July 2012 Book Reviews
With the Olympic Games in full swing you might find you have less time to devote to reading. Nevertheless here are 9 reviews of some new theological works. There is (yet another) study of Fresh Expressions, two theological reflections on economic issues, some Church History, spirituality, and a couple of big names in theology: Jurgen Moltmann and Timothy Radcliffe. Also, a book that is sure to provoke some reaction in its new approach to the current human sexuality debate...
Felix lectio!
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In his biography of Richard III, Paul Murray Kendall
describes the late medieval English church as ‘rather like a fat whale stranded
in a lagoon abounding in its food – not uncomfortable enough and too well fed,
too inert, to try to move in any direction at all. Though pricked by the
Lollards and stung by hostile criticism from the laity into holding tight to its
privileges, the church was not sufficiently challenged to attempt or even
imagine reform.’ This negative view of the late medieval English church is one
that was widely accepted until recent times. It has been seen to be a key
explanation for the English Reformation: that it occurred and took a Protestant direction because of popular
discontent with the corruption and complacency of the Catholic Church of
England in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This account of
the causes of the Reformation has been challenged in recent years by a number
of historians, notably by Professor Eamon Duffy in his book The Stripping of the Altars. It is
challenged again by G W Bernard, the Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton English Church
The ‘four views’ series from the American publishing house
Zondervan is a series that, as its name suggests, puts forward four views on a
particular topic. This latest book in the series presents four views on
spirituality. Bradley Nassif writes on ‘Orthodox spirituality: A quest for
transfigured humanity.’ Scott Hahn writes on ‘Come to the Father: The fact at
the foundation of Catholic spirituality.’ Joseph Driskill writes on ‘The
progressive face of mainline Protestant spirituality.’ Finally, Evan Howard
writes on ‘Evangelical spirituality.’ Each essay seeks to address six issues
‘the definition and key emphases of Christian spirituality,’ ‘the relation of
spirituality to spiritual formation,’ ‘the means, discipline or regimen by
which spirituality is cultivated,’ ‘the role of Jesus Christ and the Holy
Spirit in spirituality,’ ‘the function of the institutional church in
spirituality’ and ‘the goals or endgame of spirituality.’ The essays are
preceded by an instruction by the editor that explains the nature of Christian
spirituality and introduces the four traditions represented in the book. Each
essay is followed by a response from the other three essayists that highlight
points of convergence and divergence with their own tradition. This is definitely an
introductory volume. The limitations of the length of each essay means that
those who want a detailed exploration of the tradition covered in it will need
to look elsewhere. From an Anglican perspective it is also unfortunate that the
distinctive nature of Anglican spirituality goes unrecognised. However, as an
introductory volume, and even with the limitation just noted, this a book that
is well worth giving to those who want to begin to study the various traditions
of Christian spirituality that it covers and also offers a useful refresher
course for those who want to revisit these traditions.
This book was a key resource for the debate on fresh
expressions in the General Synod in July. It is the product of a joint working
party established by the Church of England and the Methodist Church of Great
Britain. The task given to the working party was: ‘To undertake a critical
study of the explicit and implicit ecclesiology of fresh expressions, and to
produce recommendations or guidelines for ongoing work or change to existing
structures that are workable within both traditions'. The report is in seven chapters. The
first chapter explains the issues addressed in the report. The second chapter explains the development and
nature of fresh expressions and includes snapshots of fresh expressions from
both churches. The third chapter considers the Church in the Acts of the
Apostles as a paradigm for subsequent ecclesiology and chapter four then looks
at the ecclesiology of the Anglican and Methodist traditions and shows how this
provides a basis for assessing the ecclesiological implications of fresh
expressions. Chapter five explores the major theological criticisms that have
been made of fresh expressions and chapter six pulls the threads of the report
together by outlining a ‘Mission-shaped Ecclesiology’ that addresses the needs
of mission today, but that is also faithful to the basic ecclesiological
pattern found in Acts and in the traditions of the Church of England and the
Methodist Church. The final chapter sets out the conclusions of the report and
puts forward a series of specific recommendations, building on these conclusions. This is a major theological study of the
ecclesiological questions raised by fresh expressions and should be read by
anyone who wants to have a better understanding of the place of fresh
expressions in a ‘mixed economy’ church.
Caritas in Veritate
(Charity in Truth) is an encyclical from Pope Benedict XVI published in 2009
that addresses issues about the person, community and the globalized economy
from the standpoint of Roman Catholic social thought. At the heart of the
encyclical is a study of the implications of the relational nature of the
Triune God for daily human life and for economic activity as a key part of life.
