to avoid his arrest after a pornography-related case was filed against him. Ironically, his group has been opposing prostitution, gambling and bars to cleanse Indonesia of “sin.”

The FPI, which targets liberal Muslims, Ahmadiyah and Shia mosques, churches and embassies of countries that it perceives to be hostile towards Islam, was founded in 1998. It has managed to gain about 200,000 members. The number is miniscule compared to the membership of moderate and pluralistic Muslim groups Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, which oppose attempts to spread Wahhabism in Indonesia and claim to have 50 million and 29 million followers respectively. However, the head count estimates or claims are neither a major concern nor any consolation.

Despite being seen as a negligible minority, Islamist groups have been able to flout local laws by physically attacking minorities and collecting protection money from the entertainment industry. More importantly, they have now been able to cause the defeat of a popular official, Ahok, by making his religious and ethnic identity an issue in the recent gubernatorial election. Furthermore, they managed to get the court’s endorsement of their narrative of blasphemy, which includes the assertion that non-Muslims should not be allowed to comment on the Quran’s interpretation. In the verdict against Ahok, a judge quoted a verse from the Quran (Al-Maidah 51) which purports to suggest that Muslims should not elect non-Muslim leaders.

Tony Richie Summarizes and Reflects on Special White House Convening: “Celebrating and Protecting America’s Tradition of Religious Pluralism”

On Thursday, December 17th from 1:00-4:30 PM the White House conducted a special convening on “Celebrating and Protecting America’s Tradition of Religious Pluralism.”[1] Participation was by White House invitation only. Two Church of God ministers, Cheryl Bridges Johns and Tony Richie, were among those involved. Johns and her husband, Jackie, pastor New Covenant in Cleveland, Tennessee while Richie and his wife, Sue, pastor New Harvest in Knoxville, Tennessee. Johns is Robert E. Fisher Professor of Spiritual Renewal and Christian Formation at Pentecostal Theological Seminary. Richie is Adjunct Professor of Historical and Doctrinal Theology at Pentecostal Theological Seminary. Steven D. Martin, Director of Communications and Development for the National Council of Churches, was instrumental in effecting this significant invitation for these two Pentecostals.

The meeting was sponsored by the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. It focused on the deep American traditions of religious inclusion, freedom, and cooperation among those with different beliefs. Officials discussed steps they take to promote and protect these traditions. Attendees had the opportunity to discuss efforts to carry these traditions forward in positive modes. Devotees from the major faith traditions participated.

The day’s sessions were moderated by Melissa Rogers, Special Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She insisted that, “There are no second class faiths in the United States of America.” However, Rogers also admitted “We have not always lived up to our ideals.” Remarks setting a tone of sober discussion with serious political overtones were made by Cecilia Muñoz, Assistant to the President, Director of Domestic Policy Council; Amy Pope, Deputy Homeland Security Advisor and Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security; and Vanita Gupta, Principle Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice.

Robby Jones, Chief Executive Officer of the Public Religion Research Institute, presented recent data describing the United States as an increasingly plural nation in terms of its religious population. He submitted that religious diversity is in line with our nation’s history. However, the US has never before experienced the high level of diversity it does now. Yet most people (including atheists) still have small friendship circles including only or almost only their own faith group. The least levels of interaction in the US appear to be in the geographical South (the Bible Belt) and Midwest (the Heartland), apparently because of lower levels of religious diversity than the overall national average. Nevertheless, white Evangelicals appear to be a prominent group expressing mistrust and suspicion of religious others. Tennessee is frequently cited as a key battleground state in the fight for freedom of religion. Accordingly, both challenges and opportunities arise. In a word, more interreligious interaction is needed at communal and individual levels.

Has Christianity ever found itself in a world full of competing religions and cultures? What can we learn from how those followers of Jesus acted in their times? Should we hope for the same kinds of outcomes?

We are presently concerned with the relationship of our faith to the other religions of the world, especially with Islam and a newly radicalized Hinduism. Except for Islam and a radicalized Hinduism, this is nothing new for Christians. Jesus was born into a religiously pluralistic world; much more, the first Christians, as acknowledged by D.A. Carson in his The Gagging of God, “not only lived in a pluralistic world, but they operated from a base of perceived inferiority.”¹

For a visitor from the middle of the third century, it is déjà vu. All of the religions of that time are here and every one touting tolerance while displaying an intolerance of its own. There is an added feature not around in the third century, Islam and its Moslem adherents.

