Solid Ground: 25 Years of Evangelical Theology

Solid Ground: 25 Years of Evangelical Theology. Edited by Carl R. Trueman, Tony J. Gray, and Craig L. Blomberg. Leicester: Apollos, 2000. 319 pp. 14.99 (cloth).

This volume is a collection of papers that have appeared over the past twenty-five years in the journal Themelios. Themelios is produced by UCCF (Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, formerly Inter-Varsity Fellowship) to provide students with evangelical responses to issues in academic theology.

It is a premise of this volume that different presuppositions underlie academic and evangelical theology. Trueman states that "commitments to an infallible Bible, to supernaturalism, and to Scripture as the epistemological starting-point" are "unacceptable within ... university discourse" (p. 299), and hence evangelical systematics has made no impact on secular universities. In reality, UCCF-style evangelicals have poured their energies into biblical studies over the past century, and their theological awareness and practice have suffered as a result. Indeed, the majority of essays in this volume are in biblical studies or hermeneutics. Only three come under the joint heading of "Systematic and Historical Theology," and they all indirectly concern biblical authority. One is a response to James Barr's book Fundamentalism. Here David Wright acknowledges that evangelicals rarely see theology as a constructive and creative task (p. 212). Gerald Bray defends Chalcedonian Christology, in the aftermath of The Myth of God Incarnate. He argues that it systematizes a logic inherent in Scripture (p. 206), so as to deflect criticism that it is a product of Hellenistic philosophy. The third essay is by Paul Helm, on attitudes towards the miraculous in the New Testament. Each of these essays is competent, and each is tailored to an undergraduate readership.

The essays in biblical studies (some are by now nearly twenty-five years old) provide overviews of scholarship useful in their day to students. Richard Bauckham's essay on the rise of apocalyptic is the most impressive; the least impressive is Joyce Baldwin's resistance to seeing pseudonymity in the Old Testament. James Packer's essay on hermeneutics predates Anthony Thiselton's efforts to increase hermeneutical awareness among evangelicals. He urges grammatico-historical exegesis as determinative of meaning.

Throughout the volume, whatever the discipline or subject being discussed, the issue on which debate turns is one's attitude towards biblical authority. The contributors make the moves one expects from conservative evangelicals. Glen Taylor cannot, scripturally, tolerate homosexual relations, and he makes the usual noises about not trusting our feelings and not being self-righteous towards gays (pp. 282-3). Blomberg defends the existence of hell against annihilationists and explains that whilst it would be nice to be compassionate, unfortunately he can't be (p. 85)!

Even so, the conservative-reactionary tone of the concluding essays by Trueman and Blomberg comes as a surprise. There is a current renaissance in evangelical theology, with people such as Kevin Vanhoozer yielding significant influence in the academic world, but Trueman battens down the hatches and perceives a threat to evangelical identity (p. 301). Blomberg is more tolerant of diversity, because sectarian impulses need curbing in the U.S.: "For every American evangelical I know who deserved to be fired ... for no longer adhering to an institution's doctrinal statement, I know several who were fired who didn't deserve to be!" (p. 314). Magnanimity reigns.

HARRIET A. HARRIS

Walham College

Oxford, United Kingdom

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Summer 2001
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