Extracurricular Activities 1.10.15 — Two Takes on the Newsweek Bible Article, Eschatology, More
Peter Enns Responds to Eichenwald’s Newsweek Article on The Bible
Kurt Eichenwald’s Christmas missive in Newsweek, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s A Sin,” has predictably gotten it’s share of strong reactions.
As others have pointed out, Eichenwald’s rhetoric is inflammatory, and his grasp of the issues is second-hand–at points rather naive, at least from the point of view of those who have been around the block a few times on the issues he raises, and especially those who work with the Bible for a living.
But he’s still basically right…
Dan Wallace Responds to Eichenwald’s Newsweek Article on The Bible
Every year, at Christmas and Easter, several major magazines, television programs, news agencies, and publishing houses love to rattle the faith of Christians by proclaiming loudly and obnoxiously that there are contradictions in the Bible, that Jesus…
[Common Places] The Promise and Prospects of Retrieval: Recent Developments in Eschatology
Surveys of Christian doctrine regularly note that the themes of eschatology have attained a certain prestige in the late nineteenth and then twentieth centuries that exceeds their fate in previous times. What do we make of this new emphasis? What benefits have been gained? And what dangers might we need to be alert to? I want to focus briefly upon one new emphasis, its potential and frequent cost, and a way in which theological retrieval helps us move toward a more biblical eschatology for the contemporary church.
Heaven Is a Place on Earth
Surely the most marked shift in twentieth century eschatology was its earthiness. Perhaps no tradition has so emphasized the created and material character of our blessed hope as that of the Dutch Reformed theologians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (e.g. Abraham…
Robert Wilkin and Thomas Schreiner on “The Role of Works at the Final Judgment”
A new "4 Views" book, The Role of Works at the Final Judgment, is hoping to help Christian practitioners in all forms navigate one of the most contentious questions in church history: What role do works play at final judgment for believers? Last week I introduced us to this new book by outlining Alan P. Stanley's (volume editor) introduction to it.
While it's a topic that's been discussed hard in journals and conferences, it's also a crucial conversation for the pew. Stanley quotes a former student-turned-pastor to stress this point: "This is not just a scholarly debate…to get this wrong is serious."
In order to help us engage this question, I want to engage the four contributors by letting them make their case. We'll engage Robert Wilkin and Thomas Schreiner this week, leaving James Dunn and Michael Barber to next.
So how do they answer the question, "What role do works play at final judgment for believers?"