What do you get when you mix Westminster Seminary, Duke and Fuller Seminary? J.R. Daniel Kirk, who says things like this:
God does not abandon the earth, but restores and glorifies it. Resurrection enables humanity to participate in the victory of God’s own purposes for creation.
From his book Unlocking Romans
One of my goals this summer is to get as far as I can (while still taking RTS classes) in Wight’s Christian Origins and the Question of God series. As I am currently in Part Two of his first volume, The New Testament and the People of God, I thought it would be interesting to post Wright’s goal for this first volume (and what I will spend much of the next month thinking through):
This first volume, then, in one sense introduces the entire project at hand, but in another stands by itself. It argues for a particular way of doing history, theology, and literary study in relation to the questions of the first century; it argues for a particular way of understanding first-century Judaism and first-century Christianity; and it offers a preliminary discussion of the meaning of the word ‘god’ within the thought-forms of these groups, and the ways in which such historical and theological study might be of relevance for the modern world.
Exciting isn’t it?
In listening to Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s lecture during the 2010 Wheaton Theology Conference with N.T. Wright, I began to think through the role that Systematic Theology should play in the formation of Christian Doctrine. Here are some questions I have been chewing on:
How Jewish is Christianity? What role does one’s answer to that question play in how much emphasis is placed on Systematic (vs. Biblical or Historical) Theology? Were the Hebrew Scriptures or those who read/wrote them concerned with a systematic approach to what they were presenting?
For both of you reading, you may have noticed that I haven’t really been plowing through Love Wins. Real life, school and school have gotten in the way. That being said, as a result of reading the book, I am almost finished with a paper for one of my seminary classes centered around a harmony I noticed in the works of Jonathan Edwards and Rob Bell. A quick preview:
In exploring various historical works on heaven from theologians within the Reformed tradition, it is those of Jonathan Edwards that most often resonate with many of Bell’s claims. Specifically, both Jonathan Edwards and Rob Bell present a heaven that is progressive in nature. While room is left for variance between the two as to the degree of the progressive nature of heaven, Edwards and Bell agree that the state of those in heaven is not static. Instead, both present heaven as a place of continued personal growth in knowledge and understanding of the Triune God. A brief word on to the current state of popular Christian thought regarding heaven, followed by a look at both Bell and Edwards’ progressive heavens will lead to concluding thoughts that provide a possible harmony of the two views.
Thoughts?
