Wells, Tom, and Fred G. Zaspel. New Covenant Theology: Description, Definition, Defense. Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2002, $79.99. Paperback. How one puts together the Old and New Testaments is a massive conversation. Does one emphasize continuity or discontinuity between the testaments? How does one understand the relation between Israel and the church? What do those in the New Covenant do with the Old Covenant law? And on and on one could go asking relevant questions on this topic. Any endeavor to bring clarity to these questions and this conversation is both a daunting and a needed task, which is why I am thankful for the time-honored classic New Covenant Theology: Description, Definition, Defense by Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel. Though written over twenty years ago, this work brings clarity and conviction to this conversation from a New Covenant Theology (NCT) perspective that is still relevant today. Tom Wells is a writer and preacher who lives in West Chester, Ohio. He pastored The King’s Chapel (Reformed Baptist Church) in West Chester for nearly thirty years. He has published several books including Come to Me!, Christian: Take Heart!, A Price for a People, The Moral Basis of Faith, and A Vision…

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Poidevin, Robin Le. And Was Made Man: Mind, Metaphysics, and Incarnation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023, 256, $84.00, hardcover. And Was Made Man by Robin Le Poidevin is an original, creative, and daring reflective proposal on the metaphysics of the incarnation. Poidevin is emeritus philosopher of philosophy at the University of Leeds. He is well-known for his work in the metaphysics of time having authored several books and numerous essays. Though he is an agnostic, Poidevin is interested in the philosophical issues raised by the incarnation and active in publishing in the various areas of the philosophy of religion. The book is divided into two main parts: (1) models of the incarnation and (2) various problems or challenges to the incarnation. He covers four broad models. First, on the relational compositional model the Son as joined together with a concrete human nature, thus the Son becomes a part of (though not identical to) a divine-human composite. Second, on the transformational compositional the Son, by acquiring a concrete human nature, is transformed into a divine-human composite. Third, on the divided mind model, which may or may not be “compositional,” the Son has two steams of consciousness in the single person. Finally,…

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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…

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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…

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Spencer, Mark K. The Irreducibility of the Human Person: A Catholic Synthesis. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. 448 pages. $34.95. The Irreducibility of the Human Person: A Catholic Synthesis is a rich philosophical exploration of the foundations for a theological anthropology. Mark K. Spencer covers tremendous ground that provides a unique contribution to the literature in the philosophy of theological anthropology—closely aligned with theological anthropology proper. Spencer’s treatment of the human person is less like a well-prepared steak and more like a buffet, but a themed buffet where the master chef has carefully chosen all the dishes, arranged them, and done so in a way that each mutually inform one another providing the palette with a variety of related dishes that make one both full and artfully satisfied. Let me explain what I mean by this by highlighting some of the features of The Irreducibility of the Human Person. Spencer contributes a novel reflection on the human person, but unlike most treatments that are largely coming from this or that tradition he blends the worlds of philosophical discourse in a harmonious way. It is analytic in that it prizes clarity, logical rigor, conceptual clarification, and drawing from…

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Gallagher, Robert L. and Edward L. Smither, eds. Sixteenth Century Mission: Explorations in Protestant and Roman Catholic Theology and Practice. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021, 29.99, paperback. Many readers will be able to recall a barbed quotation taken from the Jesuit, Robert Bellarmine, who castigated Protestantism for its evident lack of apostolic zeal for mission. He claimed that “they had hardly converted a handful” (Stephen Neill, The History of Missions, 1986, p. 188).  As one who wrestled first to understand and then to explain to others the ‘tortoise and the hare’ phenomenon exhibited in the modest beginning of Protestant missionary effort in the sixteenth century, this reviewer was keen to examine Sixteenth Century Mission. The prospect of finding accounts of Reformation-era missions provided from both sides of the confessional divide in a single volume seemed promising. In this review, we shall consider Sixteenth Century Mission as to its concept, as to its methodology, and as to its overall quality. The concept of Sixteenth Century Mission (hereafter SCM) is a noble one. Why hasn’t someone brought together essays representing early modern Protestant and Catholic mission, before now? The volume offers an initial ten chapters describing Protestant missionary activity within and beyond…

