Abstract
Hilary Russell,
A Faithful Presence: Working Together for the Common Good
(London: SCM Press, 2015); 137 pp.: 9780334053897, £10.99 (pbk)
This accessible little book, written by a former professor of urban policy at Liverpool John Moores University, builds upon Nick Sagovsky and Peter McGrail’s Together for the Common Good also published by SCM Press. Hilary Russell focuses upon Liverpool and seeks to show how the important ecumenical cooperation of the late David Sheppard and Derek Worlock is still important. She outlines such concepts as the common good and subsidiarity, and describes many of the joint ecumenical actions for those in need that have been particularly effective there and elsewhere. A very helpful contribution.
Patrick M. Clark,
Perfection in Death: The Christological Dimension of Courage in Aquinas
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2015); 317 pp.: 9780813227979, $65.00 (hbk)
Stanley Hauerwas depicts this as ‘the most significant study of Aquinas’ ethics since Pinkaers’ (see my Editorial in the previous issue of Theology for the late Servais Pinkaers’s final book). A former doctoral thesis, this book is much denser than Pinkaers. Clark contrasts Aquinas’s understanding of the passions and martyrdom favourably with that of earlier Greek philosophers and so-called exemplarist philosophers today. He argues helpfully that ‘Aquinas, like Aristotle, assigns the passions their own proper role in the full perfection of the human person. These passions are subordinated to reason, but they nevertheless emerge from inclinations that are prior to reason and as such direct themselves to goods upon which the operation of reason depends’ (p. 103).
Colin Buchanan,
Historical Dictionary of Anglicanism
, second edition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015); 714 pp.: 9781442250154, £100.00/$150.00 (hbk)
The first edition was published in 2006 and sold well especially in the USA. The ever-energetic Colin Buchanan has expanded its contents by almost 50 per cent in order to reflect the fact that ‘the Anglican Communion has gone through extraordinary vicissitudes during the intervening years’ (p. xvii). Astonishingly he, now in his early 80s, has continued to draft all of the entries himself.
Francesca Aran Murphy with Troy A. Stefano (eds),
The Oxford Handbook of Christology
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); 670 pp.: 9780199641901, £95.00/$150.00 (hbk).
A significant line-up of 39 contributors in 6 areas: the Bible; Patristic Christology; mediaeval Christology; Reformation Christology; modern Christology; images of Christ; and the grammar of Christology. It aims to provide a detailed exploration of Christology from earliest Christianity to the present day and to examine the best biblical, historical and theological scholarship on Christology. A very impressive collection.
Basil Watkins,
The Book of Saints: A Comprehensive Biographical Dictionary
, eighth edition (London: Bloomsbury, 2016); 827 pp.: 9780567664563, £24.99/$39.00 (pbk)
The first edition of this reference book came out in 1988. The present edition contains details of over 10,000 saints canonized by the Roman Catholic Church up to 2015 and including the many canonized while John Paul II was Pope. Entries are in double columns and even Aquinas gets only half a column. Truly exhaustive.
Dagmar Heller (ed.), ‘A Dialogue on Believers’ Baptism’ in
The Ecumenical Review
Vol. 67, no. 3 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, October 2015), pp. 323–492
This collection of papers results from an important consultation held in Kingston, Jamaica in 2015, when representatives of Christian traditions that do not practise infant baptism ‘consulted for the first time among themselves. They discovered differences concerning their baptism practices and understanding as well as concerning the practice of baptizing or not baptizing persons who had been baptized as infants’ (p. 323). David M. Thompson, formerly Professor of Modern Church History at Oxford, provides an excellent introduction.
Richard N. Longenecker,
Paul, Apostle of Liberty
, second edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015); 435 pp.: 9780802843029, £22.99/$34.00 (pbk)
The first edition of this book was published in 1964 and gave an influential evangelical account of the tension between law and liberty in Paul’s teaching. This new edition has a lengthy addendum discussing major developments in Pauline studies in the intervening years.
G. Scott Gleaves,
Did Jesus Speak Greek?
(Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2015); 214 pp.: 9780227175484, £17.25/$34.50 (pbk)
Unlike the proponents of the so-called Aramaic Hypothesis – such as the formidable scholars Maurice Casey and the late Matthew Black – who argued that the New Testament is finally dependent upon original Aramaic oral and perhaps written sources, Gleaves follows scholars such as Stanley Porter who argue that Jesus himself was at least bilingual (in Aramaic and Greek). He provides detailed textual evidence for this, but it must be for the linguistic experts to evaluate the strength of this evidence. However, if accepted, it does suggest a doctrinally fascinating possibility, namely, that Jesus and the New Testament writers (with their heavy use of the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint) were influenced by both Greek and Hebrew culture in the linguistically pluralistic Palestine of their day (NB John 19.20).
Patrick Gray,
Varieties of Religious Invention: Founders and their Functions in History
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); 210 pp.: 9780199359714, £64.00/$99.00 (hbk); 978019935971, £19.99/$29.95 (pbk)
Do not be put off by the word ‘invention’ in this title. This is not a polemical but a scholarly work of (largely American) younger religious studies specialists exploring differences between and within religious traditions (Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism) on whether they and outsiders consider them to have a founder. Islam clearly does, but Hinduism almost as clearly does not. Judaism is highly debatable (is it Moses, Abraham, David or even Ezra?). Jesus as the founder of Christianity is disputed by few Christians, but some polemicists have claimed Paul to be its real founder. Jesus also plays a fascinating role in Islam and even in some of the Eastern religious traditions, but seldom in Judaism (despite Geza Vermes’s seminal Jesus the Jew). Much interesting material to explore here.