Justin Taylor's Blog, page 150

How the West Really Lost God: An Interview with Mary Eberstadt

Mary Eberstadt, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, is widely hailed as “one of the most acute and creative social observers of our time” (Francis Fukuyama). George Will has called her “intimidatingly intelligent,” and George Weigel says she is “our premier analyst of American cultural foibles and follies, with a keen eye for oddities that illuminate just how strange the country’s moral culture has become.”

In her latest book, How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization,  she seeks to answer the question “How and why has Christianity really come to decline in important parts of the West?”

Her answer cuts against the conventional wisdom, but Jonathan V. Last argues “you cannot understand the real philosophical problems of the West without reading this book. 

Mrs. Eberstadt was kind enough to answer a few questions about her argument and its implications.

What led you to write How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization? Did it begin more as a hypothesis to be tested or a thesis to be proved?

Like many Americans who have visited Europe, I was struck repeatedly by how secular some of the Continent’s societies are and how empty their churches. So the first reason I started researching into theories of secularization was simple curiosity: What makes formerly Christian precincts lose God?

And the interesting thing about the existing literature is that none of the going answers really explain the decline of Christianity in parts of the West. As chapters in my book go to show, prosperity alone doesn’t drive out belief in God, and neither does education, rationalism, or science per se. Nor do the two world wars explain it, another commonly accepted explanation.

So little by little I started re-arranging the pieces of this great intellectual puzzle, and what emerged was a new way of looking at it: one in which the fate of Christianity turns out to be more tightly tethered to the fate of the family than has been understood before.

The conventional wisdom, at least among conservatives, seems to be that the religious decline in the West led to the deterioration of the family. Is that true, false, or incomplete?

It’s incomplete, but fatally so.

There’s a figurative picture handed down to us from the Enlightenment thinkers onward. It’s one in which a lone person sits in a chair, thinking hard about whether to believe in God or not; imagine Rodin’s statue of the Thinker for a visual. That’s the mental image many people have when they think about secularization: as if it’s something that happens to a society one atomized person at a time, as one after another ponders religion and decides against it.

Part of the argument of the book is that this picture doesn’t describe reality. People are social beings. They learn religion the way they learn language: in communities, beginning with the community of the family. And when family structure becomes disrupted and attenuated and fractured, as it is for many Western people today, many families can no longer function as a transmission belt for religious belief. In addition, many people become insulated from the natural course of birth, death, and other momentous family events that are part of why people turn to religion in the first place.

To offer just one homely example of this abstract idea, consider what often happens when parents divorce and children are put in custody arrangements where they see mom and dad on alternate weekends. That regimen alone throws a monkey wrench into the common Christian practice of church-going, because if mom and dad live in different places, it’s less likely that children will be taken consistently to the same church. At the very least, it’s harder to make that happen.

There are many more examples in the book of this larger point: family disruption breeds religious disruption.

If the collapse of the family undermined Christianity and accelerated the decline of religion in the West, what are some of the factors that led to the family itself becoming so unstable?

The Industrial Revolution, historians agree, disrupted family life as never before. It uprooted people from the countryside and sent many into the cities looking for work. This both split people off from their extended families and created new pressures on family formation, because—for reasons detailed in the book—urbanization arguably makes family formation more difficult.

So industrialization and urbanization are part of the answer to the question of why Western families began to fracture. To those forces one also has to add the sexual revolution of the 1960s and beyond, which splintered the family unit as never before, again for reasons examined in the book.

By no coincidence, religious practice in many Western precincts declines dramatically exactly alongside rising divorce rates and cohabitation rates and fertility decline and other proxies for the sexual revolution. Again, religious decline and family decline go hand in hand and operate as a double helix, as spelled out in the book.

The intertwined connection of family and faith is a familiar idea to those who have read their Bibles. How has this been confirmed through your study of history and culture?

One of the things that history drives home is this principle: religious decline does not occur in a vacuum, and neither does family decline. Rather, they are bound together—and so are religious flourishing and family flourishing.