One of the Severan emperors, Alexander Severus, went one step further in the pluralist direction. In his own private chapel, he placed busts or statues of Apollonius, Abraham, Jupiter, Jesus, and Orpheus side-by-side.² Whatever his intent, it suggested that he saw Jesus and Abraham on a par with Orpheus and Apollonius. That parity attitude exists in the 21st century when pluralists suggest that Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism are just different ways of approaching the same God and, therefore, are of equal value. The ghost of Alexander Severus hovers over this postmodern 21st century. Back in 1993 Richard Unds assessed the postmodern golden rule as “Grant to all religions the same presumption of truth as you grant to your own religion. All religions are created equal.”³ Evidently, Severus thought that way himself; same situation, different century.

With the fourth century, a new order came with a triumphant Christianity—almost. With Julian’s ascension to the throne persecution against Christians broke out anew. Julian, in a gesture toward the Jews, started rebuilding the Temple on their behalf. Natural calamities hampered the project and it was abandoned in A.D. 363 upon Julian’s death. Jovian, Julian’s successor, restored to the Church its privileges. His successor, Constantius, closed all pagan temples.

An Ethical Approach

More of a practical guide than a theological statement, “Recommendations for Conduct” outlines “A Basis for Christian Witness”. This is the most consistently biblical section, and primarily upholds mission as a participation in the mission of God and obedience to the example of Jesus and the early church with a strong emphasis on ethical behavior and responsibility.³ The document also details “Principles” of Christian conduct in bearing witness to the gospel: “Acting in God’s love,” “Imitating Jesus Christ,” “Christian virtues,” “Acts of service and justice,” “Discernment in ministries of healing,” “Rejection of violence,” “Freedom of religion and belief,” “Mutual respect and solidarity,” “Respect for all people,” “Renouncing false witness,” “Ensuring personal discernment,” and “Building interreligious relationships.” True to its subtitle, it also suggests “Recommendations” for guiding relationships between Christians and others as Christians respond to God’s call to do mission: “study” the critical issues involved, “build” relationships of respect and trust, “encourage” Christians to strengthen their own religious identity and faith, “cooperate” with other religious communities for justice and the common good, “call” on governments to respect religious freedom, and “pray” for all neighbors.

“Recommendations for Conduct” ends with an “Appendix” describing the background and process of its origin and development over the last five years. As a participant from beginning to end in that process, I understand that this background is essential for appreciating many of the nuances of the statements of this document. Also, it would be a mistake to divorce the content and tone of “Recommendations for Conduct” from the clear purpose statement in the “Preamble”.

The purpose of this document is to encourage churches, church councils and mission agencies to reflect on their current practices and to use the recommendations in this document to prepare, where appropriate, their own guidelines for their witness and mission among those of different religions and among those who do not profess any particular religion. It is hoped that Christians across the world will study this document in the light of their own practices in witnessing to their faith in Christ, both by word and deed.

Early Response

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future

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

A Review Essay of Lesslie Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.

“Pluralist!” “Postmodern!” Lately these two terms are increasingly, and sometimes carelessly, bandied about as especially descriptive of the present age. They signify such complex concepts that sometimes even defining the terminology can be difficult. To make matters even more intimidating for many of us, pluralism and postmodernism also exist in both religious and secular forms with widely variant philosophical, political, and theological schools of thought and levels of radicality. In fact, they may be descriptive of an even deeper seated condition of being post-Christian. “Post-Christian” describes a personal or societal world view no longer rooted in the language and assumptions of Christianity, though it previously originated and existed in, and thus emerged from, that environment. Importantly, a wide range of continuing attitudes from open embrace to complete exclusion exist toward Christianity itself.¹ Yet the basic meaning of pluralism and postmodernism is understood easily enough. “Pluralism” at its most fundamental level simply observes the fact “that there is an actual plurality of religious and other beliefs, practices, and so on in the world.” It proceeds from that point to varying degrees of representation either embracing or eschewing implications of that acknowledgment.² “Postmodernism” essentially identifies a disposition questioning the Enlightenment/Modernist argument for the sovereignty and ubiquity of reason as being reductionist at best and dismissive of or skewed against other important elements of reality (e.g., imagination, intuition, tradition) at worst. Again, it proceeds from that point to varying degrees of representation either embracing or eschewing implications of that acknowledgment.³ Christians are currently divided about the consequences of these paradigmatic developments. Some are hopeful about possibilities while others are fearful of pitfalls.⁴ At this point, humbly admitting that I’m not an expert or authority in these matters may be helpful; at least, it will certainly be honest. I’m more or less a typical pastor and preacher struggling to make sense out of today’s world. I suppose that is why I find Newbigin so challenging and stimulating.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Eerdmans, 1989), 264 pages, ISBN 9780802804266.

