Abstract
Gilles Emery, OP ,
The Trinity: An Introduction to Catholic Doctrine on the Triune God, Vol. 1, Thomistic Ressourcement
, trans. Matthew Levering, The Catholic University of America Press: Washington DC, 2011; 219 pp.: 9780813218649, £21.95 (pbk)
Right in the middle of what we are told on the title-page is the first volume in a ‘Thomistic Ressourcement Series’, Gilles Emery quotes Augustine’s fifty-second Sermon: ‘For what are we to say, brothers, about God? For if you have fully grasped what you want to say, it isn’t God. If you have been able to comprehend it, you have comprehended something else instead of God’ (p. 99). Taking that message to heart, the author begins with the observation that Trinitarian faith ‘is distinct from experiences that begin by observing nature, or studying cultural phenomena, or that start from human introspection. It rests exclusively on the gift that God makes when he enables believers to know him in faith’ (p. 1). He goes on, appropriately, to speak first of Trinitarian faith encountered in worship and then in Scripture.
Emery does not quote what Augustine goes on to say in that same sermon: that ‘to reach out a little towards God with the mind is great blessedness’ but, as one might expect from a Dominican, he encourages us to do just that, giving us an admirably comprehensive as well as concise and accessible account of dogmatic teaching on the Trinity before concluding with what he calls ‘a “speculative” reflection on action of the divine persons in the world’ (p. 196).
Before expounding St Thomas Aquinas’s development of his teaching by considering the Augustinian theme of ‘the Spirit as mutual Love of the Father and the Son’ (p. 154), Emery warns us again that ‘in order to understand this theological elaboration well, it is necessary to avoid all rationalistic approaches to the mystery of God. Rather, approaching this mystery theologically is a spiritual exercise (which) begins with faith and is accomplished in faith’ (p. 153). It is a difficult balance to keep.
Emery explains at the outset that, since this is an introductory work, it cannot include everything and, for that reason, does not engage with recent theological currents in Trinitarian theology emerging from, most particularly, the work of Barth and von Balthasar (p. xv). Similarly, though he deals with differences between East and West sensitively (after Aquinas, who held that ‘if we take careful note of the statements of the Greeks we shall find that they differ from us more in words than in meaning’, p. 142) he does not properly engage with the insights of the Cappadocian Fathers – and, for example, the work of John Zizioulas emerging from them. This is regrettable since it impoverishes the book which would have been enriched by engagement with such work but, to be fair, this is billed as ‘an introduction to Catholic Doctrine of the Triune God’. It is, as such, a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature from different traditions in a renaissance of interest which has gathered pace over the last century in what Pope Leo XIII termed ‘the greatest of all mysteries since it is the fountain and origin of them all’ (p. xi).
Ely
Richard J. Plantinga, Thomas R. Thompson and Matthew D. Lundberg,
An Introduction to Christian Theology
, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2010; 654 pp.: 9780521690379, £18.99 (pbk); Lindsey Hall, Murray Rae and Stephen Holmes (eds),
Christian Doctrine: A Reader
, SCM Press: London, 2010; 508 pp.: 9780334043454, £35.00 (pbk)
Recent years have seen a number of new introductory texts for students of theology, or for ‘general readers’ seeking a readable map of the intellectual contours of Christian belief. The first of these volumes represents a further contribution to that field. A collaborative work by three faculty-members at Calvin College, Michigan, it aspires to offer a fairly comprehensive survey of basic logic, major themes and essential history. As well as introducing material conceptually and historically, it invites its readers to take theology seriously, and to pursue constructive engagement of a contemporary order.
The book is divided into three sections. The first introduces the nature, criteria and tasks of Christian theology as ‘faith seeking understanding’, and summarizes the critical context for theology in a late modern/postmodern situation: the significance of the Enlightenment project; challenges to Christian orthodoxy; secularization and the rise of modern atheism; individualism and dehumanization; the problem of evil; postmodernity. The second section, the heart of the book, treats key themes of Christian doctrine: revelation and the knowledge of God; the doctrine of God; creation; anthropology and sin; evil and theodicy; Christology; reconciliation; pneumatology; Church and mission (including the significance of globalization and cultural pluralism); ecclesiology. These chapters are mostly structured in the same fashion, outlining biblical foundations, historical development and systematic consideration/s, summarized by a brief conclusion. The third section offers a historical overview of five major periods: early Church; medieval; Reformation; modern; contemporary (c.1960–). Each chapter offers helpful suggestions for further reading. The book contains a theological glossary, an overall bibliography, an index of names and subjects, and several tables and images.
As an introductory guide, the work is clearly organized and lucid in its style. While essentially Reformed in both their arrangement of loci and their core assumptions regarding theological responsibility, the authors endeavour to show reasonable balance in both their coverage and assessment. Though the breadth could be greater at various points, they manage to condense a large volume of material into quite a tight structure. They deploy occasional illustrations from history and the arts, and refer to cultural and intellectual trends in a manner that general readers will welcome. The scholarship is sometimes a little dated (for example, on patristics), and the précis often (to the initiate at least) rather dryly predictable, but as an exercise in descriptive depiction of a great many historical and contemporary issues the treatment is admirably clear and quite well suited to its target market.
Where it is less successful is in the authors’ efforts to blend narration with critical construction. On social Trinitarianism or kenotic Christology, for instance, both of which are strongly preferred options here, readers without background ought to be alerted to the degree to which the positions espoused might be disputed by theologians no less concerned than the authors for the criteria of ‘biblical and confessional orthodoxy’; where others might well disagree is in their assessment of what exactly it means to treat ‘broad coherence’ or ‘practical relevance’ – the latter an especially malleable and contestable standard – as summary determinants of theological appropriateness (p. xv). The balance between survey and argument is notoriously difficult to strike, but at various points it seems not quite right here; the result is that the book reads as neither simple primer nor consistently lively protreptic (some chapters are bolder than others). A more exciting account of theology’s overall vocation – its privileges and joys as well as its challenges and constraints – still awaits. Nevertheless, as an accessible and mainly reliable introduction this book is a solid achievement; it will, I expect, be quite widely used by teachers and students. It might be especially helpful for clergy or theologically literate lay people seeking to remind themselves of major issues on which they have become a little rusty.
The reader by Hall, Rae and Holmes is intended as a companion volume to another SCM anthology which Rae and Holmes co-edited with the late Colin Gunton in 2001, The Practice of Theology: A Reader. Though somewhat more of a cousin than a close sibling to that collection, it consists of a brief general introduction followed by a series of thematic chapters, introduced in each case by a short essay by one of the editors. So-called prolegomena (the sources of theology, revelation, faith and reason, religious language, the contexts of theology today) were treated in the earlier volume; nine more explicitly doctrinal themes are outlined here: the doctrine of God in patristic development; the doctrine of God from the Reformation to the present day; creation and providence; the person of Christ; the work of Christ; the Holy Spirit; the doctrine of humanity; the Church; and eschatology. The book concludes with further details on authors and texts, a time chart and a glossary. There are no suggestions for further reading, nor is there an index.
As the editors acknowledge, the flavour of the selection is strongly Protestant and Reformed, and the structure reflects an unapologetic commitment to classical patterns, with an obvious investment in the primacy of Trinitarian theology. The assumption is that students need to know what the tradition is if they are to engage with it intelligently (far less critique it in response to cultural imperatives, real or imagined). In keeping with that logic, the preoccupation is mainly historical rather than contemporary, both to assist with the tracing of development and to obviate obsession with present-day intuitions. These points are underlined, and at times nuanced, in the brief introductory essays, which provide useful overviews of each doctrinal territory.
Selection for such collections is invidious, and there are, as ever, some questionable inclusions and omissions here. The preoccupation with Western sources perhaps requires more justification than it receives, and there is some significant unevenness even from a Western perspective, especially if relatively minor voices are not to sound a little more important than they arguably should, and clear protagonists are to be given their due. The structural arrangement is occasionally odd (for example, the division of the doctrine of God into only two basic sections requires Anselm, Richard of St Victor and Thomas Aquinas to be treated as ‘patristic’), and certain topics are rather submerged (such as sin and grace, or the sacraments, or mission). A number of the classical excerpts deserve to be rendered in more contemporary style (one feels that ready availability of permission rather than readability has determined some choices). However, the volume contains many helpful short texts, and in conjunction with other teaching resources will prove a valuable tool in the ever-vital work of teaching theology to beginners.
University of St Andrews
Stephen Kuhrt,
Tom Wright for Everyone: Putting the Theology of N. T. Wright into Practice in the Local Church
, SPCK: London, 2011; 160 pp.: 9780281063932, £9.99 (pbk)
Stephen Kuhrt is vicar of Christ Church, New Malden, a self-styled evangelical and an enthusiast of the writings of N. T. Wright.
In this book, Kuhrt charts his developing frustrations with the conservative evangelical tradition from which he came and in which he was nurtured. Kurht found in the writings of N. T. Wright a restatement of evangelicalism that both addressed the frustrations he felt and gave a new framework to and impetus for his ministry. Now he seeks to put into practice in the parish he serves what he understands Wright’s theological agenda to be. It makes, according to Kuhrt, an ‘exciting difference … to life, worship and mission of the local church’ (p. viii).
Chapter 1 sets out Wright’s academic and ecclesiastical career. Kuhrt observes that there has been a significant degree of ‘non-engagement’ both with Wright personally and with his extensive writings.
In Chapter 2, Kuhrt describes the increasing concerns he felt some years ago about the ‘official position’ (p. 23) of evangelicalism. This was where I became unsettled as I read the book, because I had understood evangelicalism to be an approach to and way of thinking about certain questions, rather than a settled body of doctrine.
The third chapter points to the principal elements of Wright’s theological writings. It is an excellent summary of Wright’s position, and does credit to Wright’s magisterial restatement of the framework and content of Christian theology. It is an uncritical overview, except for some brief comments in another chapter, on pp. 99–100.
The remaining chapters of the book are autobiographical. They focus on how Kuhrt has sought to implement the practical implications of Wright’s theological writings in the mission and ministry of the church of which he is vicar.
Kuhrt’s book leads me to make three observations that flow into each other. The first is there is a little too much of the meta-narrative or interpretative framework that Wright sets out. Though I enormously respect Wright and the work he has done, I suspect he cannot have it all right; there surely needs to be more time for critical reflection on the body of his theological writings. I get uneasy when anyone says of another’s work that their work is the definitive restatement of something. Life and the work we do seem much more nuanced and provisional to me.
The second observation I have is that there is in this book a little too much Wright and not enough ‘Bible’ for me. I am interested in Wright’s views and respect them enormously. I wonder if Kuhrt’s congregation also wants less of Wright, more of Scripture and certainly more of the subtle critique it makes of our patterns of thinking and attempts to express it in our own formulations.
Last, I wonder if Kuhrt has exchanged one meta-narrative (that of conservative evangelicalism as Kuhrt understood it) for another (Kuhrt’s reading of Wright’s work)? Might there be some value in a more eclectic and critical approach?
These comments aside, the book is an honest attempt to ensure theology and praxis cohere. Kuhrt sets a fine example in that respect.
Durham University
Alfred Loisy,
Prelude to the Modernist Crisis: The “Firmin” Articles of Alfred Loisy
, trans. Christine E. Thirlway, ed. and intr. C. J. T. Talar, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2010; 124 pp.: 9780199754571, £35.00 (hbk)
At the turn of the nineteenth century a group of Roman Catholic thinkers, who were loosely in touch with each other, were probing the intellectual foundations of their faith. They were identified by anxious Roman authorities as ‘Modernists’. The Encyclical Pascendi (1907) stitched together, without acknowledgement, quotations primarily from the work of Alfred Loisy and George Tyrrell. Tyrrell called the accepted Roman approach to revelation, the development of doctrine and the exercise of authority ‘medievalism’. Challenged by the influence of modern critical research into the nature of Scripture, doctrine and the practice of religion, which was largely the preserve of Protestantism, Loisy and Tyrrell sought to come to terms with post-Enlightenment thinking about history and science and belatedly to bring Catholicism into dialogue with the contemporary world.
Loisy was a reluctant controversialist who took time to work through the critical questions raised by his biblical research. However, when Harnack’s Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity) was published in 1900, he saw an opportunity. Drawing on material he had already published, he wrote an elegant riposte to Harnack’s ultimately simplistic essay in liberal protestant fundamental theology. Loisy’s L’Évangile et L’Église (1902) was both a refutation of Harnack and a creative apologia for Catholicism. In 1904, together with four other of Loisy’s books, it was condemned by the Holy Office.
L’Évangile et L’Église became available in English in 1903. The essays in the Revue du clergé français (1898–1900) on which it was based remained almost unknown. They are now excellently translated in this volume. We can see how deftly Loisy positioned himself: in his thinking about development as an heir to the respected Cardinal Newman, in his opposition to the liberal protestant individualism of Auguste Sabatier, and later Harnack, as a convinced catholic. Loisy has much to say about religious experience and revelation: the unacknowledged influence of Schleiermacher is pervasive, but Loisy links this with a robust plea for ‘an infallible Church’ which has the power to discriminate between true and false interpretations of changing religious symbolism.
