Volume 19 Issue 1

Since my last editorial two great Christian men have passed away. Both of these men affected me and many, many others—and indeed all Christianity itself— in ways that benefit all of us today and will for generations to come. Their lives began ripples that will go on well into the future. They were big men, each in their own unique way. Leroy Garrett, 96, died on Sept. 29, 2015, in Denton, Texas. I. Howard Marshall, 81, died on December 12, 2015, in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Leroy Garrett was literally a big man—tall, lean, stately. Devoted to serving congregations of the Churches of Christ (a cappella) stream of what we now call the Stone-Campbell Movement. With others he was an early leader who propelled efforts to bring this portion of the movement in closer relationship with Christian churches (independent). He will forever be remembered for his ground-breaking history of the movement entitled The Stone-Campbell Movement (College Press, 1981). Since its publication, the title of this volume has won its way to being the generally accepted name to encompass the whole movement. Thus, even the very title of this journal, Stone-Campbell Journal, displays his influence.

Being associated with Christian churches (independent), I first came across the name and influence of Garrett when I saw copies of his periodical, Restoration Review, in which, akin to the leaders of our past, like Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone, Garrett wrote most of the articles. I was impressed with his thoughts and know that I even subscribed for a good while.

But I first had personal association with him when I was a very green professor at Mid-South Christian College, outside of Memphis, Tennessee. It was my first year teaching, having just come off of my PhD in New Testament from the University of Aberdeen. It was 1985. The president of Mid-South, Jerry Gibson, received a call to participate in a weekend conference on unity at the University Church of Christ in Conway, Arkansas. This was an annual event. President Gibson’s secretary was a student who thought pretty highly of me as the new prof at the school. So, when she realized he was not available, she just suggested I go, saying, “Dr. Baker is all for unity.” Next thing I know, I am preparing presentations on unity from 1 Corinthians. Little did I understand or fully appreciate—yet—who I was paired with from the Churches of Christ side: Leroy Garrett! A young pup NT scholar paired with a mature, established author and leader.

The meetings were set for Friday evening, then all day Saturday. Being very new to the Mid-South area, I was at least an hour late on Friday evening. I was to have been first to speak, but Garrett was speaking even as I entered the church full of people, shifting because of my miscue. His presentation as I listened, was artful, full of wisdom—that of a well-practiced speaker. Me, I read a manuscript I had written. But, the gathering was very eager to hear both of our presentations over the next 36 hours. Garrett spoke of me graciously like a peer because we shared the leadership of the weekend, giving me confidence and courage that what I was providing was good stuff.

As it turned out, this was my first contact with people in Churches of Christ who viewed themselves as having escaped or in the process of escaping from the overbearing legalism of Church of Christ congregations with which they had been associated. They just kept talking about feeling “free.” This was all new to me. But I realized that I was seeing people that Garrett and others had been guiding to a kind of reforming of the Churches of Christ that continues to this day. It was my first exposure to Churches of Christ people and a key leader, and affected my view in a positive way from then on to the point that this journal from the beginning included academics from both Christian Churches and Churches of Christ.

Much later, I was blessed to have the opportunity to invite him for lectures at Saint Louis Christian College to speak on the early leaders of the Stone-Campbell Movement. He spoke with such eloquence and wisdom, though it seems much of this escaped the easily distracted, squirmy college students. They did not know, as I did, that they were squandering an opportunity to learn from a man who had not just written about Stone-Campbell history but who himself was already and will forever be a beloved figure in that history.

Howard Marshall was a great man, but he was strikingly slight of stature, the very opposite of an imposing figure. He was the little man with the great intellect but also warm heart.

Marshall (or Howard, as he insisted even for his students) did not live or act like many great men do. He lived a simple, very routine life of riding his modest bicycle (with beat up leather briefcase in the front basket) to and from his modest home a few miles away from the University most every day (rain or shine, but mostly rain in Aberdeen, especially in winter). He carried his little, battered suitcase to SBL. He was devoted to his family and to his Methodist church in Aberdeen. He preached in any little church that asked him—all over Scotland.

Though naturally shy and reserved, awkward in social situations, he made an effort to be kind and personable at every turn. This was a man who felt responsible for each American (and other internationals) who came to study at Aberdeen, even if he was not technically their advisor. At any one time, this could be 15-20 just studying for PhDs in the NT department.

He made sure each entering couple was paired with a couple already there to help them adjust. Ours was Gary and Carol Burge (Gary, long-time professor at Wheaton College), who arranged for our apartment, picked us up at the airport, helped us find key places in and around Aberdeen (including the one shop in town that specialized in stocking American food), and more. Howard and his wife, Joyce, hosted every new entry couple with a dinner in their home as a group during their SCJ 19 (Spring, 2016): 1–2 2 first few months—and then hosted each couple alone when the PhD was completed. Theirs was the worn baby carrier (no doubt lent to many couples over the years) that one of our twin sons came home from the hospital in.

Howard Marshall drew hopeful NT PhD students to the bustling city of Aberdeen on the northeast coast of Scotland because of the unique quality of his NT work. He set a standard in the highest tradition of British, evangelical scholarship that deeply interacted with the most critical academic work. Marshall inherited the mantel from F. F. Bruce as “Dean” of NT evangelical interpretation. This was not just in title but in activity as he produced 38 books (many of which were commentaries) and more than 120 essays and articles. He also became the leader of Tyndale House, the evangelical study center in Cambridge, and made the rounds of British universities on behalf of Tyndale Student Fellowship groups.

Marshall remade the American landscape of scholarship. This was not a goal of this humble man but a by-product of the hundreds of students whose PhD research he directed. Headed back to America with Aberdeen PhDs in hand, they were more than ready to interact confidently and capably with the latest of NT scholarship—with credibility and acceptance by peers in their fields. Yet, they have done so, like Howard, in a way that remains biblically responsible and not emptied of faith. Many have been leaders opening up the doors to full involvement in SBL for evangelicals. Others have simply led rethinking and reformulating of entire denominational positions. Some have come back and just taught in seminaries and universities, developing their own generation of students ambitious for scholarship. Me, I taught, produced a few commentaries and articles, and started an academic journal and a thriving, annual, academic conference.

In Spring 2000, Howard Marshall came to the U.S. at my request and lectured at Saint Louis Christian College for students and for a nascent version of the SCJ Conference that gathered annually at SLCC. This was a jointly held meeting of the Midwest Regional ETS. His memorable lecture on “Being Human: Made in the Image of God” was published in SCJ 4.1 (Spring 2001). He even taught in my Sunday school class. I was able to book him for that trip also at Lincoln Christian College and Seminary, Wheaton College, and Atlanta Christian College.

My own relationship with Howard is one I will treasure all my days. Fortunately, my wife and I were able to spend a pleasant evening for dinner at his home with him and his wife in recent years.

Fittingly, one of Howard Marshall’s last acts on this earth epitomizes his kind and generous spirit. He and his wife had two postgraduate couples over for dinner, and Howard provided transportation. Days later he would enter the hospital and then pass away within the week. What a dear man.

This issue features as usual an interesting array of articles that includes three authors not published before in SCJ and one who was a featured presenter at our 2015 SCJ Conference. Shawn Smith (published in SCJ 16.1) gives helpful insight into the causes of Alexander Campbell’s deep published opposition to Jesse Ferguson. David Matson (part of the SCJ editorial board and published previously in SCJ 11.1 and 14.2) delves deeply into the biblical theology of salvation and provides some surprise regarding the place of forgiveness. Carl Holladay, who delivered his article at the 2015 conference, provides new insight from his forthcoming commentary on Acts set for release September 2016 (New Testament Commentary, Westminster John Knox).

These are complemented by articles from three newcomers to SCJ. Each mounts challenges to current thoughts on their topics. Stephen Lawson probes into the significant work of British Stone-Campbell theologian, William Robinson, that brings into current conversation his thoughts on the church. Cameron Hendley reexamines Anselm’s Proslogion to then bring it into conversation with Immanuel Kant. Finally, Bryan Nash takes a closer look at Phil 3:4-11 and offers a convincing argument for a new way of understanding it as a rhetorical encomium.

William R. Baker, Editor

SCJ 19.1 Quotables 19.1
Chosen by John Kern
Abilene Christian University Graduate School of Theology

Featured Quote:

"Luke believed Psalm 16 should be read as words spoken by the Messiah himself" (as put in the welcome page).

"Luke also believed that Psalm 16 should be read as a piece of "messianic speech"—as words spoken by the Messiah himself."

Carl R. Holladay, "What David Saw: Messianic Exegesis in Acts 2" (SCJ 19.1:102)

"Campbell complained he gave 'these crude and undigested speculations to the public, instead of the gospel truth.'"

Shawn C. Smith, "New Perspectives on the Ferguson-Campbell Controversy: Spiritualism, Private Property, and Fisher the Revivalist" (SCJ 19.1:24)

"Ferguson's opponents understood that he had violated the principle of private property, and Campbell responded to his public property publicly, not violating the ideals of the Movement."

Shawn C. Smith, "New Perspectives on the Ferguson-Campbell Controversy: Spiritualism, Private Property, and Fisher the Revivalist" (SCJ 19.1:28)

"Robinson believed that neither the church's ethics nor its doctrine should be considered as separable from the visible embodiment of these in the church's actual existence—the church's being is its ethics."

Stephen D. Lawson, "Free Church Catholic: The Legacy of William Robinson" (SCJ 19.1: 37)

"The church for Robinson is thus more than a community of faithful human beings, for it has a real—and not purely symbolic—divine character as the body of Christ."

Stephen D. Lawson, "Free Church Catholic: The Legacy of William Robinson" (SCJ 19.1: 39)

"If this is the ultimate achievement of the Proslogion, then Anselm offers a "proof" for God only insofar as he argues that the "straightened up" loving-remembering-thinking self recognizes the form of the one in whose image he is made."

Cameron Hendley, "Anselm's Proslogion as a Theology of Prayer: Complementary to Kant's Moral Lawgiver Argument" (SCJ 19.1:54)

"However, whereas Kant's lawgiver argument makes this leap in terms of religious epistemology, Anselm would add that the prayerful mode of being completes this process on an ontological level for the whole human self."

Cameron Hendley, "Anselm's Proslogion as a Theology of Prayer: Complementary to Kant's Moral Lawgiver Argument" (SCJ 19.1:56)

"That Paul's only explicit reference to divine forgiveness occurs in a quotation whose purpose is to highlight completely different words should challenge the extent to which the forgiveness of sins repre sents a meaningful soteriological category in his thought."

David Lertis Matson, "Divine Forgiveness in Paul?: Justification by Faith and the Logic of Pauline Soteriology" (SCJ 19.1: 65)

"By the substitutionary representative death of the Son of God in which guilty sinners participate, believers die not just metaphorically or symbolically but onto- logically and sacramentally."

David Lertis Matson, "Divine Forgiveness in Paul?: Justification by Faith and the Logic of Pauline Soteriology" (SCJ 19.1:76)

"Paul has thus subverted the topic of death. In the eyes of the world, Christ's death was shameful, yet to the Christian community, such a death was praiseworthy."

Bryan A. Nash, "Philippians 3:4-11 as Subversive Encomium" (SCJ 19.1:91)

"This study has suggested that in Phil 3:4-11 Paul writes his own encomium but does so to show that he is not to be praised on traditional grounds."

Bryan A. Nash, "Philippians 3:4-11 as Subversive Encomium" (SCJ 19.1:93)

"His point is not so much that David's formulation in Ps 16:8-11 proves something that is otherwise incredible; it is rather that David's "prophetic psalm" saw in advance the event that Jesus' earliest followers understood as a given—not only as something that had occurred but as something that they had also experienced."

Carl R. Holladay, "What David Saw: Messianic Exegesis in Acts 2" (SCJ 19.1:101)