Contributors this issue
Timothy Gatewood
David McNutt
David G. Barker
Nick Kavelaris
Esther Lightcap Meek
Joshua R. Farris
Kevin W. McFadden
TEACHING FOR TRANSFORMATION A Conversation with Robert K. Johnston PAG E 2 0
HOW GERMAN APPRENTICESHIPS HELPED ME REASSESS THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION Stephen D. Campbell, Aquila Initiative (Bonn, Germany) PAG E 1 2
WHAT I FAILED TO LEARN FROM C. S. LEWIS Jeff Dryden, Covenant College PAG E 3 0
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Contents INTERVIEW
Teaching for Transformation A Conversation with Robert K Johnston PAG E 2 0
J O U R N A L O F T H E O LO G I C A L E D U C AT I O N
| di · dak · ti · kos “skillful in teaching” (2 Timothy 2:24) editor
John Anthony Dunne
editorial board
Joanne Jung, Michael A. Ortiz, E. Randolph Richards, Fred Sanders, Beth M. Stovell, Douglas A. Sweeney
managing editor
David Bomar
associate editor
Jessi Strong
art director illustrator production manager copy editor advertising sales marketing
PEDAGOGY
What I Failed to Learn From C. S. Lewis Exploring the Relationship between Education and Spiritual Formation J E F F D RY D E N | PAG E 3 0
FACULTY LOUNGE
Am I a Kind Soul?
From Sympathy to Synchrony David G. Barker | 8 ON THE FIELD
How German Apprenticeships Helped Me Reassess Theological Education Stephen D. Campbell | 12
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT ADVENTURES IN ADJUNCTING CURRENTS
How to Choose a Publisher David McNutt | 16
Teaching as Ontological Formation Timothy Gatewood | 18
Douglas Estes
assistant editor
Brittany Schrock Joshua Hunt Fanny Palacios Trevor Laurence Kevin Bratcher, Michael Meiser, Ryan Yoder Bob Pritchett, Dan Pritchett, Scott Lindsey, Nick Kelly
published by
DidaktikosJournal.com ABOUT US Didaktikos is a peer-reviewed journal written by professors, for professors, who teach in biblical, theological, and related disciplines and who help train pastors and other ministry leaders. Published by Faithlife, the maker of Logos Bible Software, Didaktikos aims to provide a forum for encouraging and supporting professors in their academic calling and personal ministries. Didaktikos: Journal of Theological Education (ISSN 2575-0127) is published four times a year by Lexham Press, part of Faithlife Corporation, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225-4357.
CONTACT US For help with your subscription: customerservice@didaktikosjournal.com To reach the editors: editor@didaktikosjournal.com For Didaktikos ad sales: advertising@didaktikosjournal.com 1-800-875-6467 Postmaster: Send address changes to Didaktikos, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225-4357.
Retheologizing the Πίστις Χριστοῦ Debate Kevin W. McFadden | 36
Recent Developments in Atonement Theory Joshua R. Farris | 39 SAGE ADVICE
Epistemological Therapy Esther Lightcap Meek | 42
GOOD FRUIT
We use technology to equip the Church to grow in the light of the Bible. To see more of what we do, visit Faithlife.com/About
Revealing God’s Character Nick Kavelaris | 44
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F RO M T H E ED I TO R
Outside the Classroom
T
oday my upper-level u ndergraduate class on the Pentateuch met outside. We just sat on the grass and the cement within range of a large shade tree and enjoyed the relatively nice weather. Mostly, this decision was due to Covid; I can practice social distancing and teach without a mask. But the students warmed to the idea of holding class outside immediately upon my suggesting it. In this case, it was fortuitous, as we are working exegetically through Genesis 1–3, discussing the tree of life in particular. During class, several of the students yawned. Jokes aside about me putting students to sleep, they indicated later that the warm sun was too inviting and that the classroom may be better for class, after all—even if it is much less fun. You see, we are accustomed to the clean, white, square, orderly, seventy-two degree, hermetically sealed classroom. We enter in, learn, leave. While I’m in the classroom, I don’t often think about life outside the classroom. I’m trying to be engaging, articulate, professional. But I don’t think the way I perceive myself in that hallowed space is the same way that students perceive me. I wonder if the parts of me that I am not trying to emphasize are the parts that some of my students notice the most—simply because it is what they are looking for, whether they realize it consciously or not. This brings us to how Maximus the Confessor charges us to teach well: Let us deny, as much as we can, the pleasures and pains of this present life, and with much supplication, let us teach those in our care to do the same, and thus we will be freed, and will free them, from every idea of the passions and from every demonic wickedness.1
There is an elementary view to Maximus’ argument: we should live sacrificially and teach our students to live sacrificially also. There also is a
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complex implication for modern teachers: we should not confuse a professional lifestyle for sacrificial living. Students cannot easily see us in our life outside the classroom. They cannot observe our denials. They can only hear our stated disclaimers and catch glimpses of our lives as we interact with them on the way to and from class. The nature of the modern classroom allows us to create an illusion of our lives outside the classroom—so much so that the more information we convey in the classroom, the more we can hide the deficiencies in our formation. The greater our formation, the more we can teach our students to be free from the encumbrances of worldly life. From information to formation to transformation, welcome to the latest issue of Didaktikos! We’ve got essays on German apprenticeships and British inklings. And we’ve got a new feature: scan the QR code at the end of each essay to let us know you “like” it. We aren’t capturing any info from your phone—but if you wish, you can add a note to tell the author how the essay spoke to you. So let yourself out of the classroom. Come join us under the shade trees!
D O U G LAS EST ES (PhD, University of Nottingham)
is associate professor of biblical studies and practical theology at Tabor College. His latest book is Journey Through James (Discovery House, 2021), a short biblical resource created for Southeast Asia in English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Bahasa Indonesian. Email him at douglas.estes@faithlife.com, or follow him on Twitter, @DouglasEstes.
1 Maximus the Confessor, On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture 1.2.22 (Constas).
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Contributors DAV I D G . BA RKER
— WIT AND WISDOM FROM THE PEN OF ONE OF THE GREATEST THEOLOGIANS OF THE 20TH CENTURY.
is professor of theology of science at Missional University and has edited and authored several volumes. He is the international editor of Perichoresis: The Theological Journal of Emanuel University, the associate editor of Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies, and an international editor for the European Journal of Philosophy of Religion.
PAGE 8 : FAC U LTY LO U N G E
PAG E 39 : C U RREN TS I N T H EO LO GY
ST EPH EN D. C A MPB EL L
(PhD, Durham University) is academic director and professor of Bible and theology at Aquila Initiative in Bonn, Germany, where he also serves as lead pastor at the International Baptist Church. PAGE 1 2: O N T H E F I EL D J EF F D RY D EN
is professor of biblical studies at Covenant College. He specializes in the intersection of biblical hermeneutics, New Testament ethics, and spiritual formation. PAGE 3 0 : PEDAG O GY
JOHN ANTHONY DUNNE
“Delightful devotional gems!” —Carl R. Trueman
(PhD, University of St. Andrews) is assistant professor of New Testament and director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of two books, including Persecution and Participation in Galatians (Mohr Siebeck), and coeditor of five books. ASSISTA N T ED I TO R
To learn more and order, visit lexhampress.com
J OS H UA R. FA RRI S
(ThD, Grace Theological Seminary) is professor emeritus at Heritage College and Seminary in Cambridge, Ontario. His most recent publication is “The Church and Imprecations in the Psalms: The Place of the Call to Curse in the Life of the Church Today,” in Ecclesia Semper Reformanda Est [The Church is Always Reforming] (Joshua Press, 2016).
TIMOTHY GATEWOOD
is a PhD theology student and adjunct instructor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His work has been featured in The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon (B&H), in the Midwestern Journal of Theology, and before the Evangelical Theological Society. PAG E 1 8: A DV EN T U RES I N A DJ U N C T I N G J OA N N E J U N G
(PhD, Fuller Seminary) is an associate dean of online education and faculty development and associate professor of biblical and theological studies at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. Her books include Character Formation in Online Education. ED I TO RI A L B OA RD MEMB ER N I C K KAV ELA RI S
(MA, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is a licensed and board certified professional counselor who works with churches, nonprofits, and individuals from an integrated Christian perspective. He also is a business development associate for a financial advising company in Wisconsin. PAG E 4 4: G O O D F RU I T
6 | DidaktikosJournal.com | November 2021
WRITE FOR DIDAKTIKOS We welcome unsolicited queries for essays that align with our journal’s objectives. Visit DidaktikosJournal.com/Write.
KEVIN W. MCFADDEN
(PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is associate professor of New Testament at Cairn University in Philadelphia and author of Faith in the Son of God: The Place of Christ-Oriented Faith in Pauline Theology. PAGE 3 6: CU RREN TS IN NEW TESTA MENT ST UD IE S
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E. RA N D O L PH RI C H A RDS
is provost and professor of biblical studies at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He has written or cowritten nine books and dozens of articles. E D ITO R IA L B OA RD MEMB ER F RED SA N D ERS
DAVID M C N UT T
(PhD, University of Cambridge) is associate editor at IVP Academic, an imprint of Inter Varsity Press. He also is associate lecturer of core studies at Wheaton College and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). PAGE 16: RESEAR C H & DEVELOPMENT ESTH E R L IGH TC A P MEEK is professor
emeritus of philosophy at Geneva College in western Pennsylvania. An author and public speaker, her books and talks offer innovative philosophizing “for all of us,” and are used in high schools, colleges, and seminaries. PAGE 4 2: SAGE A DVIC E MIC H A E L A . O RT IZ
(PhD, Seminario Teológico Centro americano) chairs the Department of World Missions and Intercultural Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He also serves as international director for the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education.
is a systematic theologian who teaches in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. He is the author of The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything and The Triune God. E D ITO R IA L B OA RD MEMB ER B ET H M. STOV EL L
is associate professor of Old Testament at Ambrose University in Calgary, Alberta. Her works include Mapping Metaphorical Discourse in the Fourth Gospel (Brill). E D ITO R IA L B OA RD MEMB ER
Now in its third edition, this fresh, positive defense of gender equality brings together scholars firmly committed to the authority of Scripture to explore historical, biblical, theological, cultural, and practical aspects of gender roles in Christian life.