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Costley, Angela. Creation and Christ: An Exploration of the Topic of Creation in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020, pp. 385, 94.00€, paperback. When thinking about what makes the Christology of Hebrews distinctive, perhaps the first image that comes to mind is that of Jesus as high priest. Other topics of perennial interest in the study of Hebrews include the intriguing utilization of the Sabbath and the deployment of tabernacle, temple, and other cultic imagery. Angela Costley draws attention to the important role played by references to creation in Hebrews and argues that the author of Hebrews employs these allusions to creation in order to portray Jesus as the creator who descends to earth in order to lead believers into God’s primordial rest. Creation and Christ is a revision of the author’s 2018 Ph.D. dissertation, which was completed at St. Patrick’s College in the Pontifical University of Maynooth, Ireland. Costley currently teaches Greek and Wisdom literature at St. Mary’s College in Oscott. After establishing her research focus, Costley outlines the methodological tools that she will use in order to exegete creation language in Hebrews. Following a line of recent Hebrews scholars (e.g. Neeley, Westfall, and Dyer), Costley…

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Christensen, Scott. What about Evil? A Defense of God’s Sovereign Glory. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2020, pp. 544, $30, hardback. Scott Christensen, is the author of the highly acclaimed What about Free Will?, foreword by D.A. Carson (P&R, 2016). Scott worked for nine years at the award-winning CCY Architects in Aspen, Colorado; several of his home designs were featured in Architectural Digest magazine. Called out of this work to the ministry, he graduated with his MDiv from The Masters Seminary with honors. He pastored Summit Lake Community Church in southwest Colorado for sixteen years and now serves as the associate pastor of Kerrville Bible Church in Kerrville, Texas. What About Evil?, by Scott Christensen, is a theologically rich resource that provides a defense of God’s sovereign glory and a reason for why God allows evil in the world. In seeking to answer the problem of evil, Christensen provides a robust solution that he calls the Greater-Glory Theodicy. In combining aspects of the Greater-Good Theodicy and fragments of the Best-of-All Possible Worlds Defense, the Greater-Glory Theodicy seeks to resolve the problem of evil in the backdrop of studying what brings God the greatest glory (p. 7). Christensen argues that Jesus’…

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Robinson, David S. Christ and Revelatory Community in Bonhoeffer’s Reception of Hegel. Dogmatik in der Moderne 22. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018, pp. xv + 260, €69.00, paperback. David Robinson was recently appointed as the R. Paul Stevens Assistant Professor of Marketplace Theology and Leadership at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. The text under review is based on his doctoral dissertation at the University of Edinburgh. In it, Robinson seeks to recast Bonhoeffer’s reception of Hegel in a highly nuanced manner that is ultimately more positive than most previous appraisals. Rather than “demolition,” “revolt,” or “confrontation,” Bonhoeffer’s reception is seen as aiming to “repair” aspects of Hegel in “eclectic and Christologically intent” ways (pp. 11-12). For Robinson, such “intent” is especially apparent in Bonhoeffer’s transposition of Hegel’s “revelatory” notion of “God existing as community” to that of “Christ existing as community”—a significant move since this latter phrase is often a shorthand for Bonhoeffer’s overall program (p. 16). In comparison to earlier studies of the Bonhoeffer-Hegel question, Robinson’s approach differs in three ways (p. 17). First, whereas much of the previous scholarship placed inordinate attention upon Bonhoeffer’s second dissertation (Akt und Sein [1931]), Robinson’s approach is diachronic with regard to Bonhoeffer’s corpus…

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Sarisky, Darren, ed. Theologies of Retrieval: An Exploration and Appraisal. T&T Clark Theology. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017, pp. ix + 359, $175, hardback ($42.95, paperback). The present anthology is an essential read for those interested in the question of how classical texts within the Christian tradition can and should be theologically “retrieved” for the contemporary theological task. The volume’s editor, Darren Sarisky, previously served as Departmental Lecturer in Modern Theology at the University of Oxford before taking up his current post of Senior Research Fellow in Religion and Theology at Australian Catholic University’s Melbourne campus. Sarisky has done readers a great service by gathering a star-studded cast of scholars to guide readers through the thicket of representative figures, movements, and types of theological retrieval that have become prominent in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In his introduction to the volume, Sarisky rightly distinguishes between correlation and retrieval theologies—the “two main ways” that Christian theologians tend to engage with the present situation (p. 1). Whereas the former seeks “to correlate elements of the Christian tradition with aspects of modern culture” in a conversational manner for sake of helping the Christian message stay intellectually relevant, the latter is “less concerned to…

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