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Foreword To The Testament Of Jesus, A Study Of The Gospel Of John In The Light Of Chapter 17, Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

AMONG THE MOST PROVOCATIVE New Testament scholars of the twentieth century, Ernst Kasemann tops the list, and his most striking work is The Testament of fesus. 1 This brief book is significant not because the bulk of Johannine scholars have fully agreed with it; indeed, most have taken exception to many of its points. The impact of Kasemann's 1966 Shaffer Lectures, delivered at Yale Divinity School and rendered in book form in German and English over the next couple of years, lay in his capacity to communicate worthy insights in sharp and provocative ways, blocking some paths of discussion while …

Against The Stream, How Karl Barth Reframed Church-State Relations (Chapter 3 Of Keine Gewalt! No Violence!), Roger J. Newell

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Excerpt: "Defenders of the Barmen Declaration's apolitical tone remind us that it was never intended to establish a program of political protest, that Karl Barth and the others were pastors not politicians; that the goal was to reassert the integrity of the gospel in the face of the attempted subversion by the German Christians. On the one hand, the soundness of this interpretation is self-evident. And yet it should surprise no one that an apolitical strategy would have little political impact on the German state. It is also true that Barth's views on church and state relations changed after Barmen; …

The Lost Purpose Of Learning, Joseph Clair

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

In the autumn of AD 386, a thirty-two-year-old academic superstar named Aurelius Augustinus made a radical move: He resigned his position as imperial professor of rhetoric in Milan and retired early. The position, as prestigious as an endowed chair of government at Harvard today, represented the pinnacle of intellectual achievement in its time. Yet Augustine was disillusioned, tired of teaching “résumé virtues” to “excellent sheep.” He complained that liberal education in the later Roman Empire had become purposeless and disoriented, preoccupied with the ephemeral aims of career, wealth, and fame. Intellectual and spiritual vitality had vanished from lecture rooms and …

Spotlight: The Spirituality Of Jesus As A Calling, Part Ii, Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

An inclusive quest for Jesus that embraces his calling in all of life seeks to recover a sense of Jesus and his ministry in ways that extend beyond organized religion and its reach. However, it is also a quest to include all resources that might meaningfully inform such a calling. On this point, the glories and foibles of modern biblical scholarship are thrown into sharp relief.

Spotlight: The Spirituality Of Jesus As A Calling, Part I, Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Several years ago, Dan Kimball came out with a book entitled They Like Jesus But Not the Church. While American culture has grown less impressed with institutions, people still report profound interest in authentic spirituality. This is especially true of young adults.

The Communal Dimensions Of Birthing Imagery In Paul's Epistles, Mary K. Schmitt

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

"Paul's birthing imagery operates metaphorically in ways that correspond to John Wesley's phrase "new birth;' and careful examination of Paul's metaphors indicates important avenues for reframing some of the conversation around new birth in the Wesleyan tradition."

“A Few Bones To Pick: Peter And His Significance”—A Fifth Review Of Cnn’S “Finding Jesus 2” Series, Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

The fifth episode of CNN’s “Finding Jesus” series explores the character and place of the historical Peter. Portrayed as a fisherman—a leading disciple of Jesus in the Gospels—Simon Peter is presented as both robust and impetuous. As chief among the twelve, he promises to stand with Jesus until the end, and yet, he also denies Jesus three times, as he also fears for his life following the arrest of Jesus. As Michael Peppard correctly puts it, the practice of the Romans at the time was to arrest not only insurrectionist leaders, but also to deal swiftly with their followers. Thus, …

The Trial Of Pilate - A Touchstone To The Death Of Jesus, Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Following on the Finding Jesus CNN series two years ago, this new six-week series extends beyond the book by David Gibson and Michael McKinley[1] toward examining other historical artifacts and their relations to the portraits of Jesus we find in the Gospels. The first episode, “The Pilate Stone,” focuses on the historical impact of Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus to death. Despite being largely unknown otherwise, Pilate’s importance is paramount in world history. According to the narrator, without the death (and resurrection) of Jesus, the Christian movement would not have been born, and according to Michael Peppard, without Pontius Pilate, …

"Get On The Cart!" Wesleyan Discipleship In An Age Of Endemic (Chapter 15 Of Thinking Theologically About Mass Incarceration), Benjamin Hartley, Glen Alton Messer Ii, Kirsten Sonkyo Oh

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Excerpt: "Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said that the so,ul of society "can be measured by its prisons."1 If that is true, then the soul of society in the United States is sick. The statistics on mass incarceration provided elsewhere in this volume illustrate the endemic nature of the problem much like epidemiological data shows the occurrence of a disease, but the stories from prisoners and their families-which the three of us have heard and told-show even more poignantly the depth of the wounds caused by the tragedy of incarceration that defies Christian virtues in this country. We pray this chapter will …

The Lost Purpose Of Learning (Chapter 1 Of On Education, Formation, Citizenship And The Lost Purpose Of Learning), Joseph Clair

