Why does God use fallen, broken people to speak for him? A review essay by Timothy T. N. Lim about Os Guinness’ 2015 book, Fool’s Talk, and how followers of Jesus can and should talk about God in the public square.

Introduction

How can the vocation and the craft of Christian apologists be reclaimed after decades of lambast against apologetics, as an inquiry of integrity, in the academia and scores of morally-discredited Christian leaders, pastors and apologists in recent centuries? Why bother with defending absolute truth in an age of hyper-pluralism? One professor in an Ivy-league business programme suggests to me that believing in Christianity in an age of science and hyper-plurality is equivalent to holding on to a garbage of past superstition. Many of us can think of highly educated folks who challenge the validity of subscribing to the Christian faith. Can faith in God be defended? Is there still a role for Christian apologetics, which the veteran apologist Douglas Groothuis calls, “a public voice for truth and reason in the marketplace of ideas”[1] in an age of autonomy, sensuality, and plurality?

Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2015).

We mourn, and we grieve. Notwithstanding, I hope to support the credibility of a vocation in Christian persuasion in this essay. For the task, a review of American Christian apologist OS Guinness’ book Fool’s Talk will provide an advocacy in that direction.[6] Although Guinness does not call the project a handbook for apologists, Fool’s Talk will inspire and challenge prospective apologists (laity or professional) to join the vocation, and to pursue their vocation with integrity. The book is as he confesses, the fruit of a lifetime of engagement in apologetics, what he acknowledges as “the fruit of nearly fifty years of thinking, thousands of conversations, innumerable talks and lectures, countless books read, and endless lessons learned [read, mistakes made]…” (p. 255). Its sources are innumerably rich: Guinness’ retrieval of C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer (and L’ Abri Fellowship), and particularly Peter L. Berger (whom he dedicated the book to), and the Veritas Forum, as well as his engagement with ideologies of philosophers, socio-political thinkers, and public intellectuals of various persuasions across millenniums, reminds all aspiring apologists the necessity of reading widely. The 272-page book reminds learners the essence, the craft and pitfalls (to avoid), and the milestones to chart with seekers in Christian persuasion which I will review shortly.

Essence

In a nutshell, Guinness coins “Christian persuasion” as a catchword for apologetics. But do not be mistaken, apologetics is not merely a field that only professional apologists or academics dabble into, but “a lost art” and a core of discipleship for those seeking fidelity in the Christian faith (p. 37). And unlike popular misunderstandings about the Christian defense of truth via apologetics, Guinness explains that persuasion with integrity in the Christian spirit relies neither on techniques alone nor on manipulative tricks and arguments (chapters 2 and 9); rather than working on improving the logos, ethos and pathos of standard courses in apologetics, it advocates providing “honest answers for honest questions” (p.37-38). Guinness urges apologists to attend to people’s heart, mind, and unique concerns (p. 4) while guiding listeners to the five, cardinal truths of the Christian faith reflectively, consistently, and prophetically (p. 26-27). Guinness’ five cardinal truths refer to biblical teachings about creation, the fall, incarnation, the cross, and the Spirit of God.

Persuasion in the Christian spirit, may I add, is less dependent on the agent’s wit and ability and much more dependent (or should I say, utterly dependent) on God who can best defend God’s self and truth (chapter 3) and who calls hearers in providential seasons (chapter 7). Otherwise, aspiring apologists may find themselves blindsided by their intellectual ability, which Guinness has observed: “The cleverer the mind, the slipperier the heart, and the more sophisticated the education, the subtler the rationalization. Erudition leads conviction to self-deception.” (p. 80). Worse still, if apologists depend only on their wit, these agents may fall into “a dangerous game” of playing politics, believing in politics’ power to change society, when they merely join the ranks of ruining societies with their attempts to manage vices (p. 198).

The Craft and the Pitfalls to Avoid

Guinness’ book is filled with wisdom, beginning with what to avoid as he then teases out the craft.