Let’s consider just two examples. Scandinavia is now the most secular Western society on earth, at least as measured by surveys and other data concerning churchgoing, religious belief, etc. And Scandinavia is also the part of the West that pioneered the kinds of family changes now prominent across the Western world: births to unmarried people, rising cohabitation, etc. Moreover, Scandinavia is also the most atomized society, generally speaking, in the modern world: almost half of all Scandinavians now live in households of one person, according to recent reports.

Here again, not having families or having loosely structured and smaller families appears closely tied to not going to church or believing in God.

For a converse example, consider a different place and time: most of the countries of the West following World War II. During those years and all the way into the early 1960s, there was a religious boom including in societies that are now markedly secular. Attendance was up and so were professions of religious belief; the data are in the book.

And what did this religious boom coincide with? A much more familiar phenomenon: the Baby Boom, which was also pan-Western, and also accompanied by a marriage boom.

Once again, the example proves the point: there are things about living in families that drive people to church.

You suggest the economic and demographic crisis in the West may have the unintended impact of reviving the family as the most viable alternative to the failed welfare state. Can you explain?

A case can be made that the welfare state has competed with the family from the beginning. Recall the Obama reelection campaign’s infamous “Julia” website, which showed the beneficent state stepping in to do at every stage of life what used to be done by competent families: babysitting, educating, influencing romantic decisions, caring for people in old age.

It’s a two-way street, of course. As families became more problematic, the state stepped in as a family substitute; and as the state did that, families have found that they could rely on the state instead of on each other. Unprecedented modern levels of divorce, family breakup, out-of-wedlock births, and other trends that have turned the modern state into an inefficient but all-encompassing substitute for a man of the house.

In sum, statism has been an engine of family destruction—and vice versa.

So the big question becomes: what happens if the modern welfare state actually turns out to be demographically and financially untenable, as some troubled Western economies seem to indicate?

If the welfare states of the West finally do implode, as some economists think they might, it’s hard to think of any institution but the family that could step into the resulting vacuum. Ultimately, the unreliability of the state could lead people to look back to their more organic connections of family, perhaps even resulting in a family revival.

What suggestions do you have for strengthening the American family?

To offer just one pragmatic implication of the book’s argument, pastors and others in charge of the churches need to understand that “the family” is not some abstraction to be praised here and there, but rather the very backbone of their institutions. For example, churches can’t afford to be indifferent to the question of whether people procreate, because without religious families, there will be few people sitting in the pews ten or twenty or fifty years hence—as has already happened in some denominations that have inadvertently demonstrated the double helix of family and faith by their own unwitting diminishment.

Most important, people concerned about the family might want to consider exactly what makes it easier for young people, especially, to have families in the first place. This boils down to grassroots efforts involving one home and church at a time: like organizing help such as carpools, or meal drop-offs when there’s a new baby in the house, or creating rotating prayer groups that double as social hours for moms, and related efforts.

These may seem pedestrian ideas, but they’re also the very sorts of initiatives that can sometimes make the difference between having a family or walking away from it. After all, families are a lot of work. But they’re also reminiscent of what Winston Churchill once said about democracy: the worst system, except for all the others.

Ultimately, what history shows is that family decline and family strength follow cyclical patterns. This is the point made by Carle Zimmerman, a Harvard sociologist discussed in my book whose rich work demonstrates this point. Periods of atomization and fracture are followed by revival, because over time, people realize that humanity just hasn’t come up with a substitute that can do all the things that the institution of the family can do. What’s encouraging about this pattern is that it means family decline is not inevitable—any more than is religious decline.

In sum, secular forecasts of the imminent death of God or the hearth have gotten the story wrong. Fundamentally, that’s an optimistic thought, because understanding what the historical record really shows offers grounds for hope.

Is God Anti-Gay?

Sam Allberry’s short new book, Is God Anti-Gay? And Other Questions about Homosexuality, the Bible and Same-sex Attraction (The Good Book Company, 2013), is garnering significant praise:

“Sam Allberry’s book Is God Anti-Gay? is truly marvellous. Paul neglected to mention that Sam writes from the perspective of a pastor who himself struggles with same sex attraction. This makes the book more compassionate and compelling. Sam’s humanity shines through every page; his understanding of weakness undergirds the whole; his compassion for those facing that which he himself faces each day is deeply moving. Those unconvinced by the simplistic pieties of reparative therapy and who are looking for something more biblical will find much helpful material here. This book would make an excellent resource for pastors and elders to keep on hand, given that this is an issue which is set to become more, not less, significant and contentious.”