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Excerpt: "College is a rich part of the Western cultural imagination and a canonized plot line in the American middle-class mythos. Although it is costly and time-intensive, there are good reasons to be proud of this tradition and to go away for four years to become adults. After all, college leaves an indelible stamp on the soul: the formative lessons of newfound independence, hard work, and leisure in preparation for the business of life. Few institutions have more nostalgic and patriotic bonds of affection that last as long-and procure as many donations- as college and university alumni associations. Americans talk …

The Formative Spirituality Of John Punshon (1935-2017), Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

John Punshon has been one of the premier Quaker historians and spokespersons over the last four decades. Serving as Quaker Tutor at Woodbrooke, Visiting Professor of Quaker Studies at George Fox University, and the first Geraldine Leatherock Chair of Quaker Studies at the Earlharn School of Religion, John Punshon has contributed greatly to present historical and theological understandings of the Quaker movement, and he will be greatly missed. From his childhood experiences in a local church whilst living with his grandparents during the War to his education at Oxford, his public and political service and his development into a leading …

Perspectives On The Missiological Legacy Of Martin Luther And The Protestant Reformation, Richard L. Starcher, Philip C. Huber, J. Nelson Jennings, Benjamin L. Hartley, Stan Nussbaum, William R. Burrows

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Upon the occasion of the 500th anniversary Martin Luther’s publication of his 95 theses, this composite article brings together five perspectives on the missiological legacy of the reformer and the subsequent Protestant Reformation. The blend of voices makes clear that Luther and the subsequent Protestant Reformation do not have a simple missiological legacy but rather various legacies: theological, ecclesiological, political, and practical; some of which co-exist, and even collide, in the same ecclesiastical community. The scandalous legacy of a splintered and splintering church remains. Yet, demonstrations of mutual recognition, reciprocal respect, and genuine fellowship can be found in certain missiological …

Book Review: The Responsive Self: Personal Religion In Biblical Literature Of The Neo-Babylonian And Persian Periods, Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Review of The Responsive Self: Personal Religion in Biblical Literature of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods by Susan Niditch Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. 138 pp. $50.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-300-16636-1.

In this short, engaging, and learned book, Susan Niditch takes readers into the world of sixth–fifth century BCE Judah/Yehud to understand what it might have meant for religion during this period to have become “personal.” Books like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Job, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Proverbs, and Zechariah, among others, take center stage as examples of the turn toward the individual’s relationship to God and the personal …

Book Review: The God Ezekiel Creates, Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Review of Paul M. Joyce and Dalit Rom-Shiloni (eds.), The God Ezekiel Creates (LHBOTS 607; London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2015). Pp. xiv + 217 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0567658593

This deftly edited volume is a collection often essays on Ezekiel’s unique presentation of God. Indeed, as Joyce and Rom-Shiloni write in the preface, “[F]ew, if any, books of the Bible . . . have a more distinctive presentation of the deity than the book of Ezekiel, or are more dominated by the central place taken by the divine figure” (p. xiii). This core focus on Ezekiel’s God organizes …

Identity And Congruence: The Ethics Of Integrity In The Johannine Epistles (Chapter In Biblical Ethics And Application), Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

If the Johannine eagle soared above the earth, it did so with talons bared for the fight; and the last writings that were left show the eaglets tearing at each other for the possession of the nest. There are moments of tranquil contemplation and inspiring penetration in the Johannine writings, but they also reflect a deep involvement in Christian history. Like Jesus, the word transmitted to the Johannine community lived in the flesh.

Misreading C.S. Lewis: A Review (A Review Of Wesley A. Kort, Reading C.S. Lewis: A Commentary), Jason Lepojärvi

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Review of Wesley A. Kort, Reading C. S. Lewis: A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2016) 299 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0190221348.

The Aquinas Code: Was Thomism The Fundamental Reason Why C.S. Lewis Never Became Catholic? (Review Of Stewart Goetz, A Philosophical Walking Tour With C.S. Lewis: Why It Did Not Include Rome), Jason Lepojärvi

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Review of Stewart Goetz, A Philosophical Walking Tour with C. S. Lewis: Why It Did Not Include Rome (Bloomsbury, 2015) ,ISBN-13 ‏: ‎978-1628923179

Perspectives On The Missiological Legacy Of Martin Luther And The Protestant Reformation, Richard L. Starcher, Philip C. Huber, J. Nelson Jennings, Benjamin Hartley, Stan Nussbaum, William R. Burrows

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Upon the occasion of the 500th anniversary Martin Luther’s publication of his 95 theses, this composite article brings together five perspectives on the missiological legacy of the reformer and the subsequent Protestant Reformation. The blend of voices makes clear that Luther and the subsequent Protestant Reformation do not have a simple missiological legacy but rather various legacies: theological, ecclesiological, political, and practical; some of which co-exist, and even collide, in the same ecclesiastical community. The scandalous legacy of a splintered and splintering church remains. Yet, demonstrations of mutual recognition, reciprocal respect, and genuine fellowship can be found in certain missiological …