D O U G LAS A . SWEEN EY
is dean and professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University. He has published widely on the history of Christianity, early modern Protestant thought, and the history of evangelicalism. His books include two volumes in the Works of Jonathan Edwards series (Yale, 1999, 2004) and Edwards the Exegete: Biblical Interpretation and Anglo-Protestant Culture on the Edge of the Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2016). E D ITO R IA L B OA RD MEMB ER
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FAC U LTY LO U N G E
Am I a Kind Soul? From Sympathy to Synchrony
DAVID G. BA R K E R | H ERI TAG E CO L L EG E A N D S EMI N A RY
T
he call to kindness is a dominant biblical theme, all the way from God’s kindness to humanity shown in Christ (Eph 2:7) to exhortations to kindness as an important Christian virtue (Gal 5:22–23). As such, for those of us engaged in the academy, the question emerges: “Are we kind people?” Thinking about being a “kind soul” has an important place for us as teachers, advisors, and colleagues in the whole enterprise of theological education. Brian Goldman is an emergency room doctor in T oronto, Ontario, a medical journalist and author of three books, and the host of CBC Radio’s White Coat, Black Art, a talk and interview show in which he explores the modern culture of medicine but broadens his observations into the world at large. In his latest book, The Power of Kindness: Why Empathy Is Essential in Everyday Life, he asks the question “Am I a kind soul?”1 While perhaps an important question for a medical doctor, it is also important for all souls, especially for those of us who spend our lives educating students in biblical studies and the Christian path. He moves through a progression from sympathy, a gesture of commiseration (“Sorry for your loss”) with little sense of feeling the pain of another person, to empathy, the ability to use our imagination to engage the point of view of the other person and to allow that to guide our behavior. Then he moves to synchrony, “the matching rhythmic behaviour between people.”2 He observes
that we see this in two people in a coffee shop who, when seated together, tend to mirror each other in hand gestures and speech patterns. This is the ultimate expression of kindness—what he calls “the superhighway that leads to connection and kindness.”3 The point of empathy stands at the heart of his book, and Goldman talks about three kinds of empathy. First, there is affective or emotional empathy, which refers to our ability to feel the emotions of others. Then he talks about cognitive empathy. This is the ability to perceive and see things from the perspective of another person; it is a matter of the mind. Finally, he brings us to compassion empathy, which takes us beyond feeling and understanding to being moved to help. This is what motivates a bystander in a crowd to help a stranger in trouble. But more importantly, it pushes teachers like us to spend extra time with a student who is struggling with an assignment, or to give a listening ear and wise counsel as a faculty advisor, or perhaps to encourage a faculty colleague who needs care and wisdom beyond mere sympathy. After pointing out some studies that indicate the limitations of empathy, Goldman moves to the full expression of empathy in the term “kindness,” a word rooted in kinship, actions that recognize them as “being like me, and me like them.”4 He quotes Penelope Campling, a UK psychiatrist, who says kindness “implies that people are motivated by that
This is where the heart of kindness lies: in attitudes and actions that are generous, thoughtful, “of a kind, in kinship.”
November 2021 | DidaktikosJournal.com | 9
r ecognition to cooperate, to treat others as members of the family, to be generous and thoughtful.”5 While so much of this seems merely theoretical, I have found it helpful in reflecting on my attitudes and actions as a teacher, faculty advisor, and colleague. Am I beyond sympathy? When a student comes to me with pain or loss, am I beyond “Sorry for your loss”? I can think of many students over the years who have lost parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and even children and spouses. Many students endure difficult setbacks—financial, relational, academic, and, yes, spiritual. In this last category, even in a Bible college or seminary, I have journeyed with students who are on the verge of abandoning the faith or who no longer can affirm the goodness of God. Surprisingly, I find myself being taught by radio hosts interviewing someone who has suffered the loss of a dear friend or family member. Yes, the host says, “I am sorry for your loss,” but then the host asks careful and thoughtful questions about the character of the person who has passed on, the relationship the interviewee had with that person, and the impact the loss is having on his or her life. These are the kinds of questions and interests we need to bring to our conversations with students and colleagues if we are to be “kind souls.” So, I ask myself, “Have I moved beyond sympathy to empathy, seeking to feel the emotions of others, seeking to see things from their perspective, and seeking to act from a motivation of a true interest to help (the three levels of empathy)?” This is where the heart of kindness lies: in attitudes and actions that are generous, thoughtful, “of a kind, in kinship.”6 Finally, I ask myself, “Have I moved to the ‘superhighway,’ moving in some kind of synchrony with the person with whom I am interacting?” While this needs to come naturally and not be something artificial or forced, there is a clear advantage in creating connection if we are aware of body postures, hand gestures, voice inflections, and more as we interact with each other. A common expression describing our schools is “a community of teachers and learners” or some variation on that theme. If our classrooms and offices are to be places where that word “community” (or “kin”) has meaning, Christian pedagogy needs to embrace the progression Goldman describes. It is obvious that we can’t interact this deeply with every student in our classrooms. But there come those times when a student asks for extra help, or a
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colleague or student asks, “Can we talk sometime?”, or a colleague suffers a loss. This is where some of Goldman’s ideas are helpful. Here are a few suggestions to help us. First, we need to become aware that there are steps beyond “Sorry for your loss,” and that we need to go beyond simple acknowledgement. Second, we need to lean into the situation and by all means ask, “How can I help?”—and then give concrete suggestions on how to help in a way that is suitable to the situational context (yes, perhaps a meal, but probably more in the domain of postponing an assignment or reviewing the content of a class the student missed). Third, set a time and place so as to ensure that the “Let’s get together sometime” actually happens. Finally, when we are engaged with someone who has come to us, we need to see ourselves as kin, family—very much a biblical idea, the family of God—even with our students, as well as fellow faculty members. We listen and respond, giving our full attention to the person who is there, and even begin to act and speak in ways that show serious awareness of the person beside or in front of us. Goldman ends his first chapter by saying, “This is not a book about me. It’s a book about us.”7 ’Tis so, and for those of us in the Christian academy, we are to teach and engage with our students and colleagues rooted in the biblical calling of kindness. A kind soul teaches out of a context of kinship and family. As teachers, advisors, and colleagues in our educational communities, as we move through the progression from sympathy to synchrony, we find a path to be kind souls. 1 Brian Goldman, The Power of Kindness: Why Empathy Is Essential in Everyday Life (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2018), 2. 2 Goldman, Power of Kindness, 10. 3 Goldman, Power of Kindness, 11. 4 Goldman, Power of Kindness, 9. 5 Penelope Campling, “Reforming the Culture of Healthcare: The Case for Intelligent Kindness,” BJPsych Bulletin 39.1 (2015): 3, doi:10.1192/pb.bp.114.047449; quoted from Goldman, Power of Kindness, 9. 6 Campling, “Reforming the Culture,” 3; quoted from Goldman, Power of Kindness, 9. 7 Goldman, Power of Kindness, 14.
DAV I D G . BA RKER is currently working on a book titled This Poor Man Called: Songs and Stories of David.
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O N T H E F I EL D
HOW GERMAN APPRENTICESHIPS HELPED ME REASSESS THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION ST E P H E N D. C A M P B E L L | AQ U I LA I N I T I AT I V E ( B O N N , G ERMA N Y )
I
n an oral tradition about biblical theologian Brevard Childs, it is said that a student once asked, “Professor Childs, how can I become a better Bible interpreter?” “If you want to become a better reader of the Bible,” Childs replied, “you must become a deeper person.” To a large degree, it no longer matters whether this event happened the way it was described to me. What it communicates is true enough: becoming a deep person—a theologically rich person, for example—helps with the interpretive task in ways that can hardly be overestimated. In practice, the truth of Childs’s comment is likely to be underappreciated more often than not. What is clear, however, is that one of the chief aims of the theological educator is the growth of individuals into deeper people. John Webster says the same thing of the task of theology generally, but he takes it one step further. “Good theologians,” he says, “are those whose life and thought are caught up in the process of being slain and made alive by the gospel and of acquiring and exercising habits of mind and heart which take very seriously the gospel’s provocation.”1 I believe that theological educators would largely agree with these sentiments; formation in a variety of constructive ways is one of our chief aims. Without exception, however, this formation we foster happens within institutional communities and with certain goals in mind, be they defined ministerially,
missionally, academically, or in some other way. For that reason, our topic of the objectives of theological education will lead us to questions of institutional distinctives we will have to address as well. Educators, I have come to believe, should work within the distinctives of their communities and with a passion for the growth and formation of their students. Our vision for theological education is cast far higher than information transfer alone. Some of us focus on the historical or biblical or theological or pastoral formation of students and communities, but all of us are focused on formation. But to what end? That is the question that my foreign context has forced me to come to grips with in new ways. That is the question I want to challenge us to consider together. I believe our teaching—or at least our pastoral impulses toward students—will be strengthened as we reflect together on how God has been working in another context. I believe that the German system of apprenticeships for secular professions can point us toward a higher vision for education in our religious sphere—a vision that will help us appreciate in perhaps new ways the importance of aiding our students reach their aspirations. Here in Germany, only a third of German young people attend university. To be precise, the figure was 33.5 percent for 2019.2 The reasons for this are numerous, but they include a school system that
Most North American education has standardized learning pathways but nevertheless has unknown learning outcomes.
