Volume 4, No. 1 of the GLOBAL JOURNAL will begin with one of the most important articles we have ever published, since it illustrates the stark contrast between reactionary politics (with which, sadly, not a few fundamentalist Christians have been identified) and true, biblical Christianity: “Holocaust Denial: What It Is and Why Evangelical Scholars Must Categorically Reject It,” by Richard V. Pierard, Professor of History Emeritus at Indiana State University. This essay will be followed by a matching essay hitting the liberal, “politically correct” approach to things Jewish: “Why Liberals Didn’t Understand Passion Play 2000,” by Professor Craig Parton, Esq., American director of our International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism and Human Rights (www.apologeticsacademy.eu). Then we take a crack at the cults by way of Gordon Allen Carle’s “How Mormon Scholars Conduct Patristic Research To Prove the Legitimacy of Their Religion.” Lastly—having stuck it to the far right, the far left, and the sectarian hinterland—the issue will conclude with a nice piece of philosophical theology: Associate Editor Edward N. Martin’s “Infinite Causal Regress and the Secunda Via in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas.”

Last November’s annual conference of the Evangelical Theological Society, held in Colorado Springs, featured papers and discussions on the so-called “Openness of God” theology, as espoused by Clark Pinnock and others. Considerable practical light will be shed on this critical issue by Joao Mordomo. His paper is titled, “Missiological Misgivings About ‘Openness of God’ Theology.”

The topic of human rights is central to political, legal, and ethical thinking today. Our International Academy of Apologetics (www.apologeticsacademy.eu), held each summer in Strasbourg, France, contains an important human rights component, and the Editor’s book, Human Rights and Human Dignity, is an evangelical manifesto on the subject. Thus it is entirely appropriate that we shall be publishing German theologian Thomas Schirrmacher’s article, “Human Rights and Christian Faith,” together with Dr Francis Beckwith’s “Abortion and Personhood Arguments: A Philosophical Analysis.”

Having made some rather negative remarks about Calvinism in the Editor’s Introduction to the present issue, we shall show our (relative) objectivity by including in the next issue two essays on Calvin. Dr David Andersen treats Calvin’s use of the philosophical axiom, “The finite is not capable of the infinite,” and Dr Paul Tambrino asks, with tongue in cheek, “Was Sherlock Holmes a Calvinist?” (To be sure, readers of the GLOBAL JOURNAL with an interest in Holmes should prepare themselves for this treat by immediately obtaining a copy of the Editor’s recent book of thinly disguised literary apologetics, The Transcendent Holmes, published by Calabash Press, British Columbia, Canada [www.ash-tree.bc.ca/calabash.html]!

The Editor’s distinctive evidential apologetic for the truth of Christian faith has had two major foci: the historical and the juridical. He has argued that good historical method and solid legal standards of evidence will vindicate the gospel message. To be sure, these claims have not gone uncontested. In particular, on the web, skeptics’ critiques have appeared dealing with both of these styles of argument—as well as presuppositionalist attempts to downgrade the very idea of employing empirical evidence to establish Christian verities. We are therefore devoting the next issue of the Global Journal to scholarly refutations of these critics.

Inter alia, readers will benefit from distinguished apologist Gary R. Habermas’ treatment of the late Greg Bahnsen’s anti-Montgomerian presuppositionalism. Ross Clifford, Principal of Morling Theological College, New South Wales, Australia (one of the editorial consultants for the journal) will argue for the viability of the Montgomerian historical, evidential apologetic program; and Philip Johnson of the Presbyterian Theological Centre, Sydney, Australia, provides a helpful bio-bibliographical essay of juridical apologists from 1600-2000 AD. A veritable apologetic feast!

Columbus Day will be upon us—to the great irritation, we understand, of Scandinavians who are convinced that it was the Vikings, and not Christopher, who discovered America. Nonetheless, we shall be publishing an intriguing Columbus Day sermon by the Revd Ken Schurb, assistant to the President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and a doctoral candidate in Early Modern European History at Ohio State University.

Having irritated the Scandinavians, we shall in turn make antipaedobaptists nervous. The editor’s essay, “The Place of Conversion in the Life of a Christian,” should accomplish that nicely.

Conversion is grounded in the Atonement, so it is entirely appropriate that we also publish Daniel Chadwick’s essay, “The Extent of Atonement and Judgment: A Phenomenological Vision.” Phenomenological methodology is philosophically “in”: but Chadwick sees it as a device for illuminating biblical revelation rather than as a substitute for it.

Kenneth C. Harper, whose article on Generational Theory elicited considerable interest in our second issue (Vol. 1, No. 2) returns with something quite different: a study of the Labyrinth as a spiritual tool. This ancient motif has been appropriated by New Agers and wooly-minded mystics; what does it have to say to the serious Christian believer?

And, naturalmente, there will be reviews.

Our first issue contained a much appreciated article by Ben M. Carter on “Communication As General Revelation.” Now Carter returns with an essay on an even more relevant subject: “New Age Thinking About the Soul: The Post-Modern Metaphysics of Gary Zukav.” Few Christians who actively witness in the unbelieving world of today have not been confronted by (1) New Agers and (2) Postmodernists of one stripe or another. Get a leg up on both by way of our next issue!

An old Encyclopedia Britannica advertisement asked the question: “How long is it since your mind has been stretched by a new idea?” We at the Global Journal believe that our readers should be challenged. Two interlocking articles on “The Logic of True Narratives” and “Biblical History As True Narrative Representation” will offer a striking hermeneutic theory directly applicable to the issues of biblical inspiration, authority, and inerrancy. The authors are Dr. Steven Collins of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and John W. Oller, Jr., of the University of Southwestern Louisiana at Lafayette.

The Editor’s article-length review of Edinburgh theologian Duncan Forrester’s Christian Justice and Public Policy, together with reviews by other faculty members and contributors, will round out an issue not to be missed.

You knew it would happen: the editor publishes an essay by the editor! “A Critique of Certain Uncritical Assumptions in Modern Historiography” by John Warwick Montgomery. This paper, presented at the 1996 biennial Conference on Faith and History at Calvin College, deals both with the need for secular historians to face the reality of the miraculous and with the evils of the so-called “historical-critical method” of liberal biblical interpreters.

Lisa F. Cunning will provide a superb apologia for a biblical feminism: “God Makes Promises to Women, Too.” Just the thing for male chauvinist readers (those just to the right of Ghengis Khan).

The Revd Harold F. Carl, chaplain of the distinguished Berry College in Georgia, will discuss the Trinitarian implications of the relational language in John 14-16.

And reviews of books you should either (1) beg, borrow, or steal, or (2) give to your worst enemy.

Dr. William A. Dembski of the Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture will provide the full text of his superb treatment of “The Art of Creation: Bridging Transcendence and Immanence,” presented at the Second Millstatt Forum, Strasbourg, France, in August 1998 (theme: “Creation and Creativity”) – where your Editor and Phillip E. Johnson (Darwin on Trial) were fellow speakers.

Donald T. Williams, a pastor with a Ph.D. in Mediaeval and Renaissance literature from the University of Georgia, will support the objectivity of moral values in his analysis of philosopher Stephen Toulmin’s The Place of Reason in Ethics.

Brian Lindsay Connell will offer a comprehensive critique of the late Jacques Ellul’s understanding of society, political theory, and biblical revelation.

And much more…