I recently did a long and enjoyable interview with Sean Finnegan, talking about my book In the Form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul. Sean is lead pastor of Living Hope Community Church near Albany, New York, and teaches at Atlanta Bible College. He knows his stuff.
Sean has published the interview in two parts, each about an hour long:
1. No Pre-Existence in Paul? This covers everything except Philippians 2:6-7.
2. In the Form of a God. This is about Philippians 2:6-7.
Sean is a Unitarian, and it’s not surprising that the book appeals to Unitarians. I am not a Unitarian. I agree that the doctrine of the Trinity is problematic from a New Testament point of view, but my argument all along has been that our hermeneutic has to be historical, and history includes the later emergence of a dominant Trinitarian orthodoxy in the Greek world.
The Christendom paradigm has been challenged by a number of dissenting movements throughout the ages, often with good cause—charismatics, Millenarians, monastics, preterists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, post-colonialists, and others. The Christendom paradigm has now collapsed, but I would argue that it is important to let a sense of history and not competing theologies determine the way forward from here.
Thank you, Andrew; this is helpful.
Regarding your expressed, at the end of Part 1, regret about the naming of your ‘blog, the thought occurs that this name is actually highly appropriate. Rather than taking inspiration from some timeless concept, you gave your new endeavor a name that is connected with and expressive of its historical circumstances. That strikes me as “just right.”
Again, thank you.
@Samuel Conner:
Well, that’s a good way of looking at it! Thanks.
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