A few months ago a staff member moaned: “Oh, my! Another seminary issue coming up. What can we possibly say that’s new and interesting?” I don’t feel that way at all. I think seminaries are exciting; 20 of the very best years of my life I spent in seminary—4 as a student and 16 as a teacher. What’s happening in seminaries today determines what the church will be like tomorrow.
We think this seminary issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY is packed with good things. Carl F. H. Henry, former seminary professor and acknowledged dean of evangelical theologians, interviews one of the great pulpiteers of our time—Martyn Lloyd-Jones. H. D. (Derrie) McDonald, who has spent his life teaching theology to would-be preachers, spells out for us the fundamental principle of all truly great preaching—it is biblical. Earl Hunt, Jr., beloved bishop of the United Methodist Church and true disciple of John Wesley, gives us a beautiful example of biblical preaching for our time. His article is heart-warming and mind-expanding. Rooted solidly in the Wesleyan and Methodist tradition, it sounds forth a needed biblical note for all confessions.
On quite a different level, Senator Mark Hatfield addresses boldly and honestly one of the most troublesome problems facing America and the world: Is there really a serious energy problem on our planet? Or is the apparent crisis merely contrived by self-serving business interests and augmented by wily and unscrupulous politicians? And what has the evangelical Christian to say that is relevant to this very contemporary problem? Good reading!
