TABLE OF CONTENTS Christian Scholar's Review Volume XXVIII, Number 2 (Winter 1998) Special Issue: Christianity and Environmentalism
CHRISTIAN SCHOLAR'S AWARD
REFLECTIONS AND RESPONSES
• Don Thorsen - Can We Talk? Interdisciplinary Studies and the Spirit of Ecumenism
ARTICLES
• Jim Ball - Evangelicals, Population, and the Ecological Crisis
• Kathleen Braden - On Saving the Wilderness: Why Christian Stewardship is not Sufficient
• Michael Kraftson-Hogue - Toward a Christian Ecological Ethic: The Lesson of Old Testament
Israel's Dialogic Relations with Land, History, and God
• Mark D. Linville - A Little Lower Than the Angels: Christian Humanism and Environmental
Ethics
• Jonathan R. Wilson - Evangelicals and the Environment: A Theological Concern
• David Ray Griffin - Christian Faith and Scientific Naturalism: An Appreciative Critique of
Phillip Johnson's Proposal
• Phillip E. Johnson - Response to David Ray Griffin
REVIEW ESSAYS
• Rebecca Merrill Groothuis - Searching for Woman's Place in Evangelicalism---Review Essay
• Douglas Jacobsen - The Center and Boundaries of Evangelical/Fundamentalist Faith---A
Review Essay REVIEWS
• Alfred Kazin, God and the American Writer
Reviewed by John A. Baird, Jr.
• Lloyd Baugh, Imaging the Diving: Jesus and Christ-Figures in Film
Reviewed by Harold J. Baxter
• Dale K. Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560--1791
Reviewed by Gail Bossenga
• Richard A. Hutch, The Meaning of Lives: Biography, Autobiography, and the Spiritual Quest
Reviewed by Barrett Fisher II
• Robert C. Roberts and Mark R. Talbot, eds., Limning the Psyche: Explorations in Christian Psychology
Reviewed by Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen
• Dana L. Robert, American Women In Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice. The Modern Mission Era, 1792--1992
Reviewed by Marguerite Kraft
• Reijer Hooykaas, Robert Boyle: A Study in Science and Christian Belief
Reviewed by Arie Leegwater
• Gerald L. Sittser, A Cautious Patriotism: The American Churches and the Second World War
Reviewed by Robert D. Linder
• Lionel Kochan, Beyond the Graven Image: A Jewish View
David Morgan, Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images Reviewed by Terry Lindvall
• David B. Calhoun, Princeton Seminary. Vol. 1, Faith and Learning, 1812--1868; Vol. 2, The Majestic Testimony, 1869--1929
Reviewed by Steve McKinzie
• Robert Wuthnow, The Crisis in the Churches: Spiritual Malaise, Fiscal Woe
Reviewed by Brad Stetson • J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law
Michael Cromartie, ed., A Preserving Grace: Protestants, Catholics, and Natural Law Reviewed by William R. Stevenson
• George M. Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship
Reviewed by Paul C. Vitz
• Nancey Murphy, Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy Set the Theological Agenda
Reviewed by Keith Yandell
• Paul Gifford, ed., The Christian Churches and the Democratisation of Africa
Reviewed by John C. Yoder
ABSTRACTS
REFLECTIONS AND RESPONSES
Don Thorson Can We Talk? Interdisciplinary Studies and the Spirit of Ecumenism I am a theologian, and whenever two or more of us gather together debate occurs. The debate is healthy, if we can handle it emotionally. Debate helps us to understand and, perhaps, appreciate the views of others. It helps us to articulate our own views better and---it is possible---to learn from one another.
Outsiders, that is, non-theologians, might be appalled by our debate. Unfamiliar with the jargon, they can mistake the debate as personal attacks upon one another or, worse, inquisitions. Indeed the debaters themselves might think this if one or more of them take the debate personally rather than professionally.
The same kind of misunderstanding occurs in other disciplines, again mostly by outsiders. For example, I have heard colleagues of mine at Azusa Pacific University debate vehemently over issues of public education or nursing practices. After what seemed to me to be a "knock down, drag out fight," the apparent combatants would walk away, smiling and joking with one another. The intradisciplinary debate may have helped my colleagues, but it left me intellectually and emotionally unsatisfied.
Interdisciplinary debate at the University, however, leaves me with quite different impressions. When debate occurs that spans multiple academic disciplines, there seems to be greater effort by people to explain themselves. They use words and ideas in ways that are more understandable, more concise. Greater patience as well as care is taken to communicate with one another. Interdisciplinary dialogue requires a proactive type of communication that promotes cooperation---more cooperation than often occurs in dialogue within a particular academic discipline. This atmosphere of cooperation can become infectious. As we learn from people in other disciplines, we grow more open to future learning and to different ways of learning.
The Christian Scholar's Review has long recognized the scholarly benefits of interdisciplinary studies. For that reason it has promoted the publication of articles that are integrative of multiple disciplines of academic study.
The importance of interdisciplinary study was highlighted several years ago with the publication of a book by Ernest Boyer. The book Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate argued for a broadened conception of and appreciation for more than the scholarship of discovery.[Fn{1)] Boyer also advocated the importance of the scholarship of integration, application and teaching. The Christian Scholar's Review continues to recognize and promote through publication scholarship that is integrative of the discoveries made in various academic disciplines.
In addition to promoting scholarship, interdisciplinary studies can help to foster general understanding, appreciation and cooperation among Christians. This is the whole point behind ecumenism. Although not all Christians appreciate ecumenism and the ecumenical movement of the twentieth century, they basically represent nothing more than attempts to cooperate with one another. These attempts at cooperation reflect the concern of Jesus that there be unity among believers (see John 17:21). Christian ecumenism occurs through dialogue, mutual understanding and respect, and cooperation in witness to the gospel.
Scholarly events, conferences and projects that promote interdisciplinary studies can also serve to promote a general spirit of cooperation---of ecumenism. The spirit of ecumenism that occurs can become a type of role model to our colleagues, our students and the constituencies of our colleges and universities. Interdisciplinary studies may thus nurture a general disposition that seeks unity rather than disunity. In promoting interdisciplinary studies, we not only promote scholarship. We may also promote a spirit of ecumenism that helps to unite us in faith as well as learning.
Fn1 {See Ernest L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (Princeton: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Learning, 1990), 15--26.}
ARTICLES
Jim Ball Evangelicals, Population, and the Ecological Crisis The focus of this article is a review and analysis of the population debate in the Evangelical Protestant literature on the ecological crisis. Six major writings will be considered in depth. Jim Ball's overall conclusion reached is that the literature thus far has provided an excellent introduction; however, the ethical consequences of intrinsic value and overconsumption are undeveloped. Mr. Ball teaches at Montclair State University.
Kathleen Braden On Saving the Wilderness: Why Christian Stewardship is Not Sufficient The relationship between humanity and the earth is considered through three phases: the wild earth, the tamed earth and the tended earth, as grounded in arguments for an either biblically-based dominion or stewardship worldview. Kathleen Braden suggests that stewardship alone is an insufficient ethic for preserving wilderness areas and wildlife because it calls for management of that which is inherently unmanageable by man. Instead, a loving restraint of human action based on Matthew is demanded. Ms. Braden is a Professor of Geography at Seattle Pacific University.
Michael Kraftson-Hogue Toward a Christian Ecological Ethic: The Lesson of Old Testament Israel's Dialogic Relations with Land, History, and God By drawing from Walter Brueggemann's land theology and Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogism, the purpose of this essay is to enrich the project of developing a comprehensive Christian ecological ethic. Michael Kraftson-Hogue's essay began as a senior thesis researched under the guidance of Hope College Professor Steven Bouma-Prediger and was earlier presented in working-draft form at the Fall 1996 Mideast Christianity and Literature Conference. Mr. Kraftson-Hogue will commence studies at Princeton Theological Seminary in fall 1998.
Mark D. Linville A Little Lower Than the Angels: Christian Humanism and Environmental Ethics In a highly influential article, Lynn White, Jr. has argued that Christianity is the most anthropocentric of the world's religions and that the West's acceptance of this humanistic approach is responsible for our ecologic crisis. Mark Linville offers an account of human flourishing that includes environmental values and argues that a properly circumspect account of humanism provides an adequate grounding for an environmental ethic. Mr. Linville is Professor of Philosophy at Atlanta Christian College.
Jonathan R. Wilson Evangelicals and the Environment: A Theological Concern Evangelicals differ in their evaluations of and responses to suggestions that we are in the midst of a world-wide ecological crisis. In this article Jonathan Wilson uses a dialectic of creation and redemption to provide a theological basis for discussing our differences and correcting our concepts and practices. Mr. Wilson teaches theology and chairs the religious studies department at Westmont College.
David Ray Griffin Christian Faith and Scientific Naturalism: An Appreciative Critique of Phillip Johnson's Proposal David Ray Griffin, while applauding Johnson's challenge to scientific naturalism, argues that a more promising proposal for reconciling science and Christian faith involves a distinction between maximal and minimal meanings of "scientific naturalism." Mr. Griffin teaches philosophy of religion and theology at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University.
Phillip E. Johnson Response to David Ray Griffin Phillip E. Johnson, author of Reason in the Balance, responds to David Ray Griffin's sympathetic critique of his own critique of naturalism. Mr. Johnson is Professor of Law at the University of California School of Law.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Rebecca Merrill Groothuis Searching for Woman's Place in Evangelicalism---Review Essay Assessing R. Marie's Griffith's scholarly study of Women's Aglow Fellowship, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis finds it both illuminating and flawed. The book reveals much about the attitudes of many evangelical women toward issues of gender and power, and in so doing counters a simplistic stereotype. But it falls into misinterpretations and, by erroneously generalizing to all evangelical women, advances what is merely a more complex stereotype. Merrill Groothuis is the author of Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality (Baker, 1997) and Women Caught in the Conflict: The Culture War Between Traditionalism and Feminism (Baker, 1994; repr. Wipf & Stock, 1997).
Douglas Jacobsen The Center and Boundaries of Evangelical/Fundamentalist Faith---A Review Essay Two recent books on mid-twentieth-century fundamentalism and evangelicalism paint apparently contrasting pictures of these related movements and the nature of their relationship. In this appraisal of Joel A. Carpenter's Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 384 pp., $30.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-19-505790-2) and Jon R. Stone's On the Boundaries of American Evangelicalism: The Postwar Evangelical Coalition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997, 230 pp., $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-312-17342-3), Douglas Jacobsen highlights key differences but suggests the two studies can ultimately be seen as complementary. Mr. Jacobsen teaches church history and theology at Messiah College.