Abstract
For the last six years Theology has published regular ‘Difficult text’ articles. Some have been written by academic biblical scholars (professors and postgraduates), whereas others have been by those engaged in practical ministry, lay or ordained. Engaging with Scripture is, after all, something that all Christians are encouraged to do. During the Covid-19 context of social distancing, isolation and closed churches, engagement with Scripture for many of us has become more important than ever. This is something that we can do on our own. For me as a parent and grandparent – concerned about the sacrifices that have been expected from the young in order to protect those over 65 – Luke’s story of Simeon taking the child Jesus in his arms and handing over to God (Luke 2.28) has been especially resonant. Perhaps older people have expected too much from the young … no schools, no parties, no travel and young families sharing limited living space. Covid-19 has raised crucial and difficult questions about the common good and about intergenerational justice.
The first four international articles in this issue focus on different uses of Scripture. In the first, Dr Geoff Thompson, from Australia, offers a critique of the American Professor Dale Martin’s challenge to the ‘authority of Scripture’. Then Dr Jan Slomp, a retired minister from the Netherlands, suggests the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8 as an exemplar of sexual diversity. Next Dr Mark Laynesmith, Anglican Chaplain at the University of Reading, offers a critical reading of the cleansing of the Temple in Mark. Then Ann Conway-Jones, Chair of Birmingham Council of Christians and Jews, tackles anti-Judaism in Luke. Much to reflect upon here.
The following article returns to the ongoing debate generated by the 2017 Routledge book Religion and Atheism: beyond the divide (to which I contributed). Brian Pearce, a retired senior civil servant and another contributor to this debate, offers a thoughtful and eirenic meeting point for theists and atheists alike. Finally, the scientist Professor John Lloyd makes another contribution to the continuing science and religion debate, this time on kenosis, and among the reviews is one of the last by Stephen Prickett, former Regius Professor of English at Glasgow. Knowing that he had pancreatic cancer and that his time was limited, he was particularly keen to review Heaven and Hell: a history of the afterlife. It is vintage Stephen – learned and lively. He died peacefully on 12 October aged 81. We have lost a scholar who championed the area of theology and literature with great distinction and I have lost a personal friend.
Two suggestions for Christmas holiday reading. The first may give you a headache, whereas the second, a biography of John Habgood, you can simply enjoy or even give to a friend:
Wayne J. Hankey and Douglas Hedley (eds),
It is now 30 years since John Milbank’s hugely ambitious Theology and Social Theory: beyond secular reason was first published. This book soon led to the formation of the theological movement now known as Radical Orthodoxy and remains loved or hated for its extraordinary erudition, abundant rhetoric and (frankly) deliberate exaggerations. Fortunately, one of the best and earliest critical guides to this book and movement, first published as a hardback in 2005, is at last out in paperback, reducing its pre-discount price from £110 to £40. It offers a detailed and scholarly critique of the way in which John Milbank’s book and then Radical Orthodoxy appropriated (or misappropriated) Augustine, Aquinas, Cambridge Platonists, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Derrida and many others. Here is a sample of some their blunter conclusions: The Aquinas of Radical Orthodoxy is a fine monument to the arbitrary power of postmodern hermeneutics: a totem, erected by Milbank and Pickstock for their own ideological purposes, which has almost nothing to do with the Aquinas of history. (John Marenbon, p. 62) Radical Orthodoxy’s claim to have roots in the Cambridge Platonists … is prima vista puzzling. And indeed when we examine the major tenets of Radical Orthodoxy we find that they are not just incompatible with those of those seventeenth-century men of Latitude, but in opposition. (Douglas Hedley, p. 114) Kierkegaard’s own critique of his contemporary philosophy, society and Church is biting indeed. But … Kierkegaard leaves more room for genuine dialogue than the speculative world-historical narrative of Radical Orthodoxy, which already knows that it has it all. It is that openness, that affirmation of faith without knowing the end of the story, which Radical Theology cannot abide. (Steven Shakespeare, p. 148) It is possibly because Milbank and Pickstock both see themselves in the service of a higher mission that they adopt a Nietzschean ethic of intolerance of mere scholarship. (Hugh Rayment-Pickard, p. 161)
And my own first reading of an eagerly awaited copy of Theology and Social Theory in 1990 found exactly the same problem with its handling of the sociology of religion (sadly not discussed at any length in Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy). John Milbank and I had both been junior members of the Blackfriars Symposium on Theology and Sociology that met in Oxford in the 1980s. It was founded by the late sociologists David Martin and W. S. F. Pickering with the Dominican John Orme Mills and was small and strictly by invitation only (few refused). In these meetings, Milbank got to know sociologists who were not remotely reductionists or anti- or crypto-theologians, but practising Christians. Yet he never mentioned any of them in Theology and Social Theory and dismissed the whole discipline of the sociology of religion as spurious because ‘scientific social theories are themselves theologies or anti-theologies in disguise’ (p. 3). I know just how appalled some of those sociologists who had attended the Blackfriars Symposium were by this claim, made a mere three years after its final meeting. Some concluded that, sadly, Milbank’s exaggeration, in this academic area at least, was deliberate.
What might be learned from this? Perhaps that theologians, past and present (but, emphatically, not John Habgood), can succumb to the lures of exaggeration. Or, perhaps, that our search for truth can be stimulated by those who exaggerate, forcing us to think more clearly and more deeply. Theology and Social Theory certainly goaded me to try to do that. So, I will add another value judgement to my assessment of this astonishing book: it was a necessary stimulant and irritant. Ironically, this a bit like my attitude to the far less erudite New Atheists.
David Wilbourne,
If you enjoy ‘What if?’ books, then you might well enjoy this lively, chatty, anecdotal and affectionate biography. What if John Habgood had been appointed (as many at the time expected) as Archbishop of Canterbury instead of Robert Runcie in 1980 or instead of George Carey in 1991? And who was to blame for blocking his appointment? Margaret Thatcher because he was too liberal, or some senior clergy because he (but, as we learn, not his wife) supported the ordination of women? This biography does not actually answer any of these questions, but it does allow us to hazard a guess.
My guess is that he simply did not have the necessary people skills. David Wilbourne was Habgood’s mostly deferential former chaplain (who later became an assistant bishop in Wales). He repeatedly mentions Habgood’s formidable intellectual skills and his physical height, but he is distinctly less persuasive about his pastoral or employment skills. As I discovered myself, he seldom praised anyone, unlike Runcie and Carey, who both excelled in praising and thanking those serving them. He was not especially attentive when colleagues or their families were ill – unlike, say, Margaret Thatcher. And he expected to be driven by David even to distant engagements in total silence and without anything to eat. On one occasion, when David did offer a pertinent pastoral suggestion, he made a terse response before ‘returning to his usual surly silence’ (p. 184).
John Habgood was formidable and forbidding, conservative and liberal, unapproachable and yet influential. Working with him on medical ethics for 13 years, I saw at first hand the way in which he impressed other equally formidable luminaries such as Mary Warnock and Ian Kennedy. His conclusions were typically cautious and conservative, but the way in which he reached these conclusions could be unexpected and fascinating. He thought for himself and helped others to think – and that, surely, is a real gift.
Richard Harries’ conclusion in Church Times (1 May 2020) may indeed be basically right: John Habgood gave greater service to Church and society by working alongside two Archbishops of Canterbury than he might have given had he been appointed instead of one or other of them. An enjoyable, light read.