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Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Thresholds function as a barrier between outside and inside, separating those who dwell within a residence from persons outside it.  Ancient Canaanites associated thresholds with demons who were thought to lurk underneath and to attack hapless persons disturbing their rest.  Anyone who endeavours to understand a biblical text encounters a threshold under which lurk untold ‘demons’.  The text has been granted a privileged position above every other human production.  We spend countless hours combating the demons released on an unsuspecting society by stepping across the threshold of our canon. 

         ‘The biblical text has been used to sanction slavery, the suppression of women, the jingoism and narrow fundamentalism that demonizes others who read texts differently. (p 3)  Our encounter with the biblical text, as I cross the threshold, constitutes a dialogue. Crossing the threshold brings us into immediate contact with an alien culture.  Every text carries within its spaces multiple meanings, and so with one foot firmly planted in the modern age and the other tentatively feeling for a toehold in the biblical period ( 5), we risk disturbing the demons lurking beneath the threshold.

        We are beneficiaries of ancient religious thinkers who stepped across the thresholds, giving a decision to cling to the living G-d.  And that is where we find ourselves:  trembling because of the silence of eternity and the anticipation of hearing the clamour from the past.  Crenshaw gifts us with twenty sermons and nine meditations that step deliberately on the thresholds of our culture.  The biblical metaphor of ‘threshold’ becomes a powerful  incentive to utter a faithful word, recognizing that we have been entrusted with a weighty message.

        A wonderful invitation to step over our thresholds, with one foot ‘firmly planted in the modern age and the other tentatively feeling for a toehold in the biblical period’ (p 5).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Willimon and Hauerwas, of Duke University, join forces in this book:  Willimon contributes ten sermons and Hauerwas responds to each.  The sermons are the occasion for Willimon to preach to strangers (mainly to students and to tourists).  The sermons are addressed to students who are passing through, to people who share no common tradition, to people who have so little in common that they are not even able to locate disagreements.  ‘Most preaching in the Christian church today is done before strangers’ (p 6).  Christians once understood that they were pilgrims; now we’re just tourists who happen to find ourselves on the same bus.

        Preaching needs to translate the language of the gospel onto experiences that are already well understood; preaching is not about communicating but about challenging our understanding.  Willimon’s sermons reflect startling perspectives, eg “Jesus’ systemic abnormality’.  The pretentious power of the state is countered by healing the ill, telling the truth, feeding the hungry, stampeding swine—systemic abnormality had to put him away.  Here is the power in the sermon, that summons each of us to submit to transformation (p 33). Willimon’s sermons reflect the canonical range of ‘the systemic abnormality’, of ordinary people eg Ruth, Joseph/Mary, Christmas, urging us to universal human love (!), and all we get is a hasty trip from nowhere Nazareth to Left Armpit Bethlehem.’  The nativity story is small, specific and particular.  It’s not about the whole human race; it’s about real people with real names—you can make a road map and follow Mary’s and Joseph’s journey (p 124).  G-d did not appear as an idea or a program:  G-d came to Mary and to Joseph (p 129).

        Preaching to Strangers suggests an old and a very new way to think about theological words to strangers.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        ‘Emergent church/ has become a major theme in contemporary religious analysis.  One of the earliest people to develop the concept was the Catholic theologian, Johann Metz.  He uses the categories of messianism vs. bourgeois religion, and then sees the implication for culture and for the Lord’s supper (the eucharist).

        It’s a far ranging book that challenges the church to move beyond its middle class comfort zone, that challenges the church to move beyond its preoccupation of pacifying and consoling.  Metz points out that a bourgeois theology has removed all apocalyptic tensions:  o danger, no contradiction.  Love in bourgeois religion also avoids messianic perspectives.  Love, in messianic religion, takes sides. The universality of this love does not consist in a refusal to take sides but rather in the way it takes sides, that is, without hatred or hostility toward people’ (p 40).

        The perspective of messianic Christianity also affects our stewardship.  ‘The problem of the church’s large-scale aid organizations is not that they exist but that in the minds of Christians they remove this necessary help from its all-embracing messianic content (which includes factors like solidarity, political education and to the will to practical change, and reduce it to a process of the mere giving of money’ (p 8). ‘The worldwide church challenges us in the relation of the rich churches to the poor churches, or, in general, the churches of central Europe to those of the Latin American subcontinent (p 20).

Other essays talk of Jewish-Christian ecumenical relations, bread and the Lord’s Supper (what kind of bread are we eating?)  Wonderful probing of the emerging church and mission.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        For Sanguin, the emerging church refers to congregations that are looking out at the horizon for the futures that desire to be born through them (rather than at the past as basis for the present (p 63): congregations making a shift from a redemption-centred evolutionary Christian theology.  This ‘creative emergence’ is defined by three core dynamics:  novelty, self organization, transcendence and inclusion.  We recognize that in Jesus G-d was doing a new thing, especially a radically inclusive development, a ‘radical hospitality’ (p 57).

