Theological Journals

Calvin Theological Journal (Spring 2022): in “Permaculture for Ecotheology: An Innovative Experiment,” Troy Bierma involves his readers in “lost time.” Paper-shredder-worthy.

Westminster Magazine (Spring 2022): Dr. Scott Oliphant comments on Dr. Gaffins’ scholarship and humility. We readily concur. Dr. Oliphant got his MDiv in the 1980s as he reminisces.

Modern Reformation (Jan/Feb 22), in “Fundamentals for the Evangelical Future,” Dr. Daniel Treier is over-simplifying with reductionisms on fundamentalists and evangelicals. No sociological or literary volumes are on view for these complexities.

Modern Reformation (May/June 2022): Letters to the Editor: one writer complains of Dr. George Marsden’s glib comment about politicized evangelicals and mask mandates with “white evangelicals” going against the consensus of the medical/scientific communities. Dr. Marsden responds, but he fails to answer his over-simplification, his opinion without statistics, and his usual condescension and perhaps embarrassment about being an evangelical. He didn’t adequately answer the objector. Oh well. At least Mike is carrying on the conversation in this warrantable “public market square.”

Westminster Theological Journal (Nov 2021, 317-36): in “William Perkin’s Doctrines of Faith and Assurance Through the Lens of Modern Faculty Psychology,” Matthew Payne continues to describe the fully involved human mind, soul, will, affections, and choosings of the regenerate soul, operating upon monergistically. But, synergistically, thereafter recognizing the values of certain religious exercises. After all, he was a Reformed Anglican with a BCP-background as a conformist.

Mid-America Journal of Theology (Fall 2021, 7-34): in “Still No Peeking: Karl Barth’s Conflict with Federal Theology,” Dr. Beach continues to note Barth’s chicken-bone in the throat over the intra-Trinitarian pactum salutis.

Anglican & Episcopal History (Sept 2014): BOOK REVIEW: Darlene O’Dell’s “The Story of the Philadelphia Eleven. Mr. Frothingman comments on the ordination done by eleven TEC bishops of women to ministry, upsetting the General Convention in Philadelphia in 1974. We would add, a product of their advancing degeneracy in Biblical studies and submission to the Zeitgeist.

Churchman (Winter 2018): BOOK REVIEW: Heinz Schilling’s “Martin Luther: Rebel in an Age of Upheaval,” Dr. Mark Thompson relates nice stories about Katie von Bora, Luther’s wife. An engaging, entrepreneurial, dialoging and effective manager of a household including the family, but also young theologues.

Global Anglican (Spring 2022), in “Love and Sex: Applying the Song of Solomon in a Contemporary Cultural Context,” Emmanuel Mukeshimana’s beautifully exhorts the church in every generation to teach Biblical marriage and sexuality as a thing of beauty and divine creation, appropriate to marriage.

Protestant Reformed Theological Journal 55,1 (Fall, 2021): in “The Neo-Kuyperian Theology of Glory and Reformed Higher Education,” Brendan Looyeng continues his thesis: Barthianism, separation of the written Word of God from the Word of God, emphasis on social reconstruction, loss of the Gospel, emphasis on common grace, and loss of redeeming grace has resulted in diminishment in higher institutions in the Reformed world.

Reformed Theological Journal (Sept 2020), in “We Still Have Faces,” Dr. Glodo concludes his article gloriously on God’s face shining on us. He tells the story of a pastoral visitation, his first, of a woman with facial surgery—sinus removal, partial removal of chin, etc. Hard to face her, but her beaming eyes and governing kindness and humility taught the young pastor to look directly at her and see the shining face of God in her. Marvelous article. Refreshing to find these young Reformed Professors are out-and-about. Someone doesn’t get out too much.

Southwestern Theological Journal (Fall 2021), in “THE USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,” Dana M. Harris set the stage: Hebrews rocks in the NT for quotations, allusions, minor and major persons, and institutions. The author assumes extensive acquaintance with the OT.

The Biblical Repertory/Princeton Review (Volume 9, Issue 1, 1837, pages 29ff.). James Waddel Archibald reviews “A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, including the Biblical Chaldee. Translated from the Latin of William Gesenius, Doct. and Prof. of Theology in the University of Halle-Wittemberg. By Edward Robinson, D. D. late Prof. of Sae. Lit. in the Theol. Sem. Andover. Boston. 1836. pp. 1082. & vo. This is a hilarious review by Rev. Alexander. He does a total take-down of Hitzig of Germany and his willy nilly assignment of Isaiah 13 to a late date. He offers other brief moments of laughter, himself alluding to his own laughter. Graf-Wellhausen in its germinal form is getting buried, even at this early date in 1837.

Concordia Theological Journal (Winter 2020), BOOK REVIEW: Rae, Scott B. Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics. 4 th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018. 522 pp. $39.99 hardcover. The reviewer comments on the theology of the cross versus the theology of glory as distinguishes Lutherans versus the Reformed or other evangelicals. Sheer nonsense (once again).

Princeton Theological Review (Vol.22, No.1, Spring 2019), ), in “An Oppressed People in a Groaning Creation: Toward an Eco-Public Theology of Undocumented Farmworkers,” PTS student, Emily Wilkes…shredder-worthy. She’ll probably become a PCUSA minister.

Themelios (Dec 2021): in “Navigating Empathy,” Jonathan Worthington concludes his article. After wandering around through multiple pages, scattering this and that, he concludes well by summarizing his point—cognitive, affective, perspectival empathy, free of enmeshment, moral relativism, or loss of clinical perspective, is biblical and Christ-like. One wishes he had been simple, upfront and without wandering around the forest. This much: given this scribe’s weakness in pastoral theology or pastoral courses (more academics or all academics), the author has put the issue on the theological map. Have consulted, as a result, with three nurses and one doctor about their training in empathy for medical contexts. More interviews with some MDs are ordered up. At WTS, it was all academics. RES suffered as well. All theology at Villanova. And church history now. Good to see this is on the map. It’s Christianly to think and live “empathically” towards those suffering.