Book Reviews
Book Review: “Conversion and Election”
Conversion and Election: A Plea for a United Lutheranism in America. By Francis Pieper. Ithaca, NY: Just and Sinner Publishing House, 2020. 140 pp. $14.00 (paper). In the late nineteenth century, Lutherans in America were at odds with each other over the doctrines of election (i.e., predestination) and conversion. The conflict was reignited in 1912…
Book Review: “The Devil’s Redemption”
The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism (2 Volumes). By Michael J. McClymond. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018. 1362 pp. $90.00 (paper). Before the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion were finalized in 1571, there were the Forty-two Articles of 1553. Almost all the substance of the latter can be found in the…
Book Review: “Metaphysics in the Reformation”
Metaphysics in the Reformation: The Case of Peter Martyr Vermigli. By Silvianne Aspray. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 176 pp. $80.00 (cloth). Attempting to discern a systematic approach to metaphysics in the Reformation quickly runs into a problem, namely that the Reformers generally did not treat metaphysical questions as such in their writings. As…
Book Review: “Orthodox Anglican Identity”
Orthodox Anglican Identity: The Quest for Unity in a Diverse Religious Tradition. By Charles Erlandson. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2020. 224 pp. $47.00 (cloth), $27.00 (paper). Books on Anglicanism nowadays often read like eulogies. Charles Erlandson’s Orthodox Anglican Identity might be included in this genre. He is not irenic like, say, Alistair Redfern, who, in…
Book Review: “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary”
Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah. By Brant Pitre. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2018. 240 pp. $24.00 (cloth). A collage of images from pop culture made up my earliest understanding of St. Mary – pictures picked up in the childish ways we begin to learn anything. There was…
Book Review: “The Lost Supper”
The Lost Supper: Revisiting Passover and the Origins of the Eucharist. By Matthew Colvin. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019. 188 pp. $90.00 (cloth). Debates over eucharistic theology are as predictable as they are unending. It’s not just that various dogmatic interpretations have congealed such that advancing theological reflection on the eucharist may seem futile;…
Book Review: “The Oxford Movement in Context”
The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760‒1857. By Peter B. Nockles. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 364 pp. $55.99 (paper). In Orthodox Anglican Identity, Charles Erlandson identifies four different “spiritualities” that are commonly thought to be encompassed within “orthodox Anglicanism” as a whole: Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, Charismatic, and Global. The Anglo-Catholic spirituality is…
Book Review: “Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth”
Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice. By Thaddeus J. Williams. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2020. 288 pp. $22.99 (paper). “I can’t do it,” I told the couple sitting in front of me. It was the summer of 2020. The COVID pandemic was continuing to build, the presidential campaign…
Book Review: “Meeting God in Paul: Reflections for the Season of Lent”
Meeting God in Paul: Reflections for the Season of Lent. By Rowan Williams. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015. 96pp. $12.00 (paper). Archbishop Williams originally prepared the material in this book for a series of Lenten lectures. The audience of this book is primarily the layman. This is a departure from Williams’ usual writing…
Review of Icons of Christ: Errors of Protology and Eschatology
PART 2: WITT’S CONSTRUCTION OF HISTORY In the first part of this series, we examined the plausibility structures on which Witt’s book relies for its persuasiveness. We saw that Witt teaches a novel modern anthropology: he sees human beings not as fundamentally sexed creatures in a pervasively gendered cosmos, but as individuals who take on…