In his day, Loisy was a bold intellectual adventurer. Charles Talar’s careful introduction takes us through the salient points. Loisy embraced the use of critical reason, but maintained, at this stage, a careful balance between the transcendence and immanence of God. His thought now seems mainstream but markedly underdeveloped. It is telling that he had to publish as ‘Firmin’, the thinnest of disguises, since Firmin was his middle name. Just to show us how far he was from nineteenth-century Roman orthodoxy, Talar includes a riposte by Charles Maignen, which defends ‘the revelation of dogmas’ as ‘perfect and transparent from the beginning’. Loisy’s conviction that this was historical nonsense brought him into predictable confrontation with the Roman authorities. This little volume does much to help English readers understand the strategic importance of Loisy’s doomed initiative.
Liverpool Hope University
Jason Springs,
Toward a Generous Orthodoxy: Prospects for Hans Frei’s Postliberal Theology
, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2010; 248 pp.: 9780195395044, £45.00 (hbk)
Orthodox and generous. This is the underlying thrust of a work which seeks to bring Hans Frei back to the centre of narrative theology. Although it is only directly voiced occasionally, there is a pervasive suspicion throughout that contemporary postliberal theologies of various types, in eschewing ‘secular reason’ and interdisciplinary openmindedness, place unnecessary limits on theology – here more the ‘handmaiden of the church [and] Christ’ than queen of the sciences. The central task that occupies Springs, however, is a vindication of narrative theology drawn from a coherent and comprehensive reading of Frei’s work. This he achieves through a lucid and systematic approach effectively countering the methodological and philosophical criticisms Frei and narrative theology have elicited in the intervening period.
Springs takes particular care to distance Frei from Lindbeck’s overassertion that Scripture ‘absorbs’ the world of the believer. He notes, as such, that Frei recognized a propositional truth to certain doctrines that is ontological rather than intra-systematic, even while it is the story that is fundamental: ‘the meaning of the doctrine is the story rather than the meaning of the story being the doctrine’, convincingly attributing this distance to the influence of Barth. The foundations of Christian belief then form the key concern of this work. Springs steers his reading of Frei past what he sees as pitfalls for postliberalism in what has elsewhere been criticized as narratological foundationalism or the watertight cultural relativism of antifoundationalism. Instead he elucidates Frei’s position with reference to Alvin Platinga’s ‘properly basic beliefs’, asserting that for Frei God’s revelation in Scripture is ‘properly basic’. This neatly avoids the isolationism of more stringently fideist positions admitting a certain accountability in requiring justifying conditions, such as not being disproved by historical investigation.
Scripture doesn’t then offer a system for understanding the world, or even a ‘biblical point of view’, but it does offer a coherent ‘followable world’. While this might for some still carry the whiff of lacking historical reference, Springs in his aptly titled chapter ‘But Did It Really Happen?’ teases out through a carefully nuanced argument what emerges as a distinctively realist account. Frei neither reduces the gospel to a piece of history nor a literary world, but finds God’s presence in the here and now of ecclesial communities as Scripture miraculously suffices for God’s continued revelation. The variousness of these reading contexts is precisely what defines the task of the theologian to continually redescribe, as the gospel calls out time and again for interpretation in a ‘hermeneutic of restoration’. This redescriptive task forms the substance of a living tradition in which the realistic narratives of Scripture engage with the social-practical character of consensual reading.
In what is a fairly technical but always engaging argument Springs both answers Frei’s critics with a robust and detailed response and also lays the basis for a narrative theology that is both orthodox and generous. This work is essential reading not only for those interested in Frei and narrative theology but also for those postliberals who seek a more enlightened relationship with nontheological voices and who recognize the operation of grace outside the Church’s walls.
London
Walter Brueggemann,
Disruptive Grace: Reflections on God, Scripture and the Church
, ed. and intr. Carolyn Sharp, SCM Press: London, 2011; 400 pp.: 9780334043997, £25.00 (pbk)
Walter Brueggemann testifies to a God of surprises, who will find unexpected ways of subverting the dominant ideologies of our capitalist and consumerist Western societies, and will offer strange life, energizing newness and hope in the midst of despair. It is the task of the minister, Brueggemann avers, to enter imaginatively into powerful testimony to this God, who is the same God as the careful reader may find in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Christian Old Testament. With a combination of evangelical imagination (in a non-sectarian sense of the word ‘evangelical’) and patient attention to the rhetorical shaping of the text, such readers may see their way to a world of possibility beyond the limitations of our present social arrangements.
Much of this will be familiar to long-time readers of Brueggemann, but this volume is none the worse for that. New readers will need to fasten their seatbelts to adjust to the roller-coaster ride of his distinctive vocabulary and phraseology, and his sweeping way with highly thought-provoking cultural comparisons and asides. One chapter called up US foreign policy in Vietnam, Anthony Eden at Suez and Nelson Mandela, in short order. Ironically, I tend to find that reading Brueggemann too slowly induces a kind of intellectual vertigo, as reference points swing in and out of view at remarkable speed. Read more quickly and it seems to merge into a startlingly coherent vision: the God of Scripture calls into being a church which offers a counter-testimony to the world in which we live, and the cultural references become fruitful illustrative asides.
However one reads, Brueggemann is endlessly quotable. A tirade against anxiety stops to concede that the episcopal priests he is addressing are doubtless ‘not an anxious lot’ (p. 60). Further: ‘multi-tasking may be the visible enactment of anti-Sabbath’ (p. 70). Elsewhere, we have ‘the starchy voice of Torah’ (p. 107); laments having the form of AA’s 12-steps (p. 183), and – in what might be a character note for this entire volume – ‘chutzpah before the throne’ (p. 210).
This is a book for those in ministry. It contains seventeen addresses delivered largely in ecclesial settings between 2002 and 2009. There is some overlap between them, but not irritatingly so. The work of turning them into a book has been done by Carolyn Sharp, a Yale Old Testament professor, who provides an introduction to the book as well as to each of the four sections into which the chapters are placed: Torah; Prophets; Writings; and ‘canon and imagination’. There is perhaps more on Genesis, Exodus and the Psalms than any other book, though all the prophets are well represented. It was interesting to this reader to see Brueggemann reflecting at the end that his mode of discourse is deeply shaped by Paul Ricoeur and his work on the imagination. I continue to think that Brueggemann’s oeuvre represents the best available example of the fruit of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic in biblical studies.
Overall, this is bracing and thoroughly worth reading for any who are struggling to recall how to speak powerfully and provocatively of the God of Scripture in today’s world.
Cranmer Hall, St John’s College, Durham University
John Goldingay,
Genesis for Everyone: Part 1 Chapters 1—16
, SPCK: London, 2010; 197 pp.: 9780281061242, £9.99 (pbk);
Genesis for Everyone: Part 2 Chapters 17—50
, SPCK: London, 2010; 186 pp.: 9780281061259, £9.99 (pbk);
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone
, SPCK: London, 2011; 197 pp.: 9780281061280, £9.99 (pbk);
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone
, SPCK: London, 2011; 196 pp.: 9780281061297, £9.99 (pbk)
Scholars have sometimes sought, in the name of objectivity, to isolate their discourse about the Bible from the concerns of the communities that hold these texts to be sacred. This supposed rigour can lead to mutual impoverishment. Believers may not be alerted to the complexities in their Scripture, particularly those that arise from the fact that its original context was very different from that of later readers; academics may limit the links they are prepared to explore between their own contexts and the texts to a narrow range of, currently fashionable, topics.
How welcome then is this series of short, affordable commentaries in which a distinguished scholar, thoroughly conversant with the issues with which the academy is wrestling as it reads the Old Testament, seeks to share his insights with the wider Christian communities (these books are primarily ‘for’ Christian readers, though ‘Everyone’ would learn from them)! Following the pattern established by N. T. Wright in his companion series on the New Testament, Goldingay translates short sections of the Hebrew text and then offers his comment, almost always beginning with an illustrative story drawn from his life or from art or literature or politics. There follows a discursive section, always provocative and revealing a deep engagement with the text. While this method undeniably highlights the fact that these are personal readings, Goldingay’s profound scholarship, practical wisdom and willingness to confront difficult questions ensures that he is never mawkishly self-referential or simplistic. To facilitate accessibility, there are no footnotes and few explicit references to other scholars, although those who know something of current debates will be aware, again and again, that they are being addressed. Each volume ends with a short glossary explaining briefly the meaning and significance of key terms employed in the translation and commentary.
In these commentaries Goldingay models what it means to be in a dialogue with these texts; one in which our modern questions are raised but in which we must also hear what questions they ask of us. His is a questioning hermeneutic, but his suspicions are not confined to the texts, but also addressed to himself and the context in which he lives. Accordingly, the ‘otherness’ of the Bible is not treated as something to be skipped over, or explained away, but rather as a resource that provokes deep reflection. Goldingay wishes to give the Scriptures the benefit of the doubt. ‘I am wary of interpreting the Bible in a way designed to make sense to me as a Western person, because I assume that my western assumptions are sometimes wrong’ (
These two commentaries can be regarded as one work, divided at a fairly arbitrary point in the text into equal parts. Genesis unfolds, in this reading, as a book primarily about the God of Israel; one who is not ‘the god of the philosophers and scientists’; one who can express regret and who can be argued or cajoled into changing his mind ‘In prayer we urge God to be God, perhaps differently from the way God is currently planning to be God’ (
Joshua and Judges contain much that has terrified modern exegetes. Goldingay does not shy away from tackling such topics as the cherem, the ‘devotion’ to God (that is, the slaughter) of the men, women, children and domestic animals of the Canaanite cities captured by the incoming Israelites. He urges the ‘one-off’ nature of these events; the likelihood that they are unhistorical, a wish-fulfillment by later writers troubled by the continuing influence of Canaanite culture and religion and, daringly, their justice, given the appalling sins (including child sacrifice) of these peoples. Judges for Goldingay ‘is one of the most unpleasant books in the Bible … a dispiriting story of rebellion against God and violence’ (p. 5); it tells of a land in which, indeed, God seems increasingly absent. Ruth’s is a brighter story and one that encourages readers to resist patriarchal stereotypes, but here too he discerns darker elements. In contrast to the Genesis volumes, to keep down the length of the commentary, short sections of these books are sometimes dealt with by means of a short summary.
Godlingay’s sensitivity to the ambiguities surrounding power and the powerful informs his reading. He takes a sensible line on the so-called ‘minimalist’ controversy, arguing that these books were edited in the Persian period but ‘were hardly written from scratch at that stage’ (p. 4). However, it is the literary depictions of Eli, Samuel, Saul and David, viewed as explorations of what it means to exercise authority under Yahweh, that are his central concern. To read these stories attentively, Goldingay argues, is to be puzzled by the enigmas that their characters – especially David – present; it is to become aware of our own deeply ambiguous reactions to power and the powerful. Once again, as in the previous volume reviewed, short summaries replace extended comments on occasions.
Two other volumes on
Wesley College, Bristol
Marcus J. Borg,
Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
, SPCK: London, 2011; 352 pp.: 9780281064182, £12.99 (pbk)
Marcus Borg has contributed in two significant ways to our knowledge of the historical Jesus, initially through some first-rate research, and in the course of the years through a host of more accessible publications. Very few scholars match his ability as a mediator of academic work on Jesus to a wider public. This, he thinks, may be his ‘last comprehensive book about Jesus’ (p. 1).
He started writing it, he tells us, as ‘a modest revision’ (p. 1) of his 1987 study, Jesus: A New Vision. But modesty, in this matter, eluded him, and the work has ended up as an almost complete rewrite. It was published in the USA five years ago, and has now been issued in the UK. Borg’s reading was up-to-date in 2006, and the book does not feel dated.
Borg is a concise communicator. Style and structure are beautifully clear. He is candid, too, and glad to tell his readers where he stands – not only on Jesus as a figure of history but also on issues of faith, worship and discipleship. Indeed he wants his historical work to point people towards more open ways of Christian living today, in deliberate contrast to the witness of the Christian Right. The kind of Christianity he advocates is deeply committed to God, to personal and political transformation, and to the way of Jesus, but is less concerned with detailing a precise set of beliefs. Obviously Borg’s agenda is formed in America, but his British readers too will surely be glad to reflect on the issues he raises.
Borg places Jesus in historical and political setting. ‘The Roman world … was an imperial form of a preindustrial agricultural domination system’ (p. 79). This context is then explained, so that we can hear within it Jesus’ challenging message of the passion and compassion of God. For Jesus was both mystical and deeply worldly, animated by a deep experience of the Spirit, yet teaching in ways that undermined the structures of convention and power. His godly wisdom subverted people’s assumed values of family, wealth, honour and purity, and invited his hearers to find in God a simpler yet more demanding centre for their lives.
Borg believes that Jesus did heal and exorcise, but other miracle accounts in the Gospels would be better read as metaphor – feedings, nature miracles, maybe even Easter. ‘It does not matter to me whether the tomb was empty’ (p. 287). The meaning of such stories is more important than mere fact.
While candour of this kind can polarize views, many readers will welcome the room Borg allows them for critical reserve about the Gospel record. I do think he underplays Christology – Jesus’ sense of his own personal importance, as the hub of God’s dealings with Israel and the world. But on Jesus’ spirituality, context, teaching and ethics, Borg has given us rich food for thought. Students, preachers and thoughtful lay people will learn from this.
Westminster College, Cambridge
Anthony Le Donne,
Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?
Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2011; 146pp.: 9780802865267, £7.99 (pbk)
Le Donne has written an engaging and accessible book on the historical Jesus in post modernist historiography. In three short sections, he tees up some familiar questions. Was Jesus ever married? Did he think he was a messiah, or indeed more than a messiah? Did Jesus teach that the end of the world was near? To answer, Le Donne introduces the insights and viewpoint of postmodernism with judicious summaries and with deft examples, and then shows how from this viewpoint we can with some real confidence recover a good many details of Jesus’ life, belief and teaching.
