"What has Jesus Christ to do with English literature?" ask David Lyle Jeffrey and Gregory Maillet in this insightful survey. First and foremost, they reply, many of the world's best authors of literature in English were formed--for better or worse--by the Christian tradition. Then too, many of the most recognized aesthetic literary forms derive from biblical exemplars. And finally, many great works of literature demand of readers evaluative judgments of the good, the true and the beautiful that can only rightly be understood within a Christian worldview. In this book Jeffrey and Maillet offer a feast of theoretical and practical discernment. After an examination of literature and truth, theological aesthetics, and the literary character of the Bible, they turn to a brief survey of literature from medieval times to the present, highlighting distinctively Christian themes and judgments. In a concluding chapter they suggest a path for budding literary critics through the current state of literary studies. Here is a must-read for all who are interested in a Christian perspective on literary studies. The Christian Worldview Integration Series, edited by J. P. Moreland and Francis J. Beckwith, seeks to promote a robust personal and conceptual integration of Christian faith and learning, with textbooks focused on disciplines such as education, psychology, literature, politics, science, communications, biology, philosophy, and history.

Highly acclaimed professor of literature David Lyle Jeffrey offers a theological reading of Luke in this addition to the well-received Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. This commentary, like each in the series, is designed to serve the church--providing a rich resource for preachers, teachers, students, and study groups--and demonstrate the continuing intellectual and practical viability of theological interpretation of the Bible.

Most Baptists today have adapted rather well to the modern world—that is, they worship as they live, in ways that don't much deviate from the general cultural milieu. It was not always so. In the past, the ways of Baptists were eccentric, their children were sometimes embarrassed by them, and their grandchildren were astonished by many features of their communal Christian life and practice, some of which now seem hilarious. Yet David Lyle Jeffrey shows that in their firm faith and strong character, these forebears still have much to teach. The legacy of "old-time" Baptists is rich: in ways we might not recognize, we are still living on spiritual capital they built up a century ago. In this fast-paced and thought-provoking memoir, Jeffrey recalls growing up in the "old-time" Scottish Baptist tradition in rural Canada. With nostalgia, good humor, and sometimes lament, he considers his own theological and spiritual formation in a nearly vanished variety of Christian culture. Jeffrey reflects on events and customs that today may seem esoteric or quaint, perhaps even comical. Along the way, he considers the lessons a fading brand of Baptist life may hold for Baptists in the twenty-first century. Jeffrey offers witty and insightful commentary on theological matters such as sin, salvation, and grace, and practices like baptism, worship, and Sabbath-keeping. The Baptists of Jeffrey's youth encouraged abstinence from pleasures most folks took for granted. Their churches were often small, but they were the vital, stable hub of family and communal life through good times and bad, and had an extraordinary missional and evangelistic impact that belied their marginal status. This confessional recollection of a world of weird and wonderful "peculiar people" is an expression of Jeffrey's gratitude to the ones he knew.

It is well known that the Western university gradually evolved from the monastic stadium via the cathedral schools of the twelfth century to become the remarkably vigorous and interdisciplinary European institutions of higher learning that transformed Christian intellectual culture in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is equally well known that subsequent disciplinary developments in higher education, including the founding and flourishing of many of the most prestigious of North American universities, owe equally to the Protestant and perhaps particularly Calvinist influence. But that the secularized modern university that descended from these developments is now in something of an identity crisis is becoming widely - and often awkwardly - apparent. The reason most often given for the crisis is our general failure to produce a morally or spiritually persuasive substitute for the authority that undergirded the intellectual culture of our predecessors. This is frequently also a reason for the discomfort many experience in trying to address the problem, for it requires an acknowledgement, at least, that the secularization hypothesis has proven inadequate as a basis for the sustaining of coherence and general intelligibility in the university curriculum. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the disciplines of biblical studies and theology, which once were the anchor or common point of reference for theological thought, but which are now both marginalized in the curriculum and internally divided as to meaning and purpose, even where the Church itself is concerned. In this final volume of the Scripture and Hermeneutic Series, a group of distinguished scholars have sought to understand the role of the Bible in relation to the disciplines in a fresh way. Offered in a spirit of humility and experimentally, the essays here consider the historic role of the Bible in the university, the status of theological reflection regarding Scripture among the disciplines today, the special role of Scripture in the development of law, the humanities and social sciences, and finally, the way the Bible speaks to issues of academic freedom, intellectual tolerance, and religious liberty. Contributors Include: Dallas Willard William Abraham Al Wolters Scott Hahn Glenn Olsen Robert C. Roberts Byron Johnson Robert Cochran, Jr. David I. Smith John Sullivan Robert Lundin C. Stephen Evans David Lyle Jeffrey

William Cowper, converted under a heterodox but eloquent early Methodist preacher, began a rocky spiritual journey which was to rise to great heights, yet, even to the end of his life, intermittently descended to abysmal depths of psychological torment and despair. Most of his poetry was written in rustic retreats to which he was forced by his persistent emotional fragility, and some of the best of it was written under the restorative pastoral counselling of ("Amazing Grace") John Newton. Yet even in the throes of his own despondency Cowper was able to write poems and hymns which then and since have been comforting to others. He thus remains about as fine an example as English literature affords of the "wounded healer." In this compact volume some of Cowper's best poetry-narrative, lyrical, personal, public-are gathered together with his confessional autobiography and part of his correspondence with Newton. David Lyle Jeffrey is Distinguished Professor of Literature and Humanities at Baylor University. His other books include English Spirituality in the Age of Wesley and English Spirituality in the Age of Wyclif (also available from Regent College Pubishing).

In Houses of the Interpreter, David Lyle Jeffrey explores the terrain of the cultural history of biblical interpretation. But Jeffrey does not merely rest content to chart biblical scholarship and how it has both influenced and been influenced by culture. Instead, he chooses to focus upon the "art" of Biblical interpretation--how sculptors, musicians, poets, novelists, and painters have "read" the Bible. By so doing, Jeffrey clearly demonstrates that such cultural interpretation has deepened the church's understanding of the Bible as Scripture and that, remarkably, this cultural reading has contributed to theology and the practice of faith. Jeffrey's chapters effectively root the theological issues central to any hermeneutical enterprise (e.g., Scriptural authority, narrative, the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, the role of the reader, gender, and postmodernism) in specific authors and artists (e.g., Chaucer, Bosch, Sir Orfeo, C. S. Lewis)--and he does this in constant conversation with literature, both eastern and western.

The King James translation of the Bible ushered in a new eloquence that until 1611 had not existed in the English language. Four centuries later, the literary and historical power of this Bible continues to awe. Originally conceived to help unify Protestants during the English Reformation, many of the Bible's phrases still saturate popular prose-as evidenced by sayings such as "an eye for an eye" and Abraham Lincoln's famous "a house divided against itself," and even in the intonations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the music of Johnny Cash. The King James Bible and the World It Made brings into conversation leading contemporary scholars who articulate how this celebrated translation repeatedly influenced the language of politics, statecraft, and English literature while offering Christians a unique resource for living the faith.Including Mark Noll, Alister McGrath, Lamin Sanneh, David Bebbington, Robert Alter, Philip Jenkins, and Laura Knoppers, this collection highlights the most notable facets of the King James Bible and the history it created, and astutely reflects on its relevance to the modern world.

Christian missionaries in China have been viewed as agents of Western imperialist values. Yang Huilin, leading scholar of Sino-Christian studies, has dedicated himself to re-evaluating the history of Christianity in China and sifting through intellectual and religious results of missionary efforts in China. Yang focuses upon local histories of Christianity to chronicle its enduring good. China, Christianity, and the Question of Culture illuminates the unexplored links between Christianity and Chinese culture, from Christianity and higher education in China to the rural acculturation of Christian ideology by indigenous communities. In a distinctly Chinese voice, Yang presents the legacy of Western missionaries in a new light, contributing greatly to now vigorous Sino-Christian theology.

The King James translation of the Bible ushered in a new eloquence that until 1611had not existed in the English language. Four centuries later, the literary and historical power of this Bible continues to awe. Originally conceived to help unify Protestants during the English Reformation, many of the Bible's phrases still saturate popular prose--as evidenced by sayings such as "an eye for an eye" and Abraham Lincoln's famous "a house divided against itself," and even in the intonations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the music of Johnny Cash. The King James Bible and the World It Made brings into conversation leading contemporary scholars who articulate how this celebrated translation repeatedly influenced the language of politics, statecraft, and English literature while offering Christians a unique resource for living the faith.Including Mark Noll, Alister McGrath, Lamin Sanneh, David Bebbington, Robert Alter, Philip Jenkins, and Laura Knoppers, this collection highlights the most notable facets of the King James Bible and the history it created, and astutely reflects on its relevance to the modern world.

In "Houses of the Interpreter," David Lyle Jeffrey explores the terrain of the cultural history of biblical interpretation. But Jeffrey does not merely rest content to chart biblical scholarship and how it has both influenced and been influenced by culture. Instead, he chooses to focus upon the "art" of Biblical interpretation --how sculptors, musicians, poets, novelists, and painters have "read" the Bible. By so doing, Jeffrey clearly demonstrates that such cultural interpretation has deepened the church's understanding of the Bible as Scripture and that, remarkably, this cultural reading has contributed to theology and the practice of faith. Jeffrey's chapters effectively root the theological issues central to any hermeneutical enterprise (e.g., Scriptural authority, narrative, the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, the role of the reader, gender, and postmodernism) in specific authors and artists (e.g., Chaucer, Bosch, Sir Orfeo, C. S. Lewis) --and he does this in constant conversation with literature, both eastern and western.

In this book David Lyle Jeffrey seeks to characterize illustratively the historical commitment of Christianity to the literacy and literature of Western culture. Against postmodernist tendencies to deride the historical commitment to meaning in Western art and literature as a regressive "logocentrism," Jeffrey argues that the biblical tradition-the cultural and literary identity forged among Western Christians by virtue of being a "People of the Book"-has in fact given rise to Western literacy. Jeffrey looks at the Christian "grand narrative" as it is reflected in Western literature, making apt use of the visual arts by incorporating a series of twenty-eight black-and-white illustrations that enrich and fortify the story it tells.

The story of John Wyclif, a spiritual reformer and the first translator of the Bible into English.

The God of the Bible often speaks in poetry. Beginning with an illuminating exploration of eloquence in the divine voice, a highly acclaimed professor of literature opens up the treasury of biblical tradition among English poets both past and present, showing them to be well attuned not only to Scripture's meaning but also to its music. In exploring the work of various poets, David Lyle Jeffrey demonstrates how the poetry of the Bible affords a register of understanding in which the beauty of Holy Scripture deepens meditation on its truth and is indeed a vital part of that truth.