Links: three reviews, three podcasts
I’ve fallen behind in my link updates, partly because of busyness, partly because the Micro.blog is so much easier for such things. But! Here are three podcasts I appeared on in the last few months, followed by a round-up of three new reviews of The Church’s Book: Theology of Scripture in Ecclesial Context.
Podcasts:
Holy C of E, “A Catholic View of Scripture” (July 1), available on Spotify and Apple. Lot of high Anglican content here.
The London Lyceum, “The Doctrine of Scripture” (July 10), available on Spotify and Apple. A rich conversation about Protestant approaches to and questions about Scripture.
Speakeasy Theology, “The Scandal of Theology” (August 12), available on Apple and Substack. A long, meandering, and wonderful chat with Chris Green about Robert Jenson, wicked theologians, and original sin. To be continued.
Reviews:
Joel B. Green, Interpretation 78:2 (2024): 174–75. Green writes that
this book serves both as a charitable and analytical reading of three distinct approaches to the use of the Bible in theology and as a formidable proposal for the importance of one’s understanding of the church for one’s interpretation of Scripture. The result is a welcome contribution to theological hermeneutics and to ongoing discussion of theological interpretation of Scripture. For those who imagine that their theological engagement with the Bible proceeds from text to doctrine, East offers an important corrective.
Keith Stanglin, Calvin Theological Journal 59:1 (2024): 191–93. Stanglin writes: “The excursus alone, with implications that transcend Yoder’s case, is a rather full and careful account of how” to engage work produced by Christians and other writers who, while alive, perpetrated great evil against others. Stanglin concludes: “Through it all, East effectively illuminates a significant link that sometimes remains obscure in theological discourse,” namely between ecclesiology and bibliology.
John Kern, Restoration Quarterly 66:3 (2024): 184–85. Kern writes:
Ultimately, this book is an exemplary work in contemporary systematic theology. It is historically attuned to the nuances of the figures that it treats. Even so, it evaluates their strengths and weaknesses, all while offering clear paths for bringing the best of their proposals together for a fuller vision. East never loses his constructive edge even while simply trying to get the figures right on their own terms. Even more, he does all of this while keeping his eye on the primary objective: to account for the divisions found among practitioners of [theological interpretation of Scripture]. He accomplishes this and so much more. Even tracing the lineage of these three theologians from Karl Barth’s influence would have been contribution sufficient to warrant a monograph, but East has found multiple ways to carry this conversation forward. The book is necessary reading for theologians and biblical scholars alike for the way it shows a point at once simple and deep: how one understands the church impacts how one understands the Bible as Scripture. It might not ultimately unify the differences between the different ecclesiological paradigms for bibliology, but East has helped theology in a major way by disambiguating the conflicts, showing where they truly originate.