Le Donne is allaying the fears to which any mention of postmodernism gives rise: fears that the postmodernist will see in supposedly reliable memories the distortion of passions, partisan interests and mere mistakes. Le Donne does not just admit but robustly asserts that such passions and interests are indeed integral to memory.
Le Donne is a professor at Lincoln Christian University, Illinois, ‘a Christian higher education community whose mission is to nurture and equip Christians with a Biblical worldview to serve and lead in the church and the world’. There may be less ample space in the USA than in the UK for the historiography that treats the first-century evidence for Jesus and Judaism as dispassionately as medieval historians might treat eleventh-century accounts of the Norman Conquest. Le Donne’s most important examples from Jesus’ life are the divergent accounts of Jesus’ talk of the Temple’s destruction (Mark 13.1–2; John 2.18–21). Le Donne himself refers to the same results reached – by a straightforward, theory light comparison between the Gospels’ stories – by E. P. Sanders in 1985.
One feature of Le Donne’s procedure may surprise us. Why does he not reflect upon our own contemporary agenda and passions? His first section tees up questions over Jesus’ sex life. But why is Jesus’ sex life of such interest to our generation? Le Donne never asks, so he never analyses the effect of our own agenda on the presuppositions and emphases in current ‘memories’ of Jesus. His treatment of Jesus’ family life is then quirky. Le Donne pays no attention to the chastity of priests or soldiers on God’s service, or to the celibacy of angels, the Qumranites and John the Baptist; nor to the role of women in the literary and pedagogic structure of the Gospels. Le Donne considers Jesus’ mother at the wedding at Cana. He does not take us forward to the crucifixion where she is, according to John, ‘Woman’ once more. John’s whole Gospel is informed by the imagery of childbirth and the readers’ gestation towards a new birth from above into a new creation ‘completed’ at Jesus’ death (Gen. 2.1–2; John 19.30).
Most significant in Le Donne’s treatment of Jesus’ family life is its overall character: as a domestic drama with all the ups and downs that would play well in a soap opera or popular novel. This is not exactly a criticism; it is, rather, to show that Le Donne himself is subject to the presuppositions and passions of our own day. So are we all; and we might perhaps have hoped that a postmodernist would have reflected – with all the good grace that characterizes this whole book – on his own perspective, procedure and intended audience.
London
Nicholas Perrin and Richard B. Hays (eds),
Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright
, SPCK: London, 2011; 281 pp.: 9780281062133, £19.99 (pbk)
In his introduction to this book, Nick Perrin speaks of a general lack of theological engagement with the work of N. T. Wright – a theological silence. I suppose that depends on which door you’re listening at. Compared to the sheer output of Tom Wright, there certainly has been more theological silence than one might have expected. The Nineteenth Wheaton Theology Conference in 2010 was dedicated to discussing Tom Wright’s work on Jesus and Paul, assembling a bevy of Wright’s friends, as admirers and critics, to debate the theological implications of his work – an emphatic way to break any silence. This book represents the proceedings of that conference. There are two sections: the first contains four papers from scholars addressing aspects of Wright’s work on the historical Jesus; the second, four scholars responding to Wright’s work on Paul. After each paper, a response by N. T. Wright is included. Each section concludes with a paper by Wright himself, looking towards the respective futures of historical Jesus studies and Pauline studies in the life of the Church. Among the papers themselves there is surely something for everyone. How does Wright’s work relate to the Fourth Gospel? What role ought history to play in approaches to Jesus Christ, especially in epistemological terms? Where does Wright’s work lead us in terms of ethics? What about ecclesiology – why do so many emerging church leaders find direction from a former Anglican bishop? Wright’s emphasis on creation in dealing with resurrection is challenged. And, of course, the area where there certainly has been theological engagement with Wright: justification. Kevin Vanhoozer’s paper on this particular subject is one of the highlights. Most authors take Wright to task in one area or another. Disagreements are respectful and constructive, but it is these disagreements, and Wright’s responses to them, which give the book its spark. Wright’s own papers are also definite highlights. The first, on Jesus studies, contains a strikingly personal account of why and how Wright came to be involved in that field, and an impassioned appeal for the place of history alongside faith. His paper on Paul also begins with a deeply personal anecdote en route to appealing for the priority of the Church to be recognized in Paul. These two papers help the reader to understand some of Wright’s motivations and aspirations for the Church, the people of God. This is an important book, especially for those who wish to engage academically with the papers, or reflect deeply and thoughtfully on the material – or for those who simply prefer to have a book in their hands. However, since the original papers and panel discussions can be watched on the Wheaton College website, there will be others who may not see the need to purchase this volume. Of course, they will miss out on Wright’s written responses to the papers. As we expect with SPCK, the book is very well presented. Unfortunately, and uncharacteristically, typographical errors occur in some of the infrequent transliterations of Greek – but this is a minor point.
Highland Theological College
Note: SPCK apologizes for the errors in the transliterated Greek; corrected copies of the book are now available and faulty copies can be exchanged.
Markus Vinzent,
Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity and the Making of the New Testament
, Ashgate: Farnham, 2011; 276pp.: 9781409417910, £60.00 (hbk); 9781409417927, £19.99 (pbk)
It was not, as a host of New Testament scholars would have us believe, Jesus' resurrection that triggered the new movement and made Christianity into what it has become (p. 17). It was only as a result of Marcion's rediscovery of Paul and his promotion of the gospel within his New Testament that Christ's resurrection regained a place in the memory of Christianity (p. 111). In fact, without Marcion, the Christian creed might have ended with the passion (p. 226). What is more, Marcion neither used nor edited his gospel, but probably produced it in his Roman classroom (p. 86). It was only in response to Marcion that others reworked his text, producing Mark, Matthew and canonical Luke (p. 88). With the exception of Ignatius, a ‘Resurrection Mania' broke out when the likes of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian felt that they had to claim back from Marcion Jesus' bodily resurrection, canonical Luke and establish the authority of the other Gospels.
This, in short, is what Vinzent wants us to accept as the best explanation of the available evidence in this 276-page book (which has some 1,530 footnotes and was 19 years in the making). He claims that he tries to read as little as possible into sources and hold back from conclusions rather than running into standard explanations or presenting unconventional speculations (p. 24).
In what follows, I shall contribute to the discussion by offering a critique of Vinzent's approach to three important texts that are generally held to predate Marcion.
The first is 1 Clement (
The resurrection features in the Letter of Barnabas (
In dealing with 1 Peter, Vinzent acknowledges the author's dependence upon Pauline thinking when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus. First Peter 1.3–4 says: ‘he has caused us to be born again to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah from the dead, to an inheritance which is incorruptible …' It is interesting therefore that Vinzent's argument that 1.10–12 and 3.18–20 voice a position going against Marcion, which implies a composition in the mid-second century. Vinzent believes that, like Marcion, 1 Peter assumes that, in quoting Isaiah 40.6–8 in 1.24–25, the imperishable inheritance does not apply to the flesh, which is a major difference from Paul. Contra Paul, 1 Peter like Marcion believes in a non-physical resurrection and salvation, focusing on being alive in the spirit, going into heaven, and the ‘eight souls' reflecting other spiritually oriented writings (e.g. the so-called Gnostics) (pp. 47–8).
Vinzent accuses others of reading into texts (particularly those prior to Marcion!) Jesus' resurrection, making them guilty of speculation and hermeneutics. In his view, they simply do not take the texts as seriously as he does. To his credit, there are texts in which the resurrection of Jesus is assumed but not explicitly stated. In these cases it is often the resurrection of believers that is emphasized.
However, my brief analysis of Vinzent's interpretation of 1 Clement, Barnabas and 1 Peter illustrates that one could easily accuse Vinzent of exactly that which he accuses others of doing. In my opinion he doesn't take these texts seriously enough when Christ's resurrection is clearly stated. Even when Ignatius' letters (
As for the physicality of the resurrection in Paul, quite surprisingly, I found Vinzent more conservative than many conservatives, for he argues for the resurrection of the flesh in Paul and 1 Clement. No New Testament scholar I know holds this view. In Paul flesh is usually associated with one's sinful nature and corruptibility that perish (flesh and blood in 1 Cor. 15.50; Rom. 8.3–11 etc.), whereas the mortal body will be resurrected incorruptible and imperishable (cf. Rom. 8.10–11; 1 Cor. 15.51–54; Phil. 3.20–21 etc.). It is interesting that Vinzent sees a major difference between 1 Peter and Paul's understanding of the resurrection body, when in fact Paul can (as 1 Peter) speak of being alive in the spirit, going to heaven etc., while maintaining belief in bodily resurrection (cf. 2 Cor. 5.1–10).
Will this reviewer recommend this work? Not to laypersons and ministers, but indeed to scholars who would obviously measure Vinzent's claims against others such as N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003).
Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Stephen Westerholm (ed.),
The Blackwell Companion to Paul
, Blackwell Companions to Religion, Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford, 2011; 636 pp.: 9781405188449, £110.00 (hbk)
Despite the mountain of books on Paul, including some substantial single-authored overviews, there are, to my knowledge, no major, multi-author companions of the length and scope of this new addition to the Blackwell Companions series. There is good reason, then, to welcome this substantial and wide-ranging volume.
The book is divided into three main parts. The first, comprising almost half of the volume, deals with Paul and his letters in the context of Christian origins. Along with chapters on the main groups of letters and churches, there are others covering topics ranging from textual evidence and Pauline chronology to women and empire. The second part, covering some two hundred pages, focuses on ‘readers of Paul’, from the second century up to the present day. Most of the selected readers are individual theologians in the Christian tradition – from Marcion and Origen through to the Wesleys and Barth – though the final four essays in this section deal respectively with recent continental philosophers, Jewish, Orthodox (Christian) and African readers. The third and final part, around one hundred pages in length, considers aspects of ‘the legacy of Paul’. Two essays deal with Art and Literature, then four essays examine various areas of Christian theology: Sin and the Fall, the Spirit, ethics and the Church.
Even that cursory summary should give a clear sense of the focus and priorities of the book as a whole. While the first part addresses the kinds of topics established within biblical scholarship and generally considered within undergraduate courses on Paul, fully half of the book focuses on the reception and interpretation of Paul, primarily in the context of Christian theology. This is no accident: the editor’s aim is to present a volume that will ‘address the interests of both [students of the New Testament and students of Christian theology] and … facilitate their mutual conversation’ (p. 1). As such, the book offers a wealth of material to inform and to stimulate the study of Paul’s impact on the history of theology, both reflecting and promoting the now well-established interest in the history of interpretation. Selection is inevitable even for a large companion, and this companion – while it contains much that will be useful for almost any serious course on Paul – will serve some interests more than others. Some will wish for more on the socio-historical aspects of the study of Paul (archaeology, Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts and so on), or on the range of contemporary interpretative perspectives (feminist, postcolonial and so on). Needless to say, not everyone will like the Christian theological focus that shapes the work as a whole. But, given its particular and explicit aims, the volume succeeds very well indeed. The editor has assembled an international and high-quality team of expert contributors, whose essays are well written and well informed. This fine (if expensive) volume will be an important reference point for students of Paul – and, equally, students of Paul’s impact on the history of Christian theology – for some time to come.
University of Exeter
Tom Wright,
The New Testament for Everyone
, SPCK: London, 2011; 570 pp.: 9780281064267, £14.99 (hbk)
Most widely used translations of the Bible are committee productions, but sometimes an individual version (e.g. J. B. Phillips, William Barclay) gains an enthusiastic following. Tom Wright's version, like Barclay's, is the work of a respected New Testament scholar who has made it his mission to bring his scholarship to a wider readership. Indeed, Tom Wright's (newly completed) For Everyone series is in effect the new Barclay. In this volume the translations of individual New Testament books for that series are brought together unto a single version.
The publishers claim that the result is ‘a seamless whole', but in fact the episodic origin of the version sometimes shows. The same Greek idiom might be translated ‘Can any of you add fifteen inches to your height just by worrying about it?' (Matt. 6.27) or 'Which of you by being anxious can add a day to your lifetime?' (Luke 12.25), but surely not both. In Matthew Peter ‘cried like a baby' but in Luke he ‘wept bitterly' (the same Greek words). The traditional term ‘righteous(ness)', which is carefully avoided in Romans, appears repeatedly (though generally in quotes) when the same issue is discussed in Galatians.
Like all responsible recent translators, Wright uses gender-inclusive language where the masculines of the Greek are clearly intended to cover everyone. On the whole he does it sensitively, using a variety of stylistic devices, including, rightly, the ‘singular “they” ' which is now standard English whatever the purists say. ‘Humans' is probably also now acceptable English (Mark 2.27; Heb. 9.27). Paul's regular address to his readers as ‘brothers' becomes ‘my dear family'. For my taste, Wright rather overdoes the use of the second person to avoid masculine pronouns; I was surprised when Jesus addressed the devil with ‘It takes more than bread to keep you alive' (Matt. 4.4). Oddly, the child Jesus used as an illustration is ‘her' in Matthew 18.2, but ‘it' in Mark 9.36.
Greek uses a lot of little conjunctions, which translators often ignore. Wright has taken them seriously, especially gar. Claiming that ‘for' is no longer normal idiom (though in fact he does still use it), he has often substituted ‘you see'. This takes some getting used to, especially when it occurs three times in five verses (Rom. 7.14–18; Heb. 8.3–7). I'm afraid I was constantly reminded of Lewis Carroll's immortal line, ‘For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.'
