Why Men Shouldn’t be Ordained

Earlier this year, the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership hosted Robert Jenson in an informal but riveting round table conversation about the eucharist and mission. In the midst of the discussion, Professor Jenson made the comment that the ecumenical movement (at least at ‘official’ levels) has reached a standstill, and he named as the reason the ordination of women. [Seems like a good time to recall Balthasar's words: 'But the most important requirement for [the ecumenical] venture is that both partners in the dialogue have God before them and not behind them. All movement must be towards God, the depth of whose wisdom and mystery appears always to increase’. Who Is a Christian? (London: Burns & Oates, 1968), 39.]

Anyway, now Halden has reposted an absolute ripper from Linda on why men shouldn’t be ordained. In fact, it’s so good that I’m reposting it here as well:

10. A man’s place is in the army.

9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.

8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.

7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.

5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.

4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.

3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.

2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, change the oil in the church vans, and maybe even lead the singing on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.

1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.

And, in the comments, Kim Fabricius has added an eleventh reason: ‘11. Jesus did not ordain men. He did not ordain women either, of course – but two wrongs don’t make a right’.

Frederick Buechner on ‘rather splendid’ symbols

I’m still appreciating the offerings from the pen of Frederick Buechner. And I completely dig his take on wine:

‘Unfermented grape juice is a bland and pleasant drink, especially on a warm afternoon mixed half-and-half with ginger ale. It is a ghastly symbol of the life blood of Jesus Christ, especially when served in individual antiseptic, thimble-sized glasses. Wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk-making. It makes the timid brave and the reserved amorous. It loosens the tongue and breaks the ice especially when served in a loving cup. It kills germs. As symbols go, it is a rather splendid one’. – Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking. A Theological ABC (San Francisco: Harper, 1973), 95–6.

These words reminded me of the first time I ever heard Robert Jenson speak. It was at Ormond College in Melbourne about 7–8 years ago. I recall the conviction with which he spoke of the centrality of the Eucharist in the life and mission of the Church. I also recall the passion with which he condemned the use of individual shot glasses and highlighted the need for congregations to drink from the one cup, and to fill it with the best wine that we can afford. This conviction finds echo in his Conversations with Poppi about God, where he writes: ‘the wine should be the very best’ and dissolvable bread should be banned. The meal should be appetising, and not like those baptisms ‘when they just dribble a couple of drops on the baby’. – Robert W. Jenson and Solveig Lucia Gold, Conversations with Poppi about God: An Eight-Year-Old and Her Theologian Grandfather Trade Questions (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006), 33, 34. [Reviewed here]

I’m into sharing meals that make ‘the timid brave and the reserved amorous’. I believe that God is as well. Sounds like the kind of meal we ought to be having more often too.

Robert Jenson: The 2009 Burns Lectures on Video

I recently posted notes on Robert Jenson’s 2009 Burn Lectures delivered at the University of Otago on the theme, ‘The Regula Fidei and Scripture’:

• Lecture 1: Creed, Scripture, and Their Modern Alienation
• Lecture 2: The Tanakh as Christian Scripture
• Lecture 3: The New Testament and the Regula Fidei
• Lecture 4: The Apostles’ Creed
• Lecture 5: The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture
• Lecture 6: Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26-38

The video podcasts of those lectures are now available for download as MP4s:

• Lecture 1: Creed, Scripture, and their Modern Alienation
• Lecture 2: The Tanakh as Christian Scripture
• Lecture 3: The New Testament and the Regula Fidei
• Lecture 4: The Apostles’ Creed
• Lecture 5: The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture
• Lecture 6: Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26-38

Robert Jenson: The 2009 Burns Lectures on ‘The Regula Fidei and Scripture’

Here’s a list of recently posted notes on Robert Jenson’s 2009 Burn Lectures delivered at the University of Otago:

• Lecture 1: Creed, Scripture, and Their Modern Alienation
• Lecture 2: The Tanakh as Christian Scripture
• Lecture 3: The New Testament and the Regula Fidei
• Lecture 4: The Apostles’ Creed
• Lecture 5: The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture
• Lecture 6: Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26-38

The video podcasts of those lectures are now available for download as MP4s. See here for details.

Robert Jenson: Burns Lecture 6 – Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26–38

For his grand finale Robert Jenson offered a practical demonstration of what had been argued for in the first five lectures, namely, a creedal critical exegesis of Scripture. Due to time limitations Jenson took as his text Genesis 1:1-3 only. The joy of hearing him on this text was that it touched on many of the key themes of Jenson’s thought and gave us a kind of overview of his doctrine of creation and time.

His starting point was the observation that, although the two well-known translations of Genesis 1:1 are both grammatically possible, the shift in the NRSV to the temporal subordinate clause (‘when God created the heavens and the earth’) is a move from the most straightforward and default translation to something that more closely reflects the religiosity of ancient paganism. (There is no reason, Jenson contends, to abandon the LXX and KJV here) It is a departure from radical Judaism to a view of the universe in which chaos is antecedent to and coeval with God’s creating. Jenson noted that if in the beginning there is both God and chaos then both God and chaos are involved – at least at one level – in our creation. Creedal criticism, where the creed provides the lens for our suspicion of appearances, makes us immediately alert to this reading which assimilates YHWH to the anthropomorphic gods of religion. Even if it is only chaos it is a foothold outside God – a point of independence – something other than the absolute beginning of the Christian faith. It challenges our faith in the world’s ’self-founded timeless being’. It is, says Jenson, Scripture’s scandalous ‘metaphysical put-down’ that we try and avoid. Interestingly, Jenson notes this same impulse in the cosmologist’s attempt to avoid creatio ex nihilo by means of positing multiple universes – a totally untestable and therefore unscientific hypothesis, which has nothing other than the conviction of ‘no absolute beginning’ as its basis.

With an eye on the creed Jenson continues: ‘Who is this God who tolerates no antecedents of his work?’ Creedal criticism assumes it to be obvious that it is the Father of the Son, Jesus Christ. It thus justifies the gloss ‘In the beginning the Father of Jesus created the heavens and the earth’. Thus we may conclude that ‘the contingency of the world is founded on the contingency of the life of Jesus’.

Jenson cites Westermann to claim that Genesis 1:1 is a caption summary for the whole story that follows. This then leads on to 1:2, which is where the creation narrative properly begins. Jenson claims that the best scholarship locates this verse in the post-exilic editing of a priestly savant in the second temple and then poses the question of whether this scholar was (a) thinking paganly or (b) using pagan language of Near Eastern mythology to serve the purposes of 1:1. Under the guidance of the creed, Jenson choses to read it the second way. His account of 1:2 is something like this. Given the unavoidable sequentiality of the narration of events, the writer wields the language of subsistent nothingness as a place-marker to indicate an absence. There can be no question about before. In Jenson’s phraseology, ‘To ask what was God doing before he created the world is a dumb question.

Again in verse 3 Jenson’s creedally-suspicious mind spots ideology at work in the NRSV’s translation of ‘a wind from God’ where in every other instance of the phrase ruach elohim is translated ‘Spirit of/from God’. What’s more, because Genesis 1:3 is a late text the tradent knew this title. Jenson’s creedal reading thus concludes ‘The Holy Spirit agitated the empty possibility posited when God begins to create and there is nothing’. What’s more, this suggests that there is an ‘inner liveliness in God’ which is directed towards making something when there is nothing.

At this point Jenson offered asides on the Nicene concept of the Holy Spirit as ‘enlivener’ and the folly of continuing to insist on the filoque which was after all an illegal addition.

From here the story of creation begins: (a) God said let there be light; (b) God saw that the light was good; (c) God separated the light from the darkness. The world simply is an affirmative response to God’s command: ‘That’s all there is to it’! And this explosion of energy (light) is good (for something). Here Jenson explores all the non-creedal and non-trinitarian puzzlements surrounding this text. A monotheistic/Unitarian/Aristotelian God cannot speak. For such a god eternity is necessarily silent.  At best, if a god like Aristotle’s did speak it would be an act of condescension. Moreover, for such a god to speak presupposes a polytheistic pantheon. However the creedal critic knows that not only can the Triune God speak, but God can be conceived as a conversation. ‘God is a conversation’. Only the Triune God who is a conversation can issue a command to creation before creation existed because the second person of the Trinity is himself a creature – Jesus of Nazareth. At this point Jenson talked of a conversation in which the Son, as the creature Jesus Christ, hears and speaks. ‘In what language does God speak?’, Jenson provocatively asks. In the language of Spirit – that universally self-translating language heard by the prophets, and which at Pentecost all the nations heard as their own.

And God saw that the light was good. Was it good because he saw it so, or did he discover it to be good? Jenson responds that there is ‘no humanly ascertainable difference’. However the key question Jenson moves quickly on to is, ‘Good for what?’ And here he refers us to the second and third articles of the creed – that is, that creation is the good stage for the drama of Jesus Christ. Moreover, this 78-year old ‘unreliable’ Lutheran affirms with Barth that creation is the ‘outer basis’ or ground for the covenant and its events, and that covenant is the inner ground of creation.

What about darkness? Does God create a non-good. Jenson accepts Augustine’s reading of darkness as absence, where light runs out. Evil is the ‘running out’ of being in its finitude. Thus like the dimming of light an apparent necessity (or at least an actuality) of created finitude. The creation of life includes within it ‘death on an enormous scale.’

The story moves from the creation of life (‘energy’ in (post-)modern parlance) to its endless differentiation. Jenson comments: ‘Never rest too much on agreement between science and theology’ precisely because science is constantly changing and it is inherent in its claim to be science that it is open to such change. So Jenson argues, our priestly savant used the best science of his day to tell of God’s creation of the world – ‘what other science was there?’ We ought to emulate his courage?

Question time followed. The first question in the gladiatorial fray went to the heart of Jenson’s theology asking whether the creatureliness of the Son (no logos asarkos) implied the eternity of creation (pantheism?). Jenson, clearly familiar with the need to defend this ‘novelty’ in his thought, was surprisingly brief in his response. It was two-fold: (a) his Ockham’s razor saw no need for a pre-incarnate logos (begging some prima facie questions posed by John’s prologue, of the Word’s becoming) and (b) a pre-incarnate logos becoming flesh presupposes a common timeline in divine and human history. This doesn’t correspond to Jenson’s view of the relation between time and eternity, and is a nonsense. However, he didn’t feel the need to defend this claim here. No doubt time did not permit.

Further questions focused on theodicy. In different ways, Jenson’s succinct conclusion was that ‘we can’t get God off the hook for evil. We can’t do it, but we have confidence that God can do it!’ Jenson mentioned in passing the open theist theodicy which diminishes the notion of omnipotence so that God is not morally responsible for all that happens. Jenson is not personally happy with this, but was not completely dismissive either.

The lecture was a powerful presentation of Christian reading/exegesis which depends on the premises of his previous lectures (see I, II, III, IV and V). One might reasonably be not entirely convinced by Jenson’s radically post-modern/pre-modern scepticism with respect to objective meaning in texts (see Lecture 5) and therefore have some doubts about the pathway Jenson takes to a theological interpretation. Are authorial intentions really as private as Jenson suggests (and Vanhoozer, for example, denies)? A comment Jenson made to post-graduates at a seminar on Wednesday morning about the infinite malleability of texts makes one wonder about the distinction between reading a text and projecting onto the text – if this distinction is lost the proposal of a creedal exegesis seems to have a certain kind of arbitrariness. However, even if Jenson is wrong about hermeneutics, it does not follow that his theological reflections on the text of Genesis 1 are wrong, just that its relation to something one might call ‘the meaning of Genesis 1′ is different from how he conceives it.

One might also think that Jenson’s suggestion that the contingent creaturely life of Jesus is part of the eternal life and conversation which is the Triune God requires considerably more unpacking than Jenson is want to do. Might Jenson’s formulation suggest that this creature who is also creator might be in fact self-creating? Might Ockham be cutting himself shaving?

A final thought: however one arrives, one never leaves a Jenson lecture unchanged. Whether he is lecturing on theology proper, on eschatology, on the Trinity, on culture, on anthropology, on ecumenism or on the relationship between Holy Scripture and the Church’s Creeds, Jenson is undoubtedly one of the most original and erudite theologians of our time. Certainly, as one commentator noted, ‘Jenson’s mind makes stimulating company’. One comes away from this series of Burns Lectures with a renewed love for Scripture, with a new appreciation of the abiding witness and value of the Church’s Creeds, and with a lively sense of doxological fervour for the Triune God. At the end of the day, isn’t that what all theology exists to be about?

 

Past Lectures:

1. Creed, Scripture, and Their Modern Alienation

2. The Tanakh as Christian Scripture

3. The New Testament and the Regula Fidei

4. The Apostles’ Creed

5. The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture

 

Notes by Bruce Hamill and Jason Goroncy

Robert Jenson: Burns Lecture 5 – The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture

‘Texts by themselves do not automatically flaunt the meaning they harbour’. From this postulation Professor Jenson proceeded – in this his fifth Burns Lecture (for earlier lectures see I, II, III, IV) – to challenge Modernist attempts to discern what the text is ‘really saying’. He warned of the limited value of efforts to understand ‘who is up to what’ with any particular writing (authorial intent), but also that the Church cannot simply opt out of Modernity’s critical agendas. The question becomes then which critical theory to adopt.

Jenson advanced that the Church is the body which must interpret the biblical texts, and to do so in light of the regula fidei, the Apostle’s Creed, and with the Triune God who is ‘up to something’ in these texts. ‘Acknowledging God’, he said, is a necessity for every interpretation except of that of the nihilist. The Triune God is a Person, and as such is the metaphysical bond between reality and discourse about reality. The alternative, Jenson contends, is that texts float free in a void of indifference. Reality and language meet only in God. This relates not only to Scriptural texts but to any texts. The Church has confidence to do hermeneutics only because the Church knows God personally, because the Church lives in a shared history with God.