        He stresses the call of discipleship over the preoccupation with membership (p 58).  In the church’s attempt to see where it is moving to, there is a need to recognize the non-negotiables:  the gospel, the whole bible, the open table, the striving for mission and justice—to get the church into the world (p 60).

        Sanguin identifies four aspects of leadership, based not on technique but on personhood:  self definition, emotional intelligence, the shadow side, and Friedmann’s non-anxious presence (pp 119-128).  Insightful is his articulation of spiritual leadership capacities: stillness, theological reflection, confession and creativity.  He points to the difference between ‘good ideas’ and ‘governing ideas’ (p 65)—he utilizes the Carver governance paradigm, and has a useful analysis of the familiarization of Jesus’ mission statements for congregations:  the kingdom of g-d.  Entering G-d’s kingdom means we exit Caesar’s kingdom; Jesus built a new reality, not simply deconstructing an old one (p 67).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        For Anderson, the question of being the church is which church will should be the recipient of our energies; the choices for him are the church in Antioch and the church in Jerusalem.  ‘Jesus launched a movement that was supposed to begin in Jerusalem but was intended to spread outward from there to Judea and Samaria.  It was to begin in Jerusalem but it couldn’t be contained by Jerusalem.  When Jerusalem-centred Christians tried to limit the movement’s daring expansion into and constructive engagement with other cultures, to prune back its continuing emergence.

        Antioch has been the new centre from which the movement could expand (p 4).  The Christian community that  emerged out of Antioch constitutes the original form and theology of the emerging church as contrasted with the believing community at Jerusalem.  The difference between Antioch and Jerusalem is essentially a theological difference (p 56).  ‘Emerging churches are apostolic when they seek to define and make clear the apostolic work of Christians in the present century rather than in the first century (p 38).

        Emergent theology looks toward the ‘final century’, as normative and apostolic, not the first century.  An example of this is the expanded and expanding role of women in the church.  The emerging theology is a theology of the Holy Spirit, of revelational theology (not just historical theology).  Emergent theology is the identification of new directions; emergent theology looks to the structures of the future for inspiration rather than repeating the past.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        This is an old book, but it remains a treatment of a New Testament concept that is not dated.  ‘Conscience’ (suneidysis) is a primary Pauline theme. (It appears 31 times in the New Testament writings, 21 times in Paul himself, 11 times in 1 Corinthians alone.)  It is not found in the LXX, which means that the NT writers who use the term adopted the word and its usage not from the Hebrew world of ideas but from the Hellenistic.

        Conscience is the reaction of the whole person to his own wrong acts (p 113).  Paul introduced the concept into the Christian vocabulary.  He does not claim it as a part of revelation, but accepts it as a universal experience among people with a limited validation (p 113).  Plutarch called ‘conscience’ an ‘ulcer’, a painful thing, an extremely resistant area that never ceases to wound and goad (p 47).  Its function is to protect the individual from harm, physical and moral; pain will rouse the individual to maintain good and safe behaviour (p 53).

        Conscience does not say what should be done, but that the individual sees a moral decision that should be followed based on other criteria.  Nature by Itself cannot say what should be done but that the moral action (the ‘right thing’) should be followed.  Such an approach to the moral life gives the church five duties (p 128): to be a healthy environment (the concept of formation), to influence the secular environment, to present reassured moral options to see Jesus’ life as an example, to follow right habits.

        The book is a good treatment of the process of moral choice, and a powerful example of how the early church interacted with the larger culture.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Grimsrud does a double theological treatment: of penal theory and of atonement theory.

        Penal theory: The difference between retributive and restorative approaches to retaliatory justice.

        Atonement: Are we made right with G-d by the amount of pain to inflict to ‘atone’, to make good, the difference between us and G-d?  Are we condemned to suffer G-d’s anger unless G-d’s disposition toward us is changed?  Does G-d require sacrificial violence?

        Does the Bible provide us with a model of the need to respond to violence with violence (retribution)?  Or does the bible provide a model of how violence must be dealt with in a way that ends the violence cycle—a restorative model, a G-d who orders the cosmos in terms of mercy? (p 27)

        Grimsrud sketches the ‘primal story line’ of the OT, the message of key prophets, and the teaching and example of Jesus, as portraying salvation as a simple act of G-d’s mercy.  These biblical sources assume a G-d who does not first need to be persuaded by human acts to make whatever provisions are necessary for salvation (healing, reconciliation) to occur.  All of these OT sources present salvation as being free from ‘retribution’ (p 28).  ‘Salvation is not centred on Jesus’ death as a necessary prerequisite to salvation to be made available; dynamics of justice are restorative and not retributive.’ (p 226).  Jesus lived and taught mercy, not retribution.

        Salvation is found in G-d’s mercy, not in Jesus’ death.  Jesus’ death reveals the emphasis of the Powers (temple, culture, empire) as they resist Jesus’ embodiment of G-d’s mercy.  Justice and salvation need to be looked at in the language of peace, respect and reconciliation, not on retribution and violence.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Wuthnow, professor of sociology at Princeton, claims that congregational drop in donations, voluntary and personal involvement are the result of a spiritual  crisis, caused in large part by clergy failure to address the vital relationship between faith and money, work, stewardship and economic justice.

        Quoting from clergy and laity interviews in sixty Protestant and Catholic congregations, parishioners often feel the church does not care about what they do from Monday to Friday.

        Wuthnow points to attempts to challenge members to think differently about matters of faith and finance.  Churches are being influenced by the cultural milieu in which we live (p ix).  Of primary interest is a 64-item congregational interview guide that he used in congregational analysis (p 247ff).  Clergy need to continue to emphasize stewardship and its centrality to the life of faith (p 105), featuring its theological significance rather than simply as common sense middle class virtues.

        Wuthnow spends a chapter on strategies for survival to bring together stewardship and spiritual perspectives:  to engage the congregation in ministry to the broken people of society, to move beyond middle class perspective; to initiate small groups for greater accountability; to encourage megachurch dynamics; to strength the  program churches (membership of 200 – 500).

        Wuthnowe’s attention is focused on clergy and their role in finance; this does not recognize the crucial changes in pastoral training and the churches changing role in society (the temptation to Constantianize the church; eg what are the implications for pastoral care in a culture where clergy training is increasingly on-line.  A new perspective is needed that goes beyond fiscal probity.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Vermes, professor of Jewish studies in Oxford University, sketches Jesus’ thought and action based on the synoptic gospels. The book is based on the recognition of Jesus within the earliest Gospel tradition, prior to Christian theological speculation, as a charismatic prophetic teacher and miracle worker, the Galilean whose ethical teaching stood him head and shoulders above the known representatives of the reality of spiritual personality (p 5).

        Methodologically, Vermes treats the New Testament as one particular vector on the general map of Jewish cultural history.  Vermes has a threefold investigation:  Jesus’ relationship to the living Judaism of his age, the idea of G-d as King and Father, and the difference between the Jewish religious and historic ecclesiastical Christianity.

        The most outstanding feature in Jesus’ attitude, Vermes claims, is an all abounding concern with the ‘ultimate purpose of the law not as a juridical entity but as a religious ethical reality, revealing what he thought to be the right and divinely ordained behaviour towards men and towards G-d’ (p 41,45).  ‘The core of Jesus’ religion is not Torah observance, not a search for purity, but the divine king’s single criterion will be whether or not a person imitated him in his deeds of love’ (p 204), ‘extended a loving hand to the distressed’, and recognizing that loving one’s neighbour includes also one’s enemies.’

        ‘The magnetic appeal of the teaching and example of Jesus holds out hope and guidance to those outside the fold of organized religion, for all who yearn for a world of mercy, justice and peace’ (p 215).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        What does it mean to be Christian today?  For Borg, there is a way of seeing Christianity that makes persuasive and compelling sense of life—a way of seeing reality, a way of seeing G-d.  An earlier understanding of Christianity makes belief difficult.  This earlier way of being Christian views the Bible as the unique revelation of G-d, emphasizes its literal meaning and sees the Christian life as centred in believing now for the sake of salvation later.

        The second way of seeing Christianity has been developing over the past century, but the two ways share central convictions: the reality of G-d, the centrality of the bible, the importance of a relationship with G-d as known in Jesus, and our need (the world’s need) for transformation.  Both ways emphasize the importance of a personal relationship with G-d.

        Borg calls us to an ‘unending conversation’ between these two ways (what the Apostles’ Creed calls ‘the communion of saints’)—the awareness that we are neither the first nor the only ones.  Borg advances three affirmations as foundational for being Christian:  the reality of G-d, the utter centrality of the Jesus, the centrality of the Bible.

Borg writes compellingly about each of these affirmations.  E.g., we see the bible as sacred as the result of a historical process, not as the consequence of its divine origin.  ‘To be Christian means to be in a primary continuing conversation with the Bible as foundational for our identity and vision’ (p 47).

        He uses the concept of metaphorical language as truth (eg the stories of Noah, Tower of Babel).  Borg does a good treatment of atonement theory (p 92 ff), identifying five interpretations of the cross as found in the New Testament.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.