... Martin Marty bemoaned the fame, following, and feckless scholarship of David Barton, whose cause is "to show from eighteenth-century documents that [the] Founding Fathers determinedly and explicitly established a Christian state, which leaves all non-Christians as second-class citizens."

In Prima Scriptura (Scriptures as "primary," "first," "final"), Croy, true to his Wesleyan Methodist roots, jettisons the venerable sola Scriptura, darling of the Reformed stalwarts everywhere.

Furthermore, in language that Pietists would appreciate, Croy hopes that, even through the blood, sweat, and tears of the full-bodied exegesis that he advocates, the NT interpreter may actually "encounter God in the text and be led by the Holy Spirit in discovering meaning and being transformed by it."

... explaining how to use the "hermeneutical adjuncts" of tradition, reason, and experience in grasping the contemporary significance of what we have learned about a biblical text from our exegesis.

... charging wold-be NT interpreters to prepare themselves spiritually by embracing honesty, openness (to the text), obedience (to how each genre in the text demands to be read), and piety (expecting to meet and respond to God in the process of studying the text).

Such an approach implies a personal openness that expects to be surprized by the text, requiring a humility and teachability that never come naturally.

What to do when tradition, reason, and experience speak with no clear voice regarding a disputed issue? What metacriterion should we appeal to? Answer: prima Scriptura. And within Scripture, not just any word should reign ("love" and ""justice" currently have their vocal defenders); the highest court of appeal must be the Word himself, in whose words alone, when acted on, we discover the foundation able to survive all manner of storms.

Finally, chapter 4 leaves readers with the hardest job of all: appropriate Scripture in such a way that actual transformation occurs--in me personally, in the functioning and fruit of Christian communities, in every last sphere of environmental, social, and intercultural life on this planet. Thy kingdom come indeed!