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Book Review
by Stephen H. Webb
[Stephen H. Webb is Professor of Religion and Philosophy
at Wabash College. The following review appeared in Reviews in Religion
and Theology, 9/5 (2002): 514-515. Posted here on 9/10/03.]
“We seem to be at the end of a period that has witnessed
the revival of systematic theology. When theology lost confidence in the
sixties and seventies, it became increasingly topical and sociological,
intervening into practical issues as an aid to other, more serious academic
disciplines. The revival of systematic theology was fueled, in part, by
the approaching retirement of a whole generation of theologians who entered
the academy during its expansionistic years of the post World War Two
baby boom. Many of these works attempted to give one last stand to politicized
agendas by wrapping them in systematic garb. Few of them seemed to have
emerged primarily from the classroom, where, after all, the best professors
spend the least amount of time. Few of them, too, tried to be in continuity
with systematic theologians of the past. Instead, they were eager to break
new ground for radical revisions of Christianity for the future.
Given that context, the two volumes of Joe R. Jones’ systematic
theology constitute a remarkable achievement. This is a work written for
the church and destined for the seminary classroom. It is as useful as
it is comprehensive, a rare feat these days. Indeed, it could have been
written only as the culmination of a career spent practicing the passion
for God in the classroom. It reads like a teaching manual, but it is more
creative than most theologies that strain after contemporary relevance.
This two-volume set could just well be the first systematic theology of
the postmodern period to be true to the actual practice of teaching theology.
It demonstrates how a life devoted to teaching can lead not only to the
most fruitful thinking but also to a thinking that reaches students where
they are and moves them to places they never dreamed were possible.
What is most remarkable is that Jones spent seventeen years in university
and seminary administration before returning to teaching at Christian
Theological Seminary in Indianapolis in 1990. This book grew out of lecture
outline notes that he made available for students in the CTS bookstore,
but this book outgrew the genre of lecture notes. It really looks back
to the days of the Medieval Schoolmen, whose lecture notes display a seriousness
of purpose and depth of learning that are rarely attempted in the classroom
today. By pushing himself to be the best teacher that he could be for
his dozens of students, Jones has delivered a surprisingly creative and
faithful gift to theologians everywhere.
The methodological underpinning of his work is the concept of “grammar,”
but Jones brings a lot of clarification to this overworked term, and he
does not overwork it himself. Theology is at once the conceptual analysis
of Christian speech and the training in how to use that speech. It is
as if one cannot learn to speak like a Christian without being pulled
into the various debates that comprise Christian dogma. Jones does theology
close to ground, so to speak, without letting his theory take over and
take him away from his subject matter. He acknowledges that any grammatical
analysis of religious language will be both normative and descriptive,
because theology is a servant to the church, not its master. Theology
is thus one part of the church’s witness to the glory of God, enacting
the very thing upon which it reflects.
Jones sets out to cover the basic doctrines of the church, but in doing
so, he meets the challenges of the secular world as well. This is a book
that will teach not only beginning students in theology but also the teachers
who use it. I predict it will have a long life in the classroom, precisely
because it deals with nearly all of the fundamental questions of Christianity
in such a way as to show that Christian life today is still a matter of
understanding the Christian dogma that has guided the church from its
very beginning.”
Stephen H. Webb
Wabash College
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