For Pope Benedict the relational nature of God can best be expressed in economic
life through ‘reciprocity,’ a relationship characterized by help which
is freely given, but which forms an expectation that the recipient will
‘reciprocate,’ either to the donor or, often, to someone else. It proposes that the 'logic of
gift' should influence daily economic life. This volume is the result of a
conference of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies and the Pontifical
Council for Justice and Peace held in Rome in October 2010 to respond to Caritas in Veritate. Social
scientists, theologians, policy analysts and others engage with, extend, and
critique the teaching given in the encyclical as well as Pope Benedict’s
teaching on social and economic issues more generally. Each of the chapters in the book is made up
of a series of papers from the scholars who attended the symposium. Examples are
Kenneth Himes on ‘Benedict’s view of the person,’ Michael Novak on ‘Markets and
government; the vitality of markets,’ Michael Naughton on ‘The logic of gift
and the world of business’ and Stefano Zamagni on ‘Re-conceiving welfare politics.’
Although coming from a Roman Catholic perspective this is an important study
for any Christian who wants to think through what the Christian faith has to
say in relation to the social and economic issues that the world faces today.
In the debate about human sexuality there is a minority
within a minority who are often overlooked. This minority consists of
Christians who are gay or lesbian, but who believe that faithfulness to God
requires that they should not act on their sexual attraction. Wes Hill is one
such person. As he writes in the introduction, ‘by the time I
started high school, two things had become clear to me. One was that I was a
Christian. My parents had raised me to be a believer in Jesus, and as I moved
towards independence from my family, I knew that I wanted to trust, love and obey
Christ, who had been crucified and raised from the dead ‘for us and for our
salvation’ as the creed puts it. The second thing was that I was gay.’ He was
not able to hold together these two aspects of his life by affirming that God
approved of homosexual activity because as he puts it, his conviction is that ‘homosexual practice goes against his express will for all human
beings, especially those who trust in Christ.’ He also did not experience any alteration
of his sexual feelings even though he asked for this in prayer. Instead he had
to learn to live faithfully before God by not acting on his sexual desires. This
is his account of how he has attempted to do this, what he calls ‘the confusion
and sorrow and triumph and grief and joy of the struggle to live faithfully
before God in Christ, with others, as a gay person. Hill combines reflections
from his own life with insights drawn from the lives and writings of other
Christians, such as Henri Nouwen, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Archbishop Rowan
Williams. He advocates neither unqualified 'healing' for those who struggle
with homosexuality, nor their accommodation to temptation, but rather
faithfulness in the midst of brokenness. This is a book that gives an important contribution to the range of opinions in the sexuality debate.
One of the features of modern academic life is the growing
specialisation of different disciplines. One of the consequences of this for
the study of theology is the division that can often exists between biblical
scholars and systematic theologians with each side of the divide feeling that
the other side fails to take the importance of their discipline with proper
seriousness. In an attempt to address this a series of conferences on
‘Scripture and Theology’ have been organised at the University of St Andrews in
which biblical scholars and systematic theologians reflected together on a
particular book of the Bible. The first conference was on St John’s Gospel, the second was on the
Epistle to the Hebrews and the third was on Genesis. This is a collection of the papers from
this third conference. The book looks at four themes ‘Genesis and salvation
history,’ ‘Genesis and divine-human relations,’ ‘Genesis and the natural world’
and ‘Genesis and the people of God.’ Among the papers that address these themes are
a paper by Kurt Backhaus on ‘Before Abraham was I Am: The Book of Genesis and
the Genesis of Christology,’ a paper by Walter Houston on ‘Sex or Violence?
Thinking Again with Genesis about the Fall and Original Sin,’ a paper by David Fergusson
on ‘Interpreting the Story of Creation:
A Case Study in the Dialogue between Theology and Science’ and a paper
by Mark Elliott on ‘Genesis and Human Society: The Learning and Teaching People
of God.’ As the titles of these papers
indicate, Genesis and Christian Theology
covers a wide range of interesting issues relating to its subject matter and it
will be of interest to anyone who wants to be provoked to think more deeply
about the theological significance of the Book of Genesis.
Professor Jurgen Moltmann, who is now the Emeritus Professor
of Systematic Theology at the University of Tubingen, has been one of the most
influential Protestant theologians to have emerged since the Second World War.
