"Historical, biblical, and theological considerations", writes Stanley J. Grenz "converge not only in allowing, but also in insisting, that women serve as full partners with men" in the work of the Christian church. His book (coauthored with Denise Muir Kjesbo), Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry is one of the best- perhaps THE best treatment I've ever read on the subject of women's roles in churches, marriage, and family.

Grenz and Kjesbo are always respectful toward those who espouse a hierarchy for church and family based on gender roles, but their case for an egalitarian theology of women's roles is extremely thorough and compelling.

While I recommend Grenz and Kjesbo's Women in the Church as perhaps the best example of the superior scholarship being performed today by egalitarian theologians and expositors, two other treatments deserve mention. Gretchen Gaebelein Hull's Equal to Serve (1987) and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis's Good News for Women (1997) treat the subject admirably.

This book truley explaines where women fit in in the church.

As a pastor (from a fundamentalist and Neo-orthodox background) who tries to keep up with what is going on in theology, I found this a fascinating read. Written from an evangelical point of view, it is a very sophisticated engagement with a wide range of theology, past and present. Each chapter has excellent historical background to introduce present theological engagements, as a prelude to the authors' own development of the topic. There is a stead critique of the failure of the Enlightment project and of foundationalisms, including evangelical foundationalisms regarded as inadequate in the post-modern context. The discussion of epistemology was very interesting, especially Reformed epistemology. (I have already ordered W. Jay Wood's Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous; part of the value of the book to me is new leads to explore). There is also much dialogue with Pannenberg, about whom Grenz has written a great deal. The discussions of the Trinity and of the place of community are very well done. The book is well written and has helped bring me to date on what I think will be an ongoing area of theological work, (more especially by evangelicals?) It would be interesting to see these authors' evaluation of Milbank and Radical Orthodoxy. However I can imagine that a lot of evangelicals are a bit alarmed as to where all this is going.

Stanley Grenz declares that he began as a professor of theology, but somehow has gotten "sucked into" teaching ethics. He is at Regents College currently and teaches both theology and ethics.

This book is solidly based on God's word and theology, and reflects on the development of morality, virtues, and ethics (after a brief introduction on why we should look at ethics), as it first arises from the Greek tradition. Various terminology are introduced, like an "ethic of being" rather than an "ethic of doing", and deontological vs. teleogical ethics.

Several Greek ethical traditions are evaluated, namely Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Stoics, and Plotinus (neo-Platonism), and what are the metaphysical backgrounds, nature of the human person, type of ethic, and conceptions of virtue.

Then the discussion moves to ethics in the Bible from Old Testament (specifically the apodidic laws, or the moral laws), Christ, and then Paul.

Then some model Christian proposals are evaluated, namely Augustine (Ethics as the Love of God), Aquinas (Ethics as the telos of human existence, or Ethics as the Fulfillment of our purpose), and Martin Luther and the Reformers (Ethics as Believing Obedience).

Some contemporary Christian proposals are raised looking at Social Order/Social Justice ("An Ethic for the Christianization of the Social Order"), Ethic of Transcedence (in Neo-Orthodoxy), Love as the Christian Norm, an Ethic of Liberation (Liberation Theology), Ethic of Character (an Ethic of Being), and Evangelicals and the Ethical Task. (What's good about these last two chapters is that Grenz fairly well presents a number of different models and is very good about evaluating the good and bad features in each one.)

Then Grenz spends some time discussing what ethics are being discussed at the present time and talks about what Christians need to do to discuss ethics successfully. He talks about related words like community, morals, duty, virtue, and dialogue ... especially with others who are thinking about ethics. Yet, Christian ethics must be distinctly different, and talks about why it must be (it must being and end with God, p. 218 -- and that the basis and goal of ethical living in God). Then Grenz apparently summarizes a good amount of his discussion of the biblical models of ethics, and then declares that Christian Ethics must be within a community-based ethic of being (in Christ)... also discussing Christian virtue-ethics, within a framework of theology. Very impressive. Then Grenz further discusses the foundation of a Christian ethic (discussing the famous Charles Sheldon novel "In His Steps" which inspires the ever-so-popular WWJD = What Would Jesus Do?). In this chapter, he covers even more Christian theology that affects our ethics.

Grenz reveals himself as an agape-ist ethicist in the final chapters, as he shows that he believes that love (or the ethic of love) is one that comes from God, and shows exactly how one is to demonstrate it, first to God, then to our neighbor. (Not just in marriage, but he does discuss this context.) He shows some of the four loves (interacting with C.S. Lewis' work, "The Four Loves", storge, philo, agape, and eros) and how love is to manifest (in a relational sense).