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Bonn, Germany (Adobe Stock image)
separates students into different tiers of high school based on their academic acumen. Only the more academically gifted students are then allowed to take the university entrance exam (called the Abitur). In part this is necessary to protect the educational system—which is largely free of tuition fees at the undergraduate and graduate levels—from overpopulation, which would strain the state’s finances. A second important reason for this educational approach is rooted in Germany’s centuries-old system of trade guilds. The guilds have always trained their own practitioners. In Germany, these guilds are primarily the craft and labor industries. Roofers, bakers, book binders, electricians, window installers, painters, etc., all have apprenticeship programs to train workers for their respective industries. However, in the German context these apprenticeships (singular Ausbildung, a word often translated into English as “job training”) now include such fields as finance, midwifery, banking, airplane mechanics, real estate, sales, elder care, and many more. Regardless of the field of training, these apprenticeships often include classroom learning as well as
on-the-job training with experienced professionals. Importantly, they continue until the apprentice has achieved mastery. Another important aspect that all apprenticeships have in common is that they are oriented to the end goal. Most North American education has standardized learning pathways (classes, exams, papers, etc.) but nevertheless has unknown learning outcomes. No matter what we tell ourselves, within this model there is no way to guarantee that graduates are competent in their field of study. To put an even finer point on it, a high GPA does not a make someone a good pastor. German apprenticeships, on the other hand, have standardized outcomes and tailored pathways. (This is not unlike the curricula found among the growing number of competency-based programs in North America.) No one is allowed to become an incompetent certified electrician; competency is the guaranteed outcome, and the training can be adapted in various ways according to the needs of the apprentice. This context is important, because it has forced me as a theological educator to have and maintain
November 2021 | DidaktikosJournal.com | 13
a clear idea of my pedagogical aims. Am I training professors and academics, or am I training church planters? To illustrate: someone wanting to become a ship builder does not get an apprenticeship with a furniture maker; both use wood and wood tools, but the targeted outcome is vastly different. The same is true if we turn our attention to the level of institutions themselves. At this point, we might use the buzz word “institutional distinctives.” Our theological institutions —like the carpentry example—must similarly be clear and consistent on their educational distinctives, for this clarity will help both student and institution thrive. This is the message of Mark William Roche in his book Realizing the Distinctive University.3 He argues for the importance of institutions focusing on what makes them distinctive and strengthening those areas. They should focus on who they are and be exemplary at that. Are we training boat builders or furniture makers? Are we training pastors or archaeologists? Who are we training, how are we training them, and for what are we training them? Knowing the answers to these questions is foundational to good theological education in a distinctive learning environment. For example, just as a furniture maker would not take on an apprentice ship builder, a Baptist seminary that focuses on training local church pastors should think twice before devoting resources to developing doctoral degree programs. Religion professors at secular, liberal arts colleges should likewise know precisely what makes their departments distinct and aim to thrive within that niche. These distinctives flow out of an institution’s various affiliations, degree program(s), pedagogical approach(es), geography, human resources, etc. For many of us professors, however, we also will have to work diligently to understand our students’ distinctive goals and aspirations. Should we engage with a student wanting to go into social work the same way we engage with a student wanting to go into academia? Do one-size-fits-all approaches work for these two students? My time in Germany has taught me to answer this question in the negative. As administrators, do we understand that clarity about institutional distinctives and emphasis on formational education begins with us before it is ad-
opted and implemented by faculty? As instructors, are we advancing and supporting the distinctives of our institutions, or are we apathetic toward—or even working against—our institution’s vision? Educators, I now believe, should work within the distinctives of their institutions and with a passion for the growth and formation of their students toward the students’ aspirations. By way of conclusion, let me make five suggestions for possible ways these insights might be implemented practically. First, I have already seen a wider and accelerating acceptance and implementation of competency-based curricula across North America. I think this is a positive trend, and I believe institutions should consider developing competency-based degree programs if that fits within their distinctives, not for purely marketing reasons. Pendula swing to their extremes by nature, but I am not here advocating for a total abandonment of more traditional degree programs. Second, my experiences in Germany have led me to believe that institutions and students would benefit from a greater willingness on the part of administrators and professors to tailor curricula to the needs of students. For example, reading assignments can be adapted in response to a student’s interests or abilities, and some essays could be accepted in the form of a podcast, a video, or a public lecture. The aim is competency not uniformity, and pathways can be adapted according to the individual students more easily than you might imagine. Begin by allowing students to make requests or suggestions. Third, my experience has led me to acknowledge that a greater humility is required from professors; we simply cannot develop competency through classroom teaching alone, and we need to accept this limitation. Students need real-world application and will benefit in ways we can never replicate, duplicate, or imitate in the classroom. This observation leads to two final applications. Fourth, teachers must manage expectations and help foster patience for students in traditional classroom-based degree programs. Much can be learned in a classroom, but a high GPA does not make someone a competent pastor, counselor, minister, or even scholar. The lion’s share of competency comes through experience, and experience takes
The aim is competency not uniformity, and pathways can be adapted more easily than you might imagine.
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time. Finally, institutions could consider developing stronger partnerships with local churches and organizations that will commit to giving students opportunities to learn through meaningful experience. For good reasons, churches are often reluctant to enter such partnerships, but it behooves us to ensure that such partnerships are developed, nurtured, and utilized. My experiences with the German apprenticeship system have formed me into the kind of teacher that seeks to know my students and to know the end result they are entrusting me to help them achieve. My German context has taught me to see myself as a practitioner training the next generation of practitioners and to journey with my apprentices until they have achieved their goal to become competent church leaders and church planters. This context has taught me about the high calling of theological education, that we are instruments of formation and should do this work with clear aims in mind for each individual student.
John Webster, The Culture of Theology, ed. Ivor J. Davidson and Alden C. McCray (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 133. 2 “Educational Attainment,” Federal Office of Statistics, https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment /Education-Research-Culture/Educational-Level/Tables /educational-attainment-population-germany.html#fussnote -1-53432. As low as this number is, it rose sharply in the decade before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. 3 Mark William Roche, Realizing the Distinctive University: Vision and Values, Strategy and Culture (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017). 1
ST EPH EN D. C A MPB EL L’ S research interests include
the theological interpretation of Scripture, cultural memory studies, and the book of Deuteronomy.
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Jesus and the Witness of the Outsiders
Craig A. Evans
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HOW TO CHOOSE A PUBLISHER DAV I D MC N U T T | I V P AC A D EMI C
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his summer, our family got a pet. We had held off for a long time— much longer than our kids wanted us to—but we finally thought that the time was right. Before we made a choice, though, we did some research about what kind of pet would be the best fit for our family in terms of our schedule, the pet’s habits, costs, and more. Choosing a publisher is a bit like choosing a pet. You’re going to be living together, so you should try to find out in advance if you’ll be a good fit. Sometimes, I find that authors know that they want to be published, but they don’t give much thought to which publisher they want to publish their work, especially if they’re a firsttime author. But chances are that you’ve done years of research for your project, so you can afford to spend just a bit of time researching potential publishers. There are several factors you might consider when choosing a publisher (e.g., standards within your discipline, institutional expectations, audience, affordability, and personal goals), but I want to focus on one that’s particularly important in Christian publishing: theological fit. I find that, within Christian publishing, theological differences between publishers are sometimes overlooked, and a theological fit is often assumed. But it’s worth asking: Are you publishing with a press whose mission and identity resonate with your theology and that would be willing to publish and support your work? How do you know? Sometimes, it’s quite easy to discern where a publishing house falls on the theological spectrum. In some cases, a press might have denominational ties or histories that reveal something about its theology. For example, Augsburg Fortress is the ELCA publishing house, Westminster John Knox is related to the Presbyterian Church (USA), Plough Publishing House has Anabaptist ties, and Ave Maria Press is a Catholic publisher. In addition, some multi- or non-denominational publishers have publicly available statements of faith and other documents that might clarify their theological positions on a variety of issues.
Are you publishing with a press whose mission and identity resonate with your theology?
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Even when a press doesn’t have either denominational ties or explicit statements of faith, you can still find out something about their theologies. What has the press published over the past five years? What are their bestselling books? Who are their bestselling authors? All of these are indications of what a publisher values and supports. Here’s a practical tip I often recommend to prospective authors when they’re considering where to publish their work: look at the books on your bookshelf. Now look at the place that most people ignore: the bottom of the spine. What do you see? Are there particular presses that show up frequently? That could be a strong indication that a publisher is important in your field and might align with your theology. To be clear, you shouldn’t expect a publisher to agree with you (nor you with them) on every point of theology. Indeed, many presses intentionally publish a variety of theological positions. But you should have a clear idea of where your potential publisher stands within the theological spectrum and what
stances, if any, they take on issues that might be particularly important to you and your work. Of course, at the end of the day, it’s not just you choosing a publisher. A publisher also needs to choose you, and there will likely be several hoops for you to jump through before they do. But spending just a bit of time finding out more about your potential publisher can help to ensure that there’s theological resonance between the two of you. After much discussion and reflection, we ended up choosing a bunny, Cocoa Bean. So far, he’s been a good fit for our family. I hope that you find the right publishing home for your work, too. DAV I D MC N U T T is currently writing a book, tentatively
titled The Analogy of Creation: Karl Barth, the Arts, and a Theology of Creativity.
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A DVE N TU RES I N A DJ U N C T I N G
TEACHING AS ONTOLOGICAL FORMATION T IM OT H Y GAT E WO O D | M IDWEST ERN BA PT I ST T H EO LO G I C A L S EMI N A RY
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n a time when teaching success is defined by pragmatic, content-based assessment, I would like to offer a different path forward: teaching as ontological formation. Rather than viewing adjunct teaching as a means of content delivery, adjuncts should focus on the task of individual student formation. While this will require a shift in mindset for many of us, it does not need to be an either/or decision. Adjuncts have the responsibility to meet the common needs of all students and to develop them as theologians, historians, biblical scholars, and competent thinkers through the transmission of content, but, more importantly, adjuncts have the opportunity to develop students as people— as individuals living coram Deo. To that end, make teaching less about information and more about formation. Daniel F. Chambliss and Christopher G. Takacs have shown that personal relationships play a much more significant role than curricular or technological innovations in determining the academic success of students. “Personal connections are often the central mechanism and daily motivators of the student experience. A respected teacher who invites students into her home can become a role model for intellectual life. ... This pervasive influence of relationships suggests that a college—at least insofar as it offers real benefits—is less a collection of programs than a gathering of people.”1
If adjuncts want to have a lasting impact on their students’ academic, social, and (I would add) spiritual success, then these personal relationships will need to be emphasized throughout the teaching task. Some students, of course, will reject personal formation. Adjuncts have a limited amount of both time and energy. As such, they will be unable to make significant investments on unwilling students and should not feel obligated to do so. Fulfill your responsibility by meeting the common needs of all students, but focus on those who want to be shaped. There are many simple ways to shape individual students, but I would like to highlight two that have worked well for me. First, adjuncts can develop their students through highly personalized feedback. Anyone who has graded multiple papers knows that feedback quickly becomes repetitive, and some mistakes need to be addressed on a classwide basis. However, as much as adjuncts may want to believe otherwise, some students will consistently overlook, ignore, or reject feedback regardless of the professor’s time and effort to provide it. Others will latch on to your advice and try to improve their scholarship based on your suggestions. These willing students need increased personalized feedback. Rather than focusing on the immediate need for feedback, think of your student’s entire body of work. What mistakes recur throughout all their assignments? What skills
Fulfill your responsibility by meeting the common needs of all students, but focus on those who want to be shaped.
