Book Reviews

Review of Superheroes Can’t Save You: Epic Examples of Historic Heresies by Todd Miles

Miles, Todd. Superheroes Can’t Save You: Epic Examples of Historic Heresies. Nashville: B&H 2019. pp. 208, $20 paperback. Todd L. Miles is professor of Theology and Director of the Master of Theology program at Western Seminary in Portland, OR. We are easily enamored with escaping our normal everyday lives to enjoy watching our favorite superhero destroy the evil villain, bring justice to the oppressors, and save the day. Whether you are a Marvel or DC fanatic, most people cannot resist seeing the newest superhero movie that seems to drop every few months. The connection and love we have with superheroes seem to highlight a deeper truth that as humans, we all desire someone who is more powerful and stronger than us to come and save us from the difficulties and sufferings in our lives. All superheroes are attempts to create a “savior-like figure” who can rescue us from our depravity using their super-human powers. Yet as Todd Miles demonstrates in his book, Superheroes Can’t Save You, every superhero that we have created is an inadequate picture of the true hero of the story of reality: Jesus Christ. Superheroes Can’t Save You attempts to show how each one of our coveted…

Review of Doing Asian American Theology: A Contextual Framework for Faith and Practice by Daniel D. Lee

Lee, Daniel D. Doing Asian American Theology: A Contextual Framework for Faith and Practice. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2022, pp. 216, $24.00, paperback. Daniel D. Lee is the Associate Professor of Theology and Asian American Studies, and also the academic dean for the Center for Asian American Theology and Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Lee’s newest work, Doing Asian American Theology, presents his Asian American Quadrilateral (AAQ) as a heuristic tool to empower Asian Americans to live out Christian theology from their own contextuality/embodiment (p. 2). The elements of his AAQ are as follows: the first element is Asian heritage, which includes various inheritances from all across Asia, from the cultural to the religious (p. 68); the second element is the migration experience (p. 70); the third element is American culture, which includes American colonial histories in the Asian continent (p. 71); and the fourth and final element is racialization or, in other words, “the process of racial identity formation, navigating the Black/White binary, and the particular forms of discrimination the Asian Americans face as people of color” (p. 72). Lee’s AAQ constitutes the main thrust of the nine chapters in his book where he tries…

Review of Together in Ministry: Women and Men in Flourishing Partnerships by Rob Dixon

Dixon, Rob. Together in Ministry: Women and Men in Flourishing Partnerships. Downers Grover, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021, 176, $22, paperback. Rob Dixon is an associate regional ministry director with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA and senior fellow for gender partnership with the InterVarsity Institute. He is an adjunct professor at Fresno Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary and provides training on flourishing mixed-gender ministry partnerships for numerous organizations around the country. Together In Ministry is the culmination of Dixon’s twenty-seven years of ministry experience and four years of focused doctoral research in mixed-gender ministry partnerships. Dixon’s book “rests on the premise that women and men are designed to partner together in the work of fulfilling God’s mission on earth,” as laid out in the first two chapters of Genesis (p. 2). His thesis states that it is necessary and possible to embrace this Genesis picture in order to have flourishing mixed-gender ministry partnerships. Drawing on years of hands-on experience, research interviews, focus groups, and a survey of theology and church history, Dixon lays out a model for ministry partners that helps each person find a profound sense of personal satisfaction and accomplish their ministry goals (p. 17). His research has led him…

Review of The Calling of Eve: How the Women of the Bible Inspire the Women of the Church by Jacki C. King

King, Jacki C. The Calling of Eve: How the Women of the Bible Inspire the Women of the Church. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, 2022, pp. 176, $16.99, hardcover. Jacki C. King holds a master’s degree in theological studies from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and serves as a Bible teacher. Despite juggling life as an author, blogger, podcast host, pastor’s wife, and mother of three, Jacki King thinks of herself as “just a normal girl.” While such achievements exceed what society or even the church considers normal, King’s standard of reference does not come from society or the church but from the women of Scripture. King begins her book by describing how her understanding of the importance of women’s roles in the kingdom was formed in the context of the local church but subsequently shaken in the church. Lacking the stereotypical qualities the church emphasized as most important among women, the young King questioned whether following and serving Christ meant being someone other than, well, her. Her leadership gifting and devotion to Christ and his church seemed undeniable. Nevertheless, King felt little connection to the demure image the church expected women to portray. King describes her younger self as loud,…

Review of The Scandal of the Gospel: Preaching and the Grotesque by Charles L. Campbell

Campbell, Charles L. The Scandal of the Gospel: Preaching and the Grotesque. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2021, pp. 120, $33, paperback. Painters have their colors and canvas, sculptors have their clay, and preachers have their words. And words are powerful. As the Bible so often indicates, Scripture has the power to build up and to tear down, and this is especially so in the ministry of preaching, as Charles L. Campbell discusses in his latest book, The Scandal of the Gospel: Preaching and the Grotesque. Campbell is James T. and Alice Mead Cleland Professor Emeritus of Homiletics at Duke Divinity School. He is a past president of the Academy of Homiletics, a highly sought-after lecturer, and he is well published in the field.  Most of the content for this latest book comes from his 2018 Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School; only the fourth chapter contains new material. In the forward, Campbell explains that he is not seeking any consistency or system; rather, he says that he is “simply trying to make some homiletical connections between preaching and the grotesque” (p. xiv). This concept of the grotesque subsequently stands at the center of the book. The term is…

Review of Being Saved: Explorations in Human Salvation edited by Marc Cortez, Joshua R. Farris, and S. Mark Hamilton