Grenz ends on a tone of love, specifically of that of love for God, in celebration, aka worship (notably corporate worship in addition to individual worship). He notes that Christian ethical life results in transformation (sanctification), and "the agent of our renewal and hence the one who authors true celebrative worship is none other than the Holy Spirit," (p.301) which transforms us to love God. (Again, emphasizing the agape-ethic.)

This book is the ideal first port of call for any with an interest in contemporary theology. Grenz and Olson place the last century's theological ponderings in their historical context, highlighting the relationships between the leading theologians of the century, and helpfully locating their theologies on a spectrum between the poles of God's immanence or transcendence. All this is skillfully done, woven into a text which includes accurate exposition and even-handed criticism. There is also a good deal of biographical detail which adds colour and (in places) even romance to the subject!

The book begins with an illuminating discussion of the Enlightenment and the problems it threw up for theology. The birth of comtemporary theology is then charted through the work of Schleiermacher in the nineteenth century, to a tried and trusted (?) canon of modern figures, ranging from dogmaticians such as Barth and Tillich, through liberation and feminist theologians, to more 'post-modern' types in the section on Narrative Theology. Very comprehensive for a relatively slim volume. I was engrossed throughout, and my passion for modern theology was kindled by this excellent book.

Of course, any book such as this has to be selective in its material, and some major figures are either ommited or glossed over. There is a considerable Protestant bias with only two Catholic theologians being considered (Rahner and Kung) and not a word about Eastern Orthodox theology, which is becoming a fashionable study in theological circles. By way of other Catholics, both Von Balthasar and Schillebeecks would have been worthy of inclusion. I also feel that a chapter specifically discussing the phenomena of so-called Post-liberal theology would be helpful: in particular the work of George Lindbeck, which has been revolutionary over the last twenty years.

In terms of style, my only criticisms would be that there are occassions when more explanation would be desirable, and that Grenz and Olson's criticisms can (albeit rarely) become a little pedantic. All in all a highly recommended, dare I say enjoyable, read.

I have just used this book as the set text for the 'contemporary theology' module of a theology degree, and I found it an excellent introduction to the basics of recent theological thought. It is certainly accessible for the average undergraduate, and is more easy-going than, say, David Ford's heavy volume 'Modern Theologians'. Although the writers are evangelicals, they generally treat those of other stock fairly even-handedly, and they cover all the main points and never fail to offer poignant criticisms. It becomes a little pedantic at times, particularly some of the obligatory words of praise offered to some of the more objectionable theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann. Such flattery seems rather insincere. There are also one or two points that could have been explained a bit more clearly, instead of being glossed over. On the whole though I couldn't recommend a better intro to contemporary theology. Incidentally, if you are reading modern theologians for the first time, I recommend Wolfhart Pannenberg and Karl Rahner. They were the ones who most impressed me, anyhow, and I think they both brought out important elements of the gospel.

This book provides a comprehensive review on various theological thoughts and movements in the past centuries. Although the authors are evangelists themselves, I think their comments on other schools of thoughts are accurate and fair. The authors use the co-presence of transcendence and immanence of God as a central line in theology, and argue that many theological thoughts are shifted to either side from the central line. I agree with this. One minor problem is that this book may be too difficult for layman. Especially in Chapter 2, their treatment on Kant and Hegel is not clear enough. Readers are required to have a basic background on philosophy and theology in order to understand this book.

The Millennial Maze provides a helpful and readable introduction to eschatology, the study of the last things or the end times. Grenz introduces his work with a brief biographical section where he recounts how he became interested in and realized the importance of eschatology. Although he grew up in classical dispensationalism, in seminary he moved first to historic premillennialism and then to amillennialism. After this introduction, Grenz makes a brief foray into historical theology, giving an overview of the various changes and developments in eschatology throughout church history. He then proceeds to outline the four major eschatological theories: Postmillennialism, Dispensationalism, Historic Premillennialism, and Amillennialism, including the criticisms that each school of thought has for the other three and what Grenz sees as the shortcomings of each. The final two chapters present Grenz's view on the significance of eschatology for the Christian church and its work in this world. This is a valuable and fairly objective analysis of contemporary options in eschatology. My only criticism is that I wish it would have dealt more with the growing optimistic amillennialism/partial preterism that Gentry, Chilton, North, and Sproul have endorsed. Overall, though, Grenz's work deals well with the key themes that are common to all eschatology: hermeneutics, philosophy of history, and the nature of the kingdom.

Grenz has accomplished the impossible in this small volume. He has become one of the first authors to present the different perspectives on this debate in a fair and even-handed manner. Typically in books on eschatology, opposing viewpoints are caricatured rather than described and mocked rather than carefully criticized. Grenz avoids all of this nonsense.

