Wyatt Graham

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Review of Ending Overcriminalization and Mass Incarceration by Anthony B. Bradley

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The United States has an overcriminalization problem. On this much, Americans agree. In 2014 one in 163 Americans served time in prisons (23). When we account for all supervised persons as well (parole and probation), then the numbers become even more acute: “one in thirty-five Americans” serve within the USA correctional system (23).

While many agree on the problem of overcriminalization, the solution to this obstacle does not enjoy the same kind of consensus. Hence, Anthony Bradley has written Ending Overcriminalization and Mass Incarceration to define the problem and to provide solutions.

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Can Christians Believe in the Eternal Submission of the Son? (a Review of Trinity Without Hierarchy Edited by Michael Bird and Scott Harrower)

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For centuries, Christians have confessed that God exists as a tri-unity distinguished by the personal names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each name of a person in God expressed some implied relationship: so the Father begets the Son and the Son is begotten.

These relational properties (often called relations of origin) maintained the unity of the simple God, while distinguishing persons in God according to their biblical names: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But recently, some evangelicals have attempted to reconceive of the Trinity by introducing notions of authority and submission into the inner-life of God. The basic idea goes like this: Jesus obeyed the Father during his earthly life. And this obedience implies an eternal relationship in which the Son of God always obeyed the Father. So authority and submission explain how persons in God relate to one another.

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Rediscovering the Gospel at the Lord’s Table (A Review of Remembrance, Communion, and Hope) by J. Todd Billings

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J. Todd Billings wagers that a renewed approach to the Lord’s Supper will deepen our experience of the Gospel. The reason why, he explains, is that “the Supper is God’s own instrument for conforming believers to the image of Christ” (2018: 1).

Yet he does not offer an unprecedented argument since he repeats and synthesizes the Reformed consensus on the Lord’s Supper. At the same time, he aims to be “catholic” in the sense of offering this theology to all Christian traditions, Reformed or not.

And this becomes obvious when we consider that, for example, even C. H. Spurgeon held to a spiritual presence view of the Supper: “We firmly believe in the real presence of Christ which is spiritual, and yet certain” (“Mysteries Visits,” 1894: 17; in Billings 2018: 3).

So the argument that Billings advances had, has, and still can find a home in various denominations of Christianity.

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What Role Does Natural Theology Have in Reformed Thinking? (A Review of Reforming Apologetics by J.V. Fesko)

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Should Reformed Christians engage in natural theology? Or ought we to follow Karl Barth’s famous “nein” to natural theology and instead claim with Barth that all theology starts with Christ? The classical Reformed answer, according to J. V. Fesko, is to answer no to Barth and yes to natural theology.

He has a point. The Gallican Confession (1559), The Belgic Confession (1561), the Canons of Dort (1618–1619), and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) affirm ideas like the book of nature, innate knowledge in terms of common notions, or the light of nature. And in particular, Anthony Burgess, a framer of the WCF, penned a work affirming natural theology (Vindiciae Legis) whose imprint appears in the WCF (So Fesko 2019: 40).

Fesko interprets these sources and gives a close reading to the WCF in particular. In so doing, He closely attends to the original sources and their plain meaning. For example, the Belgic Confession plainly states: “We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book.” The book of nature reveals God.

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Review of Ways of Reading Scripture by Frances Young

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Biblical scholar and historian Frances Young has produced a volume of essays on the topic of Ways of Reading Scripture. Most of the twenty-five essays that are included have been published elsewhere. But Young wrote some new essays for this publication. That alone shows extra consideration since often these collected essays do not include much by way of new, scholarly contributions.

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