From here, Jenson posed and proceeded to answer the question ‘What is creedal-critical exegesis?’ His answer: it is ‘christological common sense’, by which Jenson meant that Christ is God’s agenda in Scripture, not as allegory or figure, but ‘plainly’ (except when the genre of the text demands an allegorical or figurative reading). So, for example, Jenson contended that when Israel went into exile, the Shekhinah (who is Jesus of Nazareth) when went them. One implication of this is that when Israel is redeemed the Shekhinah will be redeemed with them. Jenson was completely unapologetic in his insistence that Old Testament references to ‘the angel of the Lord’ and ’son of God’ are references to the second triune identity – Jesus of Nazareth. He proffered that to read the OT like this is to take seriously its ‘plain meaning’, and also that a legitimate rendering of John 1 might be, ‘In the beginning was the Shekhinah, and the Shekhinah was with God …’ etc. This, at least to my mind, was not the clearest section of the lecture series.

Jenson concluded his lecture by suggesting that the historical-critical exegetes are not critical enough (particularly of their own agenda), and reminding us that the Church’s theological tradition is always an ongoing conversation rather than the passing on of a fully-defined body of knowledge. In light of the latter, he suggested that if Paul, James and Peter were not involved in genuine dispute with one another then they can be of little use to us.

One of the questions that Jenson responded to during the question time that followed concerned the notion of God as a God of war. This had come up in previous lectures too. Again, Jenson was nothing if not clear in outlining his basic position: If we don’t want God involved in the violence of history then this equates, Jenson contends, to the confession that we don’t want God involved with us. The implications of this position – the questions it raises – would undoubtedly require a second series of lectures, or at least a few more nights at the pub with friends, to unpack.

 

Past Lectures:

1. Creed, Scripture, and Their Modern Alienation

2. The Tanakh as Christian Scripture

3. The New Testament and the Regula Fidei

4. The Apostles’ Creed

Next Lecture:

6. Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26-38

 

Notes by Bruce Hamill and Jason Goroncy

Robert Jenson: Burns Lecture 4 – The Apostles’ Creed

Professor Jenson began the fourth of his six Burns Lectures by following up a question that arose after the previous lecture. The question concerned the Resurrection. He suggested that when we think of ‘living persons’ we must attend to two ‘aspects’:

1. There is among us a voice which changes those to whom it is addressed. When the living voice of the gospel is heard – whether in liturgy, preaching, casual conversation, debate, etc. – then Christ is heard.
2. A live human person is embodied. They are available. For this reason, a corpse is not a body. The Eucharistic elements are the body, as is the sound of the preachers’ voice, as is the touch of the baptiser. These are – in the conviction of the Church – actions of the body of Christ. Consequently, if one desires to see Christ, then one must look at the community of Christ, Christ’s body.

Jenson then turned more properly to the topic of The Apostles’ Creed, the Symbolum Apostolicum, which he described as the final deposit/version where the regula fidei ceases to be an intuition in the Church and ‘becomes a text’. He noted its relationship to baptism, and its shaping after the one name of the triune God in whose life the baptised participate. The triadic form, he suggested, represents the ‘internal structure’ of the one baptismal name according to the plot of God’s narrative with his people. This means that God’s history with his people is not only his people’s history but is also God’s own history.

Jenson proceeded to recall that it is precisely by their distinction from/relationship to one another that the three persons are one God. The Father is the Father of the Son, etc. Father, Son and Spirit (who is God’s ‘liveliness’) ‘mutually imply each other’. Moreover, and following Barth, Jenson contended that Father, Son and Spirit is ‘the Christian name for God’. (I have posted on this here). His defence of the position that it is ‘Father’ rather than ‘Mother’ was christologically determined: Jesus spoke of and addressed God as his ‘Father’ because Jesus was a Jew, and Christians address God as ‘Father’ – and not as ‘Mother’ – because we address God in Christ. Jenson described the Spirit as ‘the mutual love between the Father and the Son’. We live in this ‘mutual space’.

The remainder of the lecture returned to themes introduced in earlier lectures. Specifically, to arguing that the structure of the Creed is determined by the NT itself, and this in a two-fold sense:

(i) by its references to God. Jenson noted that the NT is full of ‘primary trinitarianism’, that there is a trinitarian logic that governs the NT, and that ‘with very few exceptions’ references to God in the NT imply a trinity of Persons.

(ii) by its prayers, particularly the so-called Lord’s Prayer. In giving the Church the prayer Jesus did, he invited us to ‘piggy back’ on his prayer to the Father, to participate with him (who alone has a native right to address God as ‘Father’) in his own praying to the Father. In this context, Jenson suggested that ‘if you know how to pray the Lord’s Prayer then you’ve got it [i.e. you've got the gospel in nuce]!’

Jenson reminded us that the Creed does not encourage the parsing out of God’s works among the three Persons. The first article’s focus is praise (grounded in and recalling Genesis 1 and the Psalms) and the second’s is God’s works. He also suggested that the Creed does not support the Church’s native way of reading the OT. By moving directly from creation to the incarnation the Creed avoids (dismisses?) 2/3 of the Bible. While the regula fidei saved the OT as Scripture for the Church it did not preserve the ongoing role of the OT. Why? Here Jenson suggested two reasons: (i) the influence of the Gentile Church; and (ii) Marcion. It was at this point that Jenson offered his first of two real criticisms of the Apostles’ Creed, arguing that it by itself is an inadequate witness to the Church’s faith. The first line of the Creed – the reference to God as ‘Maker of heaven and earth’ – recalls the ‘last vestige of the Old Testament’. His other reservation concerning the Creed is its basic omission of Jesus’ life. To paraphrase Jenson: ‘It wouldn’t have hurt the Church one bit to add a line or two about Jesus preaching the kingdom of God, and of his fellowship with publicans, etc’.

To Jenson’s surprise, the question time that followed elicited no discussion about the feminist objections to God’s proper naming as Father, Son and Spirit. (I’m not sure what this says about the audience). Instead, discussion followed two main trajectories:

(i) the relationship between Jenson’s notion of ‘living persons’ and its implications for the parousia. His response to this question was unsatisfying. He rightly noted that the apocalyptic scenarios Scripture presents ‘cannot be harmonised’ and that the parousia represents ‘the explosion of the fire of love, love which is perfect in itself’. He preferenced the scene from the Book of the Revelation (over those from say Thessalonians) where the redeemed worship the Father in the crucified Lamb. But he was decidedly unclear about the Son’s locus in the parousia, and of the form which believers might reasonably anticipate concerning Jesus, suggesting instead that the Son’s parousia happens, among other ways, in the liturgical action of the people of God.

(ii) the article in the Creed ‘born of the Virgin Mary’. On this Jenson suggested that this article refers primarily to the absence of the will of the flesh in Christ’s birth. He also reminded us that the Creed is the Church’s and not the individual’s. What the Church must confess always need not necessarily be what any particular individual believer feels they can confess at the time. This latter response seems to beg further justification. I wonder how the absence of Joseph’s biological contribution or action in Christ’s birth constitutes ‘the absence of the will of the flesh’ if Mary’s fleshly identity is involved in the birth of Christ. Does perhaps Scripture indicate a parallel eclipsing of the human will in the way Mary was ‘overshadowed’ by the Holy Spirit? Are, in fact, both the doctrine of the virgin conception and the overshadowing of Mary, simply, tentative, possibly clumsy, ways of affirming that in Jesus’ birth and whole life history, his origin in the will of the Father and the power of the Spirit overrides the generative processes of fallen humanity (whether they be biological or socio-cultural)?

 

Past Lectures:

1. Creed, Scripture, and Their Modern Alienation

2. The Tanakh as Christian Scripture

3. The New Testament and the Regula Fidei

Following Lectures:

5. The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture

6. Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26-38

 

Notes by Bruce Hamill and Jason Goroncy

 

Robert Jenson: Burns Lecture 3 – The New Testament and the Regula Fidei

Professor Jenson’s third Burns Lecture was concerned with the emergence of the NT as canon.

Initially he looked at the emergence of the NT canon as documented in the writings of Irenaeus. He noted that Irenaeus‘ arguments are circular, however, this is not a vicious circularity, indeed ‘circularity is the very mark of the Holy Spirit’.

In the search for authoritative apostolic teaching, Paul’s writings were accepted in spite of the appearance of gnosticism. Paul’s letters are scripture but only in the broader context of the story to which they contribute. The acceptance of the gospels arose due to the ‘logical relation’ between the gospel and the earliest expressions of the regula fidei. ‘Jesus is risen’ – ‘the ’shortest statement of the gospel’ – calls out for narrative specification of Jesus’ identity. The gospel offered precisely that thickness of description and ‘morally and religiously specific news’ that the Church’s continuing identity required. On the other hand the theology of Paul and the other writers gave specificity to the meaning of ‘is risen’. So ‘Jesus’ is a reference to a real person; ‘is risen’ is a statement of ‘utmost salvific import’, especially in Second Temple Judaism.

The overall argument of the lecture was for the mutual interdependence of gospels and letters, alongside the mutual interdependence of creed and canon. Just as the crisis of identity threatening the Church’s fading regula fidei called for both the narrative of the gospels and the theology of the letters, so the emerging creedal formulations arising out of the regula fidei required the canon.

In something of a introductory survey of the Second-Century Church, Jenson reminded us that it was Clement of Alexandria who was the first to refer to the ‘Old Testament’ and to the ‘New Testament’. He also argued that the NT canon probably would have been formed even without Marcion, but that it may have been a different canon. Still, ‘we cannot say’.

Jenson proceeded to argue that creed and canon ‘fit together’ like two halves of a puzzle: the NT is indispensable to the creedal tradition and the canon is indispensable to the NT. Although he didn’t specify which creeds have authority for the Church (e.g. what ought we make of the Reformation creeds?), he did define the criterion by which that may be determined. He reserved the title ‘creed’ for those statements which derived ‘organically out of the regula fidei‘. Thus this notion of the communal self-consciousness of the first witnesses (he praised Bauckham’s recent study here, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses) becomes more and more central to his emerging argument. Canon and creed together as the source of the identity of the Church over time take over where ‘regula fidei’ leaves off.

He made a brief comment on inspiration, stressing that the work of the Spirit – undergirding that circular reasoning we talked of earlier – was a work from within (not from outside) both the writers and the interpreters of the canon. The inspiration of the Spirit, on Jenson’s view, is not a gift separable from the presence of the Spirit. Like other gifts, it is a gift in the self-giving of the Spirit and not apart from that.

Past Lectures:

1. Creed, Scripture, and Their Modern Alienation

2. The Tanakh as Christian Scripture

Next Lectures:

4. The Apostles’ Creed

5. The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture

6. Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26-38

 

Notes by Bruce Hamill and Jason Goroncy

Robert Jenson: Burns Lecture 2 – The Tanakh as Christian Scripture

The Burns Lectures are definitely warming up. In this lecture Robert Jenson dealt with the Tanakh, or Old Testament (as is his preferred terminology with appropriate qualification: ‘old’ equals ‘prior’ rather than ‘antiquated’) as Christian scripture. He began by clarifying the appropriate questions – the status of the OT as Christian scripture was never questioned and for Jenson this can’t be the Church’s question since it is both absolutely prior (presumably in the sense that it constitutes the world in which the Christian faith is born) and necessary for the Church’s self-understanding. Jenson says that the really interesting question for the first Christians was a kind of obverse to that which questions the status of Israel’s scriptures, namely whether Israel’s scriptures could accept the proclamation of the resurrection. The Church, he insisted, did not accept Israel’s scriptures. Rather, Israel’s scriptures received the Church. Jenson noted that for the century, it was Israel’s scriptures which served the Gospel rather than the obverse. This question is alive even though it cannot be clearly asked since God has already answered it in raising Jesus.

Jenson proceeded to highlight how this question is constantly in the background of NT writing and how the NT demonstrates in the way it tells its story a ‘narrative harmony’ with Israel’s scriptures – relationship between passion narrative and Isaiah 53 being a case in point. The OT prophets were the one’s who provided the answer to ‘why’ did Jesus needed to die. Jenson argued that we cannot ask why the OT Scripture after Christ. Rather, we can only ask how scripture is the way for the Christian community. He also observed that the Church reads the OT as narrative because her gospel is itself a narrative, and because her gospel recognizes itself as the climax of the story told in the OT. Jenson cautioned about ‘unguarded talk of the unique fullness of God’s revelation in Christ’ [is that the mythological Christomonism?]. Such talk requires, says Jenson, the important qualification that the God present to the OT sages is the same Word, Jesus Christ. Jesus taught the scriptures with ‘authority’ says Jenson, ‘that is, as if he were the author … because, in a sense, he is’. Jenson continued this line with comments like ‘Christ prayed the psalms as the leader of Israel’s worship gathered as the body of Christ’. When ancient Israel gathered in the temple with their hymns and lamentations they were gathered as ‘the body of Christ’. At this point he introduced some of the difficult issues that were to arise later in his lecture also. In response to those who wonder whether Christians can pray the Psalms that call for the destruction of their enemies and the bashing of babies against rocks, he suggested, with some rhetorical flourish, that they could pray them at the foot of the cross against the devil and his angels. [We shall return to this claim]

The key question which the latter part of Jenson’s lecture focuses on is not whether the OT is Christian scripture but precisely how it so functions. Jenson’s answer is that it functions as ‘narrative of God’s history with his people’, including the Church. This arises because the Church’s gospel is narrative and it identifies itself as the climax of the narrative of Israel’s history. Why this should be so stems from the character of the ‘regula fidei’ as a ‘plotted sequence of God’s acts’ (economy) on the one hand and the nature of the book the Church wrote as a second testament. He interestingly contrasts the two movements to emerge from old Israel with the destruction of the temple – rabbinic Judaism ended up using the Tanakh differently from the Church because their second testament (Mishnah) had a legal character which meant that they read their Torah with law as a guiding concept. On the other hand the Church with its narrative gospel ended up contextualising law within the narrative of God with his people. This also had a lot to do with Paul’s very complex problematisation of the law.

The ‘how’ question in relation to the role of the OT was forged in contrast to various challenges to the initial role of the OT – Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Platonism. Although there was a certain ‘Church History 101′ feel to the lecture here, Jenson’s characterization of the movements and issues was always interesting. In response to all these developments, but particularly to that ‘monomaniacal Paulinist’ Marcion, Jenson says that Christians have no way of avoiding the fact that the God of Israel is a ‘man of war’ who goes into battle, sometimes for, sometimes against, his people, but a God who takes sides in history. This, says Jenson, is the only alternative to a god who abandons history. God is either involved in fallen history as the God of Israel is, or God is not. If God is to engage a violent history God cannot do so without being a ‘God of war’, that is, without getting God’s hands dirty. And it seems, for Jenson, to be involved is to be implicated as an agent of violence. Like Hans Boersma has also recently argued, Jenson seems to hold that God uses violence as a means justified by God’s ends – that God participates in the world’s violence but he does so by entering into that violence and dying in it, through which violence is undone.