In the first chapter he introduces the Biblical background of apocalyptic literature which frames the whole debate. In chapter two, he presents an overview of millennarianism in the history of the church. The following four chapters deal with postmillennialism, dispensationalism, historic premillennialism and amillennialism respectively. The seventh chapter asks the question, "So what?" by dealing with the significance of the whole debate. The book concludes with a chapter explaining how eschatology should shape us here and now.

This book and the Counterpoints volume edited by Darrell Bock "Three Views of the Millennium and Beyond" are the two must read books for those desiring a good overview and explanation of the millennial debate.

I welcome Stanley Grenz' book 'Welcoming but not Affirming' for several reasons:

(1) Each generation has, it seems, the defining touchstone debates in Christianity, that seem to reach to the core of religious practice and community (interesting that subsequent generations rarely sustain the emotional importance attached to those issues of previous generations). In the current generation, acceptance or rejection of homosexuality is one of these (I would say abortion and the status of women are the other two). Grenz, a noted theologian, tackles this issue directly.

(2) Because of the emotional level that such touchstone debates reach to, there is often a tendency to sacrifice scholarship and reasonable dialogue to diatribe and immovable pronouncements, on both sides. Grenz presents a fairly balanced view with his own bias present in the title of the work.

(3) This is a book that will make both sides of the debate variously comfortable and uncomfortable. That in itself is a positive, because it will spur people on to thinking and reflection. A mature faith requires examination, in my opinion.

These things having been said, I have a few criticisms of the book. In the first half, Grenz presents what his view is of the welcoming and affirming side, i.e, those who argue for full acceptance of same-sex unions and open ordination of gays and lesbians. Grenz tends to concentrate only on the same-sex union aspect of this, and Grenz does a pretty good job at this, although there is every so often the tendency I think to make the arguments into a straw figure he can later torch. I would have preferred a little more development of the opposing side, so the arguments weren't so easily refuted.

In his refutation and presentation of his openly-stated bias (that of welcoming, but not affirming, i.e., welcoming the homosexual as a human being, but still viewing that homosexuality as a sin that should not be affirmed), Grenz also lacks a little in the argumentation. Grenz does use scripture well, and avoids many of the pitfalls that both sides often seem to fall into. However, I would have to wonder just how welcome a homosexual would be in this church. While not denying that gays or lesbians can be Christian and receive the Holy Spirit (Grenz is an evangelical himself), he still falls into the trap of not being able to explain why certain scriptural prohibitions are important while others are not.

However, far be it for me to criticise anyone for not being able to settle this debate! I am far from being able to do it myself.

At last we have a sane, moderate, compelling voice taking the "traditional" (but not reactionary) viewpoint, that homosexuality can be compassionately discussed and homosexual persons compassionately ministered to, without wholesale affirmation of their orientation and behavior as God's will for their lives. To demonstrate this book's credibility in the conversation now going on within Christian circles, James Nelson, an articulate theologian with a "gay-affirmiing" viewpoint, adds his highest recommendation. There is nothing "homophobic" in Stanley Grenz's approach, and as an eminent ethicist, he is not writing a moralistic diatribe. His is a reasoned and refreshing antidote to the more strident "right-wing" denunciations of homosexual sin, yet he maintains the clear and unequivocal position, based upon the overwhelming consensus of scripture and tradition, that the Christian faith does not and cannot affirm gay and lesbian behavior, nor same-sex unions, as "normative" or "alternative" lifestyles within the church. That the church should support the "civil" rights of homosexual persons, there can be no doubt, but the church cannot extend a "blessing" in the same manner as it does to marriage. Gay friendships, even when most exemplary of fidelity and longevity, are not, nor should they be construed as analogous with, the marriage of a man and a woman. The only missing dimension to the book, from this reviewer's point of view, is a discussion of the inextricability of sexuality and spirituality, and how this reality must fuel future conversations about Christian sexuality. We are all "fragile" in our sexuality, such that condemnations and judgements have no place, least of all within a Christian community, where healing and reconciliation ought to be emblemmatic. Such healing will often carry us to depths of intra- psychic transformation we dare not have thought possible. Alice Miller's "The Drama of the Gifted Child", a brilliant and recently revised treatment of this corollary topic, makes an excellent companion volume to Grenz's.

