Chris Tilling

Does God's grace grab you and stir you to purposeful, Spirit-filled living? Or is the gospel that you hear and preach big on belief and short on embodiment? Do you see a need for change, whether personal, ecclesial, or social, that transcends "us" (righteous) vs. "them" (wicked) polarizations? Beginning with every person's participation in Christ as a keystone to creation, Jeff McSwain introduces the vibrant reality of Trinitarian community and shows us the dangers of losing sight of the belovedness we share as humans hidden with Christ in God. Avoiding simplistic categories, McSwain exalts the total goodness of every person in this world (by virtue of creation in Christ) while also acknowledging the simultaneous contradiction--the total depravity of every person (by virtue of the fall). If ignoring our human duplicity contributes to relational fractures at every level, McSwain's dimensional view of human agency urges us to embrace the redemptive truth of our identity in Christ and to refuse our false, destructive selves that have been crucified with Christ. Filled with scriptural exegesis and practical illustrations that pastors and teachers will especially appreciate, this project is a refreshing application of Christology to anthropology and everyday life--an inspiring work of systematic theology aimed at systematic change.

Does God's grace grab you and stir you to purposeful, Spirit-filled living? Or is the gospel that you hear and preach big on belief and short on embodiment? Do you see a need for change, whether personal, ecclesial, or social, that transcends "us" (righteous) vs. "them" (wicked) polarizations? Beginning with every person's participation in Christ as a keystone to creation, Jeff McSwain introduces the vibrant reality of Trinitarian community and shows us the dangers of losing sight of the belovedness we share as humans hidden with Christ in God. Avoiding simplistic categories, McSwain exalts the total goodness of every person in this world (by virtue of creation in Christ) while also acknowledging the simultaneous contradiction--the total depravity of every person (by virtue of the fall). If ignoring our human duplicity contributes to relational fractures at every level, McSwain's dimensional view of human agency urges us to embrace the redemptive truth of our identity in Christ and to refuse our false, destructive selves that have been crucified with Christ. Filled with scriptural exegesis and practical illustrations that pastors and teachers will especially appreciate, this project is a refreshing application of Christology to anthropology and everyday life--an inspiring work of systematic theology aimed at systematic change.

Knowing God? is an indictment of Protestant American Christianity in its failure to follow Jesus of Nazareth. Consumer Christianity is laid bare before the gospel and found wanting. After exposing the superstition of American Christianity, Hardin examines the gospel narrative and demonstrates that a truly Jesus-oriented approach must be non-sacrificial in all its ways. Like Jeremiah, Kierkegaard, or the early Barth, Knowing God? rings with a clarion call for followers of Jesus to ask what the Christian life looks like and is all about.

Knowing God? is an indictment of Protestant American Christianity in its failure to follow Jesus of Nazareth. Consumer Christianity is laid bare before the gospel and found wanting. After exposing the superstition of American Christianity, Hardin examines the gospel narrative and demonstrates that a truly Jesus-oriented approach must be non-sacrificial in all its ways. Like Jeremiah, Kierkegaard, or the early Barth, Knowing God? rings with a clarion call for followers of Jesus to ask what the Christian life looks like and is all about.

Did Paul teach that Jesus was divine and should be worshiped as such? How should this be viewed in relation to Jewish and Jewish-Christian monotheism? The debate over these and related questions has been raging in academic circles -- but it also has profound implications for church practice. In this book Chris Tilling offers a fresh contribution to the long-running debate on whether or not Paul's Christology is divine. Refocusing the debate on the exegetical data and reengaging more broadly with the sweep of themes in Paul's letters, Tilling's innovative contribution is one that cannot be ignored.

In his recent book How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee historian Bart Ehrman explores a claim that resides at the heart of the Christian faith— that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. According to Ehrman, though, this is not what the earliest disciples believed, nor what Jesus claimed about himself. The first response book to this latest challenge to Christianity from Ehrman, How God Became Jesus features the work of five internationally recognized biblical scholars. While subjecting his claims to critical scrutiny, they offer a better, historically informed account of why the Galilean preacher from Nazareth came to be hailed as “the Lord Jesus Christ.” Namely, they contend, the exalted place of Jesus in belief and worship is clearly evident in the earliest Christian sources, shortly following his death, and was not simply the invention of the church centuries later.

Chris Tilling makes a fresh contribution to the debate about whether or not Paul's Christology is divine. To this end he analyses the Pauline data that details the relation between the risen Lord and Christians. With reference to contemporary debates regarding 'Jewish monotheism', he argues that the Pauline Christ-relation corresponds - as a pattern - solely to language concerning YHWH's relation to Israel in Second Temple Judaism. This is the case, Tilling maintains, even in texts such as Sirach 44-50, the Life of Adam and Eve and the Similitudes of Enoch. In dialogue both with concerns that one cannot properly speak of a Pauline Christology, and recent studies in Paul's epistemology, Chris Tilling presents Paul's Christology as fully divine, but in a particular way: the Christ-relation is Paul's divine-Christology expressed as relationship. In light of this, he not only reengages arguments deployed by those disputing a Pauline divine-Christology, but also draws additional conclusions relating to the interface between biblical and systematic theological concerns.