Volume 13 Issue 2

Despite editing this journal for thirteen years, which has exposed me to fascinating insights about Alexander Campbell, and reading about him in a number of the standard histories of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, I felt like my knowledge and understanding was an incoherent patchwork. So during the past year, I committed myself to reading the 1200-page biography of him, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, published shortly after his death in 1868 by his son-in-law, Robert Richardson. It had struck me that the vast majority of the information about him that ends up in other history books originates with this exhaustive publication.

Although many aspects of his life intrigued me as I read, now months later after completing the book, I notice that two things stand out to me more than others. First is the extensive amount of traveling he did. For over forty years he traveled to almost every conceivable place in the United States, teaching and preaching his Bible-based new reformation to anyone who would listen. By steamer, stagecoach, and horseback, he went to New Orleans, Chicago, and New York, and everywhere in-between. He traveled to London and Scotland too. I suspect very few people, even politicians, saw as much of America and the world as he did. Of course he was driven by his convictions about the gospel, but it strikes me that he must have enjoyed seeing all these places and people despite the weariness that must have come from the traveling as well. Today thousands of people associated with this movement, from all streams, continue to travel anywhere and everywhere here and around the world bringing the gospel in increasingly diverse ways to increasingly diverse people. This is a good thing. I expect too they are enjoying the view along the way.

The second thing that stands out to me about Campbell is how he embraced the opportunities he had to enter into widening rings of Christianity. The debates demonstrate this. While he was happy to represent Baptists on the matter of immersion against Reformed representatives like John Walker and William Maccalla, he also welcomed the opportunity to represent Protestants against Catholic bishop John Purcell as well as all Christians against skeptic Robert Owen. Today we need to take our cue from Campbell to enter into whatever circles of people will welcome us and stand with them at our levels of agreement while still maintaining our distinctives and having meaningful dialog whenever the opportunity arrives.

SCJ will again partner with Cincinnati Bible Seminary and Cincinnati Christian University to offer the tenth annual SCJ Conference April 9-10, 2011. The theme is Extraordinary: The Body, Demons, and Miracles. Luke Timothy Johnson (Emory University) will present "The Body and Resurrections in Corinthians: The Ontological Body and the Social Body." Loren Stuckenbruck (Princeton Theological Seminary) will present "Demonology in the Synoptic Gospels." Barry Blackburn (Atlanta Christian College) will present "The Miracles of Jesus Viewed from Above." Related papers or papers on other biblical, theological, or historical topics are sought for parallel sessions, from experienced scholars as well as from student scholars. Send your paper title (no abstract to needed) to William Baker, SCJ Editor, at scjeditor@aol.com. Six study groups welcome submissions, the Christian Education group (jestep@lccs.edu), Biblical Teaching on Women group (jdmiller@milligan.edu), Theological and Missiological Perspectives on World and New Religions (brian.smith@fcc.edu), Old Testament Prophetic Tradition and Application (bembryj@esr.edu), Mark's Gospel in Mediterranean Context (michael.halcomb@asburyseminary.com), and Reexamining Scholarship in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement (Jasonfikes@gmail.com). A formal student-paper competition is also being organized for three categories: junior/senior, M.A./M.Div., restoration history (rick.cherok@ccuniversity.edu). Make all contacts before December 1, 2010.

The articles in this issue of SCJ offer a wide range of interesting topics. SCJ editor John Mark Hicks provides a survey and critique of Lord's Supper practices among those in Churches of Christ (a cappella) as a window into the other streams of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. Austin and Melynne Jones use the hymnals of the movement to gauge the changes that have occurred over the centuries. Ben Wiebe lines up the thoughts of Campbell, Stone, and Scott with contemporary thinking about the atonement. Fred Norris provides a deep religious critique of the very popular historical fictional writing of Barbara Kingsolver portraying the life of a missionary family to the Congo. Scot McKnight's article, adapted from his 2010 SCJ Conference Lecture, gives a thought-provoking analysis of the incoherence of spirituality in a postmodern environment. Finally, Scott Caulley (SCJ Consulting Editor) looks at what is going on currently with NT textual criticism.

William R. Baker, Editor

Quotables for this issue were chosen by Nathan Babcock, Lincoln Christian University -- Seminary

Featured Quotation"People who can combine Jeremiah, Paine, Max, Harold and Kumar along with Dr. Seuss could be called postmoderns, whatever that means. What it means for spirituality, which is our topic, is this: one of the distinctive characteristics of postmodern spirituality… is theological incoherence which finds its way into bricolage spirituality."

