KANSAS CITY – Midwestern Seminary released its Spring 2019 issue of the Midwestern Journal of Theology on May 1, featuring works by several of the school’s faculty and doctoral students as well as academics from across the Southern Baptist Convention.
The spring edition addresses topics such as the gospel of John, the #MeToo Movement, a commonality between C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot, and two articles on the role of the Holy Spirit.
President Jason Allen said of the Journal’s recently-released edition, “Our editor, Dr. Michael McMullen has knitted together a fine edition of the MJT. It is encouraging and edifying to the body of Christ to have academic works like the ones represented in this MJT edition. These essays speak to a wide range of topics affecting our society today – providing truthful insight and thoughtful guidance amidst a world that bends at the whims of the culture.”
McMullen, who also serves as professor of Church History, noted that this issue of the MJT seeks to highlight the work of both Midwestern Seminary faculty and voices from around the greater SBC. He said, “We are grateful to have contributions from not only Midwestern Seminary’s fine faculty and adjunct faculty but to have friends from around the SBC contributing thought-provoking articles for the edification of our readership.”
The MJT’s selections begin with a piece deriving from Midwestern Seminary’s 2019 ‘For the Church’ Workshop lectures given by Andreas J. Köstenberger on Feb. 6. According to McMullen, the lectures, which were both scholarly as well as extremely helpful in learning about John’s Gospel, examined significant aspects of the early chapters of the book, including authorship, the prologue and the Cana Cycle. Köstenberger is Midwestern Seminary’s research professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology.
This essay is followed by Katie McCoy’s biblical reflection on the #MeToo Movement entitled, “What’s Missing from #MeToo: How the Christian Worldview Defends a Woman’s Worth.” In her timely piece, McCoy argues that what is missing from this present-day movement is the influence of the redeemed, those who hold to a worldview that really does value a woman’s worth. McCoy is assistant professor of theology in women’s studies at Scarborough College of Southwestern Seminary.
The journal’s next article, “C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot: Unlikely Partners in Mythopoeic Pilgrimage” is published by Jared Wilson, who is director of content strategy and managing editor of “For the Church” at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The essay explains that despite Lewis’s disdain for Eliot, the two poets’ works share many commonalities, more than perhaps either would admit and more than they are typically given credit for.
The next article features an important contribution from James Hamilton, who serves as professor of biblical theology at Southern Seminary. In the piece entitled, “The Holy Spirit and Christian Worship: The Life-Giving Legacy of the Apostolic Band,” Hamilton carefully analyzes the relationship between the Holy Spirit and Christian worship, in which he argues that Baptist ecclesiology and worship is most attuned to the Holy Spirit in Christian worship.
In what McMullen noted as the MJT’s penultimate piece, Midwestern Seminary adjunct faculty member Lance Higginbotham provides a further study on the Holy Spirit in “The Holy Spirit as the Giver of Wisdom in Biblical Theology,” wherein he very helpfully examines the Spirit’s role as the giver of wisdom in biblical theology.
The final essay in the spring edition of the MJT is written by three of Midwestern Seminary’s Spurgeon scholars including the director of the Spurgeon Library, Phillip Ort, together with research assistants and Residency Ph.D. students Ed Romine and Timothy Gatewood. According to McMullen, the combined scholarship of these three has resulted in this challenging and encouraging reassessment of Charles Spurgeon as the quintessential evangelical.
In addition to the scholarly articles, readers will find several relevant and thought-provoking book reviews, many of which were written by Midwestern Seminary doctoral students as well.
Midwestern Seminary’s Provost, Jason Duesing, commented that, “I remain grateful for another quality installment of the Midwestern Journal of Theology under the care and leadership of Michael McMullen. These essays do indeed contribute much to evangelical scholarship.”
Midwestern Seminary’s Journal of Theology is available in print version for subscribers. To subscribe, contact Academic Office at (816) 414-3745 or kfreeman@mbts.edu.
Additionally, guests may view the issue in its entirety for free on the seminary’s website, www.mbts.edu/journal.