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November 2021 | DidaktikosJournal.com | 19
S QUE
INDS
relationship between the divine attributes and metaphysical truth.
S FO R
M
TIMOTHY GAT E WO O D is currently writing his dissertation on the
N IO
TLES ES S
1 Daniel F. Chambliss and Christopher G. Takacs, How College Works (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 4–5 (italics original).
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do they need to develop to reach the next level of scholarship? Most importantly, what do they do particularly well that should be encouraged? Most of the time, feedback focuses on the negative aspects of the work, leaving the best students with the least amount of input. Positive feedback rather than strict critique allows adjuncts to form the students who will most likely heed their advice. Second, adjuncts can fan students’ personal interests. For example, teachers may recommend sources that are pertinent to the students’ interests. Adjuncts often do not have the luxury of assigning the primary textbooks, but an adjunct who is in tune with a student’s strengths and up to date on the relevant works in his or her field is equipped to point students in the right direction (even if the primary textbook does not!). Additionally, adjuncts may engage students outside the classroom. Emails that offer extended feedback, probing questions, or individual encouragement can go a long way when dealing with students. Send them an individual message offering counterexamples to their claims, and help them identify the weak points in their arguments while still highlighting the strengths. If you think a student should pursue a particular research interest, then communicate that early and often. Keep the avenues of ongoing conversation as open as possible. Since shifting my focus to individual formation, I’ve noticed that a surprisingly high percentage of my students have asked me to recommend them for further studies or job opportunities. I found this surprising considering how little time I spent with them as compared to full-time professors. When I asked them why they wanted me to recommend them rather than another professor, their answers were very revealing. They did not cite my teaching ability or my reputation, and they most certainly did not mention my scholarship or publications (no student is that desperate for a recommendation!). They simply said they thought I was the professor who knew them best. All that was required of me was genuine interest in them as individuals. These relationships have quickly become the high point of my adjunct experience, and the effects will continue long after the semester ends. This is the natural end of teaching as ontological formation.
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I N T ERV I EW
Teaching for Transformation A Conversation with Robert K. Johnston
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lthough students often enter into theological education for information, their journey should be marked by formation, with the end result being transformation. This call to transformation animates the pedagogical life of Robert K. Johnston, senior professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. Johnston has served theological education for the last forty-five years not only as a professor, but also as provost at both Fuller and North Park Seminary. He has written, edited or co-authored a number of books on film and theology, including Deep Focus (Baker, 2019), and is a past president of the American Theological Society. Johnston recently spoke with Didaktikos editor Douglas Estes about the role of the theological educator in student formation.
ESTES: With such a distinguished teaching record, what does teaching well mean to you? JOHNSTON: Teaching has to do not only with s cientia but with sapientia—not only with know ledge but with conveying wisdom. It has to do not only with information, but teaching well has to do with formation—even transformation. I can remember when I started teaching at Western Kentucky University. I taught three sections of Old Testament introduction, and I loved doing that even though it was my second area of expertise. When I stood up the first day, I would always say, “You’ve taken this
course because, in some sense, you know that the Old Testament is important—at least to other people. Yes, the Old Testament is a dangerous book. It has changed and continues to change lives. I’m going to try to teach the power and the center of meaning of that text. Whether you are Buddhist or Jewish or Christian or nothing, I think what you want to know is why this book has been important and transformative in the lives of others. But I need to warn you: it might actually change you.” That was in a state university, but that is, in fact, a great introduction to teaching a book. You need them to know that if they take it seriously, they will
November 2021 | DidaktikosJournal.com | 21
risk transforming their own lives. Maybe that brings us to a second area of teaching well: you need to be both passionate and humble. You need to be able to show that it matters. The teacher needs to be able to communicate that what she or he is teaching has significance for the teacher. But beyond that, you also need to be humble. You need to be able to say, “Great question. I don’t have any idea.” You need to be open to learning. “Thank you for that insight. I’ve not thought of that before. I will remember that.” Perhaps the third area is that good teaching needs to be concerned not only with what it says, with content being clear. Some people talk about that in terms of competence, but that’s only the first stage. Teachers also need to know and communicate what it means, to be able to contextualize it, to enlarge that focus. And finally, they need to be able to say, to communicate, to encourage what that means to me as teacher and perhaps to you as students—why it matters. So that basic little trilogy has to do with any good teaching. It’s not just content. As we know with content being available everywhere, content is in some sense the least important. The content needs to be both contextualized and recontextualized. Both the first and second horizon need to be taken seriously, or why bother paying the tuition? You can get mere content by looking on the Internet.
ESTES: OK, let me ask a follow-up question. One of the common ideas I hear is that students entering today have less information than students years ago about the Bible, about religion—whatever the issue is. Assuming you agree with this, how does the lower amount of information affect students’ formation and transformation? JOHNSTON: I think there’s no question that the
students we get today in seminary come from a wide range of backgrounds, and many of them are inadequately prepared for graduate-level teaching and learning. When I was doing accreditation visits at seminaries across the country for twenty years, I remember going to Boston University. This would have been thirty years ago, and that school was basically spending the first year of the three-year master of divinity program doing remedial work, in order that students would be better able to become scholar-pastors. I understand that reality, and seminaries need to take that seriously. It is not clear, however, how best to remediate. I think entrance exams have tended to be failures.
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How to sort out, or how to refocus, continues to be an important challenge. But if information is all we’re about, we have failed to prepare the next generation of Christian leaders. Perhaps we need to focus our attention on a small enough area, even in our introduction courses, so that the information can be used to consider formation, and it can be presented in winsome-enough ways that it invites transformation as new ideas, new approaches, new questions, and new possibilities are encountered. If we do anything less, we simply have failed the task of seminary education. If I can risk perhaps a more controversial question, I believe the current push toward online education risks altering the balance between formation and information. We are providing students with a body of information and pretending that that is being formative and perhaps even transformative. But, in fact, we have little evidence of that being the case. I’m not against online education, but one of the huge challenges for theological education today is how to create a community of learning. How, with limited resources, can we make the online learning experience interactive and substantive, rather than having students simply filling in the squares and doing their 250-word responses—and not disagreeing with their fellow students because they want to be civil? We need to think through what a community of learning looks like as we move forward. When faculty mainly teach online, it’s not only the community with their students that suffers, but also the community with fellow faculty. How do you create that mutual learning environment when you live hundreds or thousands of miles apart from each other? How do you get to know one another beyond faculty meetings, which have a certain artificiality? At least at our seminary, that might be one of the biggest questions we presently are dealing with. How do we make sure that our community of learning remains robust? I know this is a question not only among faculty but also among students. I get excellent reviews in my theology and film class that is online. The class is really first-rate. Three of us have developed it together—Catherine Barsotti, Kutter Callaway, and myself. But last summer, at the end of co-teaching two sections with sixty-four students, even the “A” students I didn’t really know. Three years later when they ask me for a recommendation, all I have is, “Well, they got an ‘A’ on this paper.” I have very little sense of their being, their person, their vocational intention, their f amily.
There’s no greater challenge than how to maintain a community of learning. That speaks to the very soul of the faculty person. November 2021 | DidaktikosJournal.com | 23
Teaching in person, all of that would have come naturally as I talked with students at break, as I interacted with them in my office, as I spent time getting to know them. As we move forward, I fear that the rise of online learning will reduce seminary education to content and information in the classical disciplines and Bible, and that we will be looking for apprenticeships and church clusters or other means to prepare students for ministry in the church. At Fuller Seminary, where I am, we want to be a world seminary. In the theology and film class I just mentioned, I had students from Mauritius, Macao, Singapore, Germany, Canada, North Carolina, and Southern California—all in the same class. That is simply wonderful. But the downside is that the class can easily become more focused on information than transformation. I personally believe there’s no greater challenge than how to maintain a community of learning. That speaks to the very soul of the faculty person. It’s absolutely necessary for the life of the seminary that education become formational and transformational rather than just informational. This has to do with creating a communal context for students in which they want to learn and in which they are pushed beyond themselves by the gift of others. That can happen in an online context, but I fear it doesn’t happen as often as it needs to.
ESTES: We used to say, “Just because you get a PhD
doesn’t mean you can teach”—and I almost would add, “And it certainly doesn’t mean you can teach effectively online, given the various trade-offs and limitations we currently have.”
JOHNSTON: I certainly agree with that. The diffi-
culty is that most seminaries are small, most seminaries have limited budgets, and therefore, even if there is a consultant or an online learning specialist, the major responsibility for designing the class remains with the professor. And though that professor might be an expert in systematic theology, that professor is an amateur when it comes to designing online courses. Or if, in fact, they become experts, faculty are needing to spend an inordinate amount of time on the process rather than the product, on how you set it up rather than how you go deeper in your material. So there’s been a refocus of energy for many faculty. Perhaps that’s temporary, but that certainly is one of the issues at present. Too many of my colleagues are worn out.
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ESTES: I couldn’t agree more. When we shifted to online classes at my previous school, I assumed I would have more time to do research and publish. But helping to design online classes and learning how to teach online actually turned out to be a greater load—and that made publishing even more difficult. JOHNSTON: Correct, and so we have had to work on how to maintain faculty scholarship. I know that in some of your earlier Didaktikos interviews, my colleagues have talked about the problem with overemphasizing scholarship. I really think that is not the issue in most seminaries. It might be the issue with some research universities where some faculty are great researchers and terrible teachers. In most seminaries, the great majority of faculty take student counseling, course preparation, and interaction with the community very seriously. Where time runs out is establishing a rhythm in which ongoing scholarship feeds the teaching and nourishes the endeavor. At Fuller Seminary, we have just instituted a young scholars fellowship in which faculty doing their first sabbatical (after three years) can apply for a year rather than only a quarter of leave, so they can write their second book. After having done research on their dissertation, many times the faculty person is overwhelmed with course preparation, teaching, and getting used to being a seminary faculty person, and they need desperately to recover that rhythm of teaching and research, with each feeding the other. So we have set this up to help young faculty rediscover the importance of digging deeper into their discipline, even while they continue to teach future practitioners in ministry. ESTES: You have extensive experience teaching
both in state universities and in seminaries. Do you feel that teaching well means something different in those two contexts, or is it basically the same?