Lesslie Newbigin (1909-98) was truly one of the towering figures of the twentieth century when it comes to the theory and practice of Christian mission. And this book is his now classic contribution to that increasingly complex and controversial endeavor. A native of Great Britain educated at Cambridge, as a young man he was converted from agnosticism to Christianity when he saw a vision of a huge cross touching heaven and earth. A man of boundless energy and profound intellect, Newbigin then spent nearly four decades as a missionary in India, also building a lasting reputation as a great ecumenical leader. Although he himself humbly claims to be only “a pastor and preacher” he is often hailed by others as a scholar and thinker.⁵ The Gospel in a Pluralist Society is in fact a clear and cogent articulation of how contemporary paradigm shifts such as pluralism and postmodernism may inform and influence Christian identity and ministry in what is now sometimes called a post-Christian society.⁶ One would be hard pressed to find another book that takes more seriously or navigates more skillfully both commitment to historic Christianity and engagement of contemporary cultural contexts. It is a must read for anyone intending to integrate those same ideas today. At times provocative, always informative, seriously studying it promises to be potentially transformative. Therefore, be warned: one reads at a certain (worthwhile) risk!

Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism: The Challenge to Christian Faith & Mission (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 368 pages.

Netland capably considers all the angles for a thorough study achieving an informed, sophisticated, and faithfully Evangelical theology of religions. This is a must read for anyone seriously studying theology of religions within the bounds of Evangelicalism or beyond. In the context of refuting radical religious pluralism Netland also presents a viable alternative retaining uncompromising Christian commitment but honestly respecting other religious traditions. He is personally well-prepared for this dual emphasis by a lifetime of Christian ministry in Japan. That he has lived what he writes shows in his work. The Trinity Evangelical Divinity School professor is particularly adept at setting the cultural stage for a deeper understanding of contemporary ideological currents involved in the rising popularity of religious pluralism.

Part One puts contemporary religious pluralism into context. Netland explores changing attitudes toward other religions by Christians, “the culture of modernity” and postmodernism as they pertain to pluralism, the nature of encountering and interacting with religious others, and the religious and spiritual aspects of contemporary culture. Notably, Netland analyses the theological journey of possibly the foremost pluralist theologian of our times, John Hick, as an example of cultural and theological dialectics going into the development of modern pluralism. Part Two constructively addresses issues involved in developing a satisfactory theology of religions compatible with Evangelical Christianity. Now Netland hits head-on questions of conflicting truth claims by different religions, problems in Hick’s pluralist paradigm, and challenges for Christian apologetics in answering issues raised by religious pluralism. He suggests criteria for evaluating alternate worldviews proposed by the fact of religious diversity today. Importantly, Netland’s work is not only critical but also constructive; he finishes with a foundation for building an Evangelical theology of religions.

Netland is an associate professor of philosophy of religion, and this shows in his methodology. His arguments are often tight, well-knit constructs requiring close attention to understand. Usually the reward is worth the work. His illustrations, examples, and analogies help. Nevertheless, this is not merely a philosophical treatise. Netland treats divine revelation as paramount. His abundant, reverent use of Scripture can be followed easily enough by anyone with a basic biblical background. Regarding content, Netland really does try to touch all the bases. One noteworthy exception is pneumatology. Typical of some Evangelicals but increasingly hard to understand in light of the modern Pentecostal/charismatic movements, Netland spends major time and space on Christology, necessary in itself of course, but does not even mention notable nuances an informed experience of the Holy Spirit brings to the theology of religions table. Even when discussing Clark Pinnock, who develops a dynamic pneumatological model of theology of religions (cf. Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit, Downer’s Grove, ILL: InterVarsity, 1996), he misses (dismisses?) the chance to talk about the role of the Spirit and the religions. Given his usual thoroughness Netland’s negligence on pneumatology is disparate and disappointing.

That being said, two things really make this book a standout work. First, Netland’s discussion of John Hick’s pluralism is very helpful indeed. Hick is probably the leading pluralist of our day and coming to grips with his work is required in theology of religions research. That Netland studied under Hick and speaks of him with high regard yet respectfully disagrees with his pluralist paradigm lends his work added depth and dimension. His discussion on Hick really does help clarify several salient concepts of Hick’s philosophy and theology. In the process, Netland persuasively shows where and why religious pluralism went wrong. Second, Netland’s concluding proposal for an Evangelical theology of religions is exceptionally clear, concise, and constructive. His definition and clarification of the theology of religions task, goals, and tools give guidance on a road seriously needing such signposts for safe navigation. His continuing uncompromising commitment to the uniqueness of Christ and to Christian evangelism and missions in the context of theology of religions is commendable.