—Carl R. Trueman, Reformation21 blog

“This an excellent book. It is real and sensitive, bold and biblical. It pulls no punches but is never strident or angular. Sam is clearly writing from the heart, and with a heart for Christ, his people and the world.”

—Steve Timmis, Director Acts 29 Europe

“EXCELLENT. Short, clear, kind, understanding. . . this needs to be widely distributed.”

—Jonathan Leeman, Editorial Director at 9Marks, blogger and author

“The gospel is good news, for homosexuals too. The gospel doesn’t define us by our temptations but by the righteousness of Christ. This book sets forth the biblical case. The author captures perfectly the gospel’s call to repentance and offer of mercy. Read this book and consider how God is calling you to love, in word and in deed, all of those around you.”

—Russell D. Moore, President, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention; Author, Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ

“This short book is outstanding. Sam Allberry handles people carefully, texts wisely and issues sensitively, and the result is a supremely helpful book on perhaps the most challenging issue western Christians face today. I highly recommend it.”

—Andrew Wilson, pastor and blogger at thinktheology.co.uk

“Every minister should read this book and we should endeavour to get it into the hands of as many of our congregation as possible.”

—Paul Levy, Reformation 21 blog

You can read the table of contents and introduction here.

When Are You Going to Stop Running from Jesus?

Below is a testimony from Pastor Leonce Crump II of Renovation Church in Atlanta.

As you watch, consider how many thousands upon thousands of times this has happened, is happening, and will happen, as the Great Shepherd pursues the lost sheep of his flock.

HT: Thabiti

Covenantal Apologetics

Presuppositional apologetics, I would argue, is the most misunderstood way of thinking about apologetics.

I’m sure there are many and varied reasons behind this: the articulation by some of its advocates, its dependance upon Reformed theology, a lack of charity or interest among its critics to get it right, a misleading name, etc.

But I have found it to be profoundly biblical—both as an approach with unbelievers and in bolstering my confidence in the authority of God and his word. And I am thankful Scott Oliphint has written Covenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practice in Defense of Our Faith to set forth the case in full, and that he is advocating a more accurate name for it.

The best deal on the book will be from WTS, who will be offering a one-week sale of the book for 60% off (i.e., only $8 a copy), beginning tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

“Few people have thought as deeply and carefully as Scott Oliphint about the relationship between confessional Reformed theology and Christian apologetics. There has been much talk in recent years about ‘covenantal apologetics,’ but it has consisted mainly of informal discussions scattered across the blogosphere. What has been sorely needed is a definitive book-length exposition by a well-regarded scholarly advocate. No one is better qualified than Dr. Oliphint to take on that task, and he has not disappointed. This book clearly explains the theological foundations of covenantal apologetics and illustrates its application in real-world conversations with unbelievers.”

—James N. Anderson, Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte; author, Paradox in Christian Theology

“As a teacher I have been crying out for an apologetic primer that would help to demystify a presuppositional method, demonstrate the exegetical and biblical-theological basis for this method, and give some idea as to what this might look like in the real world with real people. Oliphint’s Covenantal Apologetics fills this need. It is not only principled and practical, but pastoral. For those looking to give reasons for hope, I recommend it.”

—Daniel Strange, Academic Vice Principal and Tutor in Apologetics, Oak Hill College, London

“I am grateful to see Oliphint taking Reformed apologetics in a more accessible, less technical, and richly biblical-theological direction. His approach to apologetics is uniquely centered on God’s revelation in Christ and emphasizes persuasion aimed at the heart over argumentation targeting the head alone. The book goes beyond merely discussing principles to presenting thorough case studies demonstrating how the principles of covenantal apologetics can be put into practice. As a professor and pastor, I will recommend this to many people and assign it in my apologetics courses.” —Justin S. Holcomb, Adjunct Professor of Theology and Philosophy, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando ”

