Kevin J. Vanhoozer
Church Leadership & Ministry
“If you’re looking for canaries in the church’s coal mines, consider our seminaries and divinity schools. In some cases, the seminary has simply become one more outpost of the academy, hijacked by the ideals of the research university, almost allergic to pastoral formation. In other cases, the seminary is reduced to a management seminar where the pastorate is confused with technique. The Pastor Theologian is an antidote to both, a vision for ecclesial theology and a theological ecclesia. We need this book because we need pastor theologians. James K. A. Smith, Calvin College, author of Desiring the Kingdom and editor of Comment magazine Hiestand and Wilson shine a spotlight on a seismic fault whose damage to the church has been under the radar: the great divorce between the pastoral ministry and academic theology. They argue compellingly that a healthy church body needs red blood (pastoral energy) and gray brain cells (theological intelligence) to grow into Christian maturity. This is a book written in faith — the kind of faith that moves institutional mountains and raises, if not the dead, then at least defunct concepts — like the pastor theologian.”
Theology
“Jesus’s pressing question to his disciples ‘But who do you say that I am?’ remains as urgent as ever. In contrast to modern historical critics who ‘go low’ in their quest for the historical Jesus, Stephen Wellum ‘goes high,’ engaging Christology ‘from above’ in order to identify Jesus as the Christ. He rightly views Jesus’s person and work in the interpretive framework of the Bible’s storyline and the tradition of historic orthodoxy to which the faithful reading of Scripture has given rise.”
The Promise of Ecumenical Interpretation
Biblical Studies & Commentaries
“Three theologians (Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox) walk into a bar--to talk about sola scriptura. The Promise of Ecumenical Interpretation is no joke, however. It is, rather, a stirring call to lift up Scripture over one's own denominational identity. After centuries of church conflict over biblical interpretation, these representatives of the three historical branches of the Christian church have seen fit to apply the watchword of peacemakers ("In essentials, unity") to hermeneutics. Their Ten Theses on Scripture and its interpretation, along with the rest of the book, deserve to be widely read, discussed, and, where appropriate, implemented. The Promise of Ecumenical Interpretation responds to Paul's call to maintain the unity of the Spirit: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph 4:5).”
Theology
“Many books explore the cross of Christ in view of the mercy and justice of God. Adam Johnson changes the lens with this concise and clearly written book, offering a picture of Jesus' saving work as the culmination of the same divine wisdom through which all things were created. Divine wisdom is not a rival attribute to justice and mercy, but that quality that enables God to be fully himself in finding the fitting solution that achieves all God's purposes for a world fallen into folly. Johnson has written a helpful book that brings fresh air into well-trod doctrinal paths, to which grateful readers can only respond, "And behold, it was very good"!”
Church Leadership & Ministry
“Love is one of the most popular themes and most commonly invoked ideals in the world. It is also one of the most misunderstood. The Rule of Love is a brave and bracing critique of the picture of a watered-down, self-centered, and all-inclusive (i.e., unholy) love that prevails in contemporary culture—and in too many churches. It is also a recovery of a God-centered picture of love in which God’s love for the world is tied to God’s holy love for his own glory. Only the latter makes sense of the gospel, and of church discipline. Any book that explains how God’s authority and judgment are not the opposites of God’s love, but rather its display, is radical—in the dual sense of recovering the root and offering prophetic critique—and this book is deserving of a serious hearing and a radical reception.”
Theology
“Dante may have located the debate between divine sovereignty and human freedom in one of the circles of hell, but reading these sprightly and well-argued essays was, by contrast, a real pleasure. In an age where divine suffering is considered the 'new orthodoxy,' it is most refreshing to hear what six theologians have to say about divine sovereignty. The main theistic positions--classical, open, process--all have able representatives as their champions, and the inclusion of responses allows the authors to do more than talk past one another. This book lives up to its title.”
Theology
“Jacobsen’s book awakens us from our Gnostic slumbers. It reminds us that as embodied beings, we not only move through space but inhabit particular places. And it asks us how we ought to make and dwell in the built environment to the glory of God. The Space Between takes us on an eye-opening tour of the places that both shape and reflect us. Readers may never look at their homes, neighborhoods, towns, and churches in the same way again. This is an important first step in reclaiming the locality of the local church.”