Mission: Agnes C. L. Donohugh, Early "Apostle For Ethnography", Benjamin L. Hartley

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

In the spring of 1915, the Kennedy School of Missions at Hartford Theological Seminary, the leading graduate school for missionary training in the United States at this time, offered the first graduate-level course on ethnology ever to be taught in America to missionary candidates.1 The seminary's leadership had identified the need for teaching ethnology to missionariesin- training as early as 1913 - when the school of missions was just two years old. 2 This American curricular innovation followed a practice begun a decade earlier in Britain of teaching ethnology to missionary candidates (Kuklick 1991).3 Hartford Seminary President W. Douglas Mackenzie …

Homiletical Aesthetics: A Paradigmatic Proposal For A Holistic Experience Of Preaching, Sunggu Yang

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

The article is a proposal for a paradigmatic change in homiletical pedagogy. In North America today, most homiletical training at the seminary or divinity school is either text-driven or know-how-driven (or, at times, topic-driven). Thus, the homiletical training focuses on (1) how to exposit a text for a key topic, (2) how to structure a sermon, (3) how to deliver a message, and (4) how to analyze the text-driven sermon. While admitting the usefulness of this current textual or know-how pedagogy, the article suggests the addition of a holistic-aesthetic component of preaching, which I will later call numen-participatory education or …

Film And Christian Preaching: Toward A Cinemate Homiletic (Part I), Sunggu Yang

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

didn’t want you to enjoy the film. I wanted you to look very closely at your own soul

Sam Peckinpah (Director)

The cinema or pop film[2] has now become “the cathedral of the [twenty-first] century.”[3] Among its many implications, this metaphor keenly denotes that the film now provides its viewers with theological or spiritual meanings and issues that vitally affect their everyday (religious) thinking, behaviors and life patterns. Doubtless, this spiritual or religious function of the film used to be the church’s unique spiritual responsibility or task in the Christian West. Now, the film does it in place of the …

King, Kingship, Sunggu Yang

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Biblical films make use of several different images and related perceptions of kingship that are found throughout both Testaments: 1) king as absolute tyrant, 2) king as disapproved servant of God, 3) king as ideal head of the nation, 4) king as ironically subversive clown, and 5) God (or Christ) as ultimate king of kings in the universe. Films have been quick to adopt and depict these five images following biblical accounts and through creative imagination.

First and foremost, the concept of a king as an absolute tyrant is the earliest overture image of king in the OT/HB, particularly in …

Lamentation Of Jesus, Sunggu Yang

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

The lamentation of Jesus is one of the important biblical-artistic themes around Jesus’ death and resurrection since the Middle Ages – including themes such as the crucifixion, deposition, pietà, anointing, and entombment (see above “I. Christianity, Literature, and Music” and “II. Visual Arts”). This artistic scene is not genuinely consistent with the biblical narrative since no single canonic gospel of the four recounts any particular scene of lamentation. The Gospels only tersely report that at the cross there were few people from his inner circle and other female followers who witnessed the crucifixion from a distance (Matt 27 : 55–56; …

Foreword To The Itinerary Of The Prophet-King, Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Among modern analyses of the origin and development of John’s Christology, the socio-religious analysis of Wayne A. Meeks advances one of the most compelling and suggestive theses in recent years, addressing the riddles pertaining to the puzzling presentation of Jesus as a prophet-king like Moses in John 6:14-15. Whereas the Logos motif of the Johannine Prologue and the Father-Son relationship in the Johannine narrative convey high-christological thrusts, his receptions as a rabbi, teacher, and prophet elsewhere in John’s story of Jesus are far more mundane and earth bound. While he is rejected in Judea for failing to live up to …

Peder Borgen’S Bread From Heaven—Midrashic Developments In John 6 As A Case Study In John’S Unity And Disunity (A Foreword To Bread From Heaven), Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Among the weighty treatments of the Gospel of John over the last half-century, one of the most incisive has been Bread from Heaven, by Peder Borgen. As the unity and disunity of the Fourth Gospel had been debated extensively among Johannine scholars for the previous half-century, approaching this issue from a text-based comparative standpoint posed a new window through which one could assess key issues and contribute to the larger discussions. Whereas Rudolf Bultmann and Wilhelm Bousset had envisioned the context of John’s composition as Hellenistic Christianity leading into Gnostic trajectories, Borgen focused on particularly Jewish writings as John’s primary …

Anti-Semitism And Religious Violence As Flawed Interpretations Of The Gospel Of John, Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

While it is a tragic fact that the Gospel of John has contributed to anti-Semitism and religious violence during some chapters of Christian history, John is not anti-Semitic. It was written by a Jewish writer, about a Jewish messianic figure, targeted first toward convincing Jewish audiences that Jesus was indeed the Jewish Messiah. Salvation is “of the Jews,” according to the Johannine Jesus, and each of the “I-am” sayings embodies a classic representation of Israel. John is no more “anti-Semitic” than the Essene community or the prophetic work of John the Baptist. On the other hand, “the Jews” sometimes typify …