When questioned as to whether there was a third alternative, namely to suffer violence as the crucified one, Jenson responded effectively that in relation to this issue it was not really a third alternative since the crucifixion was an event in which God was both the crucifier and the crucified – and therefore, presumably, not non-violent. He also presumed that the question was motivated by the issue of theodicy.

Three critical questions arise at this point:

1. The first picks up on the difference the revelation of God in Christ makes. Why did Jenson limit the praying of that psalm to prayers against “the devil and his angels”? If he is to be consistently true to the ‘man of war’ motif, why do not Christians pray against their human enemies and their enemy’s babies? And if they do so, how is this consistent with love for one’s enemies?
2. Is it necessary that if the Father sent the Son to the cross and the Son went to the cross in obedience to the Father that the God of Israel must be seen as both the crucified and the crucifier? Surely the willingness to be crucified and the willingness to let the Son be crucified (not my will but yours) do not entail the agency of crucifixion. Surely the fact that this evil event is ultimately good (Friday) lies in the good consequent upon it (for the joy that was set before him). There is no paradoxical necessity to make God (in whom there is no darkness) the agent of death. Surely the triune God is here its defeater.
3. Finally, does the fact that the Old Testament is the Church’s scripture rule out the possibility that it, like the New Testament, is a ‘text in travail’ bearing witness to Israel education by God. Is it not possible to discern in the light of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ a journey within Israel to unlearn pagan violence – we think here of a trajectory which includes the Cain/Abel story, the Akideh, the repentance of God post flood, the Joseph story, story of Job, the servant songs and so much more. So rather than accepting a strand which is taken for granted in the scriptures – God as man of war – why not discern how that strand is being deconstructed in the course of Israel’s journey with God? If such a reading is persuasive then the motivation to question the ‘man of war’ motif need not be motivated by theodicy, or not in any simplistic way.

 

Past Lectures:

1. Creed, Scripture, and Their Modern Alienation

Following Lectures:

3. The New Testament and the Regula Fidei

4. The Apostles’ Creed

5. The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture

6. Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26-38

 

Notes by Bruce Hamill and Jason Goroncy

Robert Jenson: Burns Lecture 1 – Creeds, Scripture, Niebuhr and the Preposition between Christ and Culture

This afternoon, I was priviledged to hear a lecture by Robert W. Jenson who is visiting the University of Otago to deliver this year’s Burns Lectures on the theme of ‘The Regula Fidei and Scripture’. I’ve heard Professor Jenson lecture on a number of occassions, and on three different continents, and he is always enormously stimulating. In his opening lecture today entitled ‘Creed, Scripture, and Their Modern Alienation’, Jenson argued that the relationship between Holy Scripture and the ecumenical Creeds determines the whole life of the Church because together they witness to the Church being the same community yesterday, today and forever. He defined the Church as ‘the community of a message of the God of Israel who raised Christ from the dead’. Those already familiar with Jenson’s work would have heard here themes discussed and argued elsewhere in his writings.

Jenson proceeded to note that whereas the Christian community in the first century lived in the orbit of, and was defined in the light of, as it were, a first-hand history of Jesus and with little regard for its future, the second-century Church had to think through the community’s ‘future history’ and the shape which it would take as the institution of the future. It is to this end that both Scripture and the Regula Fidei bear witness to the one history of God with his people. Creeds are, he insisted, ‘a sort of communal linguistic awareness’  - a ‘gift of the Spirit’ who guides the church in every generation. On the relationship between the Regula Fidei and Church tradition more generally Jenson had little to say, at least in this lecture. [One hopes that this might get some teasing out in subsequent lectures].

Where more breath was expired, however, was over the question of Modernity and the demise of Regula Fidei. Modernity, Jenson repeated, sponsored a shift whereby Scripture and Creed came to be seen as alien to one another rather than as co-witnesses to the one Word of God and of the abiding presence of God with his people. Describing himself as an ‘unreliable Lutheran’, Jenson argued that the modern biblical studies movement began as a movement to redeem itself from creeds.

One fundamental conviction that drove Jenson’s entire presentation was his confidence that ‘Christ does not fit into other narratives. Other narratives have to fit into Christ’. I wish Jenson had unpacked this further (again, perhaps he will in the remaining lectures), but I did find one place where he does do such unpacking:

I have long thought that Niebuhr’s book, for all its individual insights, was based on a false setting of the question. Whatever preposition you put between Christ and culture, its mere presence there marks and enforces the supposition that Christ and culture are entities different in kind. But it is of course only the risen Christ who can now have a relation to a culture, and this living Christ’s body is the church. And the church – with its scriptures, odd rituals and peculiar forms of government – is plainly itself a culture.

Therefore the real question is always about the relation of the church culture to some other culture with which the church’s mission involves it at a time and place. And I do not think the relation can be the same in every case. During the time of “Christendom,” the culture of the church and the culture of the West were barely distinguishable. I do not think this “Constantinian settlement” was avoidable. When the empire said, “Come over and help us hold civilization together,” should the bishops have just refused?

As to Christendom’s consequences for faith, some were beneficial and some were malign, as is usual with great historical configurations. During the present collapse of Christendom and its replacement by an antinomian and would-be pagan culture, confrontation must of course be more the style.

Next lectures:

• Lecture 2: The Tanakh as Christian Scripture
• Lecture 3: The New Testament and the Regula Fidei
• Lecture 4: The Apostles’ Creed
• Lecture 5: The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture
• Lecture 6: Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26-38

Around the traps …

• Church and Postmodern Culture has been hosting a great 6-part conversation (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6) on Nathan Kerr’s Christ, History and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission. Be sure to also check out Halden’s posts on Kerr’s book too: Mission and Apocalyptic Ecclesiology and The Church as Polis? Some Biblical Reflections
• The latest edition of Journal of Reformed Theology (3/1, 2009) is out and includes articles by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Christoph Schwöbel , Robert Letham, Dirkie Smit, Steve Holmes and Seung Goo Lee on the Trinity
• Dave Belcher on “Where are the Protestants?”
• Registration is now open for the 2009 Karl Barth Conference at Princeton Seminary
• Lots of Barth-related book reviews:
  • Christophe Chalamet reviews Stefan Holtmann’s “Karl Barth als Theologe der Neuzeit”
  • William Barnett reviews Eberhard Busch’s “Barth”
  • David W. Congdon reviews P.H. Brazier’s “Barth and Dostoevsky”
  • David W. Congdon also reviews R. Dale Dawson’s “The Resurrection in Karl Barth”
  • John L. Drury reviews Stephen Wigley’s “Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar: A Critical Engagement”
  • Shannon Nicole Smythe reviews “A Shorter Commentary on Romans by Karl Barth
  • Shannon Nicole Smythe also reviews Donald Wood’s “Barth’s Theology of Interpretation”
  • Jason T. Ingalls reviews Matt Jenson’s “The Gravity of Sin: Augustine, Luther, and Barth on Homo Incurvatus in Se”
  • Jason T. Ingalls and W. Travis McMaken review Willimon’s “Conversations with Barth on Preaching” and Yocum’s “Ecclesial Mediation in Karl Barth”
  • Alexander Massmann reviews Matthias D. Wüthrich’s “Gott und das Nichtige: Zur Rede vom Nichtigen ausgehend von Karl Barths KD § 50″
  • W. Travis McMaken reviews Paul T. Nommo’s “Being in Action: The Theological Shape of Barth’s Ethical Vision”
  • Shane Wilkins reviews Neil MacDonald’s “Karl Barth and the Strange New World within the Bible: Barth, Wittgenstein and the Metadilemmas of the Enlightenment”
• Byron Smith posts on Dying for the half-hearted and the corrupt
• Peter Liethart asks if there’s not even something right about the vision of Christendom
• Ben Myers posts a great quote from William Cavanaugh on Church and eucharist
• Steve Holmes asks What is evangelism?
• A wonderful excerpt from a new biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945. Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance is on its way in October. How awesome is that!
• Unmasking lies about Picasso
• John Pilger on the loss of freedom in totalitarian Britain
• Lawmakers Debate Establishing “Truth Commission” on Bush Admin Torture, Rendition and Domestic Spying: ‘… How did we get to a point where we were holding a legal US resident for more than five years in a military brig without ever bringing charges against him? How did we get to a point where Abu Ghraib happened? How did we get to a point where the United States government tried to make Guantanamo Bay a law-free zone, in order to deny accountability for our actions? How did we get to a point where our premier intelligence agency, the CIA, destroyed nearly a hundred videotapes with evidence of how detainees were being interrogated? How did we get to a point where the White House could say, “If we tell you to do it, even if it breaks the law, it’s alright, because we’re above the law”?’
• Italians get together to remember Calvin

Robert Jenson @ Otago: ‘The Regula Fidei and Scripture’

During March, the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Otago will be hosting Professor Robert Jenson who will deliver the 2009 Burns Lectures.

The title for the series is ‘The Regula Fidei and Scripture’, and will include the following lectures:

1. ‘Creed, Scripture, and Their Modern Alienation’, Wednesday March 11th, 5.10pm, Archway 2 Lecture Theatre.

2. ‘The Tanakh as Christian Scripture’, Thursday March 12th, 5.10pm, Archway 2 Lecture Theatre.

3. ‘The New Testament and the Regula Fidei’, Friday March 13th, 5.10pm, Archway 2 Lecture Theatre.

4. ‘The Apostles’ Creed’, Tuesday March 17th, 5.10pm, Archway 2 Lecture Theatre.

5. ‘The Creed as Critical Theory of Scripture’, Wednesday March 18th, 5.10pm, Archway 2 Lecture Theatre.

6. ‘Genesis 1:1 and Luke 1:26-38′, Thursday March 19th, 5.10pm, Archway 2 Lecture Theatre.

For more information, contact the department.

Around the traps … [Updated]

• Michael Jensen gives us Five reasons that Calvin was a postmodernist.
• Robert Hubbard tells us why The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a derivative mess.
• A new blog to check out: Crucendo.
• For those blessed enough to be in NZ, Robert Jenson will be in Dunedin in March as the University of Otago’s Burns Lecturer. He is described by Wolfhart Pannenberg as, ‘one of the most original and knowledgeable theologians of our time’. While in Dunedin, Professor Jenson has kindly agreed to lead a half-day seminar at the Knox Centre on the subject of the Eucharistic Church being a Missional Church. It will be held on Friday 13 March, 9.30 am to 12pm. Because the seminar will be interactive we have set a limit of 30 people. The cost per person will be $25, this includes morning tea. To register please contact Catherine van Dorp or phone +63 03 473 0783.
• For those in the UK, The Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics is hosting a one-day conference (Saturday 21st February) on Fertility and Faith. More information here and here.
• For those unfortunate enough to be in the USA, Biblical Theological Seminary is hosting what looks like a worthwhile conference on ‘Hazardous to your Health – Pastoring through Church Challenges’. More information here.
• And Robert Fisk asks: ‘When did we stop caring about civilian deaths during wartime?’

Around the traps …

 

• Fellow blogger Michael Jenson has a new book out. It’s called YOU: An Introduction. Congratulations Michael.
• For those not yet to see a copy, know that a definite contender for book of the year ought to be on its way to your mailbox: Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ by T.F. Torrance. I’m yet to finish it, but from what I’ve read so far, this is great stuff, and I can’t wait for volume 2 on Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, due out in October 2009. Thanks Paternoster, IVP and Robert Walker.
• Scientific American has an interesting piece on Why We Can’t Imagine Death
• The Green Bible has arrived.
• Alex Abecina has a great post on Henri de Lubac on Dostoevsky and Atheism
• Themelios is now available via feed, pdf, iPaper or HTML

Around … [reloaded]

• James Merrick reflects (with McCabe) on the politics of jubilee. He writes: ‘the antithesis of Jubilee is the politics of fear wherein one’s personal freedom conflicts with the freedom of others, where freedom is something protected not shared’.
• John Stackhouse has posted 4 critical and (mostly) very fair reflections (here, here, here and here) on The Shack. [I've blogged on this book here and here].
• Steve Holmes offers some valuable thoughts on the Christian duty to find error attractive.
• The Worldwide Church of God have posted two short videos on CS Lewis shot on location in Oxford.
• Ben Meyers points us towards some free MP3’s from St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
• Halden Doerge offers some helpful advice on reading Robert Jenson. [BTW. I just received my copy of Jenson's A Large Catechism this week and am loving it ... and now I'm very much anticipating the publication of his commentary on Ezekiel].
• Richard Mouw seeks to make ‘a good case for “seeker sensitive” preaching by appealing to the authority of John Calvin’ and (hold your breath) Karl Barth!
• Tim Keller recently gave an insightful apologetic talk on his The Reason for God as part of the Authors@Google series. It goes for just over an hour.
  
• With no UK team in Euro 2008, how do Brits choose who to support? Well why not make the choice based on ethical criteria? The World Development Movement has created a handy website to aid that all important (read: completely arbitrary) choice of team(s) to support each match. It ranks each team using criteria such as: spending on the military and healthcare; corruption; contribution to climate change; and income inequality. Overall Sweden ranks as the most ‘ethical’ team in the competition, and Russia comes in last. [HT: New Statesman]
• Damaris have produced and are now making available (free if you’re in the UK) some multimedia and study resources for schools and churches to complement the new Narnia flick, Prince Caspian (which is, btw, a much better-produced movie than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – which I thought totally stank]
• Noam Chomsky was recently interviewed by Gabriel Mathew Schivone on the United States of Insecurity.
• Coffee lovers might be interested in this interview with Michaele Weissman, author of God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee.

Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie

The latest edition of Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie is out and includes two articles of interest to me:

‘Can the Electing God be God without us? Some Implications of Bruce McCormack’s Understanding of Barth’s Doctrine of Election for the Doctrine of the Trinity’, by Paul D Molnar (pp. 199-222)

Abstract:

This article is the attempt at a dialogue with Bruce McCormack about the position he espoused in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth concerning the relation between God’s Election of grace and God’s Triunity. I had criticized McCormack’s position in my book, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (2002), but I did not elaborate on it in great detail. To develop the dialogue I will: 1) consider McCormack’s claim that in CD II/2 Barth made Jesus Christ “rather than” the Eternal Logos the subject of election; 2) consider what Barth means when he speaks of Jesus Christ “in the beginning”; 3) compare McCormack’s thesis that the Father never had regard for the Son, apart from the humanity to be assumed, with Barth’s belief that we must not dispute the eternal will of God which “precedes even predestination”; 4) analyze in detail McCormack’s rejection of Barth’s belief that the logos asarkos in distinction from the logos incarnandus is a necessary concept in trinitarian theology; 5) discuss Barth’s concept of the divine will in relation to the concept advanced by McCormack and suggest that McCormack has fallen into the error of Hermann Schell by thinking that God in some sense takes his origin from himself, so that God would only be triune if he elected us; 6) explain why it is a problem to hold, as McCormack does, that God’s self-determination to be triune and his election of us should be considered one and the same act; and finally 7) explain McCormack’s confusion of time and eternity in his latest article on the subject in the February, 2007 issue of the Scottish Journal of Theology, and his own espousal of a kind of indeterminacy on God’s part (which he theoretically rejects).

‘The Difference Totality Makes. Reconsidering Pannenberg’s Eschatological Ontology’, by Benjamin Myers (pp. 141-155)

Abstract:

Summary Wolfhart Pannenberg’s eschatological ontology has been criticised for undermining the goodness and reality of finite creaturely differentiation. Drawing on David Bentley Hart’s recent ontological proposal, this article explores the critique of Pannenberg’s ontology, and offers a defence of Pannenberg’s depiction of the relationship between difference and totality, especially as it is presented in his 1988 work, Metaphysics and the Idea of God. In this work, Pannenberg articulates a structured relationship between difference and totality in which individual finite particularities are preserved and affirmed within a coherent semantic whole. Creaturely differences are not sublated or eliminated in the eschatological totality, but they are integrated into a harmonious totality of meaning. This view of the semantic function of totality can be further clarified by drawing an analogy between Pannenberg’s ontological vision and Robert W. Jenson’s model of the eschatological consummation as a narrative conclusion to the drama of finite reality.

Conversations with Poppi about God: A Review

Robert W. Jenson & Solveig Lucia Gold, Conversations with Poppi about God: An Eight-Year-Old and Her Theologian Grandfather Trade Questions (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006). 158 pages. ISBN: 97815874321613. Review copy courtesy of Brazos Press.

When was the last time you had a conversation about baptism, temptation, purgatory, time, economics, the Nicene Creed, creation, the Trinity, Christmas, metaphysics, church calendars, evil, indulgences, the Holy Spirit, liturgy, Lucifer, hamsters, a ‘really stupid’ bishop, the disestablishment of the Roman Church, the imago Dei, and a host of other things, all with the same person? When was the last time you did so with a person who just happens to be a world-renowned Lutheran, and ecumenical, theologian? When was the last time you did so with an eight-year-old who knows more about Dante than not a few philosophy undergrads?

In this remarkable book, we are invited to eavesdrop on a spontaneous and unscripted conversation between elementary schoolgirl Solveig Lucia Gold and her septuagenarian grandfather affectionately called ‘Poppi’, more formally known as the Reverend Canon Professor Dr. D. Robert W. Jenson, B.A., B.D., M.A., D.Theol., D.H.L., DD.

The book comprises the verbatim transcripts – with minor editing of ‘Ums’, ‘Well, buts …’ and ‘You knows…’, etc – of conversations recorded on a Radio Shack cassette recorder over a series of weekends in which Solveig visited her grandparents (‘Poppi’ and ‘Mimi’) in Princeton. After each session, Mimi typed it up.

The authors invite us to read their book ‘as you would a Platonic dialogue, though in this one, the role of Socrates goes back and forth’ (p. 10). Their discussion is more wide-ranging than most systematic theologies, and is filled with wit, warmth and wisdom.

Time for an example:

Solveig: How can God pick who goes to heaven or hell?

Poppi: By looking at Jesus, who loves you, Solveig.

Solveig: Can you show me?

Poppi: One way of saying what happened with Jesus is that Jesus so attached himself to you that if God the Father wants his Son, Jesus, back, he is stuck with you too. Which is how he picks you. (p. 20)

The young Episcopalian and her ‘sort of half Anglican and half Lutheran’ (p. 70) Poppi return to some themes a number of times over the weekends. One such theme that offers some of the book’s richest insights concerns the Spirit, or ‘God’s liveliness’ (p. 38), as the good Professor Dr Poppi likes to remind his granddaughter. Solveig tries on more than one occasion to argue a case that the second and third articles in the Creed ought to be reversed not only because ‘all of us share in the Spirit’ (Father and Son included), but also because that’s how you cross yourself. Poppi agrees, ‘Father, Spirit, Son is probably a better arrangement’ (p. 146). The Spirit is also ‘God’s own future that he is looking forward to’ (p. 42). They compare God’s liveliness with Santa Claus who is ‘sort of like a messenger from the Holy Spirit – in a way’ (p. 100), before coming to discern the spirits to see if they are from God, for whom to have Spirit means that he ‘doesn’t stay shut up in himself … but that the goodness and mercy – and wrath, when it comes to that – that is in God blows out from him to hit you and me. And that means that just like your spirit is yours and not mine, even though your spirit effects me, so God’s Spirit is his and not a spirit like Santa Claus’ (p. 101).

In between laughs, they talk about what it is about Holy Communion – Solveig’s ‘favourite part of going to church’ because she gets to ‘stretch and walk around a little’ (p. 31) – that means that ‘the wine should be the very best’ (p. 33) and that dissolvable bread should be banned. The meal should be appetising, and not like those baptisms ‘when they just dribble a couple of drops on the baby’ (p. 34). They also talk about a confirmation service led by ‘this weird bishop guy’ who is ‘really stupid’ (p. 34).

While I’m trying to resist the temptation to share every gem in the book (and there are lots), allow me one more, this time on heaven, purgatory, and hell:

Solveig: Do you think of where you might go after you die as two places or three places? I think of it as three places.

Poppi: What three is that?

Solveig: Heaven, purgatory, and hell.

Poppi: So you hold to the doctrine of purgatory?

Solveig: Yes.

Poppi: You know that is very controversial.

Solveig: Why? It’s in Dante, isn’t it?

Poppi: Well, it’s in Dante, yes. But of course, Dante isn’t exactly in the Bible.

Solveig: No. But he’s still …

Poppi: The thing about purgatory is that it’s a very reasonable idea. It’s just that we don’t know if it is true.

Solveig: Except … Maybe God thinks that you should just go to two places. If you are bad, he has no patience with you at all, and he will just sort you to go to heaven or hell. I think that is reasonable enough.

Poppi: That God is impatient?

Solveig: Yes.

Poppi: That’s where I think the notion of purgatory is reasonable. I don’t think the Bible talks about God’s being impatient in quite that way.

Solveig: If he isn’t impatient, maybe he doesn’t want us to spend time thinking about where we should go.

Poppi: You know that plate that your mother and father gave us that hangs on the wall in the dining room?

Solveig: Yes.

Poppi: Remember what it says on it?

Solveig: I don’t remember what it says.

Poppi: It says, ‘I desire not the death of the wicked.’

Solveig: ‘As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.’

Poppi: Right. So the biblical God takes no pleasure in sending people to hell, and that’s why I think that purgatory is a reasonable idea. The problem is we don’t have any way of knowing whether the purgatory idea is true or not.

Solveig: It’s just Dante’s idea.

Poppi: Well, it was older than Dante.

Solveig: It was?

Poppi: Yes.

…

Solveig: Yes. Well, see, I think of Dante as a theologian, in a way.

Poppi: He was a very great theologian.

Solveig: Yeah, I know. I’m saying that he kind of liked to make up things he wasn’t quite sure about, if you know what I mean.

The delightful exchanges in this album offer us a model of how good theological dialogue can and should take place: with mutual respect and humility which delights in both the giving and the receiving; with an eye on the scripture, an eye on the tradition, and an eye on the world (for those who possess at least three eyes); and within an environment of safety in which no idea is too whacky and no avenue of enquiry cut off prematurely.

Carl Braaten’s words regarding this book are worth repeating,

Robert Jenson has created a new medium, with his granddaughter Solveig, to teach the basics of the Christian faith. Just as Martin Luther wrote his Small Catechism for children, this book of conversations covers the beliefs and practices of the Christian church – among them the commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the sacraments – in a way that parents, regardless of their denomination, can confidently read and discuss with their children. Robert Jenson has translated the core convictions of his two volumes of Systematic Theology into simple truths that his eight-year-old grandchild can understand in the course of their unrehearsed and lively conversations. If you want to know what a sophisticated theologian really believes, listen to him explain the mysteries of the Christian faith to a child in simple terms without being simplistic.

Conversations with Poppi about God: A Review

Robert W. Jenson & Solveig Lucia Gold, Conversations with Poppi about God: An Eight-Year-Old and Her Theologian Grandfather Trade Questions (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006). 158 pages. ISBN: 97815874321613. Review copy courtesy of Brazos Press.

When was the last time you had a conversation about baptism, temptation, purgatory, time, economics, the Nicene Creed, creation, the Trinity, Christmas, metaphysics, church calendars, evil, indulgences, the Holy Spirit, liturgy, Lucifer, hamsters, a ‘really stupid’ bishop, the disestablishment of the Roman Church, the imago Dei, and a host of other things, all with the same person? When was the last time you did so with a person who just happens to be a world-renowned Lutheran, and ecumenical, theologian? When was the last time you did so with an eight-year-old who knows more about Dante than not a few philosophy undergrads?

In this remarkable book, we are invited to eavesdrop on a spontaneous and unscripted conversation between elementary schoolgirl Solveig Lucia Gold and her septuagenarian grandfather affectionately called ‘Poppi’, more formally known as the Reverend Canon Professor Dr. D. Robert W. Jenson, B.A., B.D., M.A., D.Theol., D.H.L., DD.

The book comprises the verbatim transcripts – with minor editing of ‘Ums’, ‘Well, buts …’ and ‘You knows…’, etc – of conversations recorded on a Radio Shack cassette recorder over a series of weekends in which Solveig visited her grandparents (‘Poppi’ and ‘Mimi’) in Princeton. After each session, Mimi typed it up.

The authors invite us to read their book ‘as you would a Platonic dialogue, though in this one, the role of Socrates goes back and forth’ (p. 10). Their discussion is more wide-ranging than most systematic theologies, and is filled with wit, warmth and wisdom.

Time for an example:

Solveig: How can God pick who goes to heaven or hell?

Poppi: By looking at Jesus, who loves you, Solveig.

Solveig: Can you show me?

Poppi: One way of saying what happened with Jesus is that Jesus so attached himself to you that if God the Father wants his Son, Jesus, back, he is stuck with you too. Which is how he picks you. (p. 20)

The young Episcopalian and her ‘sort of half Anglican and half Lutheran’ (p. 70) Poppi return to some themes a number of times over the weekends. One such theme that offers some of the book’s richest insights concerns the Spirit, or ‘God’s liveliness’ (p. 38), as the good Professor Dr Poppi likes to remind his granddaughter. Solveig tries on more than one occasion to argue a case that the second and third articles in the Creed ought to be reversed not only because ‘all of us share in the Spirit’ (Father and Son included), but also because that’s how you cross yourself. Poppi agrees, ‘Father, Spirit, Son is probably a better arrangement’ (p. 146). The Spirit is also ‘God’s own future that he is looking forward to’ (p. 42). They compare God’s liveliness with Santa Claus who is ‘sort of like a messenger from the Holy Spirit – in a way’ (p. 100), before coming to discern the spirits to see if they are from God, for whom to have Spirit means that he ‘doesn’t stay shut up in himself … but that the goodness and mercy – and wrath, when it comes to that – that is in God blows out from him to hit you and me. And that means that just like your spirit is yours and not mine, even though your spirit effects me, so God’s Spirit is his and not a spirit like Santa Claus’ (p. 101).

In between laughs, they talk about what it is about Holy Communion – Solveig’s ‘favourite part of going to church’ because she gets to ‘stretch and walk around a little’ (p. 31) – that means that ‘the wine should be the very best’ (p. 33) and that dissolvable bread should be banned. The meal should be appetising, and not like those baptisms ‘when they just dribble a couple of drops on the baby’ (p. 34). They also talk about a confirmation service led by ‘this weird bishop guy’ who is ‘really stupid’ (p. 34).

While I’m trying to resist the temptation to share every gem in the book (and there are lots), allow me one more, this time on heaven, purgatory, and hell:

Solveig: Do you think of where you might go after you die as two places or three places? I think of it as three places.

Poppi: What three is that?

Solveig: Heaven, purgatory, and hell.

Poppi: So you hold to the doctrine of purgatory?

Solveig: Yes.

Poppi: You know that is very controversial.

Solveig: Why? It’s in Dante, isn’t it?

Poppi: Well, it’s in Dante, yes. But of course, Dante isn’t exactly in the Bible.

Solveig: No. But he’s still …

Poppi: The thing about purgatory is that it’s a very reasonable idea. It’s just that we don’t know if it is true.

Solveig: Except … Maybe God thinks that you should just go to two places. If you are bad, he has no patience with you at all, and he will just sort you to go to heaven or hell. I think that is reasonable enough.

Poppi: That God is impatient?

Solveig: Yes.

Poppi: That’s where I think the notion of purgatory is reasonable. I don’t think the Bible talks about God’s being impatient in quite that way.

Solveig: If he isn’t impatient, maybe he doesn’t want us to spend time thinking about where we should go.

Poppi: You know that plate that your mother and father gave us that hangs on the wall in the dining room?

Solveig: Yes.

Poppi: Remember what it says on it?

Solveig: I don’t remember what it says.

Poppi: It says, ‘I desire not the death of the wicked.’

Solveig: ‘As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.’

Poppi: Right. So the biblical God takes no pleasure in sending people to hell, and that’s why I think that purgatory is a reasonable idea. The problem is we don’t have any way of knowing whether the purgatory idea is true or not.

