IVP - Addenda & Errata - October 2008 Archives

The Global Dictionary of Theology and the Future of Global Theology, Part 2

[Continuation of previous post]

How Then Shall We Characterize the Global Dictionary of Theology?

A Fuller Flashback to 1960
Imagine yourself as a Fuller student forty-eight years ago, in 1960, with Fuller profs Everett Harrison, Geoffrey Bromiley and Carl Henry (the latter now departed to Christianity Today) celebrating the publication of Baker’s Dictionary of Theology, a home-grown Fuller Seminary project. That 566-page dictionary seems to have well represented the vibrant new evangelicalism of Fuller Seminary in that day. There you will find quality material written by the brightest lights of that generation (names such as Ladd, Bromiley, Bruce, Carnell, Clark, Packer, Grounds, Guthrie, Morris, Kantzer, Young, Van Til—and one could go on). The topics of the articles are predominantly classic ones, reflecting traditional loci of theology and Scriptural themes. And thus it is quite predictable (though some interesting surprises, e.g., “Hospitality”). But from my browsing, I think a full-on search for a “global perspective” would turn up hardly a thing. And the breadth of evangelical perspective, though robust for its day, seems quite narrow and cramped when viewed from our perspective nearly fifty years later. The contributors, from my scan on the list, seem to be exclusively White males situated in trans-Atlantic evangelicalism.

The Global Dictionary of Theology and the Future of Global Theology, Part I

The following is an adaptation of a talk I gave at The Future of Global Theology colloquium at Fuller Seminary, October 23, 2008. I was asked to give an introduction to the Global Dictionary of Theology. (The main plenary speakers were Ogbu Kalu of McCormick and Simon Chan of Trinity, Singapore, and both were very interesting.) I will publish it in two parts. So here goes: The Global Dictionary of Theology and the Future of Global Theology, Part 1.

It’s a pleasure to participate in this event at Fuller, where as a student I sat in awe of a great reference book editor and translator of such works, Geoffrey Bromiley, as well as Colin Brown, Everett Harrison and William La Sor. The danger of inviting a reference book editor like me to speak on this topic is that I might dive into topics of intense interest to only a handful of editors of my ilk and of no interest to anyone else. Things could get very geeky very quickly! Pray that they don’t.

Dear Preface Readers

I always read a book’s preface. In fact, I’ll wager a copyright page that if you are reading this blog, you too are a preface reader. After all, if you are taking the time to read an editor’s blog (how geeky is that?), you’ve got to be a preface reader!

But my gentle preface readers, I’ve occasionally run into people who proclaim that they never, or hardly ever, read a preface.

Wise Old Henry

I recently rediscovered a quote I’d copied out a couple of years ago from James Orr, The Problem of the Old Testament, pp. 486-87. Orr quotes from Matthew Henry (1662-1714):

Inspiration does not create the materials of its record, but works with those it has received. It reveals itself in the insight it shows into them, and in the use it makes of them. An interesting illustration of this truth is furnished in a note of the old commentator, Matthew Henry, on 1 Chron. viii. 1-32. “As to the difficulties,” he says, “that occur in this and the foregoing genealogies we need not perplex ourselves. I presume Ezra took them as he found them in the books of the kings of Israel and Judah (chap. ix. 1), according as they were given in by the several tribes, each observing what method they thought fit. Hence, some ascend, others descend; some have numbers affixed, others places; some have historical remarks intermixed, others have not; some are shorter, others longer; some agree with other records, others differ; some, it is likely, were torn, erased, and blotted, others more legible. Those of Dan and Reuben were entirely lost. This holy man wrote as he was moved of the Holy Ghost; but there was no necessity for the making up of the defects, no, nor for the rectifying of the mistakes of these genealogies by inspiration. It was sufficient that he copied them out as they came to hand, or so much of them as was requisite to the present purpose, which was the directing of the returned captives to settle as nearly as they could with those of their own family, and in the places of their former residence.”

There has been a lot of work done on OT genealogies since the time of Matthew Henry. But his approach to the problem is interesting to find in an evangelical forebear of the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, and it is certainly applicable to various other historical issues we encounter. A mature evangelical doctrine of Scripture today should be capacious enough to embrace this approach.

The Future of Global Theology

This week the Global Dictionary of Theology (GDT), edited by William A. Dyrness and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, was released. It’s a happy event for all of us who have been involved with this project. The GDT is a unique theological resource, and we think it will quickly find its place in classrooms, studies and libraries.

In celebration of this event, next Thursday, October 23, there will be a colloquium on “The Future of Global Theology” at Fuller Theological Seminary. It takes place from 11:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Here’s a brief description: “With the historic shift of Christianity’s center of gravity away from Europe and North America and toward the global south, questions naturally arise: What will theology look like in the coming generations? What is the future of Western-style academic theology? The Global Dictionary of Theology was conceived to address these issues by proposing that theology is a growing worldwide conversation that connects with historic Christian traditions. This symposium will address the larger question of what future, if any, such global theology might have.”

Participants include the GDT general editors, Dyrness and Kärkkäinen, its associate editors, Juan Martinez and Simon Chan, and one of the contributors, Ogbu Kalu of McCormick Theological Seminary. I’ll also make a few remarks on the nature of the GDT.

This event is open to all. If you are in the L.A. area, come on over to Pasadena on the 23rd. You will find further information on Fuller’s website.

The Theory of 10,000 Hours

A few weeks ago, David Brooks and Gali Collins, both of the New York Times, had this conversation:

David Brooks: Gail [Collins], you know one thing I didn’t get a chance to get into in that column was the theory of 10,000 hours: The idea is that it takes 10,000 hours to get really good at anything, whether it is playing tennis or playing the violin or writing journalism. I’m actually a big believer in that idea, because it underlines the way I think we learn, by subconsciously absorbing situations in our heads and melding them, again, below the level of awareness, into templates of reality. At about 4 p.m. yesterday, I was working on an entirely different column when it struck me somehow that it was a total embarrassment. So I switched gears and wrote the one I published. I have no idea why I thought the first one was so bad — I was too close to it to have an objective view. But I reread it today and I was right. It was garbage. I’m not sure I would have had that instinctive sense yesterday if I hadn’t been struggling at this line of work for a while.

Research Worthy of the Name

In the late 1940s, when the Tyndale Fellowship was getting underway in the U.K., F. F. Bruce expressed this hope for “The Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research”:

No such conclusions [he is referring to pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic biblical scholarship] are prescribed for members of the Tyndale Fellowship. In such critical cruces, for example, as the codification of the Pentateuch, the composition of Isaiah, the date of Daniel, the sources of the Gospels, or the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles, each of us is free to hold and proclaim the conclusion to which all the available evidence points. Any research worthy of the name, we take it for granted, must necessarily be unfettered. (F. F. Bruce, “The Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research,” The Evangelical Quarterly 19 (1947) 52-61)

This is a point well remembered today, over sixty years later, when it seems that some forces within evangelical scholarship (and no commentary on Tyndale Fellowship is intended here!) would indeed like to fetter research and its results (declaring what is in bounds and what is out, sometimes on question-begging grounds), often by appealing to the evangelical past. Well, the evangelical past was not all of one mind, just as it is not today.