The quest to close the deal expediently by improving the skill and the use of yet better methods and techniques is for Guinness “the devil’s bait” (chapter 2, p. 30). Beware, no technique is ever neutral (p. 41). The “myth of progress” lies beneath the drive (and seduction) to procure the latest fad or to acquire a yet better method (pp. 30-32). Methods are not just instruments to be employed to achieve goals. Method needs to commensurate with what it serves: the message (p. 41).

The temptation to be well-liked, including to put up with falsehood and promiscuity by embracing prevailing politically-correct, relativistic ideologies and the abandoning of moral authority, will undercut the integrity and the message of Christian apologetics. Guinness validates the subversive approach of “fool-making” in Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly (1511) as a helpful paradigm for the present messy milieu. Apologists’ must be ready to be seen as a fool, treated as “fools for God” (chapter 4; 1 Corinthians 4) and face aggression to prick at folly of not believing in God and subvert the pride of the human heart of compromise against God and faith (p. 63). Instead of the seduction of win over the world, apologists should endeavour to prefer and follow the audience of the One God! (p. 70).

Apologists who are skilled in their craft comprehend the “anatomy of unbelief” (chapter 5). They distinguish truth-seekers from truth-twisters. The former will conform their thinking to reality, whereas the latter will try to explain reality to conform to their thoughts (p. 84). Truth-twisters employ one of four methods of “abuses”: silencing and suppressing truth deliberately, exploiting truth for their own agenda deliberately, inverting truth deliberately, or intentionally deceiving others – which increases their capacity for self-deception (pp. 84-93). The unbelieving worldview, in its rejection of God and reality, will always be in tension between truth and partial truth (part-falsehood) (pp. 94). Accordingly, unbelievers will face either of two poles: the lesser travelled and yet more courageous option of struggling with the dilemma which arises when they do not consistently live out their rejection of God, or the more preferred option of diversion (“empty phantoms” or “busyness”) which they would have to create so as to distract and comfort themselves for remaining in their state of unbelief away from God’s reality (pp. 96-99). Skilful apologists diagnosed that the course of diversion is futility and destruction (pp. 101-103).

Apologists ought to pay attention to the gradual and prolonged signs of God at work in communicants: via arousing desires, invoking fears, igniting joys, and responding to grief (p. 136). Working not just with words but also through our lives, skilful apologists invite communicants “to hear, to listen, and to understand these signs and then to help them follow to where they lead” (p. 147); in so doing, apologists help communicants trigger their tastes for the divine in their lives (chapter 7).

Truth, character, and virtue go together. So contrary to negative perception that apologetics is about winning arguments, a cardinal rule in apologetics is as Guinness tells it, stay away from the “deadly trap” of needing to win and be right, and avoid manipulating truth (pp. 170, 185). Instead, let truth itself persuade and indict inquirers (chapter 9). Be sure that we, communicators of the gospel, are “shaped by the very truth that we proclaim”, yielded to “the One who sends us”, and accordingly, reorder our style of communication inasmuch as we work on the substantive contents of our message (p. 175). Guinness raises searching questions for apologists and aspirants: do we love enough to listen, or do we merely love to hear our own answers? Are we arguing for Christ, or are we expressing our need to be right? Are we defending Christ, or are we defending our concerns, for ourselves, and for our standing in community? The caution: do not turn on the heels of the truth we seek to defend (p. 179). Virtuous authenticity sums up the cardinal rule (and by the way, Guinness did not use “cardinal rule” to frame the rejoinder to “boomerangs” and would-be “Judases”).

Continuing with the rejoinder, Guinness’ chapters 10 and 11 examines the often, ignored element that impaired the ministry of apologists (lay and professional): an inconsistent life that masks vices (such as pride and standing in community, which betrays one’s unhealthy self-love) as virtue so as to receive the approval it seeks (p. 198). At a time when Christian advocacy (persuasion) is urgently needed, the “deadliest challenges to the faith” are the hypocrisy, toxicity, cynicism, syncretism, and “revisionist faith” within the church (pp. 187, 210, 225). “Cowardice and compromises within the church” coupled with poor understanding of apologetics have led people dismissing apologetics as “an unworthy and a wrongheaded enterprise” (pp. 210-211). The way forward is then to return and repent from “false behaviours” and “false teachings” inside the church (pp. 212, 218).

