Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221098545
In the year 2021, every major city in the United States experienced a sharp increase in gun-related deaths and serious injury. Among elected officials there remains no substantial effort to change this narrative. It is the reason James Atwood, a Presbyterian pastor, dedicated his life to stopping the proliferation of guns and wrote an earlier theological critique of “gundamentalism” (Gundamentalism and Where It Is Taking America [Cascade, 2017]). (Atwood died in 2020 from the Covid-19 virus.) In his final book, he engages directly the refusal of churches and leaders to speak about the theological problem of firearms as a health crisis. He describes his exasperation with congregations that invite him to speak for thirty minutes to explain the “problem of gun violence” and wrap it up with a prayer. “You can’t explain the omnipresent, systemic reign of guns in a few minutes. It’s one of the reasons I wrote this book” (p. 30). He is not interested in pleasant church chats that lead nowhere. “Speaking out boldly and arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God: that’s what I want to be about” (p. 30). He is resolutely grounded in deep faith in God, with a serious commitment to follow Jesus when confronting the prevalence of guns. That faith commitment makes this book important for people in religious communities. For Atwood there is no separation between personal faith statements and public witness. The separation is a significant reason there has been little energy among elected officials to address gun violence. What makes Atwood’s work important is his theological critique. Examining closely the deep culture of the National Rifle Association (NRA), he boldly declares: “this is gundamentalism, a religious devotion to guns that shapes people’s perspectives to such an extent that their worldview, affections, and identity gather around the purchase . . . of as many guns as possible” (p. 45). With this change in conversation he launches a comprehensive argument that displays the insidious relationship of idolatry and guns throughout American history. Atwood is a person of faith. Remarkably, that leads him to hold out relentless hope that these gundamentalists, who have replaced ultimate allegiance to God with allegiance to guns, will be delivered from idolatry and join the movement for sane gun laws. That aspiration suffered a blow in November 2021, after his death, when the Supreme Count ruled that New York gun laws requiring gun owners to state why they needed to carry a gun were too restrictive. As one justice said, “If a person is in a bad neighborhood, he has a right to use a gun.” In the concluding chapter, Atwood writes, “If you have tension in your life between what is and what ought to be, consider yourself blessed and happy!” (p. 180). Every congregation in the United States is threatened by gun violence, some more than others. As the steady acceptance of gun deaths creeps along, Atwood reminds readers that the church has a calling to choose
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Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221099684b
Barbara E. Reid
the Scope and aimS of this book are quite ambitious. Jaime Clark-Soles sets out eight goals: 1) address wellknown biblical women from fresh perspectives; 2) lift up stories of women that have been ignored; 3) reinstate biblical women who have been erased; 4) consider symbolic feminized figures; 5) explore the ways the Bible employs feminine images and the ways it moves across or beyond gender; 6) address the status of women in ancient Israelite society, in Roman Palestine and the empire more broadly, and in the early church; 7) present insights from new perspectives that have emerged both from growing attention to women in the Bible and contemporary women’s active engagement; and 8) point the reader to resources for further study. The audience she envisions includes clergy and lay leaders, both women and men, especially preachers and leaders of Bible study.
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Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221099684a
Serge Frolov
This is particularly obvious in the opening part: although titled “Theological Introduction,” it mostly goes through the typical motions of a critical commentary, introducing Judges as a whole, its canonical and historical context, literary structure (under the strange heading “The Immediate Context of Judges”), and history of its interpretation and reception. Moreover, much of it is secondary (the section on “Hearing Judges as Hebrew Narrative” comes entirely from Meir Sternberg’s oeuvre) or standard in recent scholarship (the division of Judges into two-part introduction, six cycles, and two-part conclusion). Other sections are desultory, such as “Hearing Others Hearing Judges,” where Beldman devotes less than two pages to diachronic approaches and never mentions Camille Saint-Saëns’s famous (and in some recent productions, controversial) opera Samson and Delilah under “Judges in Art, Music, and Theater.”
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Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221099684
Alison Acker Gruseke
When Stanley hauerWaS, whose foreword opens this consequential volume on firearms in America, returned home to Texas from the Divinity School at Yale, his father presented him with a gun, its stock crafted lovingly from the wood of a hickory tree he had felled himself. Hauerwas’s father understood that hickory is one of the hardest woods, perfect for withstanding the force of a projectile that might shatter a more yielding wood and, if shooters were careless, propel them violently backwards, resulting in possible injury. The scholars of the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, ancient Judaism, and Christianity whose essays appear in this volume address what happens on both ends of the gun, why it happens, and why guns may rightly constitute an affront to people of faith.
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Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221095539
Shauna K. Hannan
{"title":"1 Samuel 17","authors":"Shauna K. Hannan","doi":"10.1177/00209643221095539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00209643221095539","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44542,"journal":{"name":"INTERPRETATION-A JOURNAL OF BIBLE AND THEOLOGY","volume":"12 1","pages":"249 - 250"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75155279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221091107
Kristin P. R. Wickersham
{"title":"Judges 4:17–24","authors":"Kristin P. R. Wickersham","doi":"10.1177/00209643221091107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00209643221091107","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44542,"journal":{"name":"INTERPRETATION-A JOURNAL OF BIBLE AND THEOLOGY","volume":"23 1","pages":"246 - 248"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72761286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221096132
K. Wagner
Gun violence is on the rise and a constant reality in the United States. Due to its breadth, volume, and complexity, the trauma of gun violence is a challenge for preachers to address from the pulpit. However, preachers cannot afford to ignore this traumatic reality due to our theological mandate to care for the (wounded) body of Christ and address the lingering effects of trauma. This article considers the traumatic impact of gun violence in the U.S. and offers guidance and encouragement for both trauma-responsive and trauma-aware preaching.
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Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221091788
A. Evans
Americans continue to be seduced by guns and victimized by gun violence. Following racial tensions across the land, especially since 2020, Americans also face increasing suspicion and hostility towards police. This essay intends to navigate the complex intersection of a culture of grief surrounding gun violence. There is careful consideration for police who find themselves too often overwhelmed in a violent society, and the discussion also considers the responsibility for people of faith to work towards a safer and more peaceful future.
{"title":"Guns, Grief, and Longing for God’s Grace: A Pastor’s Perspective on Guns and Gun Violence","authors":"A. Evans","doi":"10.1177/00209643221091788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00209643221091788","url":null,"abstract":"Americans continue to be seduced by guns and victimized by gun violence. Following racial tensions across the land, especially since 2020, Americans also face increasing suspicion and hostility towards police. This essay intends to navigate the complex intersection of a culture of grief surrounding gun violence. There is careful consideration for police who find themselves too often overwhelmed in a violent society, and the discussion also considers the responsibility for people of faith to work towards a safer and more peaceful future.","PeriodicalId":44542,"journal":{"name":"INTERPRETATION-A JOURNAL OF BIBLE AND THEOLOGY","volume":"59 1","pages":"224 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73861491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221091108
T. M. Lemos
This article explores how the passages in Isaiah that resist violence are undone by the many passages in the book that promote it. More specifically, the article contends that Isaiah features an ambivalent relationship toward “domination personhood,” a type of personhood reliant on dehumanizing violence. The pervasiveness of images of violence and weaponry in Isaiah relates to the book’s problematic relationship with domination personhood. Nonetheless, if employed as part of a larger strategy of justice-seeking, passages in Isaiah can be used as tools of resistance. This article is also available in Portuguese in the electronic issue on the SAGE website.
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Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1177/00209643221091110
Deanna Hollas
Much of the gun violence prevention debate has been around gun control and personal responsibility when the focus should be on the hidden power and influence of the gun industry that has shaped the narrative in order to maximize profit and stay in business. This article unmasks the gun industry’s marketing strategy so that we can begin to have a different conversation around what actually makes us safe and take action to end gun violence.
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