Editorial

This issue of Theology opens with the second part of Professor John and Kathleen Goldingay’s splendid joint article ‘The Sting in the Psalms’. The first part (published in the November issue) connected with the attempted genocide in Darfur and looked at the way that the poetic nature of the Psalms can have an ethical effect on the person who uses them. The second part connects also with Namibia and considers the significance of using the imprecatory psalms.

Professor Grace Davie, the distinguished sociologist of religion at Exeter University, will already be well known to many readers of Theology. A committed Anglican and an Honorary Lay Canon of the Diocese of Europe, she has spoken at many Diocesan Synods and Church Assemblies. Her deep knowledge of European churches and her fluency in French allow her to speak and write with considerable authority – as she does in her article here. This looks carefully at the persistent and varied links between religion and welfare across Europe. It does so by drawing on an extensive body of comparative material brought together by the Uppsala Religion and Society Research Centre. It particularly looks at why it is that European churches are doing more than they used to as agents of welfare despite the fact that Europe itself is becoming more rather than less secular.

‘New Directions’ in this issue looks at New Testament Studies in the capable hands of Dr Grant Macaskill of the University of St Andrews. He argues that the most significant developments in the study of the New Testament have grown from revisions in our understanding of its relationship to the Judaism of the period. These have implications not only for the study of the New Testament itself but also for how we understand its relationship to patristic thought. In addition, he argues that they are (or could be) significant for those seeking to bring the segregated fields of theology and New Testament study together.

The next article is by the veteran theologian Dr Gerald Downing. His is a response to Don Cupitt’s article ‘After the end of the world’ published earlier in Theology (July 2014). He admits that he has been shaped by many of the same social and theological influences as Cupitt and shares with him a radical take on Christianity. Those familiar with his challenging first book, Does Christianity Have a Revelation? (1964), will be well aware that this is so. However, his conclusions could not be more different. There is no ‘taking leave of God’ here.

The final article, ‘Difficult Texts’, is by a new scholar, Jason Fout. It looks at a challenging text on ‘fearing God’ (Exod. 20.18–21) and argues that neither an experience of theophany nor a human reaction to divine anger is what is meant when Scripture talks of ‘the fear of God’.

Once more I hope that you enjoy reading these articles as much as I have done. Whether you are a newcomer or a veteran (or somewhere in between) please do keep them coming in.