Andy Naselli

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3 Reflections on Evangelical Academic Publishing

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This morning the latest issue of Themelios released.

It includes an article I wrote entitled “Three Reflections on Evangelical Academic Publishing” (web version | PDF).

It’s the most personal essay I’ve written.

Here’s the abstract:

In light of John A. D’Elia’s A Place at the Table and Stanley E. Porter’s Inking the Deal, this article shares three reflections on evangelical academic publishing.

Ladd inking

(1) Evangelical scholarship is a gift to evangelicals for which they should be grateful.

(2) Evangelical academics should aim to be academically responsible more than being academically respectable.

(3) Evangelical scholarship is ultimately about glorifying God by serving Christ’s church.

Related:

  1. Kevin DeYoung, “7 Ways Christian Academics Can Be Truly Christian“
  2. Dane Ortlund, “Reflections on Christian Publishing“
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Comments

  1. Thank you for writing this article. The Lord blessed it to me. Idolatry can take so many forms. What a fearful warning Ladd’s “respectability” is to every Christian.

  2. Excellent thoughts, Andy. Just blogged about it.

    Ever yours,

    Dave Black

    * * * * * * *

    Update: Here is what David Alan Black wrote on his blog, which doesn’t include direct links for individual posts:

    5:46 PM Stop the presses! I just read an essay called “Three Reflections on Evangelical Academic Publishing” by Andrew Naselli. You can access it here. It just blew me away. It’s a must read for every aspiring Christian writer/scholar. You’ll find here a nice balance between evaluation and critique of the works of Ladd, Carson, Porter, Witherington, and others. Writing is a lonely job. It’s also a very personal journey. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to academic publishing. As a writer myself, what I liked most about this essay is that it is full of practical ideas and suggestions for writing. Here are at least three of my takeaways:

    1) I agree with Carl Trueman (who is quoted in the essay) that one should never apply the title “scholar” to oneself. “It is something that others give to you when, and only when, you have made a consistent and outstanding contribution to a particular scholarly field….”

    2) I also tend to agree that just because you may have earned a doctorate in your field does not necessarily make you a scholar. We have all known people who were educated beyond their intelligence.

    3) Finally, I especially liked the discussion dealing with the question of whether scholars should write for popular audiences. Here good scholars disagree, as this essay shows. I, of course, would answer this question with a resounding yes.

    Many of us need the admonitions found in this fine essay. For not only can we easily get caught up in the need to “prove ourselves” as a “true” academic, we feel that writing for a popular audience is beneath us and, for the sake of our scholarly reputation, we desist from putting the cookies on the bottom shelf. This pretense then becomes a part of ourselves that we just can’t let go of. On the other hand, the other temptation we face is that of not working hard enough to produce essays and books that are both rigorous and scholarly. Among the seven deadly sins of medieval lore was sloth — a spirit of apathy that can easily lead to a critical cynicism for anyone who dares to challenge our point of view on a subject. Behind this insipid condition sometimes lies the wounded pride of one who bemoans that fact that he or she has never been duly recognized by the academic guild for the scholarship they have produced. Clearly, writing is just one facet in the lives of those who work in academia. We can be sure that even if no one else recognizes our efforts to contribute to the world of knowledge and understanding, the God who created logic and the ability to think and write does. The effect of His gift of writing is to make us more humble and grateful. I, for one, am thankful for young, gifted writers like Andy who are are seeking not to frustrate the wise purposes of God by neglecting to pursue a kind of knowledge that in this world is not always appreciated — a knowledge that strives to balance the academy and the church, family and work, the educated and the not-so educated. May their tribe increase.