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Toward the Future of Reformed Theology: Tasks, Topics, Traditions Edited by David Willis and Michael Welker Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1999. 533 pp. $40.00.
Too often scholarly collections devoted to Reformed theology are but hagiographies born of an all-too-nostalgic gaze into the past. Such is not the case with this very fine volume, which offers insights into the future of the Reformed tradition from thirty-one scholars assembled from around the world.
We should keep in mind, in approaching the future of Reformed theology, that neither Zwingli, Bullinger, nor Calvin ever set out, in the first instance, to become "Reformed" theologians. Their intent, rather, was to listen to the Word of God and thereby become theologians of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. On one hand, this renders dubious the confinement of Reformed theology to a single, fixed, and unalterable tradition. Hence, the leadoff essay by Brian Gerrish argues that, since the so-called "essential tenets" of Reformed faith seem to change over time, we would do...