Scot McKnight, "Spirituality in a Postmodern Age" (SCJ 13.2: 212)

"The rational categories of Lockean epistemology hindered the full vigor of a Calvinian understanding of the spiritual dynamic of the Supper to fully enrich Campbell's understanding of the Supper – just as it did in early American Presbyterianism." 

John Mark Hicks, "Churches of Christ and the Lord's Supper: Twentieth Century Perspectives" (SCJ 13.2: 163)

"'Breaking bread,' then was not a solemn funerary ritual, but the new community's celebration of the presence of the risen Jesus through which God revealed the eschaton… Joy is pervasive in Luke's meal stories and is particularly appropriate to the Eucharist… It is one of the great discontinuities between the meals of Israel, Jesus' meals in Luke, and the contemporary church… that joy is not a significant mode in which the contemporary Supper is experienced."

John Mark Hicks, "Churches of Christ and the Lord's Supper: Twentieth Century Perspectives" (SCJ 13.2: 173)

"With the importance of music in mind, it is easy to understand that the early leaders of the Stone-Campbell Movement required new hymns and hymnals in order to reinforce the "restored" theological disposition they were advocating. At the very beginning of the Movement, before time allowed for the creation of new hymnody, they adapted the contemporary hymns of their day by changing any doctrinally offensive words or phrases."

Austin L. Jones and Melynne B. Jones, "Songs in Three Streams: Charting the Historical Development of the Stone-Campbell Movement through Its Hymnals" (SCJ 13.2: 178)

"After the death of Alexander Campbell, issues that previously started as seeds of tension between different groups within the Movement continued to grow and eventually led to splintering. Parallels in the music of the movement can also be identified." 

Austin L. Jones and Melynne B. Jones, "Songs in Three Streams: Charting the Historical Development of -the Stone-Campbell Movement through Its Hymnals" (SCJ 13.2: 181)

"Paul specifies the relationship between God and Christ. This is not merely the sacrificial act of Jesus but also the act of God… It is simultaneously Jesus' obedient faithfulness (Rom. 5:19) and the act of God… Jesus does not die to persuade God to forgive sinners; on the contrary, in his death God himself acts in love to extend his mercy and grace."

Ben Wiebe, "Cross Currents: Rethinking Atonement (with Reflection on Campbell, Stone, and Scott)" (SCJ 13.2: 197)

"In the gospel, language that had been used to safeguard God in his otherness and distance from our limited and flawed humanity is turned inside out to proclaim that all the glory behind creation has come right down into human life in the vulnerable form of Jesus."

Ben Wiebe, "Cross Currents: Rethinking Atonement (with Reflection on Campbell, Stone, and Scott)" (SCJ 13.2: 200)

"The Poisonwood Bible, published in 1998, is a grand read with a great flaw… [It] is indeed a page-turner, in most aspects worthy of its honors. Its serious failings, however, involve the author's conception and understanding of religion. She does not grasp its historical character and proportions in the Congo whether Christian or not."

Frederick W. Norris, "Religion in The Poisonwood Bible" (SCJ 13.2: 203, 204) 

"In spite of these large failings I happily concede the Kingsolver is not religiously tone deaf… Her criticisms of contemporary Christianity… are usually crisp and so on point that they make a Christian cringe… a number of her critiques of the church may be used by Christian study groups to sharpen their faith and change their ways."

Frederick W. Norris, "Religion in The Poisonwood Bible" (SCJ 13.2: 208)

"What I want to say now is at the heart of the postmodern spirituality enterprise: it is diverse and each person appropriates what he or she likes… In other words, they form a bricolage of the Christian faith and Christian practices that suit them. They have abandoned the insularity of traditionalist spirituality."

Scot McKnight, "Spirituality in a Postmodern Age" (SCJ 13.2: 222)

"Evangelicals who (rightly) reject the preservationist arguments for priority of the Majority Text are themselves subject to the same objections, at least in the case of an extreme form of "inerrancy of the original autographs." Specifically, preservationism is not a viable historical position, for it is not legitimate to "tell" God what he must have done… it is dogma rewriting history. More to the point, elevating the hypothetical original autographs to such a level of importance misunderstands the nature of scriptural authority." 

Thomas Scott Caulley, "The 'New' Textual Criticism: Challenges and Promise" (SCJ 13.2: 238)

"Another promising emphasis of the "new" textual criticism is the stress on the NT manuscripts as artifacts of early Christianity. Hurtado calls attention to the rich data the MSS provide in addition to the text itself." 

Thomas Scott Caulley, "The 'New' Textual Criticism: Challenges and Promise" (SCJ 13.2: 239)