Engaging unbelief is the work of every believer in a post-Christian culture. In everyday conversations (offline and online) pluralism demands we give equal value to all religious beliefs. To stabilize us in this culture, we turn to God’s revelation in Scripture. Drawing from his own experience and offering concrete dialogues, apologist Scott Oliphint models a Christian response to unbelief and has delivered the type of book we desperately need—biblically grounded, God-centered, jargon-pruned, and clearly written. Covenantal Apologeticsis an essential tool to meet unbelief with the hope inside us—the hope of the gospel.” —Tony Reinke, Content Strategist, Desiring God Ministries; author, Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books

“K. Scott Oliphint has done a service for the church in wonderfully translating the venerable Van Tillian apologetic approach into more accessible categories. By laying out the principles and practice of covenantal apologetics, Oliphint moves beyond mere description to the actual practice of apologetics in the contemporary world. Grounded in Scripture and Reformed theology, upholding the lordship of Christ in all of life, eschewing neutrality in our thinking, and tackling the hard cases of the problem of evil, naturalistic evolution, and Islam, Oliphint in a step-by-step way teaches us how to defend Christianity in a biblically faithful and persuasive manner. I highly recommend this work for anyone who is serious about engaging people with the truth of the gospel.”

—Stephen J. Wellum, Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Editor, The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology

Women: “First at the Cradle and Last at the Cross”

Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957):

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross.

They had never known a man like this Man—there had never been such another.

A prophet and teacher

who never nagged about them, who never flattered or coaxed or patronized;

who never made arch jokes about them, never treated either as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”;

who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension;

who took their questions and arguments seriously, who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be “feminine” or jeered at them for being female;

who had no ax to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend;

who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious.

—Dorothy L. Sayers, “The Human-Not-Quite Human,” in Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible, and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 68. [HT: David Sunday, "First at the Cradle and Last at the Cross: Women in Luke's Gospel" (sermon)]

To my knowledge, the fullest evangelical answer to the questions, “What does God think about women, and how does he treat them?” is found in Jerram Barrs’ Through His Eyes: God’s Perspective on Women in the Bible.

In the forthcoming book, The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived, Andreas J. Köstenberger and I provide a chronology and harmony of Jesus’ final week, and in a glossary we provide a summary of all that we know about the key players.

For most evangelicals, the enigmatic list of women at the cross and tomb remain unstudied. Here are a couple of examples from the reference guide::

Mary (wife of Clopas). A Galilean witness of Jesus’s crucifixion, she may be identified as Jesus’s “mother’s sister” (John 19:25)—though see discussion under Salome below. According to Hegesippus, as quoted by Eusebius, Clopas was the brother of Joseph of Nazareth (Hist. Eccl. 3.11; 3.32.6; 4.22.4). If so, Mary and Clopas were Jesus’s aunt and uncle. Their son Simeon (Jesus’s cousin) became a leader of the Jerusalem church, succeeding James the brother of Jesus.

Salome. One of Jesus’s female followers in Galilee, she witnessed the crucifixion and went to the tomb on Sunday (Mark 15:40; 16:1). The parallel passage in Matthew 27:56 makes it likely that she is the mother of the sons of Zebedee (i.e., James and John). Interpreters differ on the number of women represented in the Greek construction in John 19:25 (“his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene”). If “his mother’s sister” is a separate woman, the reference is likely to Salome (which would make James and John the cousins of Jesus). However, it seems slightly more likely that Mary the wife of Clopas is Mary’s sister (or sister-in-law). See the discussion under Mary (wife of Clopas).

The Gospel Transformation Bible: Christ in All of Scripture, Grace for All of Life

It would be difficult to overstate my excitement about Crossway’s forthcoming ESV Gospel Transformation Bible (coming in September 2013). Bryan Chapell serves as the general editor, with Dane Ortlund as managing editor.

The video above allows some of the contributors to explain what they are seeking to accomplish in this unique resource. You can also download a sample and sign up for email updates about it.

I am unaware of anything quite like it.

Note the following from Bryan Chapell’s introduction:

Faithful application typically answers four questions:

What to do?
Where to do it?
Why to do it? and
How to do it?