Charting a Journey towards faith

Guinness concludes the book with its objective. He writes: “as apologists we should ponder the journey toward faith and know how it progresses as well as its principles and its pitfalls along the way … our task is to be skilled guides for the journey to faith … so that we may each become trustworthy guides to those we meet who are at any stage of their search.” (p.231).

Retrieving from his earlier book, Long Journey Home (WaterBrook Press, 2001), he presses home four stages of “a thinking person’s journey toward faith” (p. 232), which he emphasized is not to be read as either “a new four-step apologetic method” or a “four-rung ladder of ascent … toward God.” These stages are also not a consistent path, for each will progress, stay put, or regress in the searchers’ own uniquely, personal and unhurried pace, and not necessarily in a straight line.

A time for questions emerges when a person’s “previous sense of the meaning of life is thrown into question.” The cause could be from storms and stresses of life, or passages and seasons of life, or unfolding of a grand historical event, thereby leading the person to recognize the inadequacy of present worldviews and so propel the search for better answers. The focus is the source from which the person derives identity, purpose, ethics, and community. The apologist listens to the person’s story with love, and seeks to understand the seeker’s heart-treasures, burning question, and direction of the search.

Next is a time for discovering “conceptual” answers to the burning question. Apologists will “engage in discussions of ideas on its own level” (p. 237), recognizing the critical importance of ideas and worldviews. Once adopted, these worldviews and beliefs, which carry eternal consequence (of salvation or damnation), will enable the seeker to perceive and experience reality in a radically different way. Through comparison (including comparative religions of “family of faiths”) skilful apologists will focus on helping seekers find “solid reasons” for belief, and the “key” that fits or the “switch” that turns on the light to their burning life question. Guinness also registers that issues of human dignity (and worth) and the problem of evil and suffering have troubled many people.

The third stage is a time for gathering evidences or justification for faith. Seekers are preoccupied with honest investigation of truth claims, claims of Jesus and the gospel, and the conviction for believing in the Christian faith. At this stage, apologists are prepared to offer “much needed explanations and caring encouragement.” And instead of falling for what Guinness calls, the futility of contemporary apologetics which fights battles leaning on either evidentialist approach or presuppositionalist approach, Guinness reminds that both spectrums play out in the first three stages of a thinking person’s journey toward faith, and a sharp apologist goes to work without accepting the modernist condemnation of the Christian faith as an embarrassment. Instead, truth carries consequences for life and the “Christian faith stands and falls unashamedly by its claim to truth” (p. 247).

The previous three stages will culminate at a time, and with a step for making personal commitments for seekers “to place their trust wholeheartedly in God” (p. 247). Guinness reminds apologists that this final step however is only half the story as it merely describes reception of truth from the side of the seeker. The most important part is what follows: to pray for seekers to yield to “the Spirit of God… the Senior Counsel and the lead apologist” who takes the lead “in attracting, convincing and convicting seekers,” thereby enabling the seeker to progress from investigating to deciding, and finally experiencing the One who reveals, seeks, and loves the seeker (p. 248). The work of being apologists is to participate in God’s gift of grace with love: “without God, we cannot know God” (p. 248). Without love in the endeavours of apologists, all persuasions, arguments and witness will fail to introduce others to the Person who is love and who so loves seekers! And without reason, commitment will fail to silence “the charge of fideism, a belief without reason and against all reason,” which in no way represents warranted Christian faith that has been upheld by “the most brilliant minds of the centuries”, including “the most brilliant philosophical minds of our age” (pp. 249-250). Here, Guinness unravels one last pitfall facing apologists, the apathetic who presumed that they have arrived and thus showed no interest in an “examined life” and the inquirer who instead of coming home takes their passion onto an unending search for meaning without landing (p. 251). Skilful apologists recognizes then just as commitment ends the journey in search for meaning for seekers, it begins the deeper and more meaningful journey of knowing and experiencing God with us now as “brothers and sisters on the long way home” (p. 252)!

Conclusion

Returning to what I have introduced at the beginning of this review essay, can Christian apologetics and the vocation of Christian apologists be defended after one internationally-esteemed advocate has been discredited and found to be “twice-dead”[7]?