Wright is sparing with capitals. Some readers may be surprised to find, for example, ‘the holy spirit', ‘the son of man' and ‘the satan' without capital letters (and yet also, oddly, ‘the Fullness', Col. 1.19), though Wright has not brought into his translation his use of lower case ‘god' in his more academic works. The choice is not always consistent: we find both ‘David's Son' and ‘David's son' in Matthew 21.9–15, ‘Tetrarch' and ‘tetrarch' in Luke 3.1.
One bold move is to accept that ‘Christ' has become for many simply the ‘surname' of Jesus, and so to banish it from the translation. The normal rendering is, rightly, ‘the Messiah', but it may take readers some time to get used to such phrases as ‘if anyone is in the Messiah' (2 Cor. 5.17) or ‘every one of you who has been baptized into the Messiah has put on the Messiah' (Gal. 3.27). More boldly, however, Tom Wright has experimented with using ‘king' for ‘Christ', so that in Paul's epistles we often find ‘King Jesus'. When used without a capital (and without ‘Jesus'), this can lead to surprising expressions such as ‘the king's version of circumcision' (Col. 2.11), and even with the capital the phrase ‘to lead us into the King' (Philem. 6) is not easy to negotiate.
On the whole, Wright wears his learning lightly, but there are times when echoes of academic debate colour the translation. Not surprisingly for those familiar with Wright's Pauline writings, the Greek term dikaiosynē (traditionally ‘righteousness') poses a particular problem. As he rightly points out in his Preface there simply isn't an English word which carries all its freight. ‘Covenant justice' is his preferred rendering for God's dikaiosynē in Romans 3.21–26, while the dikaiosynē of the believer is ‘the status of covenant membership' (Rom. 4.11). A Wright concordance would show a lot more uses of ‘covenant' than of its normal Greek ‘equivalent', diathēkē. Even outside Paul, the same terminology appears: dikaiosynē in Matthew is ‘covenant behaviour' (5.20) and ‘God's righteous covenant plan' (21.32). The verb dikaioō (traditionally ‘justify') gets even more expansive treatment: in Romans 3.24 the single participle ‘justified' becomes ‘declared to be in the right, to be members of the covenant', and in Romans 3.30 ‘he will justify' becomes ‘he will make the declaration “in the right”'. ‘In the right' (within quotes) is used as a technical term for the justified believer (Rom. 5.1, 17, 19).
All this may be helpful for the student wrestling with Pauline theology, but what will the more casual reader make of it?
A review naturally focuses on renderings that I found questionable or surprising, so let me now redress the balance by listing almost at random a few of the (many) places where either the underlying exegesis or the choice of idiom caused me to shout Hooray:
‘Wisdom is as wisdom does' (Matt. 11.19) ‘They get all high and mighty and let everybody know it' (Matt. 20.26) ‘You don't know your Bibles' (Matt. 22.29) ‘Royal appearing' – for parousia (Matt. 24.27, 37, 39) ‘See if we care!' they replied. ‘See to it yourself' (Matt. 27.5) ‘There was no room for them in the normal living quarters' (Luke 2.7, which does not say ‘inn'!) ‘Regiment' - for the name ‘Legion' (Luke 8.30; but oddly ‘Legion' in Mark 5.9) ‘Giving me a black eye' (Luke 18.5) ‘They stood still, a picture of gloom' (Luke 24.17) ‘The Judaeans' as the default translation for John's controversial use of ‘the Jews' ‘Thousands and thousands of angels gathered for a festival' (Heb. 12.22).
The Wright version may not become everyone's staple, but it will bring welcome stimulus and enlightenment especially to those who use it alongside a more routine committee version.
Llangelynnin, Gwynedd
Saint Jerome,
Commentary on Galatians
, trans. Andrew Cain, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (Patristic Series) 121, Catholic University of America Press: Washington DC, 2010; 310 pp.: 9780813201214, $39.95 (hbk)
This is a lucid rendering of the longest and most erudite of the early Latin commentaries on the epistle to the Galatians. Jerome’s Paul is not Luther’s Paul – he would probably have denounced the reformer as a second Marcion – and if he devotes more labour to Galatians than to any of the apostle’s other writings it is because it served as a showcase for his talents as a scholar and philologist. In his introduction, Andrew Cain observes that Jerome passed over the commentaries of Ambrosiaster in silence, perhaps for fear of inviting an invidious comparison, but triumphs easily over his other Latin precursor, Marius Victorinus, whose subtlety as a philosopher was less evident to Jerome than the lacunae in his knowledge of the Scriptures (p. 31). Jerome’s debt to Greek mentors is not easily ascertained, as tradition has preserved little or nothing of what was said on this letter by Alexander the Valentinian, Didymus the Blind, Eusebius of Emesa or Theodore of Heraclea (pp. 21–5); at the same time, Jerome is now our principal witness to the contents of the tenth book of Origen’s Stromateis. The notes to Cain’s translation amply justify his assertion that the ‘presence’ of Origen can ‘be felt on virtually every page’ (p. 27), and on p. 28 he illustrates Jerome’s methods of adaptation by setting his comment on Galatians 3.19–20 against an excerpt from Origen in the Apology of Pamphilus: we are not surprised to discover that the presbyter of the fourth century is more copious in his citations from the Old Testament and evinces a greater reverence for Mary. Both Hebrew learning and his Mariolatry reinforce Jerome’s armoury against Marcion, who is often chastized by Jerome in this commentary for his efforts to prune the gospel of any text that threatened to vindicate the Law (pp. 47–51). Some modern scholars would be less ready than Cain to endorse the catholic charge that it was always Marcion who falsified the primitive deposit of Christian literature; his annotations, however, provide a compendious bibliography of recent work on all the ancient commentators, including his own prolific and ingenious exhumations of antecedents to Jerome’s commentary in Tertullian, Lactantius and Eusebius of Emesa. In his footnotes to the translation itself, the reader will find not only the patristic or classical sources of many conceits employed by Jerome but also a sly aside on his ignorance of Syriac (p. 109), a deft elucidation of the heresiological commonplace that a false hermeneutic entails a false Christology (pp. 78–9) and a sceptical discussion of his claim to be following Origen when he explains the altercation of Paul and Peter in Antioch as a staged debate (p. 105). Since Cain comments aptly on certain peculiarities of Galatians (cf. p. 71 on the absence of thanksgiving), one is surprised that he fails to note that Jerome’s reading of Galatians 2.3 is only one of two opposing variants. But of course it is only good scholarship that surprises us by its omissions.
Christ Church, Oxford
J. Warren Smith,
Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue: The Theological Foundation of Ambrose’s Ethics
, ed. David C. Steinmetz, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2011); 317 pp.: 9780195369939, £45.00 (hbk)
Ambrose of Milan is best known for two events in his long life – presiding over the baptism of Augustine of Hippo in
Although Warren Smith agrees that Ambrose lacks the theological sophistication of an Origen or Augustine, in his newest work Smith finds a wealth of material in the writings of Ambrose concerning the identity and ethics of the Church. Smith masterfully uses this material to construct a window for the reader into the moral theology of this fourth-century bishop as he sought to exhort and lead Christians in Milan. Smith builds this window in two steps. In the first part of the book he clears an opening for the window by exploring Ambrose’s hylomorphic theological anthropology and his specific pre-Augustinian understanding of the fallen human condition. Having thus prepared the reader, in the second part he installs the window by an exceptionally thorough exploration of the foundation of Ambrose’s moral theology – his theology of baptism. The two parts intentionally and logically progress from the question ‘Who are we?’ to ‘What should we do?’
Underlying any reading of Ambrose is a tension between Ambrose’s use of Scripture and his use of Stoic, Aristotelian and Platonic language. Smith’s interpretation of Ambrose resides in the heritage of Pierre Hadot, Goulven Madec and Andrew Lenox-Conyngham as he reads Ambrose’s theology as ‘primarily an expression of his reading of Scripture – albeit in conversation with philosopher-exegetes like Philo and Origen – rather than Plato or Plotinus’ (p. xviii). Although some recent scholarship has chosen to focus on how Platonic, Stoic and Aristotelian theories of virtue shaped Ambrose’s ethical structure, Smith desires to ‘invert such a line of enquiry and examine how Ambrose’s theological commitments influence his appropriation of these theories’ (p. xv).
The book’s style evinces Smith’s dual vocations as both a pastor and professor. The level of writing will please the eyes of the theologically minded church member while Smith’s copious endnotes and research in the primary works of Ambrose will be equally fragrant to the researcher. Especially enjoyable in this work are a hypothetical description of Augustine’s baptism based upon Ambrose’s writings on the subject and Smith’s continual comparison and contrast between Ambrose’s theology and the beliefs of classical philosophers. A previous understanding of the Platonic tri-partite soul is helpful but not necessary. This work serves as a wonderful addition to the library of the layman, pastor or researcher who wishes to explore Christian moral theology and the training of catechumens in the fourth century.
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts
Charles Freeman,
Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe
, Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2011; 322 pp.: 9780300125719, £25.00 (hbk)
‘[N]ot an original work – in fact, Jacobus was assiduous in detailing his sources … but he had the knack of not overloading his readers and of rewriting many of his stories in a lively style’ (p. 131). Charles Freeman’s shrewd appraisal of The Golden Legend (c.1260) applies equally to his own (2011) account – subtitled ‘How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe’. Stronger, perhaps on narrative description rather than historical explanation and maybe too ‘theology-lite’ for some readers of this journal, his book has, nonetheless, three genuine strengths. One is Freeman’s impressive capacity to absorb, synthesize and recycle an extensive range of specialist monographs and learned journal articles for the general reader, buttressed by exceptionally informative, user-friendly endnotes accompanying every chapter. Occasionally these, and the main text, contain minor, but unnerving, inaccuracies. Charlemagne’s father was surely Pepin, not ‘Peppin’ (p. 75), the distinguished medievalist Gordon Leff not Gordon Luff (p. 284), and the Yale historian of Reformation iconoclasm, Lee Palmer Wandel (extensively drawn upon by the author in Chapter 23) is presumed, wrongly, to be male (p. 285). Second (and unsurprisingly perhaps for an author described on the dust jacket as ‘Historical Consultant to the prestigious Blue Guides’(sic)!), Freeman is exceptionally good at both sustained narrative, laced by telling anecdote and rich supporting detail, and at constructing vivid historical ethnographies of, for example, Byzantine Constantinople, late medieval Venice or the shrine of Santiago de Compostela – although Ashley and Deegan’s superbly detailed study of medieval pilgrimages to the latter (2009) is not referred to. Third, rather like the curators of the Treasures of Heaven exhibition at the British Museum (2010), Freeman makes us acutely aware of the multi-dimensional nature of the relics he is describing – their credal, cultural and communal significance, their commercial and ecclesiastical exploitation, and their central place in the visual and applied arts – and also the architecture – of the Christian Church.
All this makes for a well-informed, wide-ranging, if occasionally overcoloured, account of a phenomenon which, on this evidence, was not only part of what Freeman rightly calls ‘a resilient and fruitful polytheism … that is all too often overlooked in the history of medieval Christianity’ (p. 268), but also points less towards a so- called ‘Age of Faith’ and more towards ‘a society that lives collectively and individually in a place “between heaven and earth”’ (p. 269). However, Freeman surely overemphasizes the primary role of the later Augustine’s view of original sin in creating and sustaining such a mindset, and it would perhaps be more accurate to suggest that ‘theologians from Augustine onwards did “little” rather than “nothing” to reassure the masses that they had any chance of salvation’ (p. 145)? More crucially the suggestion framed at the outset in the book’s subtitle, that relics ‘shaped’ (my italics) the history of medieval Europe seems both too unilateral and too reductionist to attain parity with, let alone trump, other more well-established historical explanations, such as territorial ambitions, economic expansion, dynastic conflicts, external invasions, plague, warfare and even religious conflict itself.
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Ian Christopher Levy (trans. and ed.),
The Bible in Medieval Tradition: The Letter to the Galatians
, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2011; 278 pp.: 9780802822239, $34.00 (pbk)
This work is one of a series which aims to make accessible to the twenty-first-century reader the rich tradition of medieval scriptural commentary with the goal of reacquainting the Church with its rich tradition of biblical interpretation. This volume by Ian Christopher Levy, focusing on Paul’s letter to the Galatians, is a noteworthy contribution to the series. The volume consists of the commentaries of six authors, selected not only because of the influential nature of their work but also because the texts have prior to this not been available in English. This in itself makes the work a valuable addition to one’s library. Prior to the presentation of the actual texts there is a comprehensive and informative Introduction which provides a good overview of medieval approaches to Scripture in a manner accessible to the general reader, while the presence of copious footnotes facilitates the scholar wishing to do further study.
