Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 50:1 (Mar 2007)
Article: Before “Foundationalism”: A More Biblical Alternative To The Grenz/Franke Proposal For Doing Theology
Author: Robert C. Kurka

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JETS 50:1 (March 2007) p. 145

Before “Foundationalism”: A More Biblical Alternative To The Grenz/Franke Proposal For Doing Theology

Robert C. Kurka

Robert Kurka is professor of Bible and theology at Lincoln Christian College and Seminary, 100 Campus View Drive, Lincoln, IL 62656.

In the concluding chapter of his 1973 “classic” The Evangelical Heritage (as well as its subsequent reprintings), the late Bernard Ramm offered some sage advice concerning “the future of evangelical theology.”1 In order to avoid being the “church of the rearguard,”2 evangelicals at the end of the twentieth century were summoned to (1) “be students of Holy Scripture”; (2) “know the inner structure of evangelical theology” (a prod to produce academically-competent works); (3) “know their cultural climate”; (4) “be diligent students of linguistics, philosophy of language, and communications”; and (5) “rethink the manner in which God is related to the world.”3 In many regards, evangelicals did respond positively to Ramm’s mandates, which, in turn, allowed them to move from the fringes of academia into a respectable, if not somewhat prominent position in the circles of religious scholarship. During this time, some significant new projects appeared in the ranks of evangelical systematic theology, ranging from the multi-volume writings of Carl Henry and Donald Bloesch to more conventional “textbooks” authored by Millard Erickson, Wayne Grudem, and Stanley Grenz. All of these scholars exhibited many of the “maturity marks” that Ramm deemed necessary for a strong evangelical presence. Erickson, for example, explicitly produced a theology that reflected a Ramm-like agenda: biblical, systematic, done in the context of human culture, contemporary, and practical.4 Yet just as evangelicals were showing the “intellectual muscle” required to compete in the world of the academy, that culture itself was on the way out. The “modern” world-view that had ruled the twentieth century had now fallen on hard times. Modernism’s unbridled optimism in human reason and technology had proved to be an untenable thesis in a century devastated by war. Moreover, the certitude of naturalistic science and the autonomy of number theory had given way to relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Goedel’s Theorem. Furthermore, a burgeoning global awareness revealed a world of many and diverse cultural perspectives, causing many to question, if not openly reject, the former “superiority” of

JETS 50:1 (March 2007) p. 146

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