In recent years, any number of systematic theologies have been written by Evangelicals. Stanley Grenz is a moderately conservative theologian and his book is a welcome overview of Christian theology from a Baptistic perspective. One of the best features of this book is that the discussion is clear and thorough, but never simplistic. Grenz achieves this by focusing on the Biblical material and leaving the historical discussion to a few key thinkers in any area. This prevents the work from reading like a telephone book, unlike many systematic theologies. In addition, Grenz has a purpose to his work, namely to integrate his discussion with the communitarian aspects of Christianity. Finally, the work is less than 700 pages, making a bit less intimidating than other theologies.

This book is very indepth and is well worth the read. While adhering to historical orthodoxy, Grenz is also quite creative. His bibliology section, for example, appears in chapter 14, rather than in the traditional theological prolegomena (introductory) section of most systematics texts. His integrative motif of 'community' is excellent, but I disagree with Grenz at several points. His characterization of the Holy Spirit as the bond of love between the Father and the Son makes the third member of the Trinity rather impersonal. I would have preferred a more unequivocal assertion regarding the real personality of the Spirit. The 'concretization' of the relationship between the Father and the Son seems to be an inadequate description of the Holy Spirit as presented in the Scriptures. Grenz gives excellent hisorical background on each topic, the work is saturated with the Scriptures, and the author clearly is a passionate Christian believer. Wonderful text for spiritual enrichment and undoubtedly a solid introductory volume for college and seminary settings.

As a ministry student I find this book immensely helpful in our postmodern culture because of its emphasis on community. Grenz does an outstanding job integrating church tradition with contemporary culture and theology. His relational view of the trinity is his paradigm for understanding community. This relational view is present throughout this work and is a refreshing idea in today's western society where individualism is dominant. For a one volume systematic theology it is comprehensive and thorough. Grenz's writing is easy to understand for theology students, but I would recommend his Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms if you are new to reading theology. I think anyone could benefit from reading this contemporary evangelical theology.

Is a good book to read if you're searching to (and, I know this is ironic) nail down postmodernism to a few tenets you can understand. Provides the necessary framework to understand the topic when it comes up-- and, at the same time, Grenz does a good job of sifting out the negatives of the movement while pointing to the opporutunties it holds for Christianity to communicate to this culture.

Does not contain much info at all an literature, art, and architecture, which are the main purveyors of the movement. Then, again, by the time most of us in the Church catch wind of anything like PM it's already in the rear-view mirror for most of society, anyway.

This is probably the best book I've read to understand postmodernism and it's imact upon the church. Grenz is highly readable and immensely insightful in making plain the complexities and realities of our day.

Dr. Grenz always seems to write in an enjoyable, clear fashion. He has done this again in "A Primer On Postmodernism". This book discusses the worldview that our society is has left (modernism) and then relates this to our present worldview (post-modernism). Dr. Grenz helps the reader to see how Christian thought can not only survey within this post-modern world, but actually thrive. By beinging to understand what post-modernism is we can relate the truth of the gospel to it, we merely need to consider what parts of the gospel best relate to post-modern thought and then points our good news out to the post-modern world. Dr. Grenz helps to make this possible but explaining why we should not fear post-modern thought and displaying how we can use it in benefical manners.

This dictionary is definitely for the layman's theologian. For those of a somewhat firm grasp of theological terminologies, you're better off sticking with a standard merriam-webster collegiate abridgement, or a larger, deeper theological dictionary. This dictionary is probably for the novice, or beginning student of theology or philosophy. There are many terms NOT included in this dictionary that I find often in theological studies that you'd think would be included. Where's the entry for "semiotics"? Where's the entry for "cosmogony"? Or how about "bibliomancy"? This book is very small, so at least they don't mislead you about its size. There are other theological dictionaries which have better application for the theology student/scholar in mind.

I suggest picking up Westminster's Dictionary of Theological Terminology by McKim for a more complete dictionary.

For an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny book it sure goes a long way in helping you understand the most common (yet curious) terms that you encounter in theological books and articles. For those laymen who may feel just a little embarrassed when your friends come over and see an encyclopedia length dictionary of theological terms on the shelf next to your Bible when they know that you still get confused between Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1, this may be the book for you. It also has the distinct advantage of not requiring a day's wages in order to obtain it. A great value. Get it while it is still in the single digits.

I have several theology dictionaries which are helpful, but none give such pithy definitions. The definitions are short and to the point, without giving a lot of parallel information. Sometimes you just need a simple definition, not one that is pages long. This book does just that. I found that, while being short, each definition does not limit the meaning of the word too much. There is a good balance between giving open definitions and ones that still mean something. A most helpful resource that I use often.

I didn't really read the book. My girlfriends dad wrote the book and I thought it was cool that he did that so I thought I'd write this! I also wanted to see what this looks like! Anyway good job Dr. Hoffman! I can't believe you wrote a book, I don't have the patients (ha ha bad joke) for that!