Interdisciplinary Book and Film Reviews

Silence: A Christian History       By Diarmaid MacCulloch   Reviewed by   Geoffrey W. Sutton I come from a noisy church tradition—a place where young Christians like their music loud and pulsating. The notion of silence in Christianity struck me as odd when I saw it on the new books’ shelf of my local library. But as I flipped through the Table of Contents and checked a few pages, many thoughts came to mind. Perhaps like historians, psychologists and counsellors can learn much from silence. Silence helps interpret noise.   Diarmaid MacCulloch work is scholarly, intriguing, insightful, and masterfully written. MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University and an award-winning author. He has also produced a multi-episode video series on the history of Christianity (this is also worth viewing) as well as a New York Times Best Seller on the same subject. MacCulloch organized Silence into...

ETHICS IN THE AGE OF THE SPIRIT:  RACE, WOMEN, WAR,  AND THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD      by Howard N. Kenyon.       Reviewed by          Geoffrey W. Sutton               The topics of race, women, and war, in Kenyon’s subtitle, are certainly timely issues. In 2016, the son of a Black father and White mother neared the end of his two terms as the 44th U.S. president while a woman campaigned to replace him. Meanwhile, the U.S. was at war, as it has been for 222 years since 1776 ( Charpentier, 2017) . Drawing on archival data, Howard N. Kenyon examines Pentecostals’ ethical response to racism, sexism, and war in the context of their fundamentalist roots and the historic cultural changes that have occurred in the past one hundred years. Howard N. Kenyon is a fourth-generation Pentecostal. He earned his Ph.D. in Ethics from Bay...

THE MORAL TEACHING   OF PAUL SELECTED ISSUES 3RD EDITION      BY VICTOR PAUL FURNISH Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton The Moral Teaching of Paul is one of the books I cited in A House Divided.   This third edition comes some 30 years after the first edition and aims to expand our understanding of the sociocultural context of Paul's Ministry related to contemporary moral issues. Before discussing the moral topics, Furnish reminds readers in Chapter 1 about Paul's authorship, which at this point appears firm for Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Disputed works include Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy. The disputed works have been variously dated in a range from the 70s to the early second century. The importance of identifying Paul's works is a matter of emphasis thus, Furnish focuses attention on the undisputed texts to understand Paul's moral theology. Furnish advises...