OnScript

Willie Jennings - Race and Christian Theology

Episode: In this episode, Willie James Jennings joins host Amy Hughes to talk about his The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race ten years after its publication. This compelling work is indispensable for current theological and cultural conversations about race, colonization, Scripture, supersessionism, and the relationship between humans and land.

Guest: The Reverend Dr. Willie James Jennings is currently Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School.

Dr. Jennings was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dr. Jennings received his B.A. in Religion and Theological Studies from Calvin College (1984), his M.Div. (Master of Divinity degree) from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena California, and his Ph.D. degree from Duke University. Dr. Jennings who is a systematic theologian teaches in the areas of theology, black church and Africana studies, as well as post-colonial and race theory. Dr. Jennings is the author of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race published by Yale University Press. It is one of the most important books in theology written in the last 25 years and is now a standard text read in colleges, seminaries, and universities. Dr. Jennings is also the recipient of the 2015 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his groundbreaking work on race and Christianity. Dr. Jennings recently authored commentary on the Book of Acts has won the Reference Book of the Year Award, from The Academy of Parish Clergy. His book on theological education entitled, After Whiteness: Cultivating Erotic Souls, will be published in the fall of 2020. And now Dr. Jennings is hard at work on a book on the doctrine of creation, tentatively entitled, “Reframing the World.” 

In addition to being a frequent lecturer at colleges, universities, and seminaries, Dr. Jennings is also a regular workshop leader at pastor conferences. He is also a consultant for the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, and for the Association of Theological Schools. He served along with his wife, the Reverend Joanne L. Browne Jennings as associate ministers at the Mount Level Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, and for many years, they served together as interim pastors for several Presbyterian and Baptist churches in North Carolina. They are the parents of two wonderful daughters, Njeri and Safiya Jennings.

Give: Help support OnScript as we grow and develop. Click HERE.

If you like this: Check out our episode with Nyasha Junior about her book An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation.

 

SBL Special Report!

In this inbetwepisode, Dru interviews scholars and publishers at the book tables and receptions at the annual meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature (which also includes the American Academy of Religion, Institute for Biblical Research, American Schools of Oriental Research, and more!). Order of appearance:

1. Robin "the rain in Spain" Parry (Wipf & Stock)
2. Marc Cortez (Wheaton)
3. Rodrigo de Sousa (Faculté Jean Calvin)
4. Nijay Gupta (George Fox University)
5. John Anthony Dunne (Bethel Seminary)
6. Jesse Myers/Miles Custis (Lexham Press)
7. Ela Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska (Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology)
8. Heath Thomas (Oklahoma Baptist University)
9. Mary Katharine Hom (Independent Scholar/OnScript regular)
10. Anne-Marie Ellithorpe (Vancouver School of Theology)

Michael Bird - The New Testament in Its World (with N.T. Wright)

Episode: Michael Bird speaks with Matt Bates and Erin Heim about his new joint venture with N.T. Wright, The New Testament in Its World. We discussed Mike's take on well-worn issues in New Testament Studies, what it's like to write a book with N.T. Wright, scary Australian animals, and more.

Guest: Michael Bird is Academic Dean and lecturer in theology at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. Mike has published in both New Testament Studies and in Systematic Theology, and his many publications include Jesus the Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology (you can also listen to Mike's first OnScript interview on Jesus the Eternal Son), Romans (Story of God Bible Commentary Series), Evangelical Theology, and The Saving Righteousness of God. Mike runs a popular theological studies blog called “Euangelion” and can be followed on twitter @mbird12.

Give: Help support OnScript as we grow and develop. Click HERE.

Benjamin Sommer - Revelation and the Authority of the Bible

Episode: Benjamin Sommer speaks with Matt Lynch about Torah, Sinai, Jewish perspectives on the authority of the Hebrew Bible, Psalms, and way more.

Guest: Benjamin D. Sommer is Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC. He's the author of Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition (Yale University Press, 2015), A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford University Press, 1998) and The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2009), He's also the editor of Jewish Concepts of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction and the forthcoming 5-volume JPS Psalms commentary.

Give: Help support OnScript as we grow and develop. Click HERE.

Larry Hurtado - Destroyer of the Gods

Episode:  This is a re-release. Larry Hurtado passed away recently, and in memory of his contributions to biblical studies, we're re-releasing this 2016 episode. Apologies for the episode. 

Larry Hurtado and OnScript host Matthew Bates smash gods. Well, actually Larry is the one who brings the heavy artillery, drawing from his recent Destroyer of the Gods (Baylor University Press, 2016). What does a typical day look like in the life of Larry Hurtado? How does he come up with new scholarly ideas? What made earliest Christianity distinctive?--and why does that matter today? What should we make of Richard Bauckham's "Christology of Divine Identity"? In his characteristically lucid style, Hurtado answers these questions and more. Join the conversation and find your sensibilities about religion turned upside down.

Guest: Larry Hurtado is a world-renowned expert on Christian origins, the New Testament, and early christology. Born in Kansas City (Missouri), in 1996 Larry Hurtado accepted the professorial chair in New Testament in the University of Edinburgh, where he founded the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins. Since his retirement in 2011, he remains active in research and publications dealing with various questions concerning the origins of Christianity. Arguably his most influential book is One God, One Lord (1988; 3rd ed., Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), which culminated in his magisterial, Lord Jesus Christ:  Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans, 2003). He has also written a pioneering study of the physical features of earliest Christian manuscripts, The Earliest Christian Artifacts (Eerdmans, 2005). In addition to the book under discussion here, Destroyer of the Gods, he has also recently penned Why on Earth did Anyone Become a Christian in the First Three Centuries? (Marquette University Press, 2016).

Book: Larry W. Hurtado, Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Baylor University Press, 2016). Christianity thrived despite its new and distinctive features and opposition to them. Unlike nearly all other religious groups, Christianity utterly rejected the traditional gods of the Roman world. Christianity also offered a new and different kind of religious identity, one not based on ethnicity. Christianity was distinctively a "bookish" religion, with the production, copying, distribution, and reading of texts as central to its faith, even preferring a distinctive book-form, the codex. Christianity insisted that its adherents behave differently: unlike the simple ritual observances characteristic of the pagan religious environment, embracing Christian faith meant a behavioral transformation, with particular and novel ethical demands for men. Unquestionably, to the Roman world, Christianity was both new and different, and, to a good many, it threatened social and religious conventions of the day. Christianity's novelty was no badge of honor. Called atheists and suspected of political subversion, Christians earned Roman disdain and suspicion in equal amounts. Yet, as Destroyer of the gods demonstrates, in an irony of history the very features of early Christianity that rendered it distinctive and objectionable in Roman eyes have now become so commonplace in Western culture as to go unnoticed. Christianity helped destroy one world and create another.

The OnScript Quip (our review): Whether one applauds or disdains the values of contemporary Western culture, what we assume to be good, true, and normal has been shaped to a surprising degree by early Christianity. Demolishing taken-for-granted assumptions about what religion was, is, and can be, Hurtado's provocative exploration deserves a broad audience. -- Matthew W. Bates, Quincy University, OnScript

John McNall - The Mosaic of Atonement

Episode: What hath penal substitution to do with recapitulation? Or Christus Victor with moral influence? Turns out, quite a lot. Of the making of many books and ideas on atonement there is no end. Could there be room for a new approach? In this episode, Josh McNall joins host Amy Hughes for a conversation on his new book The Mosaic of Atonement: An Integrated Approach to Christ's Work in which he presents a way to reconsider the fracturing of perspectives on Christ's work and to reintegrate the various models of atonement. 

Guest: Joshua McNall is Ambassador of Church Relations and Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology
at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. After planting a Wesleyan church near Grand Rapids, Michigan, Josh completed his PhD at the University of Manchester (UK). Since then, he has published three books, including A Free
Corrector: Colin Gunton and the Legacy of Augustine (Fortress, 2015), the popular-level, Long
Story Short: The Bible in Six Simple Movements (Seedbed, 2018), and The Mosaic of Atonement: An Integrated Approach to Christ's Work (Zondervan Academic, 2019). He and his wife Brianna have four small children and he blogs regularly on issues of theology and culture at www.joshuamcnall.com.

Give: Help support OnScript as we grow and develop. Click HERE.

Chris Tilling - Barth on Romans (Part 2)

Episode: Chris Tilling presents his work on Karl Barth's Romans commentary. He argues that Barth's reading of Romans is worth the attention of biblical scholars, even though Barth is a systematic theologian. Go figure! This is part 2 of a 2-part episode.

Host: Chris Tilling is Graduate Tutor and Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at St Mellitus College. Chris co-authored How God Became Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2014) with Michael Bird (ed.), Craig Evans, Simon Gathercole, and Charles Hill. He is also the editor of Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul (Eugene, Or: Cascade, 2014). Chris’s first book, the critically acclaimedPaul’s Divine Christology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), is now republished with multiple endorsements and a new Foreword, by Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2015). He is presently co-editing theT&T Clark Companion to Christology (forthcoming, 2020), and writing the NICNT commentary on theSecond Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming). Chris has published numerous articles on topics relating to the Apostle Paul, Christology, justification, the historical Jesus, Paul S. Fiddes, Karl Barth, the theology of Hans Küng, and more besides. He has appeared as a media figure for Biologos, GCI, Eerdmans, Wipf & Stock, and HTB’s School of Theology. He has organised public theology lectures as well as theology conferences, and he enjoys playing golf and chess, now working as editor for a couple of chess publishing houses. He is married to Anja and has two children.