Solveig: It’s just Dante’s idea.

Poppi: Well, it was older than Dante.

Solveig: It was?

Poppi: Yes.

…

Solveig: Yes. Well, see, I think of Dante as a theologian, in a way.

Poppi: He was a very great theologian.

Solveig: Yeah, I know. I’m saying that he kind of liked to make up things he wasn’t quite sure about, if you know what I mean.

The delightful exchanges in this album offer us a model of how good theological dialogue can and should take place: with mutual respect and humility which delights in both the giving and the receiving; with an eye on the scripture, an eye on the tradition, and an eye on the world (for those who possess at least three eyes); and within an environment of safety in which no idea is too whacky and no avenue of enquiry cut off prematurely.

Carl Braaten’s words regarding this book are worth repeating,

Robert Jenson has created a new medium, with his granddaughter Solveig, to teach the basics of the Christian faith. Just as Martin Luther wrote his Small Catechism for children, this book of conversations covers the beliefs and practices of the Christian church – among them the commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the sacraments – in a way that parents, regardless of their denomination, can confidently read and discuss with their children. Robert Jenson has translated the core convictions of his two volumes of Systematic Theology into simple truths that his eight-year-old grandchild can understand in the course of their unrehearsed and lively conversations. If you want to know what a sophisticated theologian really believes, listen to him explain the mysteries of the Christian faith to a child in simple terms without being simplistic.

Reading List

I thought it might be useful to create a reading list for various areas of systematic and pastoral theology. My hope is that this list will have something of an organic life, being edited from time to time as I come across various texts (and suggestions by others) that warrant inclusion. While I hope that the list betrays theological discernment and acumen, I’m not interested in developing a list that pleases any one theological camp in particular … though my biases will be obvious enough. It is hoped that the list will reflect the best and most important texts of a tradition unashamedly ecumenical, catholic and apostolic. The kind of thing I have in mind is a reading list and resource for English-speaking undergraduate theology students. Of course, in good blogging style, I also welcome suggestions … and please let me know if any of the links no longer work.

A few things to note:

Many books elude easy categorisation. In such cases I have placed it where I think if belongs best and sometimes in multiple places. If you think it ought to be somewhere else, suggest somewhere.

I haven’t read everything. That’s why I’m asking for your help.

In due course, I may add further categories. But for now, I have decided on the following 22:

 

1. Theological Method and Prolegomena

2. Systematics/Dogmatics

3. Biblical Theology

4. Theology Proper

5. Patriology

6. Christology

7. Pneumatology

8. Revelation

9. Creation

10. Soteriology

11. Ecclesiology

12. Anthropology

13. Prayer

14. Missiology

15. Ethics

16. Worship

17. Pastoral Ministry

18. Preaching

19. Theology and the Arts

20. Eschatology

21. Introduction to the Old Testament

22. Introduction to the New Testament

 

§

 

I. Theological Method

Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading

Arthur C. McGill, Suffering: A Test of Theological Method

Avery Dulles, The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System

David Ford, Theology: A Very Short Introduction

Donald G. Bloesch, A Theology of Word and Spirit: Authority and Method in Theology

Donald MacKinnon, Borderlands of Theology

Eberhard Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World

Ellen T. Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: the Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine

George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age

Gerhard O. Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518

Gerhard O. Forde, Theology is for Proclamation

Helmut Thielicke, A Little Exercise for Young Theologians

Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Philosophical Theology

John Howard Yoder, Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method

John Webster, Confessing God

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama Of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach To Christian Theology

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks

Paul McGlassen, Invitation to Dogmatic Theology: A Canonical Approach - (reviewed here)

Peter T. Forsyth, The Principle of Authority: In Relation to Certainty, Sanctity and Society

Trevor A. Hart, Faith Thinking: The Dynamics of Christian Theology

Vern Poythress, Symphonic Theology

 

§

 

II. Systematics/Dogmatics

Alister E. McGrath (ed.), The Christian Theology Reader

Carl E. Braaten & Robert W. Jenson (Eds.), Christian Dogmatics (2 vols)

Catherine M. Lacugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life

Clive S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Colin E. Gunton, The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding

Donald G. Bloesch, Christian Foundations (7 vols)

Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology (2 vols)

Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse

Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her

Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith

Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology

Georg W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

Gerrit C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics (14 vols)

Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics

Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith (3 vols)

Hendrikus Berkhof, The Christian Faith

James William McClendon, Doctrine

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition (5 vols)

John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (13 vols)

Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline

Karl Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics

Mike Higton, SCM Core Text: Christian Doctrine (reviewed here)

Origen, Origen De Principiis

Otto Weber, Foundations for Dogmatics (2 vols)

Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (3 vols)

Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology (2 vols)

Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology

Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief

Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God

Ted Peters, God – the World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era

Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica

Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology (3 vols)

Thomas Erskine, The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel

Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith

Tyron Inbody, The Faith of the Christian Church

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (3 vols)

 

§

 

III. Biblical Theology

Adolf Schlatter, The History of the Christ: the Foundation for New Testament Theology

Adolf Schlatter, The Theology of the Apostles: The Development of New Testament Theology

Charles E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (2 vols)

Donald A. Carson, The Gagging of God

Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study

N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God

N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology

N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God

N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God

Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (2 vols)

Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy

William J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: A Theology of the Old Testament Covenants

William J. Dumbrell, Search for Order: Biblical Eschatology in Focus

 

§

 

IV. Theology Proper

Adrio König, Here Am I: A Believer’s Reflection on God

C. Norman Kraus, God our Savior

Colin E. Gunton, The Triune Creator

Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love

Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse

John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church

Jung Young Lee, The Trinity in Asian Perspective

Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1-2

Kazoh Kitamori, Theology of the Pain of God

Nicholas Lash, Holiness, Speech and Silence: Reflections on the Question of God

Peter T. Forsyth, The Justification of God

Robert Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel

Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God

Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith

 

§

 

V. Patriology

Geoffrey Bingham, Father! My Father! 

Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father 

J. Scott Lidgett, The Fatherhood of God 

Peter T. Forsyth, God the Holy Father 

Thomas Smail, The Forgotten Father

 

§

 

VI. Christology

C. Norman Kraus, Jesus Christ Our Lord: Christology from a Disciple’s Perspective

Donald G. Bloesch, Jesus Christ: Saviour and Lord

Gerd Theissen, The Shadow of the Galilean

Isaac A. Dorner, History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ

James , D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation

John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus

Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator

Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth

Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God

Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ

Kathryn Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity

Leonardo Boff, Jesus Christ, Liberator

Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

Peter T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ

Peter T. Forsyth, The Preaching of Jesus and the Gospel of Christ

Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament

Thomas F. Torrance (ed.), The Incarnation: Ecumenical Studies in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed

Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ

Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ

Thomas Smail, Once and For All: A Confession of the Cross

Trevor A. Hart and Daniel Thimell (eds.), Christ in Our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for the Reconciliation of the World: Essays Presented to Professor James Torrance

Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ

Walter Wink, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus – God and Man

 

§

 

VII. Pneumatology

Donald G. Bloesch, The Holy Spirit: Work and Gifts

Gordon Fee, God’s Empowering Presence

James D.G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit

John A. Studebaker Jr., The Lord Is the Spirit: The Authority of the Holy Spirit in Contemporary Theology and Church Practice (Eugene: Pickwick, 2008).

John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God

John Webster, Holiness

Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation

Molly T. Marshall, Joining the Dance: A Theology of the Spirit

Thomas Smail, The Giving Gift

Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, Vol. 1

 

§

 

VIII. Revelation

Colin Gunton, A Brief Theology of Revelation (reviewed here)

Donald G. Bloesch, Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration and Interpretation

Emil Brunner & Karl Barth, Natural Theology: Comprising ‘Nature and Grace’ by E. Brunner & the reply ‘No!’ by Karl Barth

Gerrit C. Berkouwer, Holy Scripture

John Webster, Holy Scripture

 

§

 

IX. Creation

Colin E. Gunton, Christ and Creation

Colin E. Gunton, The Triune Creator

David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall

Geoffrey C. Bingham, Creation and the Liberating Glory

Jonathan Edwards, Concerning the End for Which God Created the World

Joseph Ratzinger, In the Beginning

Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation

Langdon Gilkey, Maker of Heaven and Earth

 

§

 

X. Soteriology

Albrecht Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation: The Positive Development of the Doctrine

Anselm, Cur Deus Homo?

Athanasius, On the Incarnation

Colin E. Gunton, The Actuality of Atonement

David Peterson, Possessed by God: A New Testament Theology of Sanctification and Holiness

Douglas Knight, The Eschatological Economy: Time and the Hospitality of God

Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord

Geoffrey C. Bingham, Christ’s Cross Over Man’s Abyss

Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist (reviewed here)

Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor

Hans Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? With a Short Discourse on Hell (reviewed here)

James Denney, The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation

James Denney, The Death of Christ

John McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement

John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ

John Webster, Holiness

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1

Kenneth Grayston, Dying, We Live: A New Enquiry into the Death of Christ in the New Testament

Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross

Michelle A. Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image: An Introduction to Feminist Theological Anthropology

Molly T. Marshall, What It Means to Be Human

Nigel M. de S. Cameron (ed.), Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell

Paul Fiddes, Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement

Peter T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross

Peter T. Forsyth, The Work of Christ

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. 1: Human Nature

Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement

Stephen C. Barton (ed.), Holiness: Past and Present

Stephen R. Holmes, The Wondrous Cross: Atonement and Penal Substitution in the Bible and History (reviewed here)

Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ

Thomas Smail, Once and For All: A Confession of the Cross

Thomas Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God (reviewed here)

 

§

 

XI. Ecclesiology

Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (eds.) Marks of the Body of Christ

Colin E. Gunton (ed.), Trinity, Time, and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson

Colin E. Gunton and Daniel W. Hardy (eds.), On Being the Church: Essays on the Christian Community

Colin E. Gunton, The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine, Chapter 7

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Donald G. Bloesch, The Church: Sacraments, Worship, Ministry, Mission

Eduard Schweizer, Church Order in the New Testament

Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Children of Promise

Hans Küng, The Church

John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church

Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit

Jürgen Moltmann, The Open Church: Invitation to a messianic life-style

Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity

Nicholas M. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life: Practical-Prophetic Ecclesiology

Peter Leithart, Against Christianity

Peter T. Forsyth, The Church and the Sacraments

Peter T. Forsyth, The Church, The Gospel and Society

Thomas F. Torrance, Conflict and Agreement in the Church (2 Vols)

 

§

 

XII. Anthropology

Alan Torrance, Persons in Communion: an Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation

Christoph Schwobel & Colin Gunton (eds), Persons, Divine and Human

F. LeRon Shults, Reforming Theological Anthropology: After the Philosophical Turn to Relationality

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Gustaf Wingren, Man and the Incarnation: A Study in the Biblical Theology of Irenaeus

Harry R. Boer, An Ember Still Glowing: Humankind as the Image of God

Helmut Thielicke, Being Human … Becoming Human: An Essay in Christian Anthropology

John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church

John Paul II, The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan

John Webster, ‘The Human Person’, pp. 219-34 in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology

Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

Randall C. Zachman, The Assurance Of Faith: Conscience in the Theology Of Martin Luther and John Calvin

Ray S. Anderson, On Being Human: Essays in Theological Anthropology

Stanley Grenz, The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei

Thomas Smail, Like Father, Like Son: The Trinity Imaged in our Humanity

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective

 

§

 

XIII. Prayer

Augustine, Confessions

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Donald G. Bloesch, The Struggle of Prayer

Eugene H. Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms As Tools for Prayer

Graham Redding, Prayer And The Priesthood Of Christ: In The Reformed Tradition

John Calvin, On Prayer: Conversation with God

John Owen, Communion with God

Karl Barth, Prayer

Peter Adam, Hearing God’s Words: Exploring Biblical Spirituality

Peter T. Forsyth, The Soul of Prayer

Tom Smail, Praying with Paul

Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann

 

§

 

XIV. Missiology

David Bosch, Believing in the Future: Towards a Missiology of Western Culture

David Bosch, Transforming Mission

Howard A. Snyder, Liberating the Church: The Ecology of Church and Kingdom

Jens Christensen, Mission to Islam and Beyond

Leslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, The Gospel and Western Culture

Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Leslie Newbigin, The Open Secret

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century

Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture

Vincent J. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai

 

§

 

XV. Ethics

Alan J. Torrance and Michael Banner (eds.), The Doctrine of God and Theological Ethics

Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics

Benedict De Spinoza, Ethics

Daniel Keown, The Nature of Buddhist Ethics

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics

Emil Brunner, Justice and the Social Order

Emil Brunner, The Divine Imperative

Georg W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right

Gordon R. Preece (ed.), Rethinking Peter Singer: A Christian Critique

Helmut Thielicke, Ethics (3 Vols)

Immanuel Kant, The Foundations of the Metaphysic of Morals

James M. Gustafson, Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective, Volume One: Theology and Ethics

John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus

John Howard Yoder, When War Is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking

John Stott, New Issues Facing Christians Today

John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism

Karl Barth, Ethics

Karl Marx, Marx On Religion

Martin Luther, A Treatise on Christian Liberty

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Michael Hill, The How and Why of Love: An Introduction to Evangelical Ethics

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics

Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics

Peter Singer, Practical Ethics

Peter Singer, Writings on an Ethical Life

Peter T. Forsyth, The Christian Ethic of War

Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics

Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics

Stanley Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics

Stanley Hauerwas, Christians Among the Virtues: Theological Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics

Stanley Hauerwas, Truthfulness and Tragedy: Further Investigations into Christian Ethics

Stanley Hauerwas, Vision and Virtue: Essays in Christian Ethical Reflection

Stanley J. Grenz, Sexual Ethics: An Evangelical Perspective

 

§

 

XVI. Worship

Allen P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the Garden to the New Creation

Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Discerning the Spirits: Understanding and Evaluating Contemporary Worship Practices

David F. Ford and Daniel W. Hardy, Living in Praise: Worshipping and Knowing God

David Peterson, Engaging With God: A Biblical Theology of Worship

Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine and Life: A Systematic Theology

Graham Redding, Prayer And The Priesthood Of Christ: In The Reformed Tradition

Harold M. Best, Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts

Henri J. M. Nouwen, With Burning Hearts: A Meditation on the Eucharistic Life

James B. Torrance, ‘The Place of Jesus Christ in Worship’, in Ray S. Anderson (ed.), Theological Foundations for Ministry, pp. 370-389.