Cortez, Marc, Joshua R. Farris, and S. Mark Hamilton, eds. Being Saved: Explorations in Human Salvation. London: SCM, 2018, pp. 361, $56, paperback. Being Saved is a collection of essays circling around the twin topics of “theological anthropology and soteriology” (p. xiii). The essays explore classic systematic theological categories while also engaging with other disciplines of enquiry about the human condition. The editors acknowledge that this creates a wide variety in the essays, but they seek to avoid “a homogenous approach to this multi-levelled discussion” (p. xv). This approach makes clear several different modes of theological enquiry for Christian theology. By juxtaposing them in one volume, it serves as a sourcebook for contemporary questions about soteriology and about the interaction between soteriology and philosophy. Although a four-part division provides structure to the book, some essays fall more neatly into the given categories than others. The first section, “Sin, Evil and Salvation,” centers on cosmic issues, or those outside the individual person. After initial forays into God and time (“Identity through Time,” R. T. Mullins) and idealism (“Divine Hiddenness,” Trickett and Taber), there are three essays on sin and atonement. Jonathan Rutledge rejects “Retributivism”, defined as the claim that “the punishment…

Review of Baptism: Zwingli or the Bible? by Jack Cottrell

Cottrell, Jack. Baptism: Zwingli or the Bible? Mason, OH: The Christian Restoration Association, 2022, 163pp, $14.99, paperback. Jack Cottrell, arguably the most prolific writer and influential theologian of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, tackles the topic of baptism in yet another accessible book, Baptism: Zwingli or the Bible? This text incorporates Cottrell’s primary insights on how the Protestant Reformer Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531) changed the course of church history by creating a new view of the meaning of baptism from salvific to merely symbolic. Although this concise book contains previously published material by Cottrell, it is good to have an overview and summary of Cottrell’s critique of Zwingli’s view of baptism in one small volume. It is certainly handy for the student as well as the scholar and teacher. Cottrell divides this work into three parts: (1) a review of his Princeton dissertation on Zwingli, (2) his personal views on “Zwinglianism,” and (3) a reproduction of “Connection of Baptism with Remission of Sins.” (Part Three is the work of the nineteenth century Christian Church theologian J. W. McGarvey which was originally included in his New Commentary on Acts of the Apostles [1892] but omitted from later editions.) Part One is divided…

Review of The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative (2nd Edition) by Steven D. Mathewson

Mathewson, Steven D. The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative. 2nd edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021, 252 pages, $22.99, paperback. Steven Mathewson is both a pastor and a scholar. He serves as the senior pastor in Libertyville, IL, and he is also the director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Western Seminary in Portland, OR. Mathewson’s background as a practitioner and scholar in the field of homiletics enhances his book, The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative, by allowing him to provide practical counsel and helpful instruction to readers. The author develops his work around three parts. In Part One, Mathewson addresses some challenges with preaching from Old Testament narratives, and he surveys “The Christ-Centered Preaching Debate” (pp. 15-26). In relation to the subject of Christ-centered preaching, the author notes that “I did not deal with this sufficiently (in fact, hardly at all) in his first edition” (xviii). Mathewson’s rationale for adding this discussion is as follows: “Your conclusions [about preaching Christ in the Old Testament] will shape the way that you study and preach an Old Testament narrative text” (p.15). In Part Two, Mathewson presents his methodology for studying biblical narratives for preaching in six chapters….

Review of Say It!: Celebrating Expository Preaching in the African American Tradition edited by Eric C. Redmond

Redmond, Eric C. ed. Say It!: Celebrating Expository Preaching in the African American Tradition. Chicago: Moody, 2020, 240 pages, $14.99, paperback. What does the Great Migration have to do with exposition? Much! The Black Church in the United States has a beautiful yet painful history. The African American preaching tradition arose in this context, producing notable preachers including John Jasper, Richard Allen, Francis J. Grimké, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gardner C. Taylor, James Earl Massey, and E. K. Bailey. Historically, African American preaching has been underresearched and underpublished. However, times are changing, and homiletical treasures are being unearthed and offered to Christ’s people. Eric C. Redmond (Ph.D., Capital Seminary and Graduate School) has assembled a top-notch lineup of African American homileticians in Say It! to “demonstrate the power of exposition in the cradle of the black pulpit” (back cover). Redmond is a Professor of Bible at Moody Bible Institute and an Associate Pastor of Preaching, Teaching, and Care at Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, IL. He has published several books and articles, including Where Are All the Brothers? Straight Answers to Men’s Questions About the Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008) and Christ-Centered Exposition: Jonah (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2016)….

Review of God’s Mediators: A Biblical Theology of Priesthood by Andrew S. Malone

Andrew S. Malone. God’s Mediators: A Biblical Theology of Priesthood. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2017, pp. 230, $25.00, paperback. Andrew S. Malone serves as Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Dean of Ridley Online at Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia. In God’s Mediators, Malone develops an expositional and synthetic biblical theology of the theme of priesthood, studying both individual and corporate priestly identities and work across the canon so as to “augment and refine our existing knowledge, reinforce or reshape our theological framework, and make us better expositors of the texts and their consequences for God’s holy people” (p. 10). He contends, specifically, that Christians struggle to define priests and priesthood in a manner following the patterns of the biblical witness (pp. 8–9; 186–187). Malone descriptively surveys, therefore, the biblical landscape for individual priests, starting with Aaron’s and his sons’ mediation at Sinai with an important focus on “the kingdom of priests” found in Exodus 19:5–6 as a royal priesthood (pp. 16–17, 126). His survey of the Aaronic priesthood, ultimately, establishes a baseline to consider implications for 1) Israel’s corporate priesthood, 2) Jesus’ priesthood, and 3) the nature of the church’s corporate priesthood. He labels the Aaronic priesthood by its status of…