Author: Adam Johnson
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Biola–An Inoculation Against Intellectual Engagement?
In a recent book (following C.S. Lewis, we might call it the “Green Book”), the acknowledgments read as follows: “Ignoring the guidance of my fundamentalist Christian community by making Karl Barth the focus of my doctoral studies was one of the most pivotal decisions of my young adult life. After being inoculated to intellectual engagement…
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ISIS As Religion
Graeme Wood’s article, “What ISIS Really Wants”, published in the March edition of The Atlantic is an immensely helpful article, taking us into the world and mindset of the Islamic State. Graeme’s basic thesis states that Westerners have consistently misunderstood the true basis and aims of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), and…
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The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant (Book Review)
Michael Gorman’s new book, “The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant: A (Not So) New Model of the Atonement,” is a big-picture account of the work of Christ as a covenantal reality. The movement begins with the biblical interweaving of (new) covenant language and accounts of Christ’s death and resurrection,…
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Where Demons Fear to Tread: Angels and the Atonement
One of the better views of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is from the Ponte Sant’Angelo, a beautiful bridge lined with statues of angels, each bearing some token of the passion of Jesus—the cross, the nails, the crown of thorns, the spear upon which he was given vinegar to drink, the pedestal supporting him as…
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Designing a Course on the Atonement
There is more than one way to skin a cat (or so I’m told), and the same holds true for teaching a doctrine. This fall I am teaching a seminar on the doctrine of the Atonement, and I am working through different ways of approaching it. All methods presume extensive interaction with Scripture, but variously…
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Wuthering Adoption: Emily Brontë, Christ’s Atonement and Adoption
The families in Wuthering Heights only recover from the adoption of Heathcliff when, like the Israelites after their refusal to enter the Promised Land, everyone of that generation was dead (Num. 14:20-23). But adoption is a beautiful representation of the work of Christ—or even better, it IS the work of Christ—that which God does in…
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Confessing the Generations
(This is in some ways a sequel to my earlier post, “Gospel of Confession”) Perhaps, like me, you have dreaded your turn to tell your conversion story at a church event. I would open my story with an apology: “well, my story really isn’t very interesting….” Unlike some of the more sensational stories that had…
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Relationship Status: Best Friends with Myself
This week I had the opportunity to spend 12 hours discussing the topic of friendship with my students, guided by Aristotle’s work on the subject. While we found much that he says to be rich and helpful, one particular insight led to hours of fruitful discussion. The claim is as follows: “The defining features of…
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Some Books Just Aren’t Long Enough
Some books just aren’t long enough. I wasn’t more than a hundred pages into The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien when I began to dread the ending—not because it was so far away, but because it was going to come all too soon. It is a thing of beauty when that imposing doorstop…
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Gospel of Confession
Confession of sin is vital in the Christian life. It plays a powerful role in our coming to terms with ourselves and our sin, and in our attempts to reconcile ourselves with those we have wronged: ourselves, our neighbors and our God. But confession, it turns out, is far more than repentantly making our sin…
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Boethius and Divine Simplicity
Perhaps you have heard of the term “divine simplicity.” The basic meaning is that God is one – he has no distinct or separate parts that can in any way be in conflict with each other. Often this doctrine is employed in the context of discussions concerning the divine character. One might say that God’s…
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Homer, Virgil, and the Theology of the Underworld
Among the host of ways Virgil modifies and develops Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the changes wrought to the underworld are arguably the most substantial. A complex geography forms of punishment, rivers, the abyss and the “places of delight” fills what was a much simpler and more monotonous landscape in Homer. Beyond the setting, Virgil explores his underworld in conjunction…