Previous application-focused study Bibles have emphasized the first two of these questions.

The Gospel Transformation Bible, while not ignoring the first two questions, seeks to be a primary resource for the latter two. Contributors’ notes indicate how the unfolding gospel truths in any given passage of Scripture motivate and enable believers to honor their Savior from the heart—in short, how grace transforms them.

Our goal is to make plain the imperatives of God’s Word, while undermining the human reflex to base God’s affection on human performance. Contributors have therefore indicated how the indicatives of the gospel (i.e., the status and privileges believers have by virtue of God’s grace alone) provide motivation and power for God’s people to honor him from the heart.

You can find out more about the contributors and the editions here.

Different Types of American and English Puritans

A “scorecard” developed by Mark Noll as set forth in his Books & Culture review of Michael Winship’s Godly Republicanism: Puritans, Pilgrims, and a City on a Hill (Harvard University Press, 2012):

Stuart Anglicans were the monarchs, James I and Charles I, and their bishops who opposed Calvinism, promoted Arminian theology, and moved toward Catholicism in their rituals. To the Puritans they constituted a stupendous barrier to the biblical reforms that the English church so desperately needed.

In Winship’s usage, Puritans were the great promoters of church reform, but who also insisted on maintaining “Christendom,” or the comprehensive church-state unity that had been the European norm for more than a millennium.

Conforming Puritans were willing to live with the Anglican system of bishops if they were free to promote Calvinist theology and biblical preaching.

Presbyterian Puritans wanted to replace the bishops with regional and national synods of godly pastors and lay elders. They expected congregations to aid in selecting pastors, but, once selected, the pastors, acting in presbyteries, were to be the controlling force in promoting godliness. Presbyterian Puritans, closely aligned with Scottish Presbyterians, gained the upper hand in the early years of the English Civil War, during which time they organized the Westminster Assembly that produced the famous Confession and other Presbyterian standards. But these English Presbyterians lost out to the congregational and more radical elements during the ascendancy of Oliver Cromwell.

Congregational Puritans sought churches organized by covenants among members, ministers elected by congregations and responsible strictly to those congregations, and (in New England) church membership on the basis of a testimony of God’s saving grace. The goal was to insulate biblically formed congregations from the corrupting abuses of power.

Determined congregational Puritans dominated New England. Winship says they practiced “separation-without-separating” because they claimed to be only reformers of the national church and because they allowed fellowship with godly Puritans who remained in the parishes of the Church of England.

Militant congregational Puritans were those like in the Salem church who refused to offer the Lord’s Supper or baptism to anyone who maintained fellowship with anyone in the Anglican churches.

Moderate separatists were “separating congregationalists” like the great theologian William Ames and also the settlers at Plymouth. They removed themselves completely from the Church of England but still enjoyed fellowship with the Puritans who shared their general theology, especially with the determined congregational Puritans. For example, the governors of Plymouth (William Bradford) and Massachusetts (John Winthrop) maintained cooperative fellowship with each other in New England’s early days.

Radical separates wanted to break with Anglicanism as completely as possible. The most radical of all was Roger Williams, the sweet-tempered thorn in the side of the Massachusetts establishment. He denounced “Christendom” by name as an anti-biblical system, attacked all ties between church and state, and refused any fellowship (even to pray, even with his wife) with anyone who did not both separate from the Church of England and separate from those who did not completely separate from Anglicanism.

Bad Predictions in Church History

Writing in his diary 29 years after the death of Jonathan Edwards, Yale College president Ezra Stiles (1727-1795) offered the following prediction:

Presid’ Edwards valuable Writings in another Generation will pass into as transient notice perhaps scarce above oblivion, . . . and when Posterity occasionally comes across them in the Rubbish of Libraries, the rare Characters who may read & be pleased with them, will be looked upon as singular and whimsical. . . .

—Franklin B. Dexter, ed., The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, D.D. LL.D, 3 vols. (New York: 1901), 3:275.

Developing a “Taste” for Glory

From Kyle Strobel’s Formed for the Glory of God: Learning from the Spiritual Practices of Jonathan Edwards (IVP, 2013), 62-64:

While we journey to glory we should learn to trust the path laid before us. Sometimes, no doubt, we find that the path is of our own making. Our natural affections have turned us off course onto other things we find beautiful. But, broadly speaking, grasping the path of glory is really just grasping onto Jesus. By focusing our attention on Jesus and the “Jesus Way,” we come to gain a “taste” for this way over others. Some of the fleshliness that used to taste so good is now bitter. We are walking a path of putting to death our sin by slowly conforming to God’s glory and beauty. In doing so, the sin that still wages war within us begins to die.

In Christ, our sight, hearing and taste are now sensitized to a different world, and therefore they help us trust in the way of the Lord. Many people saw Jesus but did not follow him. What did they not see that the disciples did? Why were the disciples affected by Christ and not so many others?

To explain this, Edwards turns to taste. The Spirit of God works within one’s heart to give them a divine taste—a taste of the ways of God. It is in this vein that the psalmist would say, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Ps 119:103). Without it, people cannot recognize God and his way as beautiful, “no more than a man without the sense of tasting can conceive of the sweet taste of honey, or a man without the sense of hearing can conceive of the melody of a tune, or a man born blind can have a notion of the beauty of the rainbow.” The disciples were given a divine taste, and so they sought to satisfy their longing by following Christ.

Edwards offers an illustration of two men, one of whom is born without the sense of taste. The man with the sense of taste loves honey, and he greatly delights in it because of its taste. The other man also loves honey, but, not having the sense of taste, he loves it because of its color and texture. The excellency and sweetness of honey is in its taste, Edwards argues, therefore the man who loves the honey because of its taste builds upon the foundation of honey’s true beauty. If you don’t “know” the taste of honey, you don’t truly “know” honey. Likewise, to know Jesus is to develop a taste for who he is and what he is about. If we return to our hiking analogy, we can say that a “taste” for the destination drives your journey. You hunger for it (Mt 5:6). Others may travel with you who only share your actions, and not your taste for the destination. They have the form but not the power of godliness (2 Tim 3:5). A taste of God is prioritizing God above all else.

For true religious affections, the object, God, is primary, and I am secondary. With false affections, the focus reverts to me. The one who seeks Christ alone will know the delight that only he can give.

One who goes looking for self-fulfillment will never find it. In other words, having a taste of divine things is what allows the heavenly destination to captivate your heart. Without that taste it is impossible to will God, and therefore it is impossible to actually walk the path to glory. This taste is the taste of heaven and is the taste that calibrates our souls to glory and beauty. This taste creates a hunger for divine things. This taste is not given in its perfection, but is a seed of

grace in the soul. Cultivating this taste should lead to a deeper and deeper hunger for God and his glory. The ways of God, the calling of the church, the Word of God and the ordinances of God should all be tasty aspects of life. Ultimately, our taste should be oriented by God and his life of love, and therefore the hunger of our flesh should begin to be killed off. In this sense, our taste is similar to the compass whose needle seeks north. We can say that the needle has a taste for north. Around that taste all our other affections should fall into place—the west, east and south of our soul should be oriented by the true north of heaven—God and his life of love.

David, in Psalm 34, proclaimed, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps 34:8). In a sense, Edwards’s description of religious affection is a call to taste and see that the Lord is good (and continue to do so)! The light of God’s beauty and glory is given so that believers can actually see that the Lord is good. But sight alone does not comprehend the depths of the Christian experience. For that, Edwards turns to taste. Tasting and seeing that the Lord is good entails having the whole of one’s heart made alive to God in Christ by the Holy Spirit—it is communion with the three-personed God.

Tasting and seeing are the kinds of things that beget more tasting and seeing. Tasting and seeing beget desire. It is this desire that turns the Christian more and more fully to her Lord who is beautiful and glorious. It is a journey we will continue for eternity.

Taken from Formed for the Glory of God by Kyle Strobel. Copyright(c) 2013 by Kyle Strobel. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com

What Is Analytic Theology?

A roundtable discussion with Michael Rea (University of Notre Dame), Trent Dougherty (Baylor University) and Oliver Crisp (Fuller Theological Seminary):