The Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology. Edited by GERALD R. MCDERMOTT.

Abstract

Evangelical theology continues to be of interest not only for its ecclesial innovations and cultural influences, but also for its academic shape. The Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology comes three years after the publication of The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology, edited by Timothy Larsen and Daniel J. Treier (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and builds on that volume’s approach to evangelical theology in significant and expansive ways. The volumes differ in size (The Cambridge Companion has 320 pages, The Oxford Handbook 542) and scope (The Cambridge Companion has 18 chapters, The Oxford Handbook 33). Whereas The Cambridge Companion aimed to provide ‘an up-to-date articulation of evangelical theology’, The Oxford Handbook’s chapters illustrate ‘the new approaches which evangelical theologians are taking to a wide range of problems and doctrine’ (p. 9). While each volume spends its opening chapter attempting to define what is meant by evangelical and evangelicalism (Timothy Larsen in the older, Mark Noll in this), the earlier Cambridge Companion was structured in two parts (evangelicals and Christian doctrine; and the contexts for evangelical theology), while The Oxford Handbook has six parts: (1) The Bible and Theological Method, (2) Theological Foundations, (3) Theology of Salvation, (4) Theology of Church, (5) Theology of Mission, and (6) Theological Approaches to Contemporary Life.