James B. Torrance, Worship, Community & The Triune God of Grace

Mark Ashton, R. Kent Hughes, Timothy J. Keller, and D. A. Carson (eds.), Worship by the Book

Noel Due, Created for Worship: From Genesis to Revelation to You

Ralph P. Martin, The Worship of God

Robin Parry, Worshipping Trinity: Coming Back to the Heart of Worship

Thomas F. Torrance, ‘The Mind of Christ in Worship: The Problem of Apollinarianism in the Liturgy’, in Theology in Reconciliation, pp. 139-214.

 

§

 

XVII. Pastoral Ministry

Andrew Purves, Pastoral Theology in the Classical Tradition

Andrew Purves, Reconstructing Pastoral Theology: A Christological Foundation

Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students

Christian D Kettler and Todd H. Speidell (eds.), Incarnational Ministry: The Presence of Christ in Church, Society, and Family: Essays in Honor of Ray S. Anderson

Eduard Thurneysen, A Theology of Pastoral Care

Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology

Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work

Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction

Eugene H. Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness

Eugene H. Peterson, Working The Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity

Eugene Peterson & Marva Dawn, Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call

George Herbert, The Country Parson and the Temple

Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Creative Ministry

John E. Paver, Theological Reflection and Education for Ministry: The Search for Integration in Theology

Kenneth Pohly, Transforming the Rough Places: The Ministry of Supervision

Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Ray S. Anderson (ed.), Theological Foundations for Ministry

Ray S. Anderson, The Shape of Practical Theology: Empowering Ministry With Theological Praxis

Ray S. Anderson, The Soul of Ministry: Forming Leaders for God’s People

Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

Thomas Oden, Pastoral Theology

Walter C. Wright, Relational Leadership: A Biblical Model for Influence and Service

 

§

 

XVIII. Preaching

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers

Deane Meatheringham, Gospel Incandescent

Dietrich Ritschl, A Theology of Proclamation

Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

Geoffrey C. Bingham, The Preacher and the Parrot

Geoffrey C. Bingham, True Preaching: the Agony and the Ecstasy

George Whitefield, The Sermons of George Whitefield 

Gerhard O. Forde, Theology is for Proclamation

Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching

Gustaf Wingren, The Living Word

Helmut Thielicke, How to Believe Again

Helmut Thielicke, What’s Wrong with the Church?

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

James Denney, ‘Preaching Christ’, in Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (ed. J. Hastings), 393-403

John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty

John Stott, I Believe in Preaching

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics Index With Aids for the Preacher 

Karl Barth, Homiletics

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Michael J. Quicke, 360-Degree Preaching: Hearing, Speaking, and Living the Word

Michael Jinkins, In the House of the Lord: Inhabiting the Psalms of Lament 

Paul Scott Wilson, The Four Pages of the Sermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching 

Peter Adam, Speaking God’s Words: A Practical Theology of Preaching

Peter T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind

R.W.L. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus

Robert Smith, Doctrine That Dances: Bringing Doctrinal Preaching and Teaching to Life

Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method

Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature

Thomas F. Torrance, Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking

Thomas G. Long and Cornelius Plantinga Jr. (eds.), A Chorus of Witnesses: Model Sermons for Today’s Preacher

Thomas G. Long, The Witness of Preaching, Second Edition

Toni Morrison, Beloved

Walter Brueggemann, Finally Comes The Poet 

Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

William H. Willimon, Acts (Interpretation Bible Commentary Series)

William H. Willimon, Conversations With Barth on Preaching

William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying

 

§

 

XIX. Theology and the Arts

Aidan Nichols, The Art of God Incarnate, Theology and Symbol from Genesis to the 20th Century

Bridget Nichols, Literature in Christian Perspective: Becoming Faithful Readers

Calvin Seerveld, Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves

Calvin Seerveld, Rainbows for a Fallen World

Calvin Seerveld, Voicing God’s Psalms

Christopher Deacy, Screen Christologies: Redemption and the Medium of Film

David Bailey Harned, Theology and the Arts

David Brown, Signs of Grace: Sacraments in Poetry and Prose

David Thistlethwaite, The Art of God and the Religions of Art

Dorothy L. Sayers, Mind Of The Maker

E. John Walford, Jacob Van Ruisdael and the Perception of Landscape

Edward Farley, Faith and Beauty: A Theological Aesthetic

Flannery O’Connor, Flannery O’Connor: Collected Works: Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters

Frank Burch Brown, Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life

Frank Burch Brown, Religious Aesthetics: A Theological Study of Making and Meaning

Gabriele Finaldi, The Image of Christ: The Catalogue of the Exhibition Seeing Salvation

Gaye W. Oritz and Clive Marsh (eds.), Explorations in Theology and Film: An Introduction

Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture

Gene Edward Veith, Reading Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Literature

Georg W. F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, Volume I

George Pattison, Art, Modernity and Faith: Restoring the Image

George Steiner, Grammars of Creation

George Steiner, Real Presences

Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics: A Reader

Hans R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture

Hans Rookmaaker, The Creative Gift: Essays on Art and the Christian Life

Henri Nouwen, Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying With Icons

Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

Hilary Brand & Adrienne Chaplin, Art and Soul: Signposts for Christians in the Arts

Jaroslav Pelikan, Bach Among the Theologians

Jeremy Begbie, ‘Christ and the Cultures: Christianity and the Arts,’ in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, ed. Colin Gunton

Jeremy Begbie, ‘The Gospel, the Arts and Our Culture,’ in Credible Christianity: The Gospel in Contemporary Culture, ed. Hugh Montefiore, 1992, 58-83.

Jeremy S. Begbie (ed.), Beholding the Glory: Incarnation through the Arts

Jeremy S. Begbie, Theology, Music and Time

Jeremy S. Begbie, Voicing Creations Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts

John De Gruchy, Christianity, Art and Transformation: Theological Aesthetics in the Struggle for Justice

John Dillenberger, A Theology of Artistic Sensibilities: The Visual Arts and the Church

John Drury, Painting the Word: Christian Pictures and Their Meanings

John Newport, Christianity and Contemporary Art Forms

Karl Barth, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Kathleen Powers Erickson, At Eternity’s Gate: The Spiritual Vision Of Vincent Van Gogh

Larry J Kreitzer, Pauline Images in Fiction and Film: On Reversing the Hermeneutical Flow

Larry J Kreitzer, The New Testament in Fiction and Film: On Reversing the Hermeneutical Flow

Larry J Kreitzer, The Old Testament in Fiction and Film: On Reversing the Hermeneutical Flow

Leland Ryken, Culture in Christian Perspective: A Door to Understanding and Enjoying the Arts

Leland Ryken, The Liberated Imagination: Thinking Christianly about the Arts

Leonid Ouspensky & Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons

Margaret Miles, Image as Insight: Visual Understanding in Western Christianity and Secular Culture

Ned Bustard, It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God

Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Art in Action: Toward a Christian Aesthetic

Nigel Forde, The Lantern and the Looking Glass

Patrick Sherry, Spirit and Beauty: An Introduction to Theological Aesthetics

Paul Corby Finney, Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition

Paul Corby Finney, The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art

Paul S. Fiddes (ed.), The Novel, Spirituality and Modern Culture: Eight Novelists write about their Craft and their Context

Paul S. Fiddes, Freedom and Limit: A Dialogue Between Literature and Christian Doctrine

Paul S. Fiddes, The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature

Peter Fuller, Theoria: Art and the Absence of Grace

Peter T. Forsyth, Christ on Parnassus: Lectures on Art, Ethic, and Theology

Peter T. Forsyth, Religion in Recent Art: Expository Lectures on Rosetti, Burne Jones Watts, Holman Hunt and Wagner

Richard Harries, Art and the Beauty of God: A Christian Understanding

Richard Harries, The Passion in Art

Richard Viladesau, Theological Aesthetics: God in Imagination, Beauty, and Art

Robert Jewett, Saint Paul at the Movies: The Apostle’s Dialogue With American Culture

Robert Johnston, Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue

Roger Lundin, The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern World

Roland Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards: An Essay in Aesthetics and Theological Ethics

Rowan Williams, Grace And Necessity: Reflections on Art And Love

Roy Kinnard & Tim Davis, Divine Images: A History of Jesus on the Screen

Simon Jenkins, Windows into Heaven: The Icons and Spirituality of Russia

St John of Damascus, On the Divine Images: Three Apologies Against Those Who Attack the Holy Images

Stanley Porter et al, eds., Images of Christ: Ancient and Modern

Stephen May, Stardust and Ashes : Science Fiction in Christian Perspective

Steve Scott, Like a House on Fire: Renewal of the Arts in a Postmodern Culture

T.R. Wright, Theology and Literature

Trevor A. Hart and Steven R. Guthrie (eds.), Faithful Performances

Trevor A. Hart, A Poetics of Redemption Volume 1: Creation, Creatureliness and Artistry (forthcoming)

Trevor A. Hart, A Poetics of Redemption Volume 2: Incarnation, Embodiment, and Art (forthcoming)

Trevor A. Hart, A Poetics of Redemption Volume 3: Holy Spirit, Imagination and the Salvation of Humanity (forthcoming)

William Dyrness, Reformed Theology and Visual Culture: The Protestant Imagination from Calvin to Edwards

William Dyrness, Rouault: a vision of suffering and salvation

William Dyrness, The Earth Is God’s: A Theology of American Culture

William Dyrness, Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue

 

§

 

XX. Eschatology

Adrio König, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology: Toward a Christ-Centered Approach

Alister McGrath, A Brief History of Heaven

Anthony Hoekema, The Bible and the Future

Ben Witherington III, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology

Brian Hebblethwaite, The Christian Hope

David Powys, Hell: A Hard Look at a Hard Question: The Fate of the Unrighteous in New Testament Thought

Donald G. Bloesch, The Last Things: Resurrection, Judgment, Glory

Edward Fudge, Fire that Consumes, The: The Biblical Case for Conditional Immortality

Geerhardus Vos, Pauline Eschatology

Geerhardus Vos, The Eschatology of the Old Testament

Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz, The Kingdom and the Power: The Theology of Jürgen Moltmann (reviewed here)

Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist (reviewed here)

Hans Schwarz, ‘Eschatology’, in Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (eds.), Christian Dogmatics, Volume 2

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? With a Short Discourse on Hell (reviewed here)

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory : The Last Act (Vol 5)

Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith, Volume 3: The Holy Spirit, the Church, Eschatology

Herman Ridderbos, Coming of the Kingdom

James Wm. McClendon, Jr., Systematic Theology, Vol. 2: Doctrine

John F. Walvoord, Zachary J. Hayes, and Clark H. Pinnock, Four Views on Hell

John Polkinghorne, The God of Hope and the End of the World

Jürgen Moltmann, Coming of God: Christian Eschatology

Jürgen Moltmann, In the End – The Beginning: The Life of Hope

Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope

Lindsey Hall, Swinburne’s Hell and Hick’s Universalism: Are we free to reject God? (reviewed here)

Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama

Nigel M. de S. Cameron, ed., Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell: Papers Presented at the Fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics, 1991 (reviewed here)

Peter T. Forsyth, This Life and the Next

Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope Against Hope: Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the Millennium(reviewed here)

Richard Bauckham, God Will Be All in All: The Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann

Robin A. Parry and Christopher H. Partridge, ed., Universal Salvation? The Current Debate (reviewed here)

Thomas Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God (reviewed here)

Wayne Martindale, Beyond the Shadowlands: C.S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell

William H. Katerberg and Miroslav Volf (eds.), The Future of Hope: Christian Tradition Amid Modernity and Postmodernity

 

§

 

XXI. Introduction to the Old Testament

Adrio König, Here Am I: A Christian Reflection on God

Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture

Brevard S. Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context

Christopher J. H. Wright, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament

Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments

Gerhard Von Rad, Old Testament Theology: The Theology of Israel’s Traditions

John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology (3 vols)

Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination

Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy

Walter Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament (2 vols)

William J. Dumbrell, Covenant & Creation: A Theology of Old Testament Covenants

William J. Dumbrell, Search for Order: Biblical Eschatology in Focus

William J. Dumbrell, The Faith of Israel. A Theological Survey of the Old Testament

William Sanford La Sor, David Allan Hubbard, Frederic William Bush, and Leslie C. Allen, Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament

 

§

 

XXII. Introduction to the New Testament

Adolf Schlatter, The Theology of the Apostles

David Arthur Desilva, An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods and Ministry Formation

Donald A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, Introduction to the New Testament

Donald A. Carson, The Gospel According to John: An Introduction and Commentary

E.P. Sanders and Margaret Davies, Studying the Synoptic Gospels

George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology

J. Christiaan Beker, Paul The Apostle

Joel B. Green (ed.), Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation

John H. Hayes, Biblical Exegesis: A Beginner’s Handbook

Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans

Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation

Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters 

Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross

Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology

Michael J. Gorman, Reading Paul

N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology

Philip E. Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews

Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament

Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul As Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture

Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics

Richard Bauckham, James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage

Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation

Robert H. Gundry, Survey of the New Testament

Reviews

BOOKS

• Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Abingdon Press, 1950)
• Baylies, Peter. The Stay-at-Home Dad Handbook (Chicago Review Press, 2004)
• Bebbington, David. Victorian Nonconformity (Paternoster, 2007)
• Boyd, Gregory A. & Paul R. Eddy. Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology (Baker Academic, 2006)
• Bradley, W. L. P.T. Forsyth: The Man and His Work (Independent Press, 1952)
• Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (University of California Press, 2000)
• Brown, Robert McAfee. P. T. Forsyth, Prophet for Today (Westminister Press, 1952)
• Cairns, Scott. The End of Suffering: Finding Purpose in Pain (Paraclete Press, 2009)
• Chesterton, G.K. The Dumb Ox (Doubleday, 1956)
• Dawson, Gerrit Scott (ed). An Introduction to Torrance Theology: Discovering the Incarnate Saviour (T&T Clark, 2007)
• Deddo, Gary W. Karl Barth’s Theology of Relations: Trinitarian, Christological, and Human: Towards an Ethic of the Family (P. Lang, 1999)
• Donovan, Vincent J. The Church in the Midst of Creation (Orbis, 1989)
• Forsyth, Peter T. Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind (Hodder & Stoughton, 1907)
• Forsyth, Peter T. This Life and the Next (Independent Press, 1918)
• Fergusson, David. ‘Will the Love of God Finally Triumph?’, pages 186–202 in Nothing Greater, Nothing Better: Theological Essays on the Love of God (Eerdmans, 2001)
• Gibson, David and Daniel Strange (eds). Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques (Apollos, 2008)
• Gockel, Matthias. Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election (Oxford University Press, 2006)
• Gossai, Hemchand. Barrenness and Blessing: Abraham, Sarah, and the Journey of Faith (Cascade Books, 2008)
• Gunton, Colin E. A Brief Theology of Revelation (T&T Clark, 1999)
• Gunton, Colin E. The Barth Lectures (T&T Clark, 2007)
• Hample, Stuart  and Eric Marshall. Children’s Letters to God (Workman Publications, 1991)
• Hart, Trevor (ed). Justice the True and Only Mercy: Essays on the Life and Theology of Peter Taylor Forsyth, (T&T Clark, 1994)
• Higton, Mike. SCM Core Text: Christian Doctrine (SCM Press, 2008)
• Holmes, Stephen R. The Wondrous Cross: Atonement and Penal Substituion in the Bible and History (Paternoster, 2007)
• Houlden, J. L. Jesus: A Question of Identity (Continuum, 2006)
• Jenson, Robert W. and Solveig Lucia Gold, Conversations with Poppi about God: An Eight-Year-Old and Her Theologian Grandfather Trade Questions (Brazos Press, 2006)
• Jones, Joe R. On Being the Church of Jesus Christ in Tumultuous Times (Cascade Books, 2005)
• Kelly, Geoffrey B. and F. Burton Nelson, The Cost of Moral Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Eerdmans, 2003)
• Kennedy, Geoffrey A. Studdert,  After War, Is Faith Possible?: The Life and Message of Geoffrey “Woodbine Willie” Studdert Kennedy (ed. Kerry Walters; Cascade, 2008).
• Langford, Thomas A. Reflections on Grace (Cascade Books, 2007)
• Lorenzen, Thorwald. Toward a Culture of Freedom: Reflections on the Ten Commandments Today (Cascade Books, 2008)
• Mackintosh, Hugh Ross. The Person of Jesus Christ (T&T Clark, 2000)
• Madsen, Anna M. The Theology of the Cross in Historical Perspective (Pickwick Publications, 2007)
• Mariña, Jacqueline. Transformation of the Self in the Thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher (Oxford University Press, 2008)
• McCormack, Bruce L. (ed). Justification in Perspective: historical developments and contemporary challenges (Baker Academic/Rutherford House, 2006)
• McGlasson, Paul C. Invitation to Dogmatic Theology: A Canonical Approach (Brazos Press, 2006)
• McGrath, Alister E. The Life of John Calvin (Blackwell, 1993)
• Newton, John. The Double Rainbow: James K. Baxter, Ngāti Hau and the Jerusalem Commune (Victoria University Press, 2009)
• Payne, Don J. The Theology of the Christian Life in J. I. Packer’s Thought (Paternoster, 2006)
• Preuschoff, Gisela. Raising Girls (Ten Speed Press, 2006)
• Robbins, Anna M. Ecumenical and Eclectic: The Unity of the Church in the Contemporary World: Essays in Honour of Alan P. F. Sell (Paternoster, 2007)
• Sell, Alan P.F. Nonconformist Theology in the Twentieth Century (Paternoster, 2006)
• Sell, Alan P. F. and Anthony R. Cross (eds). Protestant Nonconformity in the Twentieth Century (Paternoster, 2003)
• Severson, Eric R. (ed). The Least of These: Selected Readings in Christian History (Cascade, 2007)
• Stackhouse Jr., John G. (ed). What Does It Mean To Be Saved?: Broadening Evangelical Horizons of Salvation (Baker Academic, 2002)
• Talbott, Thomas. The Inescapable Love of God (Universal Publishers, 1999)
• Terry, Justyn, The Justifying Judgement of God (Paternoster, 2007)
• Turner, Steve. The Gospel According to the Beatles (Westminster John Knox, 2006)
• Wilson, John E. Introduction to Modern Theology: Trajectories in the German Tradition (Westminster John Knox, 2007)
• Young, William P. The Shack (Windblown Media, 2007)
  

§

FILM

• Shooting Dogs

§

MUSIC

• Theology, by Sinéad O’Connor
• Free Running, by Richard Maegraith Band
• One Voice, by Malcolm Gordon
  

Developing a Reading List – 5

This is the last of a wee series of posts (here, here, here and here) that have been written in an effort to put together some sort of a reading list for various areas of systematic and pastoral theology. The fact that it is listed here does not mean that I endorse any or all of the theology expressed by the various individuals.

This post is concerned with books on Pastoral Ministry, Preaching, Theology and the Arts (BEWARE: a long list), and Eschatology.

Remember, the kind of thing I have in mind is developing a reading list and resource for English-speaking undergraduate theology students – a kind of answer to the ‘where should I start?’ question. What books have you found helpful as either a teacher or a student that ought to be on such suggested a reading list?

Many thanks to those who have made suggestions.

Reading List: 17. Pastoral Ministry:

Christian D Kettler and Todd H. Speidell (eds.), Incarnational Ministry: The Presence of Christ in Church, Society, and Family: Essays in Honor of Ray S. Anderson

Eduard Thurneysen, A Theology of Pastoral Care

Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction

Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work

Eugene H. Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness

Eugene H. Peterson, Working The Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Creative Ministry

Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Ray S. Anderson, The Shape of Practical Theology: Empowering Ministry With Theological Praxis

Ray S. Anderson, The Soul of Ministry: Forming Leaders for God’s People

Ray S. Anderson (ed.), Theological Foundations for Ministry

Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

Thomas Oden, Pastoral Theology

Walter C. Wright, Relational Leadership: A Biblical Model for Influence and Service

Reading List: 18. Preaching:

Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers

Deane Meatheringham, Gospel Incandescent

Dietrich Ritschl, A Theology of Proclamation

Geoffrey C. Bingham, The Preacher and the Parrot

Geoffrey C. Bingham, True Preaching: the Agony and the Ecstasy

Gerhard O. Forde, Theology is for Proclamation

Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching

Gustaf Wingren, The Living Word

Helmut Thielicke, How to Believe Again

Helmut Thielicke, What’s Wrong with the Church?

James Denney, ‘Preaching Christ’, in Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (ed. J. Hastings), 393-403.

John Stott, I Believe in Preaching

Karl Barth, Homiletics

Peter Adam, Speaking God’s Words: A Practical Theology of Preaching

Peter T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind

Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text

Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method

Thomas F. Torrance, Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking

Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying

Reading List: 19. Theology and the Arts

Aidan Nichols, The Art of God Incarnate, Theology and Symbol from Genesis to the 20th Century

Bridget Nichols. Literature in Christian Perspective: Becoming Faithful Readers

Calvin Seerveld, Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves

Calvin Seerveld, Rainbows for a Fallen World

Calvin Seerveld, Voicing God’s Psalms

Christopher Deacy, Screen Christologies: Redemption and the Medium of Film

David Bailey Harned, Theology and the Arts

David Thistlethwaite, The Art of God and the Religions of Art

Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker

E. John Walford, Jacob van Ruisdael and the perception of landscape

Edward Farley, Faith and Beauty: A Theological Aesthetic

Flannery O’Connor, Flannery O’Connor: Collected Works

Frank Burch Brown, Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste

Frank Burch Brown, Religious Aesthetics: A Theological Study of Making and Meaning

Gabriele Finaldi, The Image of Christ

Gaye W. Oritz and Clive Marsh (eds.), Explorations in Theology and Film

Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture

Gene Edward Veith, Reading Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Literature

Georg W. F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art

George Pattison, Art, Modernity and Faith

George Steiner, Grammars of Creation

George Steiner, Real Presences

Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics: A Reader

Hans R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture

Hans Rookmaaker, The Creative Gift

Henri Nouwen, Behold the Beauty of the Lord

Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

Hilary Brand & Adrienne Chaplin, Art and Soul: Signposts for Christians in the Arts

Jaroslav Pelikan, Bach Among the Theologians

Jeremy Begbie, ‘Christ and the Cultures: Christianity and the Arts,’ in Companion to Christian Doctrine, ed. Colin Gunton

Jeremy Begbie, ‘The Gospel, the Arts and Our Culture,’ in The Gospel and Contemporary Culture, ed. Hugh Montefiore, 1992, 58–83.

Jeremy S. Begbie (ed.), Beholding the Glory: Incarnation through the Arts

Jeremy S. Begbie, Theology, Music and Time

Jeremy S. Begbie, Voicing Creations Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts

John De Gruchy, Christianity, Art and Social Transformation: Theological Aesthetics in the Struggle for Justice

John Dillenberger, A Theology of Artistic Sensibilities

John Drury, Painting the Word: Christian Pictures and Their Meaning

John Newport, Christianity and Contemporary Art Forms

Karl Barth, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Kathleen Powers Erickson, At Eternity’s Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent Van Gogh

Larry J Kreitzer, Pauline Images in Fiction and Film

Larry J Kreitzer, The New Testament in Fiction and Film

Larry J Kreitzer, The Old Testament in Fiction and Film

Leland Ryken, Culture in Christian Perspective: A Door to Understanding and Enjoying the Arts

Leland Ryken, The Liberated Imagination: Thinking Critically about the Arts

Leonid Ouspensky & Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icon

Margaret Miles, Image as Insight

Ned Bustard, It was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God

Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Art in Action: Towards a Christian Aesthetic

Nigel Forde, The Lantern and the Looking-Glass: Literature and Christian Belief

Patrick Sherry, Spirit and Beauty: An Introduction to Theological Aesthetics

Paul Corby Finney, Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition

Paul Corby Finney, The Invisible God

Paul Fiddes (ed.), The Novel, Spirituality and Modern Culture

Paul Fiddes, Freedom and Limit: A Dialogue between Literature and Christian Doctrine

Paul S. Fiddes, The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature

Peter Fuller, Theoria: Art and the Absence of Grace

Peter T. Forsyth, Christ on Parnassus: Lectures on Art, Ethic, and Theology

Peter T. Forsyth, Religion in Recent Art: Expository Lectures on Rossetti, Burne Jones Watts, Holman Hunt and Wagner

Richard Harries, Art and the Beauty of God: A Christian Understandin

Richard Harries, The Passion in Art

Richard Viladesau, Theological Aesthetics: God in Imagination, Beauty, and Art

Robert Jewett, Saint Paul at the Movies: The Apostle’s Dialogue with American Culture

Robert Johnston, Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue

Roger Lundin, The Culture of Interpretation

Roland Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards: An essay in aesthetics and theological ethics

Rowan Williams, Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love

Roy Kinnard & Tim Davis, Divine Images: A History of Jesus on the Screen

Simon Jenkins, Windows into Heaven

St John of Damascus, On the Divine Images

Stanley Porter et al, eds., Images of Christ, Ancient and Modern

Stephen May, Stardust and Ashes: Science Fiction in Christian Perspective

Steve Scott, Like a House on Fire: Renewal of the Arts in a Postmodern Culture

T. R Wright, Theology and Literature

Trevor A. Hart and Steven R. Guthrie (eds.), Faithful Performances

Trevor A. Hart, A Poetics of Redemption Volume 1: Creation, Creatureliness and Artistry (forthcoming)

Trevor A. Hart, A Poetics of Redemption Volume 2: Incarnation, Embodiment, and Art (forthcoming)

Trevor A. Hart, A Poetics of Redemption Volume 3: Holy Spirit, Imagination and the Salvation of Humanity (forthcoming)

William Dyrness, Reformed Theology and Visual Culture: The Protestant Imagination from Calvin to Edwards

William Dyrness, Rouault: A Vision of Suffering and Salvatio

William Dyrness, The Earth is God’s: A Theology of American Culture

William Dyrness, Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue

Reading List: 20. Eschatology:

Adrio König, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology: Toward a Christ-Centered Approach

Anthony Hoekema, Bible and the Future,

Alister McGrath, A Brief History of Heaven

Ben Witherington III, Jesus, Paul & the End of the World

David Powys, ‘Hell’: A Hard Look at a Hard Question

Donald G. Bloesch, The Last Things: Resurrection, Judgment, Glory

Edward Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: The Biblical Case for Conditional Immortality

Geerhardus Vos, Pauline Eschatology

Geerhardus Vos, Eschatology of the Old Testament

Hans Schwarz, ‘Eschatology’, in Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (eds.), Christian Dogmatics, Volume 2

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama, Vol. 5

Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith, Volume 3: The Holy Spirit, the Church, Eschatology

Herman Ridderbos, Coming of the Kingdom

James Wm. McClendon, Jr., Doctrine: Systematic Theology, Vol. 2

John F. Walvoord, Zachary J. Hayes, and Clark H. Pinnock, Four Views on Hell

Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology

Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope

Jürgen Moltmann, In the End – The Beginning: The Life of Hope

John Polkinghorne, The God of Hope and the End of the World

Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama

Peter T. Forsyth, This Life and the Next

Richard Bauckham, God Will Be All in All: The Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann

Robert A. Peterson, Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment

Wayne Martindale, Beyond the Shadowlands: C.S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell

William H. Katerberg and Miroslav Volf (eds.), The Future of Hope: Christian Tradition amid Modernity and Postmodernity

Developing a Reading List – 3

Developing a Reading List – 3

So far I have listed books on (1) Theological Method and Prolegomena, (2) Systematics/Dogmatics (3) Biblical Theology, and (4) Theology Proper, (5) Patriology, (6) Christology, (7) Pneumatology and (8) Revelation. Below is a list of books that I’ve found helpful in thinking about Creation, Soteriology, Ecclesiology, Anthropology. Remember, this series of 5 posts is with a view to developing some sort of a reading list for various areas of systematic and pastoral theology, and that the kind of thing I have in mind is a reading list and resource for English-speaking undergraduate theology students. It is to this end that I am inviting your help.

