Jesus is Risen. Theology for the Church. The Lifework and Teaching of The Rev. Dr. Walter R. Bouman, ThD ed. by Ann M. Haut (review)

It is a fitting tribute to her late teacher, The Rev. Dr. Walter R. Bouman, that, with skill and integrity, Ann M. Haut undertook the compilation and composition of this two-volume text, Jesus is Risen, which Professor Bouman had proposed during his retirement from teaching systematic theology at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio (1971–2005). Haut’s “own goals in this writing were to be true to Dr. Bouman’s essential messages, and then to reflect his voice in the way that this message is conveyed” (1:7f.). Without doubt, the reader is treated to a timely, illuminating, theological articulation of doctrinal and confessional fundamentals of the Christian faith which speak to the church in the early twenty-first century with a refreshing, evangelical clarity. Indeed, the reader is drawn into a thinking about theological non-negotiables which are presented with an undeniable Christological centre and in a Trinitarian framework.

This normative, decisive character of the Christological center, which is named in the title of this two-volume work, is well-summarized in his discussion of the distinctive confession, “With God as creator, the world is identified as creation” (1:176). Bouman continues,

The confession that the the world is made ex nihilo, “from nothing,” is a confession of the world’s contingency—that it is not necessary, that it is the consequence of God’s gift and grace and love. The grounding for such recognition and confession is the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah from the nothingness of death. Hence Jesus’ resurrection, as the ultimate affirmation of life, is the grounding for both the confession of creation and the confession of new creation.

(1:176)

Drawing on Scripture, creeds, Luther, as well as contemporary theologians and church historians from the United States of America and Europe, Bouman develops his argument for the Christological-Trinitarian essence of Christian faith, which would be and is distorted when it is couched in a horizon of universalism—of different paths to the one end, which undercuts the decisive, unique character of God’s self-disclosure in and through Jesus Christ. In contrast to universalism, Bouman posits “eschatological evangelization,” in which “Jesus alone is the Christ and . . . all will finally participate in God’s eschatological salvation because finally all will confess him to be the Christ. This view lives with the conviction that death cannot defeat God’s will for the world, and, therefore, we trust in the hope that all will confess Jesus as the Christ and share in the eschatological salvation of the reign of God” (1:122f.).

While the theme of “eschatological evangelization” is the hermeneutical principle that holds together the two volumes, volume one tackles the primary doctrinal confession of God’s identity as Triune and volume two the nature and mission of the church. It is a welcome, illuminating feature that Bouman’s ecclesiological presentation contains a few pastoral vignettes—for example, “Understanding the Bible Requires a Context” (2:102f.); “A modern day excommunication” (2:146–48).

This two-volume work nicely fits master’s level courses in systematic theology. Volume two is particularly accessible to a broader audience. Both volumes will draw the reader into a vision that is evangelical, eschatological, and missional: from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit!