Frank Field’s Politics, Poverty and Belief

8 May 2023 by Steve Walton
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On 16 June 1986 Frank Field, then MP for Birkenhead, kindly came and spoke to the youth group at St Andrew’s, Bebington after being interviewed about his faith and politics in our 6.30 pm evening service. I was the curate who invited him to come and gave you a lift home to Birkenhead afterwards. He spoke very well in the service about Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God and its implications for national and political life, and the youth group found him inspiring as a Continue reading →

A cracking read: Luke Timothy Johnson’s autobiography as a scholar

31 October 2022 by Steve Walton
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Luke Timothy Johnson, The Mind in Another Place: My Life as a ScholarGrand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022. ISBN 978-0-8028-8011-6. I read Luke Timothy Johnson’s book with great appreciation over the weekend. It’s clear, lucid, engaging, and very encouraging and stimulating. I’ve long been an admirer of his work: his published PhD dissertation, The Literary Function of Possessions in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 39; Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977) was a pioneering ‘narrative’ reading of Luke-Acts which I found very helpful in my own PhD work a few years later, Continue reading →

Craig Keener’s new book

20 December 2021 by Steve Walton
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Craig Keener has written a substantial, two-volume book on miracles in which he explains and defends a classic Christian view that remarkable out-of-the-ordinary events take place which defy naturalistic explanation, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 vols (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011). That book particularly engages debates about the presence of such events in the New Testament. This book, by contrast, is set in a less academic key, and aims to provide testimony to many such events today. Keener does not avoid Continue reading →

Some recent publications

4 May 2021 by Steve Walton
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It’s been a busy season the last few weeks for publications of things I’ve been asked to commend, plus one book I’ve contributed to myself, so here’s an update, with my comments in each case. ’Tricia Williams’ What Happens to Faith when Christians Get Dementia (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2021) is a lightly revised doctoral thesis studying how some Christians from an evangelical tradition who are in early to middle stages of dementia experience their faith. It’s fine work, and essential for theological college Continue reading →

A review of Sean Adams’ Greek Genres and Jewish Authors

25 February 2021 by Steve Walton
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Sean A. Adams. Greek Genres and Jewish Authors: Negotiating Literary Culture in the Greco-Roman Era. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020. xvii + 430 pp. $79.95. ISBN 978 1 4813 1291 2. This excellent study does exactly what it says it will do: explore the way Jewish authors used and adapted Greek genres of writing between 300 BC and AD 135. Dr Sean Adams shows an astonishing and impressive breadth of engagement with the primary sources for this period, and has put us in his debt Continue reading →