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Campbell, Douglas A. 2020.

Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of 
God’s Love
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

ISBN: 978-0802875648

Reviewed by Martin Reppenhagen
Dean in the Protestant Church of Baden, Germany.  
Martin.Reppenhagen@kbz.ekiba.de 

[Stay with this review as its author is adamant this is a book for 
missional practitioners—Ed.]

At almost eight hundred pages this volume is in the best sense 
of the word a magnum opus and can’t be praised highly enough. 
It is an excellent read. However, I have my problems in classify-
ing it with regard to the theological disciplines. Is it exegetical or 
systematic or even practical? Was Karl Barth’s commentary on 
Romans an exegetical one? The answer to the last question may di-
rect our attempt to classify Campbell’s Pauline Dogmatics and may 
lead to the conclusion, that it is more with Barth than in line with 
James D. G. Dunn’s The Theology of Paul the Apostle from 1998. 
This said I would define it as a systematic theology of Paul based 



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on exegetical insights with an emphasis on modern Christian life. 
Thus, the truly interdisciplinary volume can be placed on the edge 
of biblical, systematic and pastoral theology. 

This is how the author himself sees his book: “I tend to lean 
primarily on my favorite theologian in this area for guidance, Karl 
Barth. .  .  . It needs to be appreciated immediately that Barth is a 
useful guide to Paul partly because he was such a faithful Paulin-
ist” (2). Being himself a renowned NT scholar teaching at Duke 
University he brings together insights from Biblical scholars and 
different Barthian thinkers like Hauerwas and the Torrances as 
well as historians, sociologists. This makes very much sense, when 
Campbell himself makes clear the purpose of writing this book: “It 
has been written for Christian leaders who live in the twenty-first 
century. So to be useful to them it needs to articulate where we also 
need to go beyond Paul” (7).

By the end of the book Campbell defines the purpose of the 
work even more precisely as “a practical manual instructing lead-
ers how to plant and to nurture communities of Jesus followers, 
and to do so navigating the challenges of any context, including 
the especially astringent challenges offered by modernity” (741). 
Although I question the term “manual” here, because it is not at all 
about “How to do in ten steps,” and would have preferred “hand-
book” instead. This book is without doubt a deeply missional book 
bringing together Pauline church planting with today’s missional 
dynamics! 

The book divides into twenty-nine chapters in four parts: 
resurrection, formation, mission, navigation. Every chapter con-
cludes with a set of theses, key scriptural references, suggestions 
for key and further reading and a bibliography. Thus, reading this 
didactically structured book is a great benefit, but using it as a 
study tool in missional teams would bring even more benefit re-
flecting practice and leading to practice. One finds here a twenty-
nine-session course bringing together missional leaders, students, 
interested church members. It is full of theology without using 
incomprehensible academic language.



E c c l e s i a l  F u t u r e s :  Vo l u m e  1  I s s u e  2

130

Campbell starts with a profound grounding in God respec-
tively in Christ himself. Here he deals with God’s purpose for life, 
with the problem of sin and death, with resurrection and election 
to give some examples. Like a good house builder Campbell begins 
with solid groundwork. “If we don’t know God, we will probably 
not be able to talk about God with any accuracy, and so we will end 
up, as Barth puts it wryly, talking about ourselves in a loud voice, 
which is unlikely to be much help to anyone” (13). From the very 
beginning it pops up in every chapter, which is so important for 
the whole book, that God’s purpose for life is fellowship with him 
lived in relational communities. I only wondered, why the cross 
of Christ became a sub issue of resurrection contrary to Paul who 
says, “but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews 
and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23). 

Following the basic insight of God’s intention to create fel-
lowship with him and others Campbell continues with the forma-
tion of a learning community. Reminding the reader of a “personal 
God,” who “desires to commune with us as persons” Campbell 
focuses on the church: “the church is all about its relationships” 
(194–95). The leitmotif here is love in its various settings. Tak-
ing up the terms of Robert Putnam church consists of bonding 
and bridging communities being best in networking in- and out-
wards. These communities are not bounded, but centered around 
Christ, and therefore able to change, when situations, contexts, 
when people change. And “they should then spread out, opening 
into these relationships that are less or non-Christian in mission” 
(375). Although Campbell never refers to Paul Hiebert’s “bounded 
and centered sets” I was very much reminded of this fundamental 
distinction for understanding missional churches. 

Part 3 “Mission” starts with the basic insight, that mission is 
communal: “A Pauline community reaches out to those who lie 
outside of it as God does, because loving involves reaching out and 
journeying, and especially to those who are different from it and 
indifferent to it” (381). In mission church crosses boundaries and 
“produces” diversity, which is crucial for the understanding of a 



Martin Reppenhagen—Pauline Dogmatics

131

missional church. Defining the others and friendship comes into 
focus. 

With the last part titled “Navigation” Campbell focuses on 
today’s issues and feels more clear the need of going beyond Paul. 
Once in a while I wondered why the author considers himself 
to be better grounded in Paul’s Trinitarian and Christocentric 
understanding than Paul himself. Could it be that in “those reali-
ties—places .  .  . where Paul must reinterpret Paul” (7) it is actu-
ally Campbell himself and his (post)modern view pressing against 
Paul, e.g., in the field of ethics and very strongly with regard to sex 
and gender issues? Campbell’s seemingly mandatory “Sachkritik” 
(material criticism) does find its followers, but raises hermeneuti-
cal questions as well. Here and there I felt the need to start a dis-
cussion using Pauline positions and disputing with Campbell. 

This said, Campbell remains very much inspiring—and 
should be praised that he does so—taking up very important is-
sues and questions in (post-)modern society that every missional 
community needs to deal with. In my agreeing and disagreeing 
this part is and remains thought provoking. 

Writing a list of must reads for a missional church or fresh 
expression this book should definitely be one among the top ten. 
One can read it alone as a page turner, but better results will appear 
while using it as a study tool discussing it with others. The latter 
would definitely be more in line with the author’s purpose of writ-
ing the book.




