Queen of the Sciences

Dad gives a Bible study on Hebrews (as you may have surmised from the episode title). Many thanks to Pastor David Drebes of College Lutheran Church in Salem, Virginia, for arranging and assisting in the production of this bonus episode!

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Michael Chan of the outstanding Gospel Beautiful Podcast talks with Dad and me about Dad's long-awaited commentary on the book of Joshua. If you like Queen of the Sciences, you'll like Gospel Beautiful, so be sure to add it to your podcast feed!

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Sarah's talk for the 2020/2021 conference of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology.

Check out Sarah's "poetic paraphrase" of the Sermon on the Mount.

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Dad gives a Bible study on Galatians (as you may have surmised from the episode title). Many thanks to Pastor David Drebes of College Lutheran Church in Salem, Virginia, for arranging and assisting in the production of this bonus episode!

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We're ending the third season of the Queen of the Sciences with an apocalyptic bang! Whether you're a fanatical dispensationalist stockpiling canned goods against a rapture that might just leave you behind, or a sniffily disapproving enlightened sort with your own fanatical visions of making the world a better place, we have good news for you: Jesus. History is in his hands, not yours, and you can trust him to bring all things to a place where death and Hades are no more. In the meanwhile, dive into Revelation (no -s at the end, please) for tonic christology, stereoscopic vision, a lament for lost civilizations, and a cure for lukewarmness.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and talk to you in 2022! (But don't worry—there will be a number of bonus episodes between now and then.)

Notes:

1. All this and more in my Theology & a Recipe issue on "Radical Amillennialism: Or, an Open Letter to the Book of Revelation." And while you're there, sign up for Theology & a Recipe!

2. Check out Dad's Joshua commentary, his book on Slovak theologian Osusky entitled Between Humanist Philosophy and Apocalyptic Theology (and our episode about Osusky, too), and his detailed discussion of demythologization vs. deliteralization in Beloved Community pp. 34–36 and elsewhere.

3. Top picks for commentaries on Revelation are those by Mangina and Koester.

4. I read out from the Second and Third Petitions of the Lord's Prayer in my "Memorizing Edition" of the Small Catechism.

5. My book of "parables at the final threshold" was inspired by the vision of the 12 gates of the New Jerusalem standing permanently open: see the book Pearly Gates or listen to our episode about it.

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Of course we could have covered the two (or three) Uses of the Law, but what fun would that be? Instead, in this episode, we explore the patterned consistency of all law-based systems—scientific, psychological, jurisprudential, and religious—and why we not only need them, but can't even function without them; yet also, how that exact patterned consistency makes all laws hackable, gameable, and manipulable. How then to have an honorable relationship to the law, especially if the law—and others who ought to be obeying it—don't always deal honorably with you? Hint: Jesus has something to do with it.

Notes:

1. Check out Dad's article, “Antinomianism—The Lutheran 'Heresy',” in On Secular Governance

2. For some case law in action, as well as how to cope with attempts to hack the gospel as offered in the sacraments, see my new book To Baptize or Not to Baptize

3. Bonhoeffer's critique of Kant on lying can be found in Ethics, pp. 279–80.

4. Plato's dialogue Euthyphro

5. Related episodes: Law and Gospel 1, Law and Gospel 2, Learning to Love Leviticus, An Unlikely Marriage

And hey! If you've made it this far in the show notes, you're probably a super fan, and should consider declaring yourself as one on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month (which is basically a buck an episode). Give more monthly and you get swag. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

We are not fighting against flesh and blood. No, really, NOT flesh and blood! But if not that, then what? In this episode, Dad and I establish what the "powers and principalities" of Ephesians 6 (and other passages) are not and circle around what possibly they are—but, more importantly, what it means to arm ourselves with the gospel to identify and resist them, confident in the victory of Christ over all. Plus, a side dish of atonement theory.

Notes:

1. Moberly, The God of the Old Testament

2. Pannenberg, Introduction to Systematic Theology and the three volumes of Systematic Theology

3. Witherington, Isaiah Old and New

4. Wink, Naming the Powers and Engaging the Powers

5. Wright, “Paul and Caesar: A New Reading of Romans” in A Royal Priesthood

6. Barclay, Pauline Churches and Diaspora Jews

7. See Dad's article "The 'Powers and Principalities': Problems and Prospects for Christian Doctrine Today" in Life amid the Principalities and, in his Beloved Community, pp. 783–806.

8. In case you weren't otherwise sold on my memoir I Am a Brave Bridge about being a foolish teenager in emergent Slovakia, let me reassure you there's a stiff dose of nationalism, empire, communism, capitalism, Nazism... in, around, and between the adolescent foolishness.

9. The current prime minister of Hungary is Viktor Orbán, but the admirable Hungarian Lutheran pastor persecuted under communism was Lajos Ordass.

10. Related episodes: Galatians 1, Galatians 2, Two Kingdoms 16th Century Edition, Two Kingdoms 20th and 21st Century Edition, Joshua, Isaiah, Hannah Arendt.

And hey! If you've made it this far in the show notes, you're probably a super fan and should consider declaring yourself as one on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month (which is basically a buck an episode). Give more monthly and you get swag. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

There I was, living my tidy little mainstream Protestant life, when Karl Barth sprung the Blumhardts on me. Took a few years (or decades) to follow up, but now I (and even Dad) have become fans of these indigenous German Lutheran revivalists. In this episode we discuss the difference between revivals stemming from European Pietist roots and from American roots, cover the lives of Johann Christoph Blumhardt (who proclaimed Christ's victory over the devil) and his son Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (who proclaimed Christ's victory over the Christian), reflect on the complementary roles and mutual need of church and revival for one another, and speculate that "renewal" might after all be a better term than revival, in more ways than one.

Notes:

1. Ising, Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Life and Work

2. Zahl, Pneumatology and Theology of the Cross in the Preaching of Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (and by all means check out his newer book, The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience)

3. Winn, Jesus Is Victor! The Significance of the Blumhardts for the Theology of Karl Barth

4. Weiss, Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God

5. Among my writings on these topics, see: A Guide to Pentecostal Movements for Lutherans; "How Is Your Revival Going?"; blog posts in my Lutheran saint series on Johann Christoph Blumhardt and Gottlieben Dittus, and Christoph Friedrich; and keep your eyes open for a forthcoming book on Nenilava, the prophetess of Madagascar!

6. Related episodes: Revival and Church; Illness and Healing; All About Prayer

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Hagiography happens. Even if you're Protestant. In this episode, we review the history of the saints as both products of the gospel and pathways to the modern practices of science and biography, make the case for why Lutherans and other Protestants should embrace hagiography in an evangelical key, disambiguate veneration from invocation, and, of course, we mention Bonhoeffer.

Notes:

1. Among the things I've written on this topic, see "Saints for Sinners," "Luther's Hagiographical Reformation of the Doctrine of Sanctification in His Lectures on Genesis," and my Lutheran Saints series.

2. See also Dad's inadvertent hagiography, Between Humanist Philosophy and Apocalyptic Theology: The Twentieth Century Sojourn of Samuel Stefan Osusky

3. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?

4. Brown, The Body and Society

5. The One Mediator, the Saints, and Mary (Lutheran-Catholic dialogue statement)

6. Haynes, The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon

7. Hendrix, The Faithful Spy

8. Melanchthon, Augsburg Confession and Apology Article XXI on the saints

9. Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints

10. Mattox, Defender of the Most Holy Matriarchs

11. For All the Saints (evangelical Lutheran breviary)

12. I didn't mention it but also see Kolb's study For All the Saints

13. Related episodes: Perpetua and Felicitas, Athanasius against the World, Faith Just Faith, Justification by Faith Revisited, Faith to the Aid of Reason, The Empiricists Strike Back, Slovak Theologian Samuel Stefan Osusky

And hey! If you've made it this far in the show notes, you're probably a super fan and should consider declaring yourself as one on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month (which is basically a buck an episode). Give more monthly and you get swag. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

Why cover justification by faith once when you can do it twice? In this episode we look at the "faith(fulness) of Christ" controversy, how much it's rooted in a faulty understanding of what Luther meant by "faith," what Luther really did mean by "faith," and how that pretty much solves the problem. Whew. Also, why good works don't justify but also why love doesn't justify, either.

Notes:

1. Bird and Sprinkle eds., The Faith of Jesus Christ

2. Vainio, Justification and Participation in Christ

3. From the Book of Concord: Augsburg Confession, Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Formula of Concord

4. From Luther: Galatians commentary, Preface to Romans, Freedom of a Christian, Small Catechism-Apostles' Creed-Third Article (all easy to find online)

5. From Barth's Church Dogmatics: II/2 and IV/1

6. Thanks a lot Pope Leo for your lousy semi-Nestorian Tome

7. More again this time from Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith

8. Stendahl, "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West"

9. From Dad: Paths Not Taken, Luther for Evangelicals

10. Previous episodes related to this one: Justification by Faith, Romans, Galatians

And hey! If you've made it this far in the show notes, you're probably a super fan, and should consider declaring yourself as one on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month (which is basically a buck an episode). Give more monthly and you get swag. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!