JOHNSTON: I think it’s basically the same. A part of teaching is knowing your context, knowing your school’s mission. You obviously have a different set of students in a state university than in a seminary, and your teaching will change in that regard. But you still should be interested in formation not information; you still should be passionate about your subject matter while being humble; you still should be concerned with getting to the power and meaning of
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the material; you still should be interested in being a learner along with the learners in your class; you still should be interested in sapientia, not just scientia; you still should be hospitable, saying “Thank you” as often as you can. In both university and seminary, when I would ask a question and a student would raise their hand, I would often look at the student and say “Please.” And even that small act of hospitality was repeatedly mentioned as one of the highlights of the course when students gave their evaluations. They were being treated as people with worth, with ideas that mattered. Even when students’ ideas were crazy, whether in university or seminary, the teacher’s job was to take that nonsense and make sense of it in a way that encouraged others and created a community of learning. So for all the differences, the similarities are greater.
ESTES: What advice would you give a young professor today about teaching well?
JOHNSTON: I already mentioned the importance
of showing hospitality, of respecting all, of saying thank you, of recognizing the multicultural context of any classroom, of being generous. I think a second piece of advice is that one needs to use a variety of teaching styles. I remember early in my teaching careeer reading the research that came from UCLA, a husband-and-wife team in education who studied teaching effectiveness for years. Interestingly, their data showed that women were much better than men at having a variety of teaching styles. Men, at least in the old days, were more likely to just stand up there and say “I know something, and you need to know it.” But whether men or women, we need to have small groups, lectures, class discussions, use of video, guest experts—a class needs to allow for that variety as we help people learn. Thirdly, I think we need to actively demonstrate to our students that we continue to be learners as well. Part of that is not being afraid to say to a questioner, “Good question. I really don’t know that answer.” It means explaining why and how you changed your mind. It means sharing that mistake you were able to correct for the following reasons. I think maybe, at core, the advice I would give is this: don’t be afraid to give your best wisdom. Don’t hide behind neutrality. Don’t leave it at “Here are options” or “Here’s what other people have said.” Students have paid money to take your course be-
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cause they want to hear what you think. So that needs to be done generously and humbly, but it also needs to be done straightforwardly. Perhaps the greatest gift you can give your student is helping that student to sift through the information wisely, to weed out that which is unimportant, and to criticize that which is wrongly argued. For years, one of the assignments I often gave would ask students to read a certain article and then write a one- or two-page response as to the fatal flaw in the argument. I thought one of the gifts I could give my students was to help them to be more critical in their evaluations, and to begin to look for the way an argument was shaped rather than just to look for the conclusion and assume it was correct.
ESTES: Can we say that neutrality and objectivity are really just euphemisms for information, and that moving on to formation requires much more than that?
JOHNSTON: Yes. And, as we know, those specializing in the sociology of knowledge over the last thirty or forty years have encouraged all of us to realize that neutrality is impossible. At the same time, it certainly is possible to suspend judgment and to listen well before you respond. I think the greatest gift I give my students in classes on theology and culture is the gift of learning how to listen to the culture before you jump in with dialogue from your Christian perspective. We are so quick to give answers that we often don’t hear the beauty or the possibility or the real mistake in that which is presented to us. And that’s also part of the teaching experience. ESTES: Shifting gears, can you share briefly about your personal ministry experiences over the years? JOHNSTON: Sure. When I was in junior high, the question that haunted me was this: Why is the good news of the gospel heard as bad news by most of my friends who don’t go to church? This question has remained my passion and my ministry focus. I almost went on staff with Young Life, the high school ministry organization—which, I think, has some answers to that question. But I felt God calling me to help explore new responses, to push the envelope and see if there weren’t other ways of engaging the Christian faith with the wider culture. One formative experience was my class as a freshman at Stanford from the Presbyterian minister
Robert McAfee Brown. I took the class during his second year at Stanford, and there were 573 people in the class. His first year there had been seventeen! There were fewer than 5,000 undergraduates, so more than 10 precent of the student body was taking that class. We read Robert Penn Warren, Ignazio Silone, Albert Camus, Arthur Miller. And Brown would stand up and say, “Let’s listen to what’s being said in that story,” and would begin to unpack it. And then he would contextualize that and say, “Not only does it say this, but here’s its meaning. Here’s why probably it was portraying that.” And then he would say, “As a Christian minister, here is what I have learned from Arthur Miller.” And finally, he would then say, “And here are questions that I have to ask of him as we meet him in Death of a Salesman.” And we, as students, would go back into the dorms and spend half the night discussing and arguing about the meaning of life and the possibilities of faith, given life. That was a wonderful model of ministry for me— one that I have maintained. So whether teaching at Western Kentucky University or at North Park
freshman. Having said that, it is also true that all people should actively be involved in their churches and use the gifts they have in that context. I have tried to do the same, so that I have been at times an interim pastor filling in until a new pastor can be found; I have taught Sunday School at times; I have led junior church for first- to third-graders. I’ve also used some of my administrating gifts to chair the board of our denomination that oversees our dozen or more retirement centers, our hospitals and health clinics, and our homes for adult developmentally challenged individuals. Just as I would expect the lawyers in our church to use their gifts and to volunteer and to support the church, and just as schoolteachers should use their time in the church as well as in the school, so the professor at seminary should be actively engaged in a local church using his or her gifts. I saw this modeled by my father. He was a structural engineer. His business designed the structures of perhaps 30,000 buildings in the Los Angeles area. But he also gave his expertise to the church whenever it was going to do a new building. He gave his
Transformational education has to do with creating a communal context for students in which they are pushed beyond themselves by the gift of others. niversity or at Fuller Seminary, all that I teach U is ministry. My only goal is to help students’ lives be transformed. It’s not ministry always in the church—I can talk about that in a minute—but it’s ministry. One of our mistakes as the church is to somehow think that ministry is that which has to do only with work within the church. We forget Luther and his concern for the milkmaid. We forget that vocation has to do with furthering the mission of God both in church and in the world. So that’s a long way of beginning to answer your question. I’ve always been in ministry since even before I was called to intentional ministry as a college
expertise to the conference of churches as they looked at new building sites or as they built a camp. He wanted to use his expertise and training to help build up the kingdom of God—and that included helping the church thrive through its buildings. Let me give one other example. When I was at North Park Seminary, one of our faculty was a distinguished ethicist—perhaps was the leading scholar of oral history concerning Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He knew personally all of Bonhoeffer’s living family and associates. But because he was involved in the church, because he liked to speak, when I sat down with him the first year I was dean and asked, “How
November 2021 | DidaktikosJournal.com | 27
can the school help you, and what would you like your profession to look like?”, he explained that he wanted desperately to write down some of what he knew about Bonhoeffer, but he didn’t have the time. And when I inquired why, it turned out he was still speaking over 180 times a year at churches throughout the denomination. He was doing that in part because the seminary historically had not paid very well and he had five children, but he also was doing it because he loved being up in front of people. The best thing I did for him was to help wean him off that schedule. I said to him, “Let’s try 120 for the next year. Let’s try 80 the following year.” And his Bonhoeffer writings are a gift to the church. My response to your question is that we all should be involved in our local churches, and we all should be giving of our gifts and talents and training. Some of us will be more involved than others, but our ministry is much broader than whatever we would give to the church. Our ministry has to do with furthering the kingdom of God in all that we do.
ESTES: We already talked a little about the importance of publishing. Especially for a younger scholar, why is publishing critically important?
JOHNSTON: Here, I think the question is answered differently in a seminary context than in most university contexts. Very few seminaries have a “publish or perish” dictum. Most seminary faculty I speak with, whether as colleagues or when I was dean or provost, want to share their ideas with colleagues and get feedback. Most seminary faculty I have encountered think they have something to say but are often frustrated that they don’t have the time or occasion to further their research and to get wider interaction from the larger public and from their peers. Teaching is rooted in learning, and learning is rooted in teaching. The research/teaching dichotomy is a false one. They should, in fact, inform each other, so if a faculty person is finding it impossible to find time to write a book, they should begin by writing a book review in their area of expertise that is critical and engaging. If a faculty person is teaching classes, one of those classes should be in an area of personal growth where the class becomes the research for a future book. I would say a half-dozen of my books have come directly out of my experience of teaching. After three or four years teaching a new area, I have a body of ideas and a direction and an
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outline, and on my next sabbatical or grant I can focus fairly quickly on my writing.
ESTES: Right—because if you’re not publishing, where are you growing as a scholar?
JOHNSTON: Growth happens in the classroom. But that growth also happens as you dig deeper or you contextualize more broadly an area that you are interested in or are teaching. Therefore, research is central to your success as a teacher. Again, there’s a great variety, so we don’t want to put everybody in one box. There are those persons who seemingly can write a book in their sleep. Who? Joel Green at Fuller has thirty, forty, fifty books; Amos Yong has two or three books a year. Not everyone is of that ilk. Not everyone’s an introvert; some are extroverts. But all should have a research component, and all should seek peer engagement as part of their larger teaching responsibility. That’s what keeps you growing over a lifetime. The students see that, and that helps with your integrity quotient. I’m convinced that integrity is the single most important factor a student looks for in his or her faculty. They might disagree with what you think, teach, believe, but if they know you’re committed and you’re bringing that to them with all good intention and deep commitment and careful preparation, they’ll respect it and they’ll learn from it. One of my best faculty, when I was a student at Fuller a long time ago, was Dan Fuller. I disagreed with his premise for the class, but there was such a commitment and a wrestling and an integrity about what he was doing that I took away a lifetime of new ideas that I still mine. ESTES: Right—and I would say the integrity of the faculty speaks much more to formation than just merely information.
JOHNSTON: Oh, absolutely. And without that integrity—well, God can do what God wants, so transformation can happen in all kinds of ways. But in general, transformation will depend on a high quotient of integrity from the person.
