Universalism: New Testament Doctrine of a Merciful God? (2 of 4)

The judgment of God is not merely an Old Testament doctrine, but runs throughout the whole Scripture, and, at least in a fallen world, is a necessary corollary to God’s mercy and love. In this dialogue, Mike McClymond (St. Louis University) and Gerald Hiestand (Calvin Memorial Church) talk with Geoffrey Fulkerson about the the relationship of the testaments and the judgment of God.

Biography

During the last twenty-five years, as a full time faculty member at four institutions, McClymond has taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in the fields of theological studies, religious studies, the history of Christianity, and comparative religions. In the last six years he has served as a dissertation adviser for half a dozen Ph.D. students who are investigating diverse aspects of Christian theology and history, including developments in Lutheran, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, and Orthodox Christianity.

McClymond’s book, Encounters With God: An Approach to the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Oxford University Press, 1998), received the 1999 Brewer Prize from the American Society of Church History as the best first book in the history of Christianity. He was co-editor of (with Professor David Noel Freedman of University of California, San Diego) and a contributor to The Rivers of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad as Religious Founders (Eerdmans, 2001), editor of Embodying the Spirit: New Perspectives on North American Revivalism (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), and author of Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth (Eerdmans, 2004; winner of the Award of Merit in 2005 from Christianity Today magazine). He is the sole editor of a two-volume reference work that incorporates the contributions of 120 scholars, Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America, 2 vols. (Greenwood Press, 2007). His most recent book–co-written with Gerald R. McDermott–is The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). Comprising forty-five chapters, this work is the most in-depth academic study yet published on Edwards’s thought. At the end of 2012, Christianity Today magazine selected this work from among 455 nominated titles as the “Book of the Year” in the Theology/Ethics category.