Reading List: 9. Creation:

Colin E. Gunton, The Triune Creator

Colin E. Gunton, Christ and Creation

David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall

Jonathan Edwards, Concerning the End for Which God Created the World

Joseph Ratzinger, In the Beginning

Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation

Langdon Gilkey, Maker of Heaven and Earth

Reading List: 10. Soteriology:

Albrecht Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation: The Positive Development of the Doctrine

Anselm, Cur Deus Homo?

Athanasius, On the Incarnation

Colin E. Gunton, The Actuality of Atonement

David Peterson, Possessed by God: A New Testament Theology of Sanctification and Holiness

Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord

Geoffrey C. Bingham, Christ’s Cross Over Man’s Abyss

Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor

Hans Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition

James Denney, The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation

James Denney, The Death of Christ

John McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement

John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ

John Webster, Holiness

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1

Kenneth Grayston, Dying, We Live: A New Enquiry into the Death of Christ in the New Testament

Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross

Michelle A. Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image: An Introduction to Feminist Theological Anthropology

Molly T. Marshall, What It Means to Be Human

Nigel M. de S. Cameron (ed.), Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell

Paul Fiddes, Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement

Peter T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross

Peter T. Forsyth, The Work of Christ

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, vol. 1: Human Nature

Stephen C. Barton (ed.), Holiness: Past and Present

Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ

Thomas Smail, Once and For All: A Confession of the Cross

Reading List: 11. Ecclesiology:

Colin E. Gunton (ed.), Trinity, Time, and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Donald G. Bloesch, The Church

Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Children of Promise

Hans Küng, The Church

John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church

Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit

Donald G. Bloesch, The Church: Sacraments, Worship, Ministry Mission

Miroslav Volf, After Our Image: The Church as the Image of the Trinity

Peter Leithart, Against Christianity

Peter T. Forsyth, The Church and the Sacraments

Peter T. Forsyth, The Church, The Gospel and Society

Reading List: 12. Anthropology:

Alan Torrance, Persons in Communion: an Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation

Christoph Schwobel & Colin Gunton (eds), Persons, Divine and Human

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Harry R. Boer, An Ember Still Glowing: Humankind as the Image of God

Helmut Thielicke, Being Human … Becoming Human

John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church

Pope John Paul II, The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan

Randall C. Zachman, The Assurance Of Faith: Conscience in the Theology Of Martin Luther and John Calvin

Ray S. Anderson, On Being Human: Essays in Theological Anthropology

Stanley Grenz, The Social God and the Relational Self

Thomas Smail, Like Father, Like Son

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective

Next on the list: Prayer and Meditation, Missiology, Ethics, and Doxology.

Developing a Reading List – 1

I thought it might be beneficial to try and develop some sort of a reading list for various areas of systematic and pastoral theology. My hope is that this list will have something of an organic life, being edited from time to time as I come across various texts (and suggestions by others) that warrant inclusion. While I hope that the list betrays theological discernment and acumen, I’m not interested in developing a list that pleases any one theological camp in particular … though my biases will be obvious enough. It is hoped that the list will reflect the best and most important texts of a tradition unashamedly ecumenical, catholic and apostolic. The kind of thing I have in mind is a reading list and resource for English-speaking undergraduate theology students. Of course, in good blogging style, I also welcome suggestions.

A few things to note:

- Many books allude easy wee categorisation. In such cases I have placed it where I think if belongs best and sometimes in multiple places. If you think it ought to be somewhere else, suggest somewhere. (NB. For the purposes of this exercise, Hell is not a place!)
- I haven’t read everything. That’s why I’m asking for your help.
- In due course, I may add further subcategories. But for now, I have decided on 20 categories:

1. Theological Method and Prolegomena
2. Systematics/Dogmatics
3. Biblical Theology
4. Theology Proper
5. Patriology
6. Christology
7. Pneumatology
8. Revelation
9. Creation
10. Soteriology
11. Ecclesiology
12. Anthropology
13. Prayer and Meditation
14. Missiology
15. Ethics
16. Doxology
17. Pastoral Ministry
18. Preaching
19. Theology and the Arts
20. Eschatology

Because twenty posts is a bit of a push, I will post these 4 at a time (i.e. over 5 posts). Did I say that I welcome suggestions?

Reading List: 1. Theological Method

Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading

Arthur C. McGill, Suffering: A Test of Theological Method

Avery Dulles, The Craft of Theology

David Ford, Theology: A Very Short Introduction

Donald G. Bloesch, A Theology of Word and Spirit: Authority and Method in Theology

Donald MacKinnon, Borderlands of Theology

Eberhard Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World

Ellen Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: the Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine

Helmut Thielicke, A Little Exercise for Young Theologians

Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Philosophical Theology

George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age

Gerhard O. Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518

Gerhard O. Forde, Theology is for Proclamation

John Howard Yoder, Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method

John Webster, Confessing God

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama Of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach To Christian Theology

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks

Paul McGlasson, Invitation to Dogmatic Theology: A Canonical Approach

Peter T. Forsyth, The Principle of Authority: In Relation to Certainty, Sanctity and Society

Trevor A. Hart, Faith Thinking: The Dynamics of Christian Theology

Vern Poythress, Symphonic Theology

Reading List: 2. Systematics/Dogmatics:

Alister E. McGrath (ed.), The Christian Theology Reader

Carl E. Braaten & Robert W. Jenson (Eds.), Christian Dogmatics (2 vols)

Catherine M. Lacugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life

Clive S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Colin E. Gunton, The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding

Donald G. Bloesch, Christian Foundations (7 vols)

Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology (2 vols)

Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: the Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse

Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her

Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith

Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology

Georg W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

Gerrit C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics (14 vols)

Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics

Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith (3 vols)

Hendrikus Berkhof, The Christian Faith

James William McClendon, Doctrine

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition (5 vols)

John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (13 vols)

Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline

Karl Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics

Otto Weber, Foundations for Dogmatics (2 vols)

Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (3 vols)

Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology (2 vols)

Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology

Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God

Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica

Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology (3 vols)

Thomas Erskine, The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel

Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith

Ted Peters, God – the World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era

Tyron Inbody, The Faith of the Christian Church

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (3 vols)

Reading List: 3. Biblical Theology:

Adolf Schlatter, The History of the Christ: the Foundation for New Testament Theology

Adolf Schlatter, The Theology of the Apostles: The Development of New Testament Theology

Charles E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (2 vols)

Donald A. Carson, The Gagging of God

Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith

Gordon J. Wenham, Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Narrative Ethically

Gordon McConville, Grace in the End: A Study in Deuteronomic Theology

I. Howard Marshall, New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel

Noel Due, Created for Worship: From Genesis to Revelation to You

N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology

N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God

N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God

N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God

Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics

Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (2 vols)

Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy

William J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: A Theology of the Old Testament Covenants

William J. Dumbrell, Search for Order: Biblical Eschatology in Focus

Reading List: 4. Theology Proper:

Adrio König, Here Am I: A Believer’s Reflection on God

C. Norman Kraus, God our Savior

Colin E. Gunton, The Triune Creator

Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love

Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse

John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church

Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1–2

Nicholas Lash, Holiness, Speech and Silence: Reflections on the Question of God

Peter T. Forsyth, The Justification of God

Robert Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel

Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith

Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God

Next on the list: Patriology, Christology, Pneumatology, and Revelation.

Names and the Name – 15

The Scriptures contend that God declares himself in what he does. Thus we can speak of God only in attentive acknowledgement of the way he demonstrates his nature (in his acts and his commandments).

Vriezen has noted that ‘God can only be denoted as the Real One according to the functional character of His Being, not in His Being itself.’ If Abba is correct that the basic idea behind the name in the context of Exodus 3 and 4 is ‘presence’ (rather than metaphysics) revealed in what Delitzsch calls ‘the active manifestation of existence’, then God is present in history revealing himself (his character) to humanity through his actions. Is this not why the Bible is more concerned with speaking of the ‘name’ rather than the ‘concept’ or ‘idea’ of God! This personal God will not be confused or subsumed with an idea, Hegelian or otherwise. This does not mean that we are not given to know God as he is in himself, only that we must neither divorce nor confuse ontology and soteriology.

God’s name identifies his nature, so that a request for his ‘name’ is equivalent to asking about his character (Exo 3:13; Hos 12:5). As Coffin notes, ‘The [divine] name is taken as the expression of His nature and character; and His revealed name is associated with His people Israel and with His sanctuary in their midst. Their meeting with Him is more than a meeting with a tribal god, and the basis of their joy is the knowledge of Himself as revealed in His name.’ But it is more than this. Behind Moses’ request is the whole question about how Israel were to understand and define their own future. If Israel were to leave ‘secure nonexistence’ (Robert Jenson) in Egypt and speculate on the promises of their fathers’ God, then they first needed to know what sort of future this God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is. The answer comes in the guise of the name itself: YHWH. In 6:2-8, YHWH moves to define himself as not only the covenant making God of their father’s, but now as the one who has heard the groaning of this slave people Israel in Egypt, and who has remembered his covenant promise, and is therefore determined to redeem these slaves out from under the burdens of the Egyptians with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment that they might be his people, and he their God, and that they might know that YHWH is their God.

The point is that God’s action in history is not primarily with a view to revealing something about himself so much as it is to reveal himself. In this God’s freedom is such that he becomes something that he has never been that his people might know him and become something in him that they could not become apart from his becoming human for our sakes. This revelation of God as being for us in covenant love and faithfulness means that he can be trusted.

It seems to me that attempts to understand the divine name (YHWH) have proved unsatisfactory because scholars have sought to interpret it in isolation from its context. When we do consider the Exodus 3 narrative in its context we discover that the revelation given to Moses at the burning bush was not the revelation of a new and hitherto unknown name, as some have argued, so much as it is the disclosure of the real significance of a name long known. The giving of the name ‘Yahweh’ was the framework of revelation in the religious foundation of Moses and pointed back implicitly to this historical confrontation of God and humanity and all that resulted there-from. What matters is God’s continued, active presence and relationship, and not some abstract existential concept of being.

Books on Sanctification

Monergism Books have listed their ‘Top Ten Books on Piety, Sanctification, Spiritual Growth’. Here’s their list:

10. The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification: Growing in Holiness by Living in Union with Christ, by Walter Marshall

09. The Bruised Reed, by Richard Sibbes

08. The Mortification of Sin, by John Owen

07. Crook in the Lot, by Thomas Boston

06. The Fear of God, by John Bunyan

05. Words to Winners of Souls, Horatius Bonar

04. The Doctrine of Sanctification, by A.W. Pink

03. Holiness, by J.C. Ryle

02. The Christian in Complete Armour, by William Gurnall

01. The Life of God in the Soul of Man, by Henry Scougal

Since I am working on sanctification (both personally and for my thesis) I was both interested and a little disappointed in this list. There are, of course, some excellent works on this list, and I remain convinced that the puritans offer us some of (if not) the most rich and practical models and theological resources for the Christian life, but some obvious omissions (they limited their list to ten so omissions are inevitable) come to mind – in no particular order:

Christian Perfection, by P T Forsyth (republished in God the Holy Father; the best treatment I am aware of on sanctification)

Possessed by God, by David Peterson

Hebrews and Perfection, by David Peterson

Faith and Sanctification, by G C Berkouwer

Holiness Past and Present, edited by Stephen Barton

Holiness, by John Webster

The Assurance of Faith, by Randall Zachman

Hearing God’s Words: Exploring Biblical Spirituality, by Peter Adam

Letters and Papers from Prison, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On Purifying the Heart, by Thomas Goodwin

Commentary on Psalms, by John Calvin

Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World, by Philip Jenson

Lectures on Philosophical Theology, by Immanuel Kant

The Grace of Law, by Ernest Kevan

The Struggle of Prayer, by Donald Bloesch

I could go on and I know that I’ve missed a truck-load, but I’m keen to find out what essays you have found helpful in this area, both personally and academically. Suggestions … ?

Names and the Name – 4

God has a name – 3

There has been no shortage of attempts by biblical scholars to ascertain the etymological roots of the divine name (YHWH). Beitzel notes that ‘The Exodus discourse between Moses and his God bristles with a number of virtually insoluble philological and theological problems, and one is not surprised at the inability to forge a common scholarly concensus regarding the linguistic and theological meaning of the ineffable tetragrammaton’.

G. R. Driver, and others, relying heavily on Greek analogies have posited the opinion that the divine name did not originally have a readily intelligible form, but was rather ‘an emotional cultic outburst, such as dervishes might cry out ecstatically.’ Unsurprisingly, this view has not gone without critique.

It seems to me that it is not without significance that there was very little interest in the etymology of the divine name in Israel, nor in the ontology of her God. Jenson is right here: ‘What the word “Yahweh” may once have meant we do not know. Since historical Israel did not know either, the loss is not theologically great.’ More important is the truth that Israel’s interest in her God’s name lay in the actions of power which he performed on their behalf. Few have stated it better than von Rad. Commenting on Exodus 3:14, he accuses scholars of seeking to reduce the divine name to ‘a final axiomatic formula’. He continues:

… nothing is farther from what is envisaged in this etymology of the name of Jahweh than a defintion of his nature in the sense of philosophical statement about his being (LXX evgw, eivmi o` w;n) – a suggestion, for example, of his absolute aseity, etc. Such a thing would be altogether out of keeping with the Old Testament. The whole narrative context leads right away to the expectation that Jahweh intends to impart something – but this is not what he is, but what he will show himself to be to Israel.

Names and the Name – 2

God has a name – 1

One of the great gifts that the people of God enjoy is knowledge of God’s name. The God who claimed Abram and that nation to be birthed from his loins has a name. The God who has claimed humanity in Jesus Christ has a name. God is no abstract ‘ground of being’. In latter posts we shall see that God’s name is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. But the economy of revelation is such that this tri-fold name was not always known. Nevertheless …

God has a name. The misery on this earth is nameless, the evil among men is nameless, for the powers of darkness love to be without a name. Nameless, anonymous letters, letters without signatures are usually vulgar. But God is no writer of anonymous letters; God puts His name to everything that He does, effects, and says; God has no need to fear the light of day. The Devil loves anonymity, but God has a name. He did not get this name by chance; in fact He did not receive it at all: He gave it to Himself because He wants to have a name. For him, name does not mean noