IVP - Addenda & Errata

You Can Change the World!

A few weeks ago Bob Fryling, IVP’s Publisher, was telling me about Andy Crouch’s talk at the recent Q conference. Crouch dug up statistics on book titles with “change the world” (or similar) in them:

pre-1900—0
1900-1950—6
1950s—4
1960s—8
1970s—4
1980s—18
1990s—101
2000-2010—on track for 220

Going to School at the Movies

Really, it was so nice to hear someone other than a conservative Christian concerned about academic freedom, public debate and worldview issues. I’m speaking of Ben Stein’s film, just out last week, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It was hard to know what to expect given all the reactions to it in the blogosphere. But when my college senior nursing student daughter heartily encouraged me to go, that settled it. I went. Now, I’m recommending it, too.

Some Things I Learned at the 2008 Wheaton Theology Conference

Here is a grab bag of thoughts arising from the Wheaton Theology Conference last week (April 10-12, 2008). The topic was “Rediscovering the Trinity: Classic Doctrine and Contemporary Ministry.”

That (as if you hadn’t noticed) trinitarian theology is something everyone is talking about—and has been talking about in recent years—but that few are really able to talk about it with informed precision and agility, but that this conference gathered a good number of them together.

The Kerygma Is Not About Me

Here is something from Barth:

One of the many false propositions which Evangelical theology championed at one of its acknowledged peaks in the 19th century is that I myself as a Christian am the most proper object of knowledge to myself as a theologian. To be sure, I myself as a Christian, in my regeneration, conversion and renewal, am an indispensable instrument to myself as a theologian, as a preacher and pastor, as the witness which I am called to be like others. But I am not a theme or object. I am not the object of my knowledge and proclamation, nor of my witness, in any conceivable form. I and my personal Christianity do not belong to the kerygma to be declared by me.

I could only obscure the light of the real theme of my witness if I tried to put myself forward as a transparency, no matter how fine or profound my experiences. The Christian is to attest the Word of God with the veracity of one who is himself called and therefore liberated, and in so doing he is to bring out as such the application in the calling and liberation of each and every man. But if he is not to cause offence, but rather to bring honour to God and to be serviceable to Him, he must spare his fellows any direct information concerning himself and the way in which the Word of God has become significant and effective in his own life in some such application. It need hardly be indicated against what kind of proclamation this delimitation is directed.

Perhaps it does need to be indicated, from generation to generation. On the other hand, is this an overstatement? In any case, it is a warning worth meditating on.

Offsetting Our Carbon-Offset Program

It's April 4, and time to declare that (contrary to serious-minded folks out there) our IVP-Academic Carbon-Offset program was an April Fools' Day joke. (And we've fired John Tetzel, the program administrator.) Let us be clear: THERE IS NOT AND NEVER WAS SUCH A THING AS THE IVP-ACADEMIC CARBON-OFFSET PROGRAM.

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!

Isidore, Patron Saint of Reference Book Editors

On April 4 the IVP reference book editors remember and celebrate their patron saint, Isidore of Seville (560-636). Isidore was bishop of Seville and a formidable scholar of his day. Apart from his particular accomplishments as bishop (presiding at the Second Council of Seville and the Fourth Council of Toledo), he was a prolific author who is best remembered for his encyclopedic work called Etymologiae, or Origines. The Etymologiae spanned twenty volumes and covered the seven liberal arts as well as topics such as law, theology, medicine, geography, agriculture and much else. This encyclopedia became a basic resource during the Middle Ages. You can try out your Latin on it here.

As the title of the work suggests, Isidore was deeply invested in what’s known today as the etymological fallacy: he believed that etymologies yield significant information about the matters to which words refer. But in this fallacy he has enjoyed distinguished company through the ages, including not a few notable preachers and authors of our day. So as far as clouding his sainthood, it perhaps casts a shadow no larger than a hand.

In recent years this venerable saint’s patronage has been, well, hijacked by computerists and their like, even to the point of extending his bishop’s cloak to cover the internet. We understand, of course, that Wikipedia needs all the help it can get, but it’s hard to adjust to this diminution of the glory of our venerable saint. This patronage creep has even made its way into InterVarsity Press, where our database of books and authors is named Isidore. While much of Isidore’s encyclopedic work was in organizing and giving access to knowledge, we would gently remind folks that the primary sphere of his patronage is reference book editors. We editors are learning to share our saint—and we are not bitter over it! But on this day we like to remind our computer folks just who is upstream in this sharing.

So here’s to Isidore. May his tribe increase, page by page, and even byte by byte.