As well as providing a general introduction to biblical exegesis in the medieval period Levy also gives an introduction to each of the six chosen authors – Haimo of Auxerre, Bruno the Carthusian, Peter of Lombard, Robert of Malun, Robert Grosseteste and Nicholas of Lyra – together with a brief comment on the commentaries included in the volume. These medieval authors’ commentaries, together with Levy’s remarks on the same, have much to offer the modern reader. Primarily they remind us of the centrality of debate to the Christian theological enterprise. This is highlighted in the many references to the series of letters in which Augustine and Jerome disputed the interpretation of Galatians 2.11–14, the ‘Antioch incident’. The arrangement of the texts in chronological order also enables us to see the development of different methodologies in the interpretation of scriptural texts. While someone such as Haimo of Auxerre in the ninth century is presented as seeking to instruct so as to edify, ‘to increase understanding … and thus resolve questions’ (p. 37) the centrality of the question itself becomes of increasing importance as scholastic methodology flourishes. Robert of Melun (d. 1167) typifies this shift in thinking. As theology moves from the monastery to the university there is a move from sacra pagina toward sacra doctrina, a more analytical study of sacred doctrine. Someone such as Thomas Aquinas, whose contribution to biblical exegesis is recognized in the Introduction, is a key example of this shift, and his methodology was influential on others such as Nicholas of Lyra, whose commentary on Galatians 4 is included. Even as this shift in thinking and use of Scripture took place sacra scriptura remained central to the theological enterprise. The medieval universities continued the tradition of looking to the biblical text for answers to questions, while in their quest for greater comprehension they turned also to the larger teaching of the Church.
This translation of these commentaries on the letter to the Galatians is a valuable addition to the contemporary theological world. It reminds the modern reader that there is much of value to be learnt from our rich past, while simultaneously challenging scholars and Church leaders to seek more clearly to visibly make the links between biblical study, theology and the pastoral enterprise, not least the act of preaching. There is much to learn. As Levy notes toward the end of his Introduction: ‘For the medieval commentators the question was not so much how one might be saved, therefore, but rather how one might love. For they knew that human salvation rested in the transformative power of divine love above all else’ (p. 78).
Mater Dei Institute of Education, Dublin City University
Nicholas E. Lombardo, OP ,
The Logic of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion
, The Catholic University of America Press: Washington DC, 2011; 319 pp.: 9780813217970, $34.95 (pbk)
Having written over nine million words before his premature death at the age of fifty, there are few topics on which Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) did not have something to say. The trick is to know where to find it. One will seldom find words like ‘emotion’ or ‘feeling’ in English translations of his work, but in fact Aquinas wrote an entire treatise on the subject: the so-called ‘Treatise on the Passions’ (Summa Theologiae, I–II, questions 22–48). Lombardo elegantly argues that this section of the Summa and other parts of the Thomistic corpus provide us with a rich theory of ‘emotion’ even though the word does not appear as such. The words that do appear include appetite, passion, affection, habitus, virtue, vice and grace.
A passion is more than just a physical reaction; it is ‘a movement of the sense appetite caused by imagining good or evil’ (Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 22, a. 3). The passions involve body and soul, sense and intellect. I first apprehend the apple as ‘apple’ via sense cognition, and then I am drawn to the apple as perceived under a certain aspect (namely, desirable). To perceive the object as desirable is what Aquinas calls ‘intention’, and the attraction toward the object is what he calls ‘appetite’. The implications of this elementary analysis are much wider than we would think. Lombardo argues that the phenomenon of appetite manifests an inherently dynamic structure to creation. All things, including human beings, move toward their proper perfection. ‘Appetite is the engine driving the exitus-reditus: both in the divine exitus, since it flows from an act of God’s will, and in the creaturely reditus, since appetite motivates creation to return to God’ (p. 30). The passions also reveal the underlying metaphysical structure of all reality since they are tied to the ‘goodness of being’ (p. 27).
Lombardo’s approach is twofold. He first covers a large range of the Thomistic corpus dealing with the emotional life. He then interfaces Aquinas’s theory of the emotions with accounts offered by leading philosophical and theological schools today. This two-part construction allows the reader first to consider Aquinas on his own terms and then to situate him within contemporary conversations. It also accommodates different interests: those interested in theology may read Chapters 1 through 4, the last part of 6, and 8, while those interested in theology are advised to read the entire book.
Aquinas fundamentally understands passions as movements of the sense appetites. Every movement tends toward a telos or end. The passions are rather curious in that they are ‘actively’ acted upon. Love is therefore paradigmatic of the passions: it leads you to act towards the other precisely because the other is ‘acting’ upon you. Lombardo emphasizes that this dimension makes the passions vital for the cultivation of virtue. The passions must be accepted and refined, never ignored or suppressed. By coaxing us to respond freely to the objects of our desires, they make room for us to shape our identity: to strive for the perfection we have not yet achieved, thus inclining us to ‘complete’ our nature. The fact that Aquinas attributes – albeit qualifiedly – appetite to God indicates that inclination toward a telos is indeed more basic to appetite than passion itself.
The passions require the guidance of reason to become virtuous. The rational molding of the passions habituates us to desire the right things: things that are truly good. Lombardo argues that for Aquinas the converse is also true: virtue requires the passions. There would be nothing for reason to shape if we were not first inclined toward something. Aquinas’s deep reverence for the passions distinguishes him from several contemporary moral theorists who fail to couch their reflection in actual experience. Our understanding of the passions and their relation to our ultimate telos must be grounded in our concrete desires and cannot be deduced from abstract speculation.
It is fair to say that the passions are the avant-garde topic in Thomistic studies. Recent books include Aquinas on the Emotions, by Diana Fritz Cates, and Thomas Aquinas on the Passions, by Robert Miner, as well as a chapter in the Oxford Handbook to Aquinas (eds Brian Davies and Eleanore Stump) written by Peter King. Having read these and a considerable amount of additional literature on the subject, I can confidently say that Lombardo’s study is the most integral, organic and accessible, making it all the more impressive that he does not sacrifice any of the breadth the topic demands.
Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome
Isabel Rivers and David L. Wykes (eds),
Dissenting Praise: Religious Dissent and the Hymn in England and Wales
, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2011; 320 pp.: 9780199545247, £65.00 (hbk)
Readers familiar with B. L. Manning’s The Hymns of Wesley and Watts (1942) and the more recent magisterial work of Professor Richard Watson on The English Hymn (1997) will already appreciate the outstanding quality of the hymns of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley which gave new life and vitality to the hymn as a literary form put to use within the worship and liturgy of Christian groups and congregations within the dissenting and evangelical traditions of the eighteenth century. This collection of essays offers vignettes which amplify the overall thesis that hymns and hymn-singing defined English and Welsh nonconformity as much if not more than its preaching and architecture, challenging the more ambivalent dislike of hymns by the Calvinist and Puritan traditions of the Church of England and of Old Dissent. Essays in particular traditions, weighted towards the Congregational and Unitarian groups, illustrate a general trend away from the collections of hymns by particularly gifted and entrepreneurial writers for local use toward hymn books collated by committees and designed to enhance and enforce denominational identity. The Wesleys began the trend with their Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodist (1780) with a particular emphasis on hymns to help the expression of a fervent experiential understanding of the Christian gospel in the Arminian tradition. Essays sometimes spend more time on the context of the denominational developments than on the hymns themselves but it is useful to locate them and their writers in this way. The debt to Puritan writers such as Baxter is well set out by Elizabeth Clarke in her Introduction while Dick Watson and Françoise Deconinck-Brossard demonstrate the enduring legacy and literary stature of the hymns of Isaac Watts and Philip Dodderidge. Despite the differences and fierce controversies between Arminian and Calvinist exponents of experiential evangelicalism in the eighteenth century, there is much sharing of resources between the denominations. Essays by David Thompson and Clyde Binfield set out the contributions of lesser-known Congregationalists in the following century, illustrating the debt to James Montgomery (a Moravian/Methodist) and new developments in the democratization of hymn singing through the introduction of the Tonic Sol-Fa to enhance musical education (though one Welsh nonconformist described this as the ‘bastard child of the old devil’, p. 262). The tensions arising from the formalization and bureaucratization of religion (hymn books devised by committee and promoted centrally, the introduction of organs and trained choirs) indicate how much hymns are a barometer of wider sociological and theological changes in English religion. The chapter by Wyn James on Welsh nonconformity is particularly indicative of these shared themes. The bibliographies at the end are a very good source for scholars to use in the wider application of hymns as a tool for understanding how central a determining feature of English and Welsh nonconformity they were.
Wesley Methodist Church and Wolfson College, Cambridge
Mario I. Aguilar,
Thomas Merton, Contemplation and Political Action
, SPCK: London, 2011; 160 pp.: 9780281060580, £14.99 (pbk)
Mario Aguilar describes his book as ‘a spiritual kaleidoscope’ of chapters, ‘a short study of Merton’s writings’, which ‘give particular insights into single areas of Merton’ (p. 16). That is true; the book is not an indepth study of Merton, or even an indepth study of particular themes in Merton’s life and works, but rather a collection of short studies, arranged after the chronology of Merton’s life, each of which might be developed into a deeper and more comprehensive study. They are linked together by the desire to portray a life essentially devoted to contemplation, yet at the same time open to the concerns of Merton’s contemporary world, including political and social action, as well as to a dialogue with non-Christian faiths and figures.
This double involvement is shown in each stage of Merton’s life. Chapter 1 chronicles his time as a teacher, first as Master of Scholastics and then Master of Novices. Here Aguilar highlights the importance to Merton’s own development and openness to the contemporary world of the young men who joined the Order and were under his care; they also played a role in his search for an authentic living of monasticism in the contemporary situation. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on Merton as a writer, where Merton, having obtained the conditions of solitude for which he had always longed, paradoxically continued and increased his output as a prolific writer. Aguilar sees this rich activity arising both from a contemplative impetus and from Merton’s extensive reading and never still mushrooming of interests, which gave forth in book and article writing, as well as in personal meetings, exchanges and letter writing. Chapter 3 outlines Merton’s critical involvement and importance for the Peace Movement and with the Berrigan brothers.
In Chapter 4, Merton’s vision of an eremitic lifestyle is briefly examined, along with how he saw an engagement with the world in such a life. For Merton, all human beings are solitary; diversions in the busyness of life often block us from experiencing and accepting our aloneness; the contemplative foregoes diversion and accepts the confusion of finding himself/herself existentially alone, waiting upon God and God’s action to reveal the true self and its worth. The solitary, far from bolstering an institutional life, accepts all the insecurities and fears of every human being in his/her search for God in solitude.
Yet Merton, ‘the hermit who wanted solitude, started travelling all over the US and Asia … at speed’ (pp. 74–5). Aguilar sees this as a testimony to Merton’s inner ‘freedom and creative spirituality’ (p. 75). The book contains a good evocation of the changing attitudes of Vatican II Catholicism in regard to those outside the Church; outsiders, formally ‘strangers’, became fellow seekers on the spiritual path. Merton benefited from this change of attitude and was part of it.
Chapters 5 and 6 illustrate this openness in an account of Merton’s involvement with Latin America and his journey to Asia and his meetings with the Dalai Lama. His involvement with Latin American poets and writers, with the experimental monastic life desired by both and set up by Ernesto Cardenal and with Nicaraguan revolutionary thought is perhaps one of the most interesting chapters of this book.
A final chapter briefly suggests some lessons from Merton for today.
Cambridge
Stephen Backhouse,
Kierkegaard’s Critique of Christian Nationalism
, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2011; 272 pp.: 9780199604722, £65.00/$125.00 (hbk)
To demonstrate the enduring relevance of his political theology, Stephen Backhouse revives Søren Kierkegaard’s critique of patriotism as a precondition of Christian belief and practice. With great accessibility, Backhouse traces nineteenth-century notions of historical progress and national identity in the work of Kierkegaard’s interlocutors: Bishop H. L. Martensen and N. F. S. Grundtvig. According to Backhouse, Kierkegaard critiques Martensen and Grundtvig for their Christian nationalism which disguises the equality of all people before God and levels the individual to the crowd (pp. 150–1). With the care of a grammarian, Backhouse corrects common mistranslations and misconceptions of Kierkegaard and illuminates the relevance of ‘the moment of vision’ and ‘contemporaneity’ as foundational concepts which undergird Kierkegaard’s political theology. Against misconceptions that perceive Kierkegaard’s work as ‘removing the individual from his or her socio-historical context’, Backhouse says that these concepts actually promote ‘the integration of the subject within history, and describes the right relation between eternity and time that is necessary for religious and ethical authenticity’ (p. 94). To demonstrate Kierkegaard’s relevance for contemporary political theology, Backhouse rehabilitates Kierkegaard’s notion of ‘the single individual’ and ‘the neighbour’ to indicate ways of fostering (and distinguishing) civic and ecclesial participation.
There are two minor disappointments with this book. First, Backhouse spends some time dissuading the reader from homogeneously treating all of Kierkegaard’s works by highlighting the pseudonymous nuances given to concepts like the ‘leap’ (p. 110) and the ‘ethical’ (p. 136). However, Backhouse does not always give such serious attention to the pseudonyms when locating Kierkegaard’s authorial voice. For instance, nuance is often identified to show how Anti-Climacus has the better view on a given category. Why the reader should uncritically take Anti-Climacus as the privileged pseudonym who presents ‘Kierkegaard’s vision of the Christian faith’ is not discussed (p. 115). Second, although Backhouse’s research helpfully distils the work of Martensen and Grundtvig, he unfortunately limits the theological implications of nationalism to these relatively obscure figures. On a few occasions, Backhouse mentions the recent defence of Hegel by Jon Stewart. In these places, Backhouse asserts that Stewart ‘overstates his case’ but does not indicate how this is so (p. 130 n. 9). Backhouse’s overall argument concerning the theological implications of nationalism could have been strengthened by a more thorough engagement with recent debates concerning Kierkegaard’s relation to Heidegger (p. 22 n. 103), Kant (p. 141 n. 47), Hegel (p. 142 n. 52) and Socrates (p. 148 n. 83). Like the section on Habermas, Backhouse’s exposition of Kierkegaard’s notions of ‘the ethical’, ‘history’, ‘the moment’ and ‘levelling’ could have been enriched by connecting these concepts to more prominent figures who have had a more lasting influence in political philosophy and ethics than Martensen and Grundtvig.