His books such as Theology of Hope, The Crucified God and The Way of Jesus Christ have helped to
shape the thinking of countless theologians round the world. From Theology of Hope onwards the importance
of eschatology has been a major theme in Moltmann’s writings and in his new
book he looks at Christian ethics from an eschatological perspective. Here Moltmann offers ‘an outline for a common answer by worldwide Christianity
to the global dangers which threaten us all’. In the first part of his book he offers
an account of what it means to do ethics in light of eschatology
and distinguishes this approach from other past or contemporary approaches. In the following three parts he then sets out ‘an ethic of
life’ (against the dominant ethic of death), an ‘ethic of earth’ (against
today's utilitarian ethic) and an ‘ethic of justice’ (against today's social
injustice and global conflicts). In the course of his exposition, he also
applies his eschatological framework for ethics to concrete issues of medical
ethics, ecological ethics, and just-war theory. The final part of the book is
entitled ‘Joy in God: Aesthetic Counterpoint’ and in this part he looks at
‘sabbath – the feast of creation,’ ‘the jubilation of Christ’s resurrection’
and ‘peace in the midst of strife.’ Moltmann also highlights the importance for
Christian ethics today of the insights of the Anabaptists of the Reformation
era. He argues that for today’s post Christendom era ‘the ethical alternatives of
the Anabaptists in their service for peace, in their experience of community
and the conduct of life’ are as important for Protestant ethics as the ethos of
the monastic orders is for Catholic ethics. This is a major study by a hugely important theologian and
deserves to be read by all who want to think seriously about what Christian
ethics should look like in the face of the challenges facing the Church and the
world in the twenty first century.
Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP is a Roman Catholic theologian, who was Master of the Dominican Order for nine
years. He is widely appreciated by Christians outside the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, he was the keynote speaker at our diocese's last clergy conference. In his new
book Fr Radcliffe gives his perspective on a subject which will be of interest
to all Christians, the importance of baptism for the Christian life. His
starting point is the observation that ‘Christianity faces vast challenges:
indifference, aggressive secularism, the rise of religious fundamentalism,
persecution in many parts of the world
and so on.’ In the faces of these challenges, he says, ‘our faith will only
flourish if we have a profound sense of the beauty of this simple ritual.’
Baptism, he declares, ‘touches the deepest dramas of human life: birth, growing
up, falling in love, daring to give oneself to others, searching for meaning,
becoming adult, coping with suffering and failure and eventually death.’
However, he notes, in the West ‘baptism hardly seems to matter’ for many
people. The way to counter this
perception, he thinks, is to help people to realise that the point of being a
Christian is about becoming fully alive in God and that this happens to all
Christians as an outworking of their baptism. He sees the baptism rite as
having an ‘implicit narrative’ that points forward to the shape of the
Christian life as a whole. This narrative begins ‘with us being named and
claimed for Christ. This is the unconditional love that calls us into being. We discover that this love is demanding and
transforming. We are invited to share responsibility for each other and
creation, to let go of all egoism, to die and share the life of the life of the
Triune God. This love is exigent, precisely because it is true, and a true love
is always transformative.’ The book as a whole develops these ideas in detail
and will be of value to anyone who wants to think more deeply about the nature
of baptism as the foundation for Christian life and discipleship and the
challenge this poses to the contemporary Church in the West.
The debate in the United States about President Obama’s
healthcare policy and the debate in the UK about the coalition government’s
proposed reforms of the NHS have both centred on the place of the market
economy in the provision of health services. These debates are part of a wider debate about the place of free market economics in society as a
whole. It is this wider debate that the philosopher Professor Michael Sandel of
Harvard University addresses in his new book. Professor Sandel begins with the
words ‘there are some things that money can’t buy, but these days not many.’ He
then lists the things that money can buy you in the USA and elsewhere: a prison
cell upgrade, access to a car pool lane for a solo driver, the services of an
Indian surrogate mother to carry a baby to term, the right to immigrate into
the USA, the right to shoot an endangered black rhino in South Africa, the
mobile phone number of a doctor, the right to pump a metric ton of carbon into
the atmosphere and access to a prestigious American university. He comments ‘We
live at a time when almost everything can be bought and sold. Markets – and market values – have come to govern our lives as
never before.’ He goes on to say that ‘the great
missing debate in contemporary politics is about the role and reach of markets.
Do we want a market economy or a market society? What role should markets play
in public life and private relations? How should we decide what which goods
should be bought and sold and which should be governed by non-market values?
Where should money’s writ not run? These are the questions this book seeks to
address.’ In order to address them Sandel has an opening chapter which sets the
scene for his discussion and he then looks at five specific topics ‘Jumping the
queue,’ ‘Incentives, ’ ‘How markets crowd out morals,’ ‘Markets in life and
death’ and Naming rights.’ This book is an important, challenging and immensely
readable study of a key issue for contemporary society. As people who care
about the well bring of their societies and the people who live in them,
Christians need to engage with this book in order to understand the reality of
the world in which we now live and what a Christian response to the issues that
Sandel raises should look like.
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