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ART
PEDAG O GY
What I Failed to Learn from C. S. Lewis Exploring the Relationship between Education and Spiritual Formation JE F F D RYD EN | COV EN A N T CO L L EG E
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ast semester I assigned the classic C. S. Lewis text The Abolition of Man to my New Testament Ethics class. Although it had been at least a decade since I had last read the book, I felt confident I remembered the book in the main from the multiple readings I had given it in previous decades, going back to my college days when I first read it. As it turns out, old professor Lewis still had a few tricks left up his sleeve. I had understood one of the main themes of the book, but had somehow missed something essential. I confess this because I don’t think my experience is unique. (See Michael Ward’s new book, After Humanity, for a contemporary example.) I think it likely that my failure to understand Lewis was something endemic to how we have understood the goals and means of theological truth, theological education, and spiritual formation. I was a child of the 80s. In college I studied engineering at a time when science still had a voice of objective authority. In that time and over the decades that closely followed, the primary battleground for evangelical intellectuals was epistemology, in a project that fought the agents of subjective relativism and sought to (re-)establish the ground-
ing of truth in objective reality. It was in this context that I read and reread The Abolition of Man. (I was also reading Owen Barfield’s Saving the Appearances, which was a bit like reading Lewis while on acid.) Lewis spoke potently about the world of objective value: aesthetic and moral judgments were not statements about how one felt, but recognitions of value that existed outside one’s head. At the time, it was exactly the antidote I needed to escape my epistemological and psychological myopia. Many of us who are now educators went through some kind of epistemological struggle and questioning in the 90s and early 2000s, and all of us are products of and work within institutions that were in large measure formed by those struggles. We still live with the echoes of those battles. Some folks are still engaged in those battles. (I have doubts that those battles are still relevant for our students; more on this later.) So, what was it that I missed in Lewis? I got one side of the argument: value has an objective existence apart from human consciousness, wishes, or feelings. The other side of Lewis’s argument is a lesson in how we recognize those values. What I somehow missed is that Lewis is not really talking
We have to reimaginine our disciplines in categories that integrate intellectual, moral, psychological, and spiritual formation.
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about epistemology but is espousing a philosophy of education in which the purpose of education is to train student affections to recognize what is truly valuable. Oftentimes an epistemology that emphasizes objective values s ubliminally endorses a doctrine of objective human reason as the natural recipient of those values. I see this all the time as a biblical scholar. When someone tells me “There is an objective meaning of this text,” I know what they actually mean is “My interpretation is the only valid one.” I assumed Lewis is talking about the objective capacity of reason to apprehend objective moral and aesthetic value. But that is not his agenda. That has been our agenda. Actually, Lewis is defining a philosophy of education as a process of aesthetic, spiritual, and moral formation. We have often inherited a model of forming our students by making sure they have the right thoughts—that they understand their doctrines and why they believe those doctrines. Lewis shocked me by saying that education is primarily about forming how my students learn to love what is good and to disdain what is evil. As he says, “A good education should build some sentiments while destroying others.” 1 There is a deep anthropology that stands behind this. In his typical fashion, Lewis sums up two millennia of moral thought in a deceptively simple metaphor: “the head rules the belly through the chest.” 2 This formula defines the chest as having a necessary role of intentionality that is in tune with the head (reason that apprehends what is right). It also says that this function of the chest is necessary to overcome the belly (irrational passions that have some purchase in the body). This assumes that the head cannot overcome those irrational passions on its own. As Lewis says, “Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.” 3 It also means that the chest has to be trained to love what the head recognizes as good, otherwise it will not have the power to overcome the passions.
Most of us have grown up with a model of spiritual formation that is unapologetically rationalistic. The spearhead of formation is learning the right ideas and good principles, and if we keep reminding ourselves, our students, and our congregations of the right ideas, they will grow spiritually. I am a Presbyterian. We eat doctrine for breakfast (with a freshly brewed cup of concupiscence). This is a model that says the head rules the belly and the chest. Desires and feelings have to be subjugated to the head. In this scheme the belly and the chest become indistinguishable. (This is Christian Stoicism. Read some Epictetus and see if it sounds familiar.) As a form of spiritual formation this model produces behaviorism and moralism, because it does not have an essential place for retraining the affections and actual heart formation. The product of this is actually the primary thing that Lewis saw as the central peril posed by modern education, what he called “men without chests” 4—moral eunuchs who have knowledge and principles but misshapen, atrophied souls, who do not love the “weightier matters of the Law” (Matt 23:23 ESV). Lewis debunks the products of this form of education as knowledgeable pseudo-intellectuals. “It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out.” 5 If we are honest, we would recognize that our seminaries regularly produce graduates like this. What is more striking is how quickly these “men without chests” ascend to positions of denominational and institutional leadership. The contemporary spiritual formation movement, which I work at the edges of, recognizes that this rationalistic formation model doesn’t really work for humans because we are not thinking-willing machines. When it is doing its best, this movement is trying to restore the relationships between head, chest, and belly. But often, led by the modern and postmodern Romantic reaction to rationalism, it ends up with the chest ruling the head and the belly. While it focuses on spiritual and
Lewis is espousing a philosophy of education in which the purpose of education is to train student affections to recognize what is truly valuable.
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sychological repair and renewal, it often divorcp es it from intellectual and moral formation. Again, Lewis hits the mark: “The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments.” 6 That is to say, spiritual formation has an essential moral component. So how do we as educators do the work of inculcating “just sentiments” in our students? The primary challenge we face is what Lewis recognized: our modern, rationalist, voluntarist traditions will not supply us with the materials we need to form our students; in fact, they are purpose-built to malform them. This means the problem is deeper than we are often prepared to recognize. If we simply teach the conservative version of our academic discipline (as it has come to be understood in its modern and postmodern forms), then we are not forming our students well. We have to leave behind the idea that we can simply add “spiritual formation” like a special sauce—as an extra something we do in the last ten minutes of class. We have to do the hard intellectual and spiritual work of reimagining our disciplines in categories that integrate intellectual, moral, psychological, and spiritual formation. Nothing within the guild will encourage this type of work. This also means hard and spiritually challenging work for us—the kind of work that many of us got into academics to avoid: the messy, painful, and confounding work of our own spiritual formation. We cannot take students somewhere we have not been. Nouwen once said that “spiritual formation begins with the gradual and often painful discovery of God’s incomprehensibility in the face of life’s great mysteries and limitations.” 7 This is precisely the thing that we, especially as theological conservatives, have been trained to avoid—and are training others to avoid. Alongside teaching the many perfections and virtues of God, we have to demonstrate that he is the anchor of our souls amid the bewildering doubts that painful trials inflict upon us.
Let me give two examples of pedagogical changes I have made to foster spiritual formation in the classroom. First, when I teach Christology, I use both ontological and relational categories in approaching the classical christological heresies. For instance, Apollinarianism (the default Christology of all my students) is a problem not only as an ontological heresy, but also because it disrupts and limits how we relate to Jesus. This is precisely the point of Hebrews 4:15–16: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (ESV). If Jesus is a divine rationality in an earth suit, our connection to him in our struggles is lost. We were trained in the “head rules the belly and the chest” model, processing things first intellectually, then ethically, and finally emotionally. Our students (Millennials and GenZs) process things in exactly the opposite order. They first process things emotionally, then ethically, and lastly intellectually. This means that real access to their intellectual formation only comes through accessing things emotionally. So, in the example of Christology, if I can get them to understand how different Christologies feel relationally, then they actually care about the ontological categories. They can learn the ontological categories apart from this and engage with it as an intellectual game, but it doesn’t actually touch how they process life and make decisions. The other thing I do is very simple: I ask students how a particular doctrine or text makes them feel. I am glad none of my professors ever asked me this question when I was a graduate student. I don’t think it would have worked for our generation, but today’s students process things primarily emotionally. If we don’t do it in the classroom, then we are not dealing with the core of who they are as students. We c annot
This also means hard work for us —the messy and confounding work of our own spiritual formation. We cannot take students somewhere we have not been.
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look at them disapprovingly and think our job is to get them to process things the way we would, primarily intellectually. I meet many students who have learned to accommodate their professors by pretending to be little modernists. But sadly, it is just a game to them, and it never really touches how they live and process life. Asking students how they feel, while it might sound touchy-feely, is the only way I know to gain access to what students really think and to actually shape them in how they live. The problem is that this means we as teachers need to dig into the messy bits of what we feel, and why it is that, although I know a particular doctrine is true on paper, something inside me still resists accepting it fully. Again, we cannot take students somewhere we are not willing to go. Although the intellectual work we do is hard, it is much easier to articulate our Christology theoretically than to investigate why I still struggle every day to trust Jesus. If we want to be faithful in forming our students, we have to find our own way of doing both.
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: Collier- Macmillan, 1955), 24. 2 Lewis, Abolition of Man, 34. 3 Lewis, Abolition of Man, 33–34. 4 Lewis, Abolition of Man, 34 5 Lewis, Abolition of Man, 35. 6 Lewis, Abolition of Man, 24. 7 Henri Nouwen, Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 3. 1
J EF F D RY D EN is working on a commentary on
2 Corinthians and two other books—one on the gospel and race, and one on evangelical moralism.
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TO LEARN A DEAD LANGUAGE, PRETEND IT’S ALIVE Biblical Hebrew is more than vowel marks and waws. Teach your students how to read it for true understanding: like it’s a living language with a unique personality.
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C UR R E N TS | N EW T ESTA MEN T ST U D I ES
RETHEOLOGIZING THE Π I Σ TI Σ XPI Σ TOY DEBATE K E VIN W. M C FA D D EN | C A I RN U N I V ERS I TY
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he πίστις Χριστοῦ debate has been going on for almost forty years now.1 Does this genitive phrase, which occurs eight times in the Pauline corpus, mean “faith in Christ” (an objective genitive) or the “faith/faithfulness of Christ” (a subjective genitive)? Before you yawn and skip this article—or brace for a list of arguments for and against each position— let me assure you that repeating these well-known arguments is not the goal of my essay.2 Rather, the goal is to introduce you to an important factor in the debate that is sometimes forgotten but explains why the debate matters so much: it is a debate not merely about grammar but about Paul’s whole theology. This point has been emphasized by those who hold the subjective genitive view. In fact, those who hold this view typically use a theological label for their position—the “Christological view”—because in this view Paul teaches that we are saved by Christ’s faith or faithfulness rather than our own faith. As Richard Hays puts it in his seminal work, “Christians are justified/redeemed not by virtue of their own faith but because they participate in Jesus Christ, who enacted the obedience of faith on their behalf.” 3 This Christological view is also closely associated with the apocalyptic school of Pauline theology, in which it is argued that Paul taught we are justified entirely by God’s action in Christ rather than any human action (including our faith). As J. Louis Martyn, the father of the apocalyptic school, puts it, “God’s rectifying [or justifying] act … is no
It is a debate not merely about grammar but about Paul’s whole theology.
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more God’s response to human faith in Christ than it is God’s response to human observance to the Law. … [I]t is God’s initiative, carried out by him in Christ’s faithful death.” 4 In contrast, those who hold to the objective genitive view have usually attempted to leave theology out of the debate. For example, Francis Watson observes that “it is disingenuous to play off a (virtuous) ‘christocentric’ reading against a (bad, protestant) ‘anthropocentric’ one. It is simply a matter of exegesis.” 5 And Barry Matlock has attempted to “detheologize” the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate by focusing our attention first on lexical semantics and exegesis.6 While I agree with Watson and Matlock on this debate and find their work convincing, it is clear that, for Hays and others who hold to the subjective genitive, the debate is not simply a matter of exegesis but a matter of theology. Hays in fact faults Matlock on just this point: “He [Matlock] does not engage at all the [theological] arguments made by Martyn and by me that the whole point of the sentence [in Gal. 2:16] is to juxtapose futile human activity to gracious divine initiative.” 7 The πίστις Χριστοῦ debate is actually “a debate over the larger reading of Paul’s theology,” as M. Easter’s summary concludes.8 Therefore arguments for the objective genitive view must be made not only from lexical semantics, grammar, and exegesis, but from Paul’s entire theology. These theological arguments have now been made in some recent studies of faith in Paul’s theology.9 Jeanette Hagen Pifer’s published dissertation examines Paul’s concept of faith in 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. Among other things, she interacts deeply with the theological arguments of J. Louis Martyn and his student Martinus de Boer, showing that the o bjective
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genitive translation “faith in Christ” is actually consistent with the apocalyptic school’s emphasis on divine priority in P auline theology. According to Paul, our faith is “self-renouncing, self-negating, and the act of participating in Christ to receive the benefits that are available because of his work.” 10 My own study of Christ-oriented faith in Pauline theology comes to similar conclusions. I attempt to show that Richard Hays was rightly responding to Rudolf Bultmann’s existentialist and anthropological view of faith in Paul but that Hays overcorrected. There are many places in Paul’s letters outside of the debated πίστις Χριστοῦ phrases where the apostle clearly argues that our faith in Christ is a cause and condition of our justification and salvation: e.g., “we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified” (Gal 2:16b, my emphasis); “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9, italics mine).11 Paul’s broader teaching about Christ-oriented faith calls into question the theological argument of Hays and others that we are not justified by our faith in Christ according to Paul.12 Perhaps then it also calls into question their translation of πίστις Χριστοῦ. Undoubtedly these new theological arguments will not settle the debate, for other developments have happened as well. Most notably, several scholars have recently argued strongly for a “third view” of πίστις Χριστοῦ. In this view, the phrase refers neither to Christ’s act of “faithfulness” nor our act of “faith” but rather to “the faith”—that, is the event of the gospel or the gospel message itself, which is centered on Christ.13 But perhaps these new studies of faith in Paul’s theology will encourage some scholars to reconsider the viability and simplicity of the traditional translation of πίστις Χριστοῦ as “faith in Christ.” For not only is this translation grammatically possible; it fits the significant emphasis in Paul’s entire theology on our faith in the crucified and risen Christ. 1 I am counting from 1983, the publication of Richard B. Hays’s hugely influential dissertation, which has been published in a second edition: The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). While interpreters had suggested the subjective genitive translation well before Hays, it is fair to say that Hays’s dissertation made this view much more plausible in the eyes of many anglophone scholars and led to the many “for” and “against” publications that make up the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate. 2 For those who would like to see a list of arguments, see two recent articles in Currents in Biblical Research: Matthew
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C. Easter, “The Pistis Christou Debate: Main Arguments and Responses in Summary,” CBR 9.1 (2010): 33–47; Chris Kugler, “ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ: The Current State of Play and the Key Arguments,” CBR 14.2 (2016): 244–55. See also most English commentaries on Rom 3:22, 26; Gal 2:16, 20; 3:22; Phil 3:9; Eph 3:12. 3 Hays, Faith of Jesus Christ, 166. 4 J. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33A (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 271. 5 Francis Watson, “By Faith (of Christ): An Exegetical Dilemma and Its Scriptural Solution,” in The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies, ed. Michael F. Bird and Preston M. Sprinkle (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009), 159. 6 R. Barry Matlock, “Detheologizing the ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ Debate: Cautionary Remarks from a Lexical Semantic Perspective,” NovT 42 (2000): 1–23. 7 Hays, Faith of Jesus Christ, xlvii. 8 Easter, “Pistis Christou Debate,” 44. 9 Jeanette Hagen Pifer, Faith as Participation: An Exegetical Study of Some Key Pauline Themes, WUNT 2.486 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019); Kevin W. McFadden, Faith in the Son of God: The Place of Christ-Oriented Faith within Pauline Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021). See also the recent study of faith in Paul’s letters by Nijay Gupta, although he addresses the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate only tangentially: Nijay K. Gupta, Paul and the Language of Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020). 10 Pifer, Faith as Participation, 176. 11 For more examples, see McFadden, Faith in the Son of God, 103–58. 12 It should be noted that Hays never excludes our faith in Christ as an important theme in Paul’s theology, but he does exclude a salvific role of our faith in Christ, in the same way that Protestant theology (and, arguably, Paul) excludes a salvific role of works in justification (see McFadden, Faith in the Son of God, 31–32). 13 See especially Benjamin Schliesser, “‘Christ-Faith’ as an Eschatological Event (Galatians 3.23–26): A ‘Third View’ on Πίστις Χριστοῦ,” JSNT 38.3 (2016): 277–300; Kevin Grasso, “A Linguistic Analysis of πίστις Χριστοῦ: The Case for the Third View,” JSNT 43.1 (2020): 108–44. KEV I N W. MC FA D D EN is currently working on a theology of Colossians and Philemon.
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C UR R EN TS | T H EO LO GY
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ATONEMENT THEORY From ‘Moral Influence’ to ‘Penal Subsitution’ to ‘Christus Victor,’ Theologians and Philosophers Continue to Reshape a Central Christian Doctrine JOSH UA R . FA RRI S | MI SS I O N A L U N I V ERS I TY
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he teacher might cluster atonement theories in two general camps. The first camp approaches atonement by searching for the view that best captures all the major aspects of Christ’s person, work, and ethic. In the second camp, one is keen to find that one theory implied by the collective mind within Christian history. The first camp resembles a tool-box approach. Think of it as a collage, with different pieces that can be fit together in various ways. The theologian simply takes all the tools and tries to make sense of them as one whole with different parts, perspectives, or motifs. However, this approach is met with the obvious challenge that atonement doctrine occupies a central place—doctrinally akin to Christ’s nature (i.e., as both human and divine) and theology proper. The second camp, then, attempts to meet the challenge of isolating a theory of the atonement that accurately reflects the doctrinal parameters laid out by the tradition. This approach is met with the obvious challenge that there is no dogmatic statement that determines for us which atonement theory accurately embodies that which is fundamental. Some of the most fascinating developments in contemporary atonement literature reflect these approaches.1 As one of its goals, the first camp aims to articulate an atonement theory that makes coherent sense of the main contours of Christ’s person and work and an ethic that follows from them. Historically, those advocates of the moral model take it that the best
atonement theory clarifies Christ’s work of modeling for us what it means to be human, thus providing an ethic to follow (often referred to as imitation theories or the moral influence theory). Following theologian Peter Abelard, advocates of moral influence contend that Christ occupies the place of shame on behalf of humanity. The apparent dogmatic problem for moral influence is the entailment of Pelagianism because, as the claim goes, Christ fails to furnish a mechanism that atones for the fundamental problem of human sin against God.2 The Christus Victor model and the restitution model avoid the problem of Pelagianism in distinct ways. Christus Victor takes it that Christ conquers the fundamental problem of human sin—death—by Christ’s power as King.3 The restitution model centers the problem in terms of God’s law, which requires a solution to human guilt.4 Both are creatively deployed in the contemporary literature. There is one restitution theory that holds primacy of place in contemporary consciousness. Rarely has a theological theory occupied such a diversity of contemporary opinion as penal substitutionary atonement, especially among neo-evangelical Calvinists. Some go so far as to suggest that it is the biblical doctrine of atonement and the reformer’s doctrine; hence, it reflects the second camp.5 Just consider a small representative sampling of some of the more important works. In The Crucified King, Jeremy Treat advances evangelical
Penal substitution has been met with formidable challenges that might demand redefinition of the concept.
November 2021 | DidaktikosJournal.com | 39
evelopments of penal substitution by conjoining d it with Christus Victor atonement.6 This substantial development deserves a note, because penal substitutionary atonement often highlights Christ’s sacrifice—hence his role as the great high priest. But as many have noted, theological developments of penal substitution sorely detract from the more important themes on Christ’s work of redemption in Scripture—namely, the fact that he is King and he has conquered sin, death, and the underworld forces. Treat constructively develops the themes of Christ’s kingship out of the essential characteristics of penal substitution. Similarly, in The Day the Revolution Began, N. T. Wright provides an account of atonement that he terms penal substitution coupled with the theme of the conquering Christ for a renewed human vocation.7 Wright highlights Christ’s assumption of Israel’s curse as the means by which he conquers death for those in the church, thus conjoining a Christus Victor theory with penal substitution. Finally, Joshua M. McNall seems to fit in the first camp. He expands penal substitution in his The Mosaic of Atonement.8 While penal substitution takes a supporting role, McNall is keen to show that it is consistent with and can accommodate ransom (i.e., the action of paying to release a prisoner from captivity), moral influence, and Christus Victor theories of the atonement. Penal substitution has also occupied the ruminations of Christian philosophers. Eleonore Stump reflects the first camp and William Lane Craig the second. In Atonement, Stump advances a critique of penal substitution.9 She develops an objection to penal substitution’s failure to solve the most important problem of subjective union. Penal substitution satisfies only what “theologians” have called the “objective” problem. Where humans have failed to satisfy certain duties laid out by divine law, Christ satisfies those obligations in a way that God accepts for us. However, says Stump, this does nothing to solve the problem of shame and its attending consequence—the personal distance between God and humans (reflecting motivations in the moral influence theory). William Lane Craig offers a contrasting account of the atonement in his twin works The Atonement and Atonement and the Death of Christ.10 For Craig, penal substitution just is the biblical and Reformed doctrine of the atonement. Accordingly, Christ solves humanity’s most fundamental problem—namely, the debt of punishment. Penal substitution has also met recent challenges. The most apparent challenge comes from the varied
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ways in which it has been defined, which beg for clarification and possibly redefinition. We are certainly familiar with feminist objections to penal substitution from divine child abuse. And, while these objections at times appear rather like ad hoc straw men, penal substitution has been met with more formidable challenges that might even demand redefinition of the concept. First, there is the legal fiction objection, which holds that one person cannot literally assume the debt of punishment for another. This means that Christ’s sacrificial death does not actually pay for individual debts of punishment, because these individual debts are not commodities capable of being transferred in the same way that a negative balance could be paid off by a third party through a transfer of a monetary sum. Second, in response to more extreme versions of penal substitution, there is a recent set of challenges raised regarding Christological coherence. One common account of penal substitution leverages the categories of divine wrath, even hatred, to describe the debt of punishment needing satisfaction. The logic is actually quite simple. Humans are sinners by violating the divine moral law. God hates sinners. Christ becomes the substitute for sinners by stepping in the place of those sinners. Therefore, God’s hatred is directed at Christ.11 Both concerns have caused some in the recent literature to consider alternative routes. By analyzing the mechanism of the atonement more carefully, some are recommending one of two alternatives. One possibility to reconsider the Anselmian theory of satisfaction atonement, which takes a commercial mechanism as central to the manner in which Christ eliminates the debt of punishment by paying off the debt of honor owed by humans to the divine law.12 Alternatively, some are suggesting a reworking of recent penal substitutionary developments away from divine wrath or hatred as the central debt. It is the moral law that needs satisfying rather than a personally vindictive God— hence a kind of reconceiving of penal substitutionary atonement.13 Both restitution theories of the atonement are motivated by the desire to find that one coherent theory on which all other aspects depend and which best reflects the fundamental teaching of Scripture and the collective wisdom of church history. Satisfaction accounts hold primacy of place within Roman Catholicism, but they are not out of bounds within Reformed orthodoxy, where penal substitution has greater popularity.
These approaches make for an interesting convergence of ideas and provide some of the most fascinating theological discussions today because they touch on justice, law, and divine-human relations, and because the atonement is central to God’s work in the world. Students and teachers are wise to take note of contemporary atonement studies as an exercise in systematic theology that reveals the importance and varied, complex nature of this dogmatic topic. One is left to do a bit of cherry-picking of some the best literature in circulation due to space constraints. 2 For a provocative account that takes shame rather than guilt as the fundamental problem and addresses the charge of Pelagianism, see Meghan Page and Allison Krile Thornton, “Have We No Shame” (forthcoming). 3 The clearest and most influential defense of Christus Victor is Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict (Grand Rapids: IVP, 2014). 4 Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton, “The Logic of Reparative Substitution: Contemporary Restitution Models of the Atonement, Divine Justice, and Somatic Death,” ITQ 83.1 (2017): 62–77. 5 William Lane Craig makes precisely these claims in his The Atonement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) and The Atonement and the Death of Christ (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2020). 6 Jeremy R. Treat, The Crucified King: Atonement and Kingdom in Biblical and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014). 7 N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2016). 8 Joshua M. McNall, The Mosaic of the Atonement: An Integrated Approach to Christ’s Work (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2019). 9 Eleonore Stump, Atonement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). 10 See again William Lane Craig, The Atonement and The Atonement and the Death of Christ. 11 See Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton, “This is My Beloved Son, Whom I Hate? A Critique of the Christus Odium Variant of Penal Substitution,” Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies 3.2 (2018): 271–86; “Quenching Divine Fire: Divine Anger and the Atonement,” in Righteous Indignation, ed. Gregory L. Bock and Court D. Lewis (Lanham, MA: Lexington Books / Fortress Academic, 2021), 37–50. 12 Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton, “Reparative Substitution and the ‘Efficacy Objection’: Toward a Modified Satisfaction Theory of Atonement,” Perichoresis 15.3 (2017): 97–110. See also Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton, Re-Envisioning Reformed Anselmian Atonement, Re-Envisioning Reformed Dogmatics (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, forthcoming). 13 See Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies 6.1 (forthcoming), which will include six articles on “The Christus Odium Variety of Penal Substitution in Contemporary Perspective.” 1
JOSHUA R. FA R R IS is finishing up several writing projects. He has recently completed The Routledge Handbook of Idealism and Immaterialism, and is finishing The Created Self: A Case for the Soul (forthcoming with Iff Publishers).
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November 2021 | DidaktikosJournal.com | 41
FEEL FREE TO JUDGE THEM BY THEIR COVERS For once, a monograph series that’s as pleasing to look at as it is to read. Make some room on your shelves for Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology. Preferably somewhere front and center. Complete your set at LexhamPress.com/Beautiful
SAG E A DV I C E
EPISTEMOLOGICAL THERAPY E ST H E R L IGH TCA P MEEK | G EN EVA CO L L EG E
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here can wisdom be found? How do theological education and wisdom relate? And how might we improve that relatedness? As a youthful Christian believer, I was keenly aware that deep issues about knowing blocked my love of God and trust even in the thereness of the real. At first I didn’t know that my puzzlements were philosophical—or that the questions themselves were spawned by the modernist epistemology in the very air I was breathing. Encountering the innovative proposals of Hungarian Michael Polanyi, a premier twentieth-century physical scientist-turned-philosopher, proved key to my epistemological healing—and that of many others. All knowing, he wrote, has a two-level structure, a transformative and irreducibly integrated from to to, subsidiary to focal. We subsidiarily indwell and rely on unspecifiable clues to shape integratively and submit to a focal pattern as token of reality. The subsidiary is so called because it is subsidiary to the focus which accords it its distinctive meaning. Focusing on articulate information rather than subsidiarily indwelling it actually blinds us to the integrating understanding and grasp of the real which we seek. Consider riding a bike. To pull off this everyday wonderment, I must be subsidiarily, attunedly, bodily indwelling and relying on the palpable but inarticulate skill of keeping my balance. I attend from my creatively dynamic balancing to the focus of getting down the road. The explicit information involved would be the physics formula they tell me pertains. But it’s my felt and skilled subsidiary embodiment of it that keeps me jubilantly atop my bike speeding down the road. It isn’t subconscious, but rather from-knowing; if my bike starts skidding in gravel, I’d better be aware of it! Polanyi’s subsidiary focal integration dispels the skewed modernist epistemology by directly contradicting the presumption that all knowledge is focal, explicitly expressed information. Rather, all knowledge is rooted in the inarticulate subsidiary, which undergirds and outruns even the most sophisticated claim. If you do not tacitly shift your episte
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mological vision, you simply cannot ride a bike. It is noteworthy that your subsidiaries can actually be in part mistaken and require ferreting out and fixing. Our defective modernist epistemology is actually functioning subsidiarily. Hence the need for epistemological therapy. So all knowledge is from artfully indwelled subsidiaries, to an integrative whole, and then even beyond it as the integration opens the world and abundant future possibilities. Where can wisdom be found? Indeed, where can even knowledge be found? Wisdom is (at least) the artful and dynamic indwelling of the subsidiary in view of the guiding vision. One cannot account epistemologically for wisdom as focal information. As located in the subsidiary, wisdom forms subsidiarily with a view to an other which has primacy. That is how the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You can just hear the two-level from-to in this. What about Scripture memorization? Sermons, Bible studies, seminary training, theological education? These must be understood epistemologically, not as collected focal information, but as the rigorous training of subsidiary indwelling in reverence of the real—that is, of the Lord. Once the modernist vision is dispelled, we can recognize that this is the way we have been going at bicycling and the Christian life from our childhood, all along. Scripture’s showing of Christ and its call to wisdom make greater sense and prove in turn to model good epistemology. This is good not just for theological education but for your spirituality, as for your bike riding. EST H ER L I G H TC A P MEEK is currently writing Doorway to Artistry, in a series relating her philosophical proposals to different areas of life.
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Every Page Is the Long Story Short The Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary series reveals how every passage in the Bible fits into God’s drama of redemption—and the role you play in his story today.
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G O O D F RU I T
Revealing God’s Character N I C K KAV ELA RI S
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y journey to seminary was filled with questioning and fear. I was pulled by God to go, but I told God seminary was not for me. Instead of focusing on God’s character, I was fixated on my own doubt and shame. I struggled academically in high school and in college. I was a two-sport athlete in college, worked construction most of my early life, and came from a lower middle-class home. I thought my giftings were in other areas, not in academia—and certainly not gifts to attend an academic seminary. In seminary, I saw God’s character from a different angle and interacted with God’s kingdom in a different way. I encountered professors with different giftings, knowledge bases, theological viewpoints, levels of national notoriety, and areas of study—and they all came together as one unit. I saw the body of Christ truly working in unison. That body taught me and trained me; it also showed me things I needed to see. In a chapel service, I heard one of my professors say, “Faithlessness can happen when God’s people become inattentive to God’s revelation of his character.” Seminary taught me about counseling, psychology, theology, history, missions, and service. It gave me knowledge to function in a career and a profession. But it most of all it illuminated God’s character. God gave me an education. Through the faithfulness of those I studied under, that experience truly transformed me and did not merely inform me. Through the knowledge, character, and work of my professors, the fruits of my education continue to nourish me over a decade later as I engage in my work, serve others, and serve my growing family. Seminary was a revelation; it was the time when God illuminated his character and showed me my place in the body of Christ.
I saw the body of Christ truly working in unison.
NICK KAVE LA R IS is a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a professional counselor who works with churches, nonprofits, athletes, and individuals from an integrated Christian perspective.
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