Backhouse provides a well-researched and insightful commentary on key aspects of Kierkegaard’s thought in order to indicate some potential contributions to political theology. This is a welcome achievement that will hopefully pave the way for more of its kind. The price of this book may discourage non-specialists from adding it to their own personal libraries; however, university libraries should definitely add it to their collection.
Durham University
William T. Cavanaugh,
Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church
, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2011; 200 pp.: £11.99 (pbk)
Migrations of the Holy is an excellent collection of essays by one of the foremost contemporary political theologians. An American and a Catholic, William Cavanaugh is particularly known for his books Theopolitical Imagination (2002), Torture and Eucharist (1998) and The Myth of Religious Violence (2009). Migrations of the Holy is a collection of essays which Cavanaugh published elsewhere between 2004 and 2007 (though Eerdmans made the strange decision, unhelpful to scholars attempting to follow Cavanaugh’s thought, not to note this anywhere in the book or cite where the essays had previously been published). For those who have already read multiple works by Cavanaugh, most of these essays will not cover new ground, with the exception of those published in more obscure places. The collection will be of most use to those wanting an introduction to this aspect of Cavanaugh’s thought, or to those avid readers of Cavanaugh who will welcome the gathering of these essays from their very diverse original sources.
While not written as a book, Cavanaugh suggests that the collection does make an over-arching argument questioning standard discussions of secularization, which assume either that since the modern nation-state arose life in the West has continued to become increasingly secular, or that while secularism used to be on the rise religion has now made a ‘comeback’. Instead, Cavanaugh argues, ‘the kinds of public devotion formerly associated with Christianity in the West never did go away, but largely migrated to a new realm defined by the nation-state’. Cavanaugh is concerned that devotion once reserved for God and enacted in the Church is now given to the state and corporate elites and is enacted through practices such as militarism and consumerism. He is also concerned by what he calls the soteriology of the modern state – ideas of how in a ‘secular age’ the state saves us from the ills of more ‘religious’ eras – which inflates our expectations of the powers-that-be. Cavanaugh says, ‘My purpose in this book is to help Christians and others to be realistic about what we can expect from the “powers and principalities” of our own age, and to urge them not to invest the entirety of their political presence in these powers.’ As the subtitle suggests, Cavanaugh urges his readers instead to re-envision and re-invest in the Church as a eucharistic political presence.
Within this over-arching argument, the essays address a wide variety of specific aspects and issues of political theology: whether the nation-state can provide for the common good, the nature of the two cities in St Augustine’s City of God, mobility and globalization, American exceptionalism, torture, liturgy, Israel and the Church, the in/visibility of the Church, and the work of Stanley Hauerwas on democracy and liberalism. These essays are essential reading for anyone seeking to keep abreast of current political theology, but are also highly recommended for those new to this set of discussions.
Westcott House, Cambridge
T. J. Gorringe,
The Common Good and the Global Emergency: God and the Built Environment
, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2011; 309 pp.: 9781107002012, £55.00 (hbk)
With no less than four themes in the title and sub-title, this is not an easy book to pin down. Tim Gorringe has written before on these topics, and his latest work emerges most strongly from his 2002 monograph, A Theology of the Built Environment. As Gorringe notes in his introduction, he has done a great deal more reading since then, and this shows in the deft weaving together of numerous sources as he orchestrates a complex, but persuasive, argument about how attentiveness to the common good, illuminated through the Christian tradition, can help us to address aspects of the global environmental crisis by both building better and understanding better the significance of building.
Like a good (or, as Gorringe might say, a gracious) building, the book does not shy away from apparent contradictions, the shifting judgements of different eras or the ways in which the multiplex strands of theological insight, once concretized, become ambiguous. Gorringe is guided throughout by his commitment to addressing the looming global catastrophe to which our clumsy stewardship of the earth appears to be leading. To his credit, he largely eschews the haranguing imperatives which often characterize the genre and which divorce ‘we must’ from ‘how’. Instead, he seeks to reconnect virtue and practice in building so that our common humanity is served and our locatedness within the created order is exemplified. To be clear, this is not about putting solar panels on the vicarage roof, nor a grand plan to escape from the mess. Instead, Gorringe draws together theories, theologies and practical examples as diverse as igloos, St Pancras station and Milton Keynes; examples of the good, the bad and the indifferent, and serious voices in debate – rarely presented as the right versus the wrong, but struggling together to make sense of a badly neglected yet crucial aspect of being human together.
Not surprisingly, Gorringe has harsh words for the prevailing economic orthodoxy. As he notes, no system has done more to promote the widening gulf of inequality and ‘any theology that believes … “the market” will get us out of trouble is apostate’ (p. 286). But one does not have to be a rabid monetarist to see that the free market was conceived both as an answer to some intractable problems (like the banality of central planning) and an attempt to balance justice with plurality. Recognizing, for instance, that church buildings which were once truly public spaces are now perceived as representing a minority interest, Gorringe gives (for me) too few clues about where to find a new, truly public, conception of the common good which could generate an approach to the built environment that was both just and non-elitist. Perhaps if some people start building better, such insights might follow, but time is short and the context of a deeply atomized world culture unpropitious.
But here is a Christian ethicist getting to grips with the ways we can both build and destroy the world in the same actions. This book deserves reading several times for its many layers of insight, information and argument on a theme which involves everyone.
Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England, London
David Heywood,
Reimagining Ministry
, SCM Press: London, 2011; 218 pp.: 978033443676, £19.99 (pbk)
Starting from the perspective that mission is now central to the Church in Britain, David Heywood argues that ministry needs to adapt. No longer can the Church of England work with the professional model of ministry it has clung to since the nineteenth century. Instead, Heywood ‘reimagines’ ministry in four carefully argued chapters that weave together contemporary experiences of Christian life, biblical interpretation and a wealth of theological writers from Laurie Green to John Howard Yoder.
We are treated to a rich discussion on the ‘quiet revolution’ in the life of the churches over the past two decades which has enabled mission to take centre stage. The kingdom of God as the goal of mission is then explored creatively through three terms. The Hebrew word shalom is enlarged beyond its usual association with the word ‘peace’ to embody a vision of community and right relationship which reflects the nature of the kingdom of God. Sabbath is explored as the discipline through which work is redeemed in order to serve the kingdom of God, since from a place of rest our work is better approached as co-operation with God in the transformation of the world. Heywood then asserts how the values and practices of shalom and Sabbath are to be the yeast in the ‘principalities and powers’ of human society.
The ‘how’ of this engagement is explored through a discussion of the Church as the foretaste of the kingdom. Of note is the clear expression of the often misunderstood tension between the work of the Holy Spirit in the goal of common life and our work of striving for this goal. According to Heywood, our role in mission is furthered by reflecting theologically as a community so that we might form, affirm and correct our ecclesial identity in the light of the Christian story and as a contextual expression of the Christian community.
Reimagining Ministry is relevant reading for both lay and ordained engaging in the reflection Heywood commends because, crucially, he asserts that ministry as participation in God’s mission is of the whole Church. Controversially for some, however, this vision requires the ordained to surrender ‘the status and power their training might qualify them for by using their expertise to empower the whole church’ (p. 183) and resist the impossible demand of ‘omnicompetency’ by embracing collaborative ministry. Heywood also suggests that local ministers become the norm for ordained leadership in team ministry with the inevitable reassessment of episcopal oversight. The resulting vulnerability of this surrender of the professional model of ministry echoes, according to Heywood, the pattern of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and thus has the potential to express and enable the coming of God’s kingdom. This reviewer hopes that those who are not ready to become vulnerable for the kingdom will at least take up Heywood’s sincere call to pursue the practice of reflection which is clearly demonstrated in this exciting and theologically astute proposal for future ministry.
Westcott House and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Miranda Threlfall-Holmes and Mark Newitt (eds),
Being a Chaplain
, SPCK: London, 2011; 160 pp.: 9780281063857, £10.99 (pbk)
This latest addition to the SPCK Library of Ministry is a welcome and timely contribution to raising the profile of chaplaincy as part of the total mission and ministry of the Church. The breadth of chaplaincy experience and areas of practice described by the contributors in the first five sections of this book demonstrate the diversity of this form of ministry, the many different aspects of chaplaincy and the wide variety of institutions/locations in which it operates. The sixth section of this work is composed of a collection of four very useful essays which succinctly explore the challenges faced by chaplains who practise in a society which is increasingly pluralistic and institutions whose main drivers are frequently financial constraints and political agendas.
It has long been a cliché that chaplains are often clergy who are disaffected members of their ordaining churches and have distanced themselves from and feel distanced by their ecclesiastical institution. At the same time the influence and standing of chaplains in their employing organisations has changed over the years and they find that they now have to reassert their distinctive contribution to the mission of their institution. And so Threlfall-Holmes and Newitt in the introduction are right to assert that ‘we [chaplains] have to learn to live with the tension that comes from serving two masters and often being considered only marginally relevant by both’ (p. xvii). However, this book has the potential to inform debate and contribute to a new and growing understanding of what chaplains have to offer to both the Church and to the communities in which they serve.
This work is teeming with moving stories, interesting insights and inspiring descriptions of the role of the chaplain; one worth repeating is from Charles Thody, a Mental Health Chaplain, ‘Legend has it that he [St Aidan of Lindisfarne] walked from kingdom to kingdom, learning the context in which people lived and the language they spoke, not judging them by their actions or beliefs but loving them for who they were and helping them to recognise something of the divine within themselves’ (p. 56).
While it is fascinating and encouraging for chaplains to learn of the work of other sector ministers, the final section of the book may prove more valuable to them. The essays which are intelligent and incisive can be used as a basis for discussion or theological reflection or, simply, as a means of getting to grips with the challenges and opportunities currently faced by chaplains in every sphere of chaplaincy ministry.
It would have been good to have heard from non-Christian chaplains; to have learnt something from their perspective about how they see the issues facing chaplaincy – however, that is probably another book. I would recommend this book to both chaplains and those who are interested in learning more about chaplaincy – it is an easy and accessible read and an informed and accurate assessment of the state of chaplaincy ministry today.
Imperial College, Healthcare NHS Trust
Mary Gray-Reeves and Michael Perham,
The Hospitality of God: Emerging Worship for a Missional Church
, SPCK: London, 2011; 160 pp.: 9780281063505, £12.99 (pbk)
For those of us who long for a genuinely Anglican renewal of the Church with an appropriate balance between word and sacrament and between intelligent criticism and orthodoxy, this book is good news. Its episcopal authors, the Anglican bishops of El Camino Real and Gloucester respectively, have visited (not always together) fourteen congregations in England and the USA who in one way or another qualify to be understood as ‘emergent’ churches. Terms are constantly evolving but the term ‘emergent’ is used by Mary Gray-Reeves and Michael Perham and by the worshipping communities they visited in contradistinction to ‘emerging’ churches, which are understood to be more evangelical and conservative in nature. ‘Emerging’ churches, on the contrary, are suspicious of exclusivity whether by doctrine, ethical discipline or liturgical practice. They are, however, essentially orthodox in belief, though sparing in the use of the creeds, and profoundly eucharistic while sitting light to the disciplines prior to admission to Holy Communion familiar to Anglicans (at least in England). The ecclesial communities visited were relatively small. Belonging, for them, is prior to believing and behaving and this they find more achievable in smaller communities. Their significance may never be in numbers. They are characteristically not very interested in either denominationalism or the creation of new ecclesiastical empires to rival or displace traditional churches and communions. Their significance could be in a dialogue with ‘inherited’ church and inherited Anglicanism in particular. They are emphatically sacramental and liturgical communities. All plan worship corporately and carefully, imaginatively and contextually. Welcome and hospitality were universal. High-tech visuals were surprisingly little in evidence to the authors. Music including bells and other instruments, liturgical drones and ‘hums’ to familiar chant, whether plainsong or modern derivatives was characteristic and always integrated liturgically. Music was not ad extra, and worship songs described as the ‘Jesus is my boy-friend’ type or only concerned with substitutory atonement theory were avoided. Authorized liturgies were widely (though not universally) used, but as rich sources rather than out of obedience to canon law. Beauty and dignity was important, whether in the architectural setting of such liturgies or in the participatory rituals used. Complexity in liturgy was not eschewed, including traditional rituals such as the use of vesture and even a three-minister Eucharist. The liturgical year and seasons were especially valued, including the use of the lectionary. Scripture reading – occasionally with a chanted Gospel – was taken very seriously. Preaching was generally interactive, including ‘stations’ where groups could go to talk over the sermon or address and which characteristically fed into group intercessions.
At the conclusion of their survey the two bishops set out a menu for a dialogue between ‘emergent’ and ‘inherited’ church. They argue that we (inherited church) may need to learn more about inclusive welcome. Many in ‘emergent’ churches, especially in England, have been deeply wounded by some forms of (largely non-Anglican) theology. They are ‘post-evangelical’. There are also two generations for whom church of any kind is simply an irrelevant puzzle. But such generous hospitality poses questions: communion even before baptism? Other areas for discussion include the discipline of careful liturgical planning, participation in the liturgy itself and the use of rich and complex liturgy. And finally the ‘new monasticism’ or community life of some of these churches. Gifts in dialogue from ‘inherited church’ include a conversation about the mission of the Church as the mission dei, the role of a ‘gentle presidency’ to give focus and flow to liturgy; the catholicity of the Church in time and space; the benefit of the (episcopal) ‘structural markers’ of baptism and confirmation; the gift of ‘sacred space’; the importance of spiritual disciplines such as fasting, giving, the sacred meal, common prayer, the rhythm of the ‘sabbath’ and the liturgical year.
Here then is a book and a dialogue to warmly commend to all in diocese, parish, congregation and ‘fresh expression’ as we look for authentically catholic and reformed (and therefore Anglican) models of ecclesial renewal.
Guildford
Martin Stringer,
Rethinking the Origins of the Eucharist
, SCM Studies in Worship and Liturgy, SCM Press: London, 2011; 22 pp.: 9780334042143, £40.00 (pbk)
Martin Stringer seeks to ‘make some wild guesses’ about early Christian meals and to construct a ‘speculative narrative’ (p. 20) of eucharistic beginnings. This modesty is appropriate to a field where lack of evidence has rarely prevented scholars from making overly confident statements about Christian liturgical origins.
Stringer engages both with early Christian (particularly NT) texts and with recent scholarship in English, notably that of liturgist Paul Bradshaw and New Testament scholar Dennis Smith, but wants to adopt three additional ‘parameters’ in a quest for fresh conclusions: to avoid loaded ‘Eucharist’ language; to privilege action over meaning; and deliberately to limit himself, at least at first, to Christian rather than comparative material (pp. 18–19).
The first main chapter, on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, is key to the ‘speculative narrative’. Stringer sees the ‘Lord's Supper’ (1 Cor. 11) not as a weekly meal gathering but a yearly Christian version of Passover. He then draws on previous scholarship suggesting the Passion narratives of the Gospels may have had a history as independent recitations, and links these performances to such annual Paschal celebrations. A short chapter on other New Testament texts deals with Luke–Acts and the Gospel of John, serving mainly to argue that these offer little support for weekly eucharistic celebrations. Three further chapters discuss evidence linked, not always strongly, with Antioch (Didache), Asia Minor (Ignatius, Pliny and others) and Rome (Clement, Justin, Apostolic Tradition). These discussions of ancient texts often include consideration of other recent scholarship on eucharistic origins.
Stringer’s conclusion is that familiar eucharistic images and practices emerge via a sort of ‘post-textual orality’ evident in Ignatius of Antioch’s use of earlier traditions, and that the more-or-less familiar weekly meal commemorating Jesus’ death only appears early in the second century, in Rome.
Like other accounts, Stringer's reflects the specific strengths and limitations of its starting point, here summed up in his three ‘parameters’. The understandable desire to avoid loaded ‘eucharistic’ language is not quite fulfilled; some meals are apparently not ‘eucharistic’ (p. 73), so the language actually is meaningful for Stringer, if negatively. Despite the desire to privilege action over meaning, the clear and early evidence for action in the form of weekly Christian meals (Didache) is set aside, while texts that involve specific meanings (commemoration of Jesus’ death, eating his body etc.) are pursued. The third parameter, preference for Christian evidence, then becomes almost circular; one can only say that ‘there is very little in the wider material that is of any real use’ (p. 102) if certain Christian ideas and symbols are assumed to characterize all that is of real use. So this is actually a quest for explicit meaning after all: in particular for how the death of Jesus and familiar body-and-blood language come to be so central to the Christian gathering. This is not so much reading these texts ‘in their own terms’ (p. 65) but in terms of how they contribute to later meals and meanings.
The results of Stringer’s speculative narrative should provoke reflection among those who are inclined to read any and every New Testament text involving a meal as crypto-liturgical. Its most significant contribution may be its argument, somewhat parallel to that of Dutch scholar Gerard Rouwhorst, for the importance of annual paschal observances. While not persuasive as a new account of eucharistic origins per se, this book does make useful ‘wild guesses’ to do with how certain Christians remembered and experienced Jesus, while eating and drinking.
Trinity College, The University of Melbourne/Melbourne College of Divinity, Australia
Andrew Dawson,
Sociology of Religion
, SCM Press: London, 2011; 209 pp.: 9780334043362, £25.00 (pbk)
The production of a good introductory textbook is a demanding one, and in some ways not unlike that of a travel guide. It requires intimate knowledge of a certain landscape, the ability to map complex terrain and then to guide a stranger through it in a clear, confident and engaging fashion. And, as with so many travel guides, a new introduction to the sociology of religion enters an already crowded market, something Dawson, who was commissioned to write this as part of the SCM Core Texts series, is almost painfully aware of as his opening comments make clear.
Perhaps the minimum requirement for an introduction is that it does not mislead. Given the tricky business of simplifying and introducing complex and contested ideas and debates this is no mean feat, and one in which Dawson succeeds admirably. The book can be divided into two groups of five chapters. In the first half the distinctive approach of sociology is introduced; competing definitions of religion are explored; the classical legacy of Marx, Durkheim and Weber is opened up; and, over the course of two chapters the main contours of the secularization debate are sketched out. The second half of the book is composed of chapters that focus on gender, new religious movements, the impact of the market on religiosity, fundamentalism and globalization. Without doubt the greatest strength of this book lies with the way in which Dawson grounds contemporary discussions in their historical context, for example, by showing the ways in which contemporary ideas about secularization are rooted in the ideas of the founders of the discipline, and in the connections he makes with a wider sociological literature. While inevitably, the emphasis is on the clear communication of key ideas, Dawson does not shy away from critical evaluation, especially of the inflated claims of some for the importance of the category of ‘spirituality’ or of the merits of the ‘religious economy model’.
Dawson clearly has a good knowledge of the field and some sound sociological instincts. However, he is not particularly adept at, or confident in, engaging with his intended readership. There are no case studies and few examples or illustrations which bring the subject matter alive and, frankly, several hard-going moments. For example, on the very first page he writes of the ‘globalization of the modern, urban-industrial paradigm’ which ‘has occasioned the socio-cultural pluralisation of the sociological gaze’. This will not hook or excite students coming fresh to the subject. Dawson is not alone in this, for there is little about the cover, style, title or layout of SCM’s Sociology of Religion that brings this book close to the ‘market leader’ – Alan Aldridge’s well-presented and engaging Religion in the Contemporary World (now in its second edition). However, I sincerely hope, Andrew Dawson’s book does make it to a second edition as that will afford an opportunity to spruce up what is in essence a sound introduction to a complex but truly fascinating area of study.
University of Cambridge
Philip A. Cunningham, Joseph Sievers, Mary C. Boys, Hans Hermann Henrix and Jesper Svartvik (eds),
Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today: New Explorations of Theological Interrelationships
, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2011; 338 pp.: 9780802866240, £23.99 (pbk)
Beginning in 2006, a series of international theological consultations was set up to address issues arising from continuing engagement with the presentation of the Church’s relation to Judaism in the Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate. Organized by staff from four Roman Catholic universities, the consultations focused on the question: ‘How might we Christians in our time reaffirm our faith claim that Jesus Christ is the savior of all humanity, even as we affirm Israel’s covenantal life with God?’ (p. xxii). This book makes some of the rich fruit of that process available to a wider audience.
It begins with an excellent Foreword by Cardinal Kasper and an Introduction from the editors, but readers unfamiliar with the extensive body of Roman Catholic documents on this subject might be advised to head next for Norris’s chapter towards the end of the book, which sets out important background. The main part of the volume is divided into (untitled) sections, focusing on the history of Jewish-Catholic relations, Christian origins, Christology, Trinitarian doctrine and the understanding of covenant. Within each section, two or more essays from Christian theologians are followed by a response from a Jewish scholar. These responses are always well informed and respectful, but there are occasions too when readers can catch something of the vitality and risk of true dialogue, for instance, in Saperstein’s critical probing of the construction of Jewish-Christian history presupposed by some of the contributors. The achievement of the editorial team in including a range of perspectives of consistently high quality from different scholarly disciplines within a coherent overall framework is most impressive.
Various official statements, not least from Pope John Paul II, have made it clear that the affirmation of God’s enduring covenant with the Jewish people, implicit in the documents of Vatican II, is now an integral part of Roman Catholic teaching. Yet important questions remain about how to understand such an affirmation and hence its implications for Christian practice and belief. For the most part, the contributors to this volume appear to propose that Jews today are called to live under the Torah of Sinai as interpreted through post-biblical Jewish traditions and therefore have no need to be invited to follow Jesus Christ, understood as the Torah made flesh, by the Church. (Other approaches within contemporary Roman Catholicism are noted but not presented or critiqued at any length.) Yet neither do they appear entirely happy to conclude that Christ died only for the Gentiles, although Rutishauser steers very close to that position. A related tension arises in the recurring concern to articulate interpretations of Jewish (and even Christian) existence that are acceptable to Jews yet also genuine expressions of Christian theology; Gregerman and Langer, two of the Jewish respondents, note some of the faultlines that ensue. Without wishing to detract from the significance of this volume and the consultations from which it arose, one might nonetheless ask whether these tensions emerge from deeper contradictions that may ultimately need to be addressed more directly.
South East Institute for Theological Education
Rose Drew,
Buddhist and Christian? An Exploration of Dual Belonging
, Routledge: London, 2011; 286 pp.: 9780415611237, £85.00 (hbk)
Rose Drew’s book is a major contribution to the field of both mapping and evaluating one form of the phenomenon of ‘dual belonging’. Dual belonging has been a characteristic of many ancient East Asian societies. Eclecticism and syncretism are not simply a characteristic of postmodern consumerist society but, as Drew intelligently argues, might be a good description of the evolution and development of a single religious tradition. Dual belonging has not been characteristic of the Christian West until recently. As plural religious traditions have occupied the public squares from Los Angeles to London, there have been serious engagements by Christians with Buddhism, leading to marriage and public vows of co-fidelity. Drew focuses on this specific group: Western Christians who have become Christian Buddhists, not just learning from and drawing upon the wisdom of Buddhism but claiming a real dual belonging to the truth and efficacy of both communities without denying the uniqueness and distinctiveness of each.
Drew’s graceful narrative investigates the question through close interviews with six articulate and intellectually well-trained dual belongers, five in the USA and one in England: Roger Corless, Ruben Habito, John Keenan, Sallie King, Maria Reis Habito and Sr Ruth Furneux respectively. Drew asks whether their dual belonging can be other than superficial, incoherent and highly selective, given the long tradition of conflicting truth claims and the exclusivism of Christianity. The thrill of her book is in the careful empirical questioning and mapping of dual belongers and the fascinating outcome whereby Drew defends dual belonging on theological grounds. ‘If dual belongers are to be recognised as authentic adherents of both Buddhism and Christianity, they must faithfully represent both these traditions in their distinctness; their Buddhism must be authentically Buddhist and their Christianity authentically Christian’ (p. 12). For Drew, this is a challenge that can be met.
Two of Drew’s interviewees provide problems for the category of ‘full’ dual belonging for Furneux seems more of a Buddhist making Christianity inclusive of her Buddhism and Corless unites what he acknowledges as two incompatible absolutes in a higher state of consciousness. Drew is well aware of these rough edges. She also recognizes that for her Quaker (King) and Episcopalian (Keenan) dual belongers, the question of identity is much looser in their respective Christian communities; and Rowan Williams, then at Monmouth, gave Furneux a special blessing to pursue her unique spiritual explorations. However, the other three are Roman Catholics and it is very odd that only two pages are given to the question of their ‘authentic’ belonging to a church which officially teaches, as Drew acknowledges, that such pluralism is ‘wrong’ (p. 223). There is a similar neglect of traditional exclusivist Buddhist paths. ‘Authentic belonging’ is judged by the individual’s own coherent balancing act, rather than by the criteria of their communities. Drew’s defence eventually rests on the assumption that it is to ultimate reality that absolute adherence must be given, not religious traditions that mediate that reality in differing ways. I’m not sure if this would be acceptable to all communities. This book certainly represents genuine research in the field and should be read by all.
University of Bristol
Nicholas Wolterstorff,
Justice in Love
, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2011; 294 pp.: 9780802866158, £23.99 (hbk)
Prima facie, justice and love can seem at odds. The forgiveness which love requires may seem incompatible with the punishment justice requires. The generosity towards some which love enjoins appears to create injustice for others. For a theology which understands love and justice both to be key virtues rooted in the character of God, this tension between them presents itself as a problem. It has led various Christian ethicists, especially those writing in the agapistic tradition, to choose between them, either prioritizing love absolutely, or limiting justice only to carefully prescribed circumstances. This is the issue which Wolterstorff addresses in this excellent book.
Much of his discussion is taken up in a detailed and careful critique of classical modern ‘agapists’ (Kiekegaard and Nygren) and the more nuanced agapism of Reinhold Niebuhr. This in turn leads Wolterstorff to clarify his own definitions of love and justice, and to make his positive case that (so defined) they are not only compatible but also essential to each other. An agape love which indifferently seeks the true good of others must also see that others are treated justly: that is, their rights honoured and their worth recognized. This assumes a notion of justice which is embedded in natural rights, suitably defined in a non-individualistic and non-possessive way. It also assumes a notion of worth in every person, defined as worth bestowed on us by God’s love (an argument which includes en route a brief but excellent discussion of the imago dei). In the light of these definitions he then specifically tackles the hard cases of love and justice: that is, in matters of forgiveness, and in actions of selective generosity – such as the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. He draws closely on Scripture throughout the discussion, but most notably in the concluding section where he offers a reading of Romans in support of his position. Contra post-Reformation readings, which see Paul’s chief message to be either personal salvation or (latterly) God’s covenant faithfulness, Wolterstorff prefers the medieval reading which sees the main concern to be, precisely, iustitia dei: that is, the justice of God (in love). In the course of this exposition Wolterstorff also makes a vital distinction between election and justification, enabling him to demonstrate how electing some in an overall economy of love for all can still be just. It is an intriguing exposition which I think many may find persuasive.