Give: Help support OnScript as we grow and develop. Click HERE.

Chris Tilling - Barth on Romans (Part 1)

Episode: Chris Tilling presents his work on Karl Barth's Romans commentary. He argues that Barth's reading of Romans is worth the attention of biblical scholars, even though Barth is a systematic theologian. Go figure! This is part 1 of a 2-part episode. 

Host: Chris Tilling is Graduate Tutor and Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at St Mellitus College. Chris co-authored How God Became Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2014) with Michael Bird (ed.), Craig Evans, Simon Gathercole, and Charles Hill. He is also the editor of Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul (Eugene, Or: Cascade, 2014). Chris’s first book, the critically acclaimedPaul’s Divine Christology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), is now republished with multiple endorsements and a new Foreword, by Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2015). He is presently co-editing theT&T Clark Companion to Christology (forthcoming, 2020), and writing the NICNT commentary on theSecond Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming). Chris has published numerous articles on topics relating to the Apostle Paul, Christology, justification, the historical Jesus, Paul S. Fiddes, Karl Barth, the theology of Hans Küng, and more besides. He has appeared as a media figure for Biologos, GCI, Eerdmans, Wipf & Stock, and HTB’s School of Theology. He has organised public theology lectures as well as theology conferences, and he enjoys playing golf and chess, now working as editor for a couple of chess publishing houses. He is married to Anja and has two children.

Give: Help support OnScript as we grow and develop. Click HERE.

Philip Ziegler - Militant Grace

Episode: Philip Ziegler joins Erin Heim to discuss apocalyptic theology, Pauline literature, and the implications of both for Christian discipleship. They discuss Ziegler's new book, Militant Grace, which constitutes a serious theological engagement and response to the apocalyptic turn in Pauline studies. Along the way, Professor Ziegler shares with us the influence friends and mentors like J. Louis Martyn have had on him both personally and professionally.

Guest (from the University of Aberdeen): Philip Ziegler holds a doctorate from the University of Toronto / Victoria University, where he studied systematic and historical theology, ecumenics and the philosophy of religion at several member colleges of the Toronto School of Theology. He was ordained to the Order of Ministry of the United Church of Canada in 1996. During 2000/1 he was a Junior Fellow of Massey College in the University of Toronto. After holding a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Princeton University's Center for the Study of Religion, he taught at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Canada as Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology. Philip joined the faculty of the University of Aberdeen as Lecturer in Systematic Theology in January 2006. In 2016 he was appointed to a personal Chair in Christian Dogmatics. He is a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.

Book: Militant Grace (Baker, 2018) (from the publisher's website):This clear and comprehensive introduction to apocalyptic theology demonstrates the significance of apocalyptic readings of the New Testament for systematic theology and highlights the ethical implications of the apocalyptic turn in biblical and theological studies. Written by a leading theologian and proponent of apocalyptic theology, this primer explores the impact of important recent Pauline scholarship on contemporary theology and argues for a renewed understanding of key Christian doctrines, including sin, grace, revelation, redemption, and the Christian life.

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If you like this: Check  out our interview with Fred Sanders on his book The Triune God.

Seth Heringer - Theology and History

Episode: Seth Heringer's Uniting History and Theology argues that Christians do not need to use the historical-critical method to make historical claims but should instead write boldly Christian history. By using the historical method, grounded as it is in an incomplete understating of German historicism, they close off investigation of the past from the aesthetic and, importantly, from God. This is why 20th-century Christian scholarship has failed to unite history and theology. Instead of relying on the historical method as the primary way to think about past events, Christians need to reimage what historical work entails. Heringer thus presents a Christian approach to history that dialogues with recent developments in historical theory.

Guest: Dr Seth Heringer (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is assistant professor of theology and scripture at Toccoa Falls College. He also serves as an adjunct faculty member of both Fuller Theological Seminary and Azusa Pacific University. He has written articles that have appeared in The Scottish Journal of Theology and the Journal of Theological Interpretation in addition to chapters in Ears That Hear: Explorations in Theological Interpretation of the Bible and Teaching the Bible in the Liberal Arts Classroom, vol. 2. He is married to Laura, an internal medicine doctor, and together they have five children aged six and under. When he is not trying to corral his children, he enjoys baking sourdough bread, fishing, and reading/watching science fiction and fantasy.

Give: Help support OnScript as we grow and develop. Click HERE.