The Speaking Trinity and His Worded World
Theology
“In a post-postmodern age that despairs of language, meaning, and truth, Pierce Hibbs's reminder that language—communicative and expressive behavior—is ultimately rooted in the triune God comes as a welcome Christian relief. Of particular importance is the claim that language is always personal and covenantal, oriented to communion, and that God is a speaking, communicative being. Anyone interested in God and language will profit from this book.”
The Thiselton Companion to Christian Theology
Theology
“Anthony Thiselton's previous publications give sufficient proof of his prowess as a New Testament scholar, biblical commentator, and expert in philosophical hermeneutics. In an era of increasing specialization, few people are as qualified to speak authoritatively across the theological disciplines. This Companion gives us the benefit of Thiselton's comprehensive learning in the form of an A-Z theological dictionary. There are not many people whose opinion about every theological thing under the sun I would want to seek out; Anthony Thiselton is on that short list.”
Theology
“Patrick Schreiner deftly integrates exegesis, biblical theology, and systematics in a work that brilliantly rescues the transfiguration from its undeserved obscurity and second-class status in both biblical studies and dogmatic theology alike. Here is a contribution to Christology that is as edifying as it is scholarly. I can only describe what he has achieved by using the same term the disciples might have used to describe Jesus’s shining face: glorious!”
Theology
“The Trinity, with its detailed attention to the historical development of the doctrine, is a wonderful corrective to the theological illiteracy that continues to ail too many North American churches (and some seminaries!). Students will find the detailed annotated bibliography of key primary and secondary sources of special value.”
Theology
“Swain here takes up the practice of the ancient church, teaching the company of the baptized the grammar of the name of the one God into whose life they enter by water: ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’ This is a wonderful primer to the grammar of ‘Trinitarian discourse,’ a grammar that is needed not simply to talk theological shop with the professionals but, more importantly, to read the Bible fluently, to name God correctly, to discern the true triune God from idols, and to praise the name of the one who invites us into the fellowship of the Father and the Son through the Spirit. This book edifies even as it educates.”
The Word of Christ and the World of Culture
Theology
“Noting the difficulty of placing Karl Barth in traditional accounts of 'Christ and culture,' Paul Metzger argues that Barth's incarnational christology provides the resources for a theology of culture that avoids the extremes of both divinization and secularization. This book helps us understand how Barth could say 'Nein' to general revelation on the one hand and 'Ja' to Mozart on the other. The 'word of Christ' is God's critical 'No' to the world of culture surrounded by an even greater covenantal 'Yes.' Metzger's study is a good introduction both to Barth's theology and to the theology of culture, and it convincingly shows that the gospel of Jesus Christ, far from being otherworldly, is in fact most-worldly--the best word that the world can hear.”
The Word of God for the People of God
Biblical Studies & Commentaries
“This roadmap through the field of theological interpretation of Scripture is a feast for the mind — and for the edification of the church.”
Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Theology
“Fowl here plays the role not only of companion but guide and host in this clear and compelling introduction to the most important turn-of-the-twentieth-century development in biblical interpretation. He argues that Christian readers should interpret the Bible with an overriding interest in God's interest in using the Bible to promote communion. He practices what he preaches: he is generous towards those with whom he disagrees and gives fair descriptions of other approaches to theological interpretation.”
Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals
Theology
“In an age of head-spinning change, Gavin Ortlund rightly calls evangelicals to stand their ground and recover the theological ground already plowed by earlier generations. When the very foundations are being shaken, it is vital that churches recover their center of gravity by retrieving the past—what Bernard Ramm once called ‘the evangelical heritage.’ Evangelicals are not the first generation to have received the gospel. Accordingly, Ortlund here issues a manifesto about the importance of retrieving theological tradition. He then practices what he preaches in a series of astute case studies that mine the past to fund the present.”
Theology
“Andrew Byers has put new wine, a culturally savvy reflection on the church's engagement with modern media technology, into an old wineskin: biblical theology. . . . If the medium is the message, then the church needs the guidance Byers gives as it seeks to fulfill its vocation as God's new media for communicating the gospel of Jesus Christ to a spiritually distracted, culturally noisy world.”
Time, Eternity, and the Trinity
Theology
“To speak well of God we must say something about eternity. Nevertheless, it is a brave theologian who ventures into the fields of academic discourse to say something about the nature of time. Kim's book breaks the philosophical deadlock between those who view eternity as timelessness and those who view it as everlastingness by expanding his dialogue partners to include Barth and von Balthasar and by reorienting the whole discussion in a fascinating christological and Trinitarian direction.”
NOTE: Only includes books currently in our catalog; not necessarily a complete list.
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