This is a highly focused discussion drawing on limited sources, and that may frustrate some (neither Augustine on self-love nor Joseph Fletcher on ‘justice as love distributed’ are explicitly cited). In style it adopts a rigorous analytical approach which, for all its concrete examples, may also deter some. Its overall approach remains arguably individualistic, in spite of an attempt to show its implications for a social ethic, and that may not satisfy all. Nonetheless it is undoubtedly a rich, fertile and penetrating work. It offers a major contribution of philosophical theology in the service of a key issue for both personal Christian discipleship and public life.
Westminster Abbey and King’s College London
Christopher Rowland,
Blake and the Bible
, Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2011; 320 pp.: 9780300112603, £30.00 (hbk)
This addition to the now considerable literature on Blake and religion by Christopher Rowland will become a landmark study. As one of today’s leading biblical scholars, Rowland combines acute theological perception with sustained readings of William Blake’s art that indicate his extraordinary hermeneutical achievement and significance for contemporary Christian theology. The emphasis is deliberately not on Blake the poet but on Blake the engraver and artist – though the two cannot finally be separated – and his radical move away from the scriptural text and its interpretation by the processes of reason and the tyranny of doctrine. Blake regarded himself as writing within the tradition of the scriptural authors and his interpretation of the Bible was not bound by processes of exegesis but by a creative, imaginative and highly visual expansion of biblical revelation. The key to Rowland’s book lies in the two chapters which give detailed ‘readings’ of Blake’s engravings of the book of Job in which we begin to perceive the importance of progression by ‘contraries’ in divinity which lies at the heart of Blake’s theological vision.
In Chapter 7 Rowland brilliantly places this within the visionary tradition of Gerrard Winstanley, Abiezer Coppe, Ralph Cudworth and Hans Denck. This has been done before but never with such careful theological insight, so that by the time we address directly the Blakean understanding of Jesus in Chapter 8, ‘from impulse not from rules’, what begins to emerge is Blake’s truly challenging theology of atonement. This is rooted in a radical vision of divine immanence rather than transcendence, and a profound sense of suffering lying at the heart of theology and ethics. The implications of this are manifold. For it bears not only on how we read and interpret the Bible, today equally as much as for Blake, but also on the question of theodicy (bearing in mind the central importance of Milton for Blake), the doctrine of creation and the Fall, Christology and atonement theology, and the whole narrative of Christian redemption.
Rowland’s book is modest in its tone and never less than scholarly in its claims. What is said of Blake as artist could be taken on into the biblical art of Turner or back into Rembrandt, with its reversal of text and image, its insistence on the power of the imagination and its understanding of the living power of the biblical tradition. As we continue to reflect on the relationship between theology, literature and art this study must surely stand as one of the most serious and important to date. If Blake stood at the centre of the visionary ‘death of God’ theology which has been sustained by Thomas Altizer and others, then Rowland shows us more systematically than ever before why he is, in his visual contributions to the life of the biblical texts, one of the most important of our theological voices, as important today as he was neglected and misunderstood in his own time.
University of Glasgow
Calvin R. Stapert,
Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People
, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2010; 174 pp.: 9780802865878, £10.99 (pbk)
‘The Messiah phenomenon has no parallel in music history. No work of music has survived, let alone thrived, on so many performances, good, bad, and indifferent, by and for so many people, year after year, for such a long time’ – so states Calvin Stapert in the preface (p. xi) to his wonderfully informative book in which he first sets out the fascinating historical background of Handel’s life leading up to and beyond the composition of this great cornerstone work of Western musical literature. The second half of the book provides both a musical and scriptural commentary. Yet this is so much more than a purely historical or analytical survey. Stapert writes with an obvious warmth and affection for the work in hand, clearly holding a desire that his readers truly comprehend the partnership of Handel’s great music with Jennens’s beautifully balanced scriptural ‘libretto’. He wishes not only to inform his readers but also to leave them enthused, eager to reacquaint themselves with Messiah and to augment their listening appreciation to a new level of awareness and understanding.
Stapert takes us through Handel’s less than straightforward (albeit ultimately successful) journey from popular Italian Opera Composer to ‘inventor’ and master of the English Oratorio. The extraordinary success of Messiah is examined from its first performances through to the present day, reminding us that performances on every conceivable scale have always been a part of the life of this work and its reception, always staggering. With charming, entertaining quotations and relevant illustrations, the author brings this background history to life.
The ensuing commentary of both music and Scripture is perceptive and detailed. Handel’s intentions in illuminating Jennens’s scriptural compilations are revealed with great clarity and Stapert’s intelligent structural analysis, grouping the work into ‘operatic’ scenes, is apt and essential to anyone approaching Messiah, whether as performer or listener.
Stapert possesses a rare ability to combine scholarship and, at times, profound insight within a style of writing that is accessible to all. This book will be of great and equal interest to musicians, whether amateur or professional, theologians, historians or simply the regular concert-goer.
Trinity Hall, Cambridge University
Pete Ward,
Gods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion, and Celebrity Culture
, SCM Press: London, 2011; 288 pp.: 9780334043355, £19.99 (pbk)
Pete Ward, an observer of culture for many years, argues the need for theologians and churches to engage not only with the elements of culture that seem immediately fruitful, such as film and music, but also with those labeled as banal and distracting. In this work he particularly unpacks the nature and role of celebrity, perhaps a disorientating terrain for the serious theologian but an area in need of serious study and reflection.
Ward begins by surveying the notion of celebrity worship. He studies the theological language used for describing celebrities and their apparent deification. He does this with ease and as someone engaged rather than detached; he uses illustrations from popular media and part of our modern-day consciousness, be it Michael Jackson, Princess Diana or the then-alive Amy Winehouse. Ward does not simply base his argument on anecdote (this is not a précis of the past decade of celebrity magazines), nor is he merely following a hunch. Throughout the book there is reference to the work of sociology and cultural analysis which supports his thinking.
He explores the representative role of celebrity in today’s society. Their moments of scandal or joy, latest love interest or untimely death provide for the individual a place to express who they are or aspire to be. Ward suggests that our world-view and opinions are shaped through their story, be it our disdain or idolizing. Our response to their actions is actually us giving voice to our own inner longings or anxieties, which we would not do without them.
A whole chapter is given over to the term ‘para-religion’. Ward charts the many ways in which our celebrity ‘gods’ have become the focus of communal religious observance and practices that have no reference to the transcendent: one example is the annual gathering and procession on the anniversary of Elvis’s death. He argues there has been a shift to gathering around a celebrity figure and the place of the transcendent has been usurped by the ‘self’. The ‘other’ against whom we are defined is no longer the transcendent but the human celebrities about whom we know every detail but do not really know.
In the closing chapters, Ward demonstrates the ethical and moral discussions that celebrity culture provokes. Celebrities’ actions, be it misdemeanour or charity work, bring about great debate on what it is to be human. First, he explores the kind of gods that we have created – fallen, imperfect or ordinary. A theology of celebrity is not about traditional understandings of God; rather it is about us reflecting about the complexity of human life clothed in the language of the divine. Ward highlights the theological themes that can be found in the moral and ethical discourse spurred by celebrity: sin and redemption, saviour and spirit, the family and fidelity. He is not saying that these are specifically Christian or that celebrity culture deliberately encourages moral discourse; rather, in the midst of ‘trashy headlines’ there is common ground where theological discourse can happen.
This book is not a creative juxtaposition between the great theologians and celebrity culture, nor is it trying to be. It is largely descriptive of the world of celebrity and opens the door for others to begin the engagement. It is thought provoking and Ward’s upbeat account of celebrity culture is refreshing. He does not deny its pitfalls and superficiality but he does, despite its trashy throw-away nature, highlight its profound and maybe even religious nature. Ward encourages the reader to look with fresh eyes at something we may have deemed not worthy of our attention.
St Ives
Kevin J. Gardner,
Betjeman on Faith: An Anthology of His Religious Prose
, SPCK: London, 2011; 192pp.: 9780281064168, £12.99 (pbk)
Today the traveller emerging from Eurostar into the arching glories of St Pancras Station is greeted by a bronze statue of Betjeman, looking up in wonder at the railway shed he helped to save from demolition in the 1960s. Betjeman the lover of Victoriana is now rehabilitated but Betjeman the equally passionate advocate of all things Anglican, from bell-ringing to Comper altarpieces is still wholly unfashionable, not least in the higher echelons of the Anglican Church itself, where the invention of the phrase, ‘inherited church’, marks a move to consign ecclesiastical cultural tradition to the nearest car-boot sale as irrelevant and even embarrassing. Flapping flower-rotas, suburban sermons, country evensong, Georgian funereal statuary: Betjeman loves them all and writes about architecture in relation to liturgy and setting with a lyrical passion which is the complete opposite of Pevsner’s encyclopedic objectivity.
Kevin Gardner’s claim in this anthology, however, is that religion ‘was the central preoccupation of his life’ and certainly this collection of occasional prose reveals a man who, despite periods of doubt, is always Christian, and for whom the doctrine of the Incarnation is at the heart of his appreciation of matter: stone, glass and the human alike. There is a generosity of response in Betjeman, which means that he can see value in pitch-pine evangelical chapels as well as the golden womb of All Saints Margaret Street precisely because his response is incarnational in refusing to separate architecture from its users, its history and form of life. Ninian Comper’s work is obviously hugely important to Betjeman but never for purely aesthetic reasons. In a 1958 newspaper article, for example, he praises Comper’s belief that a church ‘should be planned from the altar outwards, and that the altar is the flame to which the church round it is a lantern’ (p. 65). This central altar, in the round, allows word, action and music to be held in harmony ‘and when this kind of alertness is achieved all the mystery comes back – this time in the midst of the people, instead of far away from them’ (p. 65). Comper, of course, tended to design the altar with a canopy or baldachino over it, so the sense of transcendence was not sacrificed in the move to intimacy.
One or two sermons by Betjeman are included, showing a moving humility and directness, and understanding of the difficulties of the lives of working people. There is a helpful riposte to peoples’ refusal to accept the need to match faith with church attendance, in which he shows that through worship they can learn ‘why they were born and what they really ought to be doing and how far they fall short of doing it’ (p. 138). Sacraments for Betjeman are both an art and a mode of self-understanding.
Despite occasional repetition, this is a really vivid and often moving collection, which shows that we underestimate the power and mission of cultural Anglicanism at our peril because, as Betjeman demonstrates, we are sensual creatures, who need to learn to see the religious value in our embodiment.
University of Nottingham
David Crystal,
Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language
, Oxford University Press, New York, 2010; 327 pp.: 9780199695188, £14.99/$24.95 (hbk); 9780199695188, £8.99/$16.95 (pbk)
David Crystal begins his rewarding book on the linguistic influence of the King James Bible by addressing the much repeated sentiment ‘no book has had greater influence on the English language' (p. 1). It is statement that Crystal ultimately finds only partially true. In his study, he argues that no other book has provided the English language ‘with so many idiomatic expressions' and concludes that the King James has been the source of 257 such expressions (p. 258). He also argues, however, that while the Bible may be the champion provider of idiomatic expressions, Shakespeare leads in providing the English language with new words. He writes that Shakespeare ‘was a linguistic innovator, working in a genre which motivated lexical novelty', while Bible translators were ‘linguistically conservative, constrained by their subject matter and their theological tradition' (p. 258). Crystal is fascinated by cases in which biblical expressions are found ‘in daily use, where people take a piece of biblical language and use it in a totally nonbiblical context, knowing that the allusion will be recognized' (p. 6). His study offers a wonderful overview of the biblical roots of some of our language's best-loved expressions.
Crystal divides his book into four basic sections: two prologues, a discussion of forty-two well known idiomatic phrases, an epilogue, and two appendixes. By far, the largest portion of his book concerns his treatments of forty-two idioms. He carefully traces the biblical backgrounds to such popular expressions as ‘the skin of one's teeth', ‘out of the mouths of babes' and a ‘fly in the ointment'. In each case, Crystal offers examples of how these phrases have appeared in contemporary settings – such as Thorton Wilder naming a play The Skin of Our Teeth or Anne Fine naming one of her novels Fly in the Ointment – and then traces that phrase's biblical roots. In some cases we find the footprint of the King James in the exact phraseology still found in use today, while in other cases an oft-attributed biblical phrase such as ‘fly in the ointment' never actually appears in those exact words in the King James Bible.
It would be misleading to say that Crystal is only interested in the linguistic influence of the King James. Throughout his book, and particularly in his first appendix, he also offers countless insights in how other biblical translations have played a role in influencing the development and usage of Bible phrases in the English language. He pays particular attention to five English translations, in addition to the King James translation (1611): Wycliffe (1382-95), Tyndale (1526), Geneva (1560), Bishops (1568) and the Catholic Douai-Rheims translation (1582). He even dips occasionally into Coverdale's Psalter (1535). By considering the English language lineage of the King James Bible, Crystal offers a highly detailed sense of just how much influence the King James Bible had on the development of many of the most loved biblical phrases found in the English language.
Anyone interested in the biblical etymology of popular English idiomatic phrases will find Begat a fine resource. What is more, it is an entertaining historical treatment of the English language, highly accessible, full of useful facts and told with verve and panache.
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana