New Books from Baker

I remember the days of “book fairs” at elementary schools. A few weeks before the fair we would get a catalog of all the books we could order. There were Goosebumps, Clifford, Bernstein Bears, and Animorphs books galore. Now that I have grown up I am still getting those catalogs, except now adays its publishers sending me their Academic Catalogs with books that are about to be released. Every Fall, Winter, Summer, and Spring I have the opportunity to drool over the books I wish I had enough money to buy. Now I will definitely get a couple of books from each one of these publishers, I wish I could get them all but there are just so many!

Anyway, here are a few of the books from Baker’s Fall 2014 Catalog that I am really looking forward to:

1-Reformed Catholicity by Michael Allen & Scott R. Swain (January 2015)

Can Christians be both catholic and Reformed? Can they believe in the authority of Scripture but also receive scripture within the context of the apostolic church? In this book Allen and Swain argue that to be Reformed means to go “deeper into true catholicity rather than away from it.” The authors seek to encourage theological renewal through retrieval of the rich resources of the historic Christian tradition.

2-Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation by Matthew Levering (November 2014)

This book argues that divine revelation has been truthfully mediated through the church, the gospel, and Scripture so that we can receive it in its fullness today. Levering’s approach engages contemporary and classical views of revelation across various traditions. The thing that excites me the most is who is endorsing this book: John Webster, John Millbank, and Hans Boersma. What a variety!

3-Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul by Simon Gathercole (February 2015)

There is no other book in this catalog that has me this pumped! Much of my work focuses on Christology and Atonement theories plus I love all that Simon Gathercole writes. He has a way of navigating through revisionist positions, taking what is best of these critiques and yet he always finds a way to show that the traditional Christian positions are actually more persuasive than the revisionist positions. In this book he takes us the highly contest subject of penal substitution. He argues that a thorough account of atonement must in fact include penal substitution.

4-Colossians by Christopher R. Seitz (September 2014)

Christopher Seitz has written quite a bit about how the NT and OT relate to one another. His approach usually involves drawing a link between the theology of the OT to the theology of the NT. So he is definitely known for his theological interpretation of scripture. This book however is the first time he has undertaken the project of interpreting one whole book of the bible. Colossians is my favorite New Testament book to study, so I am really looking forward to this book!