I agree with your view that Gorman’s work on Paul has not received the prominence that it should have. He is an amazingly careful and perceptive expositor of Paul. I look forward to reading his latest work. Shalom.

I couldn’t agree more with your assessment of Gorman. He’s doing some mind-blowing stuff right now. My students love him, and as they’ve read Apostle of the Crucified Lord they’ve come away with a rich understanding of Paul as narrative theologian of the cross.
I’m eager to get to this next book.

Thank you for mentioning a writer and scholar that I was not aware of.

He is also a great guy. We have had the privilege of having him around Duke Divinity School this year.

Michael Gorman is also blogging at his blog Cross Talk.
http://www.michaeljgorman.net/
He summarizes the book in three parts at:
http://www.michaeljgorman.net/?p=122
http://www.michaeljgorman.net/?p=129
http://www.michaeljgorman.net/?p=139
For those interested, Halden Doerge is currently blogging about the book at his blog Inhabitatio Dei as well. Here is the first post:
http://www.inhabitatiodei.com/2009/05/05/against-cheap-justification/

I’m just getting into reading some of his stuff, but I can second his classiness as a person. My wife had a class with him this semester, and he had the whole class over for dinner (including spouses!), which is nice when you’re young and broke.

Thanks for the recommendation Scot. I had not heard of Gorman, but your description and other material I’ve found this morning intrigues me to want to learn more.
A question for you and others who are familiar with his work: would it work to plunge right into “Inhabiting the Cruciform God”? Or is it a good idea to digest Gorman’s earlier works first (His intro to Paul — “Apostle of The Crucified Lord” and his “Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross”)?
Reading all three would probably be the best answer, but time is short…

Greg,
You can begin with this one; in some ways it puts it all together.

Scot,
Between your summary and the ones Andy referenced above, I’m pretty much sold on this book. The phrase “participationist soteriology” sounds very promising. Also, this line from the author’s blog gets me really encouraged:
“One major theme of the book is that many of the theological distinctions we make in analyzing Paul (justification-sanctification; declaration-transformation; faith-works; faith-love; spirituality-politics) are foreign to Paul?s way of thinking and maintaining them actually contributes to serious misunderstandings of Paul.”
Good to know such words are coming from a careful scholar. Thanks.

Scot, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment that Michael Gorman’s cruciform-theosis needs more visibility and embracing among the free-falling evangelical church. I quote him in my dissertation and I was honored to have him quote one of my articles in his Inhabiting a Cruciform God which I just read this weekend, loved, and plan to incorporate into my teaching and preaching on ecclesiology. Of course, I was delighted by his wide use of Bonhoeffer and wondered by he didn’t reference Bonhoeffer’s “participating in the sufferings of Christ for the world” from LPP. As far as I’m concerned Bonhoeffer introduced Gorman’s use of theosis, without using that term, in his last letters in prison as he re-thought his theology from a “secular” understanding of biblical concepts for the ordinary German citizen.
The spirit of Gorman’s “theoformity” is located in Bonhoeffer’s 1944 letters. Maybe Bonhoeffer will finally receive the credit he is due and given more attention by the wider theological community—after all Gorman is directing ecumenical efforts as a Methodist in a Catholic school. Quite possibly, Gorman offers the theology of ecumenism Bonhoeffer noted was absent during the 1930- and 40′s.
Paul O. Bischoff, Ph.D.