Scott Hafemann (Theological Mentor, First CPT Fellowship) challenges the idea that work is part of the original creation mandate. He argues instead that work—defined by Hafemann as the need to provide for one’s own sustenance—is a result of the fall, and that Christ’s redemptive work secures rest for us. This redemptive rest ultimately brings about the end of human work.
Matthew Ward (Second Fellowship) brings Smith into conversation with Robert Webber and calls for Christians in free church traditions not to follow Webber on the road to Canterbury, but rather to use the resources of traditional free church theology to develop a robust free church form of worship.
Joseph Sherrard (Second Fellowship) engages one of Smith’s interlocutors, Charles Taylor, challenging the criticisms of John Calvin in Taylor’s account of the secular turn. Sherrard expounds Calvin’s Eucharistic theology, connected as it is to his Christology and his theology of worship, to argue that Calvin offers a thorough and nuanced account of materiality, albeit one that challenges “sacramental” understandings of reality by fixing attention on God’s covenant promises. These promises are mediated through material reality, but find their locus in the ascended Christ.
In a highly personal article, Joel Willitts (First Fellowship) traces the embodied patterns by which suffering Christians follow the Man of Sorrows, as we learn to lament in ways that connect us to God, and to others, as God connects to us in our griefs.
Ryan Jackson (First Fellowship) engages the Corinthian correspondence to explore how Paul sought to form disciples in first century Corinth by challenging the reigning cultural imaginaries with an alternative Christian imaginary focused on Christ-like living.
Jeremy Mann explores the importance of figural interpretation of Scripture for the formation of disciples, and argues that figural reading is both necessary for and enriching of the preaching of God’s Word.
Daniel Brendsel (Second Fellowship) applies Smith’s liturgical insights to the question of the liturgical year. He contrasts the church’s traditional liturgical calendar with an insightful analysis of the modern American calendar, and considers how discerning use of the church’s calendar might counter the ways the American calendar tends to “mal-form” us.
The issue begins with a review essay, in which David Morlan (First Fellowship) offers an appreciative but critical interaction with Desiring the Kingdom and Imagining the Kingdom, asking how biblically grounded Smith’s proposal is. After summarizing Smith’s thesis, Morlan engages his arguments from the perspectives of anthropology, evangelism, Jesus and religious forms, and mission.
Gerald Hiestand expounds Irenaeus of Lyons’ account of the Devil in relation to his cosmology to challenge the more common “Miltonian” reading of the Fall narrative and to reorient our reading of Scripture in a more earth- affirming direction.
Gary Shultz (Second Fellowship) considers the cosmic aspects of the atonement to ask what light the heart of the Christian faith sheds on the relationship between faith and science.
Chris Bruno (Second Fellowship) explores an evangelical theology of new creation to see how it might inform scientific engagement with creation.
David Rudolph (First Fellowship) examines the Jewish calendar as a Biblical example of the relationship of science and faith and asks what implications it might have for the church’s relationship with the Jewish people.
Dillon Thornton offers an exegetical study of 1 Timothy 4:1-5 as a remedy for Christian cosmological dualism.
Jim Samra (First Fellowship) considers the pastoral implications of what Hebrews means by saying that creation is known by faith.
Benjamin Espinoza argues for the importance of engaging professionals working in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields within the life of the church.
Matthew Mason explores what nature and Scripture reveal about the reality and meaning of the twofold form of our humanity as male and female.
Jeremy Mann offers a charitable critique of Dillon Thornton’s essay “Consecrated Creation” from BET Volume 4.1.
Jeremy Mann unweaves the tapestry of a sacramental ontology to argue for the doctrinal and pastoral advantages of a Calvinist account of creation.
Jarrod Longbons offers an anti-modern theological gift to ecology, drawing on a Radical Orthodoxy-inflected theological account of nature.
Matt Ward’s essay explores the role that Adam has played in the Christian liturgical tradition. Ward survey a broad sweep of the Christian tradition, demonstrating that the Augustinian account of Adam, and its corresponding account of original sin, is woven intricately throughout the liturgical tradition.
With God Every Day
BOBBIE SCHAEPERKOETTER
ARTICLE: Revival For All of Us
JOSEPH LEAR
ARTICLE: Why Church Identity Really Matters
JOEL LAWRENCE
From Word to Worship
MICHAEL NIEBAUER