With many books on apologetics available in the market, Guinness’ many rejoinders for Christians living amid a generation given to quick fixes, mass distraction and rapid plurality will be engraved in the hearts of readers, and for that reason, Guinness’ Fool’s Talk can also be read profitably by those who are unsure of where their conscience is taking them. I would venture to even speculate that readers who may not agree with Guinness’ advise against the use of techniques and methods would also have to give due consideration to his subtle and weighty correction unless critics totally dispenses with the logos, pathos, and ethos of Guinness’ plea in the book. To these, readers may also pick out more direct apologetical approaches. The British pen of Alister E. McGrath describes “gateways for apologetics”: explanation, argument, stories, and images in Mere Apologetics (Baker Books, 2012) [Editor’s note: see Bradford McCall’s review]. There is also Paul M. Gould’s use of a web of imagination, reason, conscience, and a society disenchanted with the Christian worldview to create a re-enchantment for Christianity in his Cultural Apologetics (Zondervan, 2019).

In conclusion, apologetics will continue to have a glorious ministry in spite and despite of its agents’ failings, which we all are prone to fail to some lesser or greater degrees. The phenomenon of “fallen” leadership recurs more frequently than has been publicized or studied. Disequilibrium hangs dangerously on the edge of anyone called to public vocations, and if not submitted under the tutelage of Christ and the Spirit in accountable relationships, cracks in a private life risk discrediting and tarnishing the person’s life, work, and ministry besides incurring rippled damages.[9] Still, the future of apologetics remains glorious because its glory rests on the God who summons, calls and invites those who would come, hear, taste, see, experience, and commit. May we hear the sharp, thundering and still small whispers and voice of God so radiantly in an age that is inclined towards the voice of social media, popularity, and power in all its forms.

PR

Publisher’s page for Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk: https://www.ivpress.com/fool-s-talk

Notes

[1] Douglas Groothuis, “Apologetics: Six Enemies of Apologetic Engagement,” CRI, 30 March 2009: https://www.equip.org/article/apologetics-six-enemies-of-apologetic-engagement/

[2] “Open Letter…”, and “Why Make Public a Private Investigation,” RZIM, February 2021:  https://www.rzim.org/read/rzim-updates/board-statement; and https://www.rzim.org/read/rzim-updates/theological-statement

[3] Lynsey M. Barron, and William P. Eiselstein, Report, Miller & Martin PLLC, 9 February 2021: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rzimmedia.rzim.org/assets/downloads/Report-of-Investigation.pdf

[4] E.g., anonymous, “In Defense of Ravi Zacharias,” Mount Carmel, 14 May 2020: https://mountcarmelapologetics.com/2020/05/14/in-defense-of-ravi-zacharias/

[5] E.g., Steve Baughman, “RaiWatch…”: http://www.raviwatch.com/

[6] Os Guinness. Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2015). For a video summary, see OS Guinness’ “Creative Subversion in the Grand Age of Apologetics,” 22 January 2015, at Wheaton College:  http://osguinness.com/video/creative-subversion-in-the-grand-age-of-apologetics/

[7] Douglas Groothuis, “Apologetics After the Two Deaths of Ravi Zacharias,” 19 February 2021: https://douglasgroothuis.com/2021/02/19/apologetics-after-the-two-deaths-of-ravi-zacharias/. While Groothuis faulted Zacharias for ethos (credibility), he recognized the soundness of Zacharias’ method of using logos and pathos: “the 3.4.5 Grid” of asking the logical consistency of a worldview, the factual empirical adequacy of a worldview, and the existential quality of a worldview for living with meaning in life and at death. The arguments presented by Zacharias were not unique to Zacharias, and can stand the test of logos. The intrinsic irresistibility of the gospel is despite the immorality of the human messenger. Rather, by remaining accountable to God and others may we not strike another blow to the truth we submits to and witnesses for.

[8] And with what we now know of his duplicitous life, what was Zacharias’ state when he shared his address at the opening of the Zacharias Institute, RZIM’s global headquarters at Atlanta, GA in June 2018, with OS Guinness and Edmund Chan: did he condemn himself, or was it a cry for help? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6ciUFFINbk

[9] As to whether fallen leaders can be restored, posthumously or not, see my forthcoming essay in Sacra Testamentum 3, edited by Kevaughn Mattis (submitted in October 2020).

Rick Wadholm Jr. shares his highlights and reflections from the Society for Pentecostal Studies 2018 Annual Conference held at Pentecostal Theological Seminary, on the campus it shares with Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee.

The day before the meetings officially commenced for SPS in Cleveland, Tennessee, I took four of my students from Trinity Bible College & Graduate School in Ellendale, ND, on a historical tour of Church of God sites organized by the The Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and led by Dr. Henry Smith.
We traced the early history of the Church of God beginning with the organization of the Christian Union in 1886 at Barney Creek. A mill used to be present at the site and functioned to fund the ministry of R. G. Spurling. We then found ourselves at the site of the Shearer Schoolhouse where an early holiness revival contributed to the growth in 1896. Another site that is marked (though not at the original location even as it is near) is the log church site where worshippers experienced Spirit baptism and opponents eventually succeeded in burning the church to the ground. We also toured the Fields of the Wood Biblical Park (http://cogop.org/fow/) where the Holiness Church at Camp Creek was organized in the home of W.F. Bryant (1902) and where A.J. Tomlinson joined (1903). There we saw the world’s largest 10 Commandments and traveled the trail of markers dedicated to the doctrines and teachings of the Church of God of Prophecy. From that location we traveled to the house where the first General Assembly met (1906) and I posed for preaching (it seemed a fitting pose). To wrap up the tour we visited R.G. Spurling’s gravesite and then A.J. Tomlinson’s home in Cleveland. It was a welcome learning experience for myself and the students I brought along to discover Pentecostal stories outside of our own specific fellowship (Assemblies of God).

My journey with Orthodox brothers and sisters started with Brighton ’91. With assistance from Monsignor Peter Hocken, I put together this first global conference for Pentecostal scholars. The keynote speaker was Professor Jürgen Moltmann and our presenters were Roman Catholic, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and Pentecostal. Since that time, I have never put together a conference without Orthodox participation the most recent being Oxford 2012 that featured Metropolitan Kallistos Ware.

In June 2009, I was granted a Private Audience with His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. One immediate result was the launching of informal talks between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Pentecostals for the next three years. The co-chairs for these talks mentioned in the biography were Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima and myself. I wrote the following in an initial letter to His All-Holiness proposing the talks: “I am emboldened in this quest by reading in your book Encountering the Mystery that Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II broke new ground in the 16^th century ‘Augsburg-Constantinople’ encounter. Dr. Paraskevè Tibbs projects that perhaps Melanchthon himself recast the Augsburg Confession in Greek for the benefit of this significant exchange.”

Bartholomew: Apostle and Visionary, by John Chryssavgis
“Surrounded on all sides by Islam, the beloved Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew continues to impact the world for Christ from his seat in Constantinople, a city central to Christian history.”
Written in cooperation with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Foreword by Pope Francis. Interspersed reflections by: Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Benedict XVI, Rabbi David Rosen, Rowan Williams, Al Gore, Jr., Jane Goodall, George Stephanopoulos.

This journey with the Orthodox exposed the Western slant of all my theological training. Although I am indebted to what I learned from Augustine, I came to thirst being enriched also by Chrysostom. As a result, I have become increasingly aware how mainstream media in the West is quick to point to the exploits of Pope Francis while paying less attention to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew even when the two were involved in joint ventures like the 2016 refugee outreach in Lesbos. This media inequality, however, has never drawn criticism from His All-Holiness.

This brilliant biography by Archdeacon John Chryssavgis is a clarion call for Christians from around the world to benefit from the apostolic and visionary leadership of 25 years of guiding the Christian East by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. The introductory chapter is titled “Just Call Me Bartholomew” taken from the 2009 “60 Minutes” interview of His All-Holiness and so it will be in this article. I was so intrigued by the text that I flew to Boston, MA, for a personal conversation with Archdeacon Chryssavgis. I left that exchange impressed by the scholarly and ecclesiastical acumen of one of the most astute Orthodox theologians that I have come to know personally.

When first picking up the biography, one immediately takes notice of the foreword by Pope Francis. What might not be as obvious is the rarity for a Pope to authorize a foreword. It was also heartwarming to hear Archdeacon Chryssavgis’s firsthand account that not only did Pope Francis agree to write the foreword, but he accepted the two-week publisher’s deadline during the Easter celebration! Pope Francis brings passion to the brotherly love of apostles Peter and Andrew, the respective founders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches according to tradition.

One note of caution about the book cover which announces 300 million Orthodox adherents around the world. As Chryssavgis explained to me, this count includes not only Eastern Orthodox but Oriental Orthodox. It is also the case that their record keeping is not precise. However, Pentecostals are hardly in a position to say much about this having in just 100 years built a platform that their theological significance is linked to their numbers which they reckon to be second only to Roman Catholics. Chryssavgis smiles: “An extra zero for the glory of God!”

Daniel Ramírez, Migrating Faith: Pentecostalism in the United States and Mexico in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), xix + 283 pages.

Why should readers of The Pneuma Review look up these books under review? Although the answers to this question may seem obvious, they nevertheless need to be reiterated: because the center of Christianity has now shifted from the Euro-American West to the global South; consistent with the foregoing, because of the so-called “browning” of the North American church such that the its vitality is currently being sustained, and is projected to be increasingly carried over the next few decades, by migration from the rest of Latin America; and because, for the North American Pentecostal movement in general and the Assemblies of God denomination specifically, one third of all adherents are non-white and one-fourth – and growing percentage-wise as well as in aggregate – are Latino (see, e.g., Pew Research Center demographics from July 2015). Beyond other rationales that might motivate the present constituency, the above ought to prompt curiosity at least, if not a sense of urgency about becoming more acquainted with what Espinosa and Ramírez have to say. To be as pointed as possible: despite their “Decade of Harvest” initiative in the 1990s, the Assemblies of God would be in no less severe of a decline compared to mainline Protestant denominations if not for growth in Latinos within its ranks over the last two decades!

Gastón Espinosa is Arthur V. Stoughton Professor of Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College.

The authors and their books covered in this review are quite distinct. Ramírez is a more recently established academic who is shifting, at the time of this writing, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (their Department of American Culture and Latino/a Studies) to Claremont School of Theology (Claremont, California). This is his first book, his Duke University PhD thesis, which has been substantially revised and extended, appearing after almost a decade. Espinosa, meanwhile, began his scholarly work on the origins of Latino Pentecostalism in the first half of the twentieth century (completing his PhD on this topic in 1999 at the University of California, Santa Barbara) and has become renowned as one of the foremost specialists on Latino religions with more than a half dozen books from Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press, and other prestigious scholarly publishers. From his post at Claremont McKenna College, since 2009 as the Arthur V. Stoughton Professor of Religious Studies, Espinosa’s Latino Pentecostals in America builds on his research trajectory going back more than two decades, carrying forward to the present the more historically focused coverage of his preceding monograph, William J. Seymour and the Origins of Global Pentecostalism: A Biography and Documentary History (Duke University Press, 2014). Both have been participants at least in some respects of the histories they are narrating and thereby provide superb and complementary guidance to anyone interested in understanding further the Latino side of North American Pentecostal history.

Ken Archer

For the Theology Interest Group on Thursday afternoon, Ken Archer presented a paper laying out three decisive moves of the “Cleveland School” as well as four key thinkers beginning in the 1980-1990s (Stephen Land, Cheryl Bridges Johns, John Christopher Thomas, and Rickie D. Moore) whose writings and contributions to Pentecostal studies were the catalyst of this “School”. The three moves were:

1. Pentecostal spirituality was distinctly embraced
2. A linguistic turn to context extradited understanding
3. An adaptation of postmodern theory from Pentecostal perspective was adopted

As part of the distinctly Pentecostal spirituality the foundational significance of five-fold gospel (Jesus saves, sanctifies, baptizes in the Holy Spirit, heals, and is soon coming king) seems always to be present in their work. Further, their Pentecostal spirituality thus belongs to the more Wesleyan stream and therefore also tends to be more Eastern/Catholic in orientation.

The “Cleveland School” (a name given to this particular approach to theology and biblical reflection) explicitly self-claims a Pentecostal identity with even its negative effects. These thinkers and their students are unapologetic about being Pentecostal.  While they were early on marginalized it gave cohesion for the development of a distinct group identity. This group also works distinctly for the Church and advancement of the kingdom rather than specifically for academia. According to Archer, M. Cartledge may have been one of the first to write of the “School”, though James K.A. Smith may actually have been the first to use the term.

As part of their theological and biblical work, those associated with the “School” have taken up W. Hollenweger’s emphasis on the early Pentecostals and their literature as being the heart of the movement. Their work is often informed by an early Pentecostal Wirkungsgeschichte (history of effects) approach which pays careful attention to the early literature of Pentecostals and how they heard the various theological and biblical issues being studied.

Chris Green

Chris Green (in typical fashion) offered a work in progress as one who is always trying to continue discerning. He delivered (part of his) thirty-nine theses on Christology. Chris used G. Hunsinger’s typology of low, high, and middle Christologies as a more helpful categorization that the normal bifurcated low and high categories. He offered numerous points at which he contended Pentecostals have tended (typically) toward forms of Christology that treat the deity as overly distinct from the humanity of Christ. He offered that there is a pastoral danger of an exemplar Christology that sees Jesus as little more than an example to be followed in his humanity. Further, he contended that Pentecostals should not be overly quick to embrace J. Moltmann’s theology of God suffering (see his “Crucified God”) which may simply be a low kenotic Christology in how one conceives of Jesus’ life, but a high Christology for his death on the cross.

Bruce Chilton, Visions of the Apocalypse: Receptions of John’s Revelation in Western Imagination (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2013). vi + 169 pages.

These two books are very different – length-wise, style, and scope – but they will appeal to readers of The Pneuma Review for related reasons. Murphy’s is quite readable but more academic and in-depth (not to mention three times the length of Chilton’s book), and focuses on a genre of literature, apocalyptic, that emerged in the last third of the first millennium BCE and continued well into the next millennium. Chilton’s is in more conversational style, although no less informed by rigorous scholarship, given his previous authorship of over a dozen other scholarly volumes, and covers three times the historical period (the last two thousand years compared to six hundred) while being focused on the reception history of one biblical book. Revelation aficionados will want to read both volumes, since Murphy includes a 35+page chapter on the Apocalypse), although they will come away informed in very different ways.

Pentecostal and charismatic ministers and readers interested in the book of Revelation and in “ends times” interpretations of the Bible will easily be able to follow Chilton’s narrative of how this last scriptural book has been read over the last twenty centuries. His book’s first six chapters unfold: chiliastic (or millennial) interpretations of Revelation among the patristic fathers (particularly Papias); spiritual and ecclesiological readings following Origen’s multi-level hermeneutic and Augustine’s two-cities (of God and of the world) vision; visionary anticipations of the coming age of the Spirit inspired by the trinitarian framework of Joachim of Fiore in the medieval period; prophetic messages claiming to identify the antichrist and other enemies of the true church in the Renaissance, Reformation, and post-Reformation periods; progress narratives developed during the early modern period by scientists like Isaac Newton and Romantic poets like William Blake among others; and catastrophic scenarios envisaged by dispensationalists from John Nelson Darby to Timothy LaHaye, and everyone in between. The final and concluding chapter returns to situate the original book of Revelation in its post-apostolic context and identifies its central themes that have precipitated these divergent elucidations over 2000 years. Readers uninitiated into the history of biblical interpretation ought to come away from Visions of the Apocalypse sympathetic with the various readings given the rationales Chilton lays out in connection to the biblical book, which of course begs the question: why should we prefer any one of these approaches over any of the others. That’s where I’d say we ought to dive deeper into the broader context within which Revelation fermented, which Chilton’s book touches on only briefly given his foci, and for this task, Frederick Murphy’s tome comes to the rescue.

Apocalypticism in the Bible and Its World lives up to its subtitle: this Roman Catholic biblical scholar presents and summarizes all of the apocalyptic texts in the Bible and also from around the biblical world, providing their historical context (to the degree that can be determined) and showing the basic development of apocalyptic ideas. Thus after an initial chapter that attends to the difficulties of defining apocalypse (the genre), apocalypticism (the worldview), and related terms – note then that texts can be apocalyptic in terms of including some of the features of the worldview, but not be apocalypses in terms of the genre – readers are introduced to “proto-apocalyptic” texts from the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament (ch. 2), the biblical book of Daniel and the so-called Animal Apocalypse, which is also I Enoch 85-90 (ch. 3), and the book of Revelation (ch. 4). The next three chapters, for those who are biblically literate but rather ignorant about extra-biblical literature, are fascinating reading about other ancient Jewish apocalypses (ch. 5 on the book of Enoch in its various parts, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and the book of Jubilees) and apocalyptic type literature (ch. 6 on The Testament of Moses, the Psalm of Solomon, the Sibylline Oracles, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs), and on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ch. 7). Chapters 8-11 exposit apocalyptic materials in the Gospels and Acts; in relationship to attempts to reconstruct the historical Jesus (hint: Murphy agrees with those who argue that Jesus “was an eschatological, apocalyptic prophet” [p. 304]); in the Pauline literature; and in the rest of the New Testament. The final chapter is titled the “ongoing legacy of [biblical] apocalypticism,” and begins to do for the apocalypse genre what Chilton does for Revelation. More conservative biblical readers may take issue with this or that decision – historical or interpretative – that Murphy makes, but his approach is fair to the contested matters, and his tone is irenic in presenting reasons for his conclusions. Murphy’s is a posture of faith-seeking-understanding, so that historical-critical perspectives are deployed to illuminate the biblical text rather than to undermine its authority.

The exclusively digital edition of The Pneuma Review, Fall 2015 (18:4).

Some of what you will find in this issue:

Logic on Fire: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, reviewed by R. T. Kendall

That the life of Jesus may be manifested: An interview with Dan Izzett

Veteran Youth Pastor, Jeff Grenell, introduces five keys for mentoring young leaders in “My Ceiling, Their Floor”

Rediscovering Jesus, reviewed by Martin Mittelstadt

William De Arteaga: Agnes Sanford and Her Companions, reviewed by Jon Ruthven

Missionary-scholar Jim Harries discusses the difference between the biblical categories of clean and unclean, holy and common in “Holiness in African Perspective”

Find all of these articles individually in an easy-to-read format on the archive page: http://pneumareview.com/fall-2015/

Full issue coming soon.

The exclusively digital edition of The Pneuma Review, Summer 2015 (18:3).

Some of what you will find in this issue:

An interview with Harvey Cox

Ancient Jewish Cessationists

Scholar Jon Ruthven shares some “hasty, preliminary notes” as he works through “What is Salvation?”

The Bible’s Undertaker: Cessationism in Contrast to a Living, Miraculous Christianity

The theology and influence of Karl Barth: an interview with Terry Cross

Find all of these articles individually in an easy-to-read format on the archive page: http://pneumareview.com/summer-2015/

Full issue coming soon.

The exclusively digital edition of The Pneuma Review, Spring 2015 (18:2).

Some of what you will find in this issue:

Pastor-scholar Tony Richie presents, “An Affirmative Pentecostal Theology of the Miraculous”

An Introduction to Dreams and Visions in the Bible and Today

The Sinfulness and Destructiveness of Conspiracy Theories

Church Refugees: Rob Wilkerson’s interview of sociologist Josh Packard about the people who say they are done with church.

Find all of these articles individually in an easy-to-read format on the archive page: http://pneumareview.com/spring-2015/

Full issue coming soon.

My family and I were in the Atlanta area for a family reunion, and although the plans were somewhat last minute, it was a pleasant way of showing a small measure of appreciation for PneumaReview.com writers. Thank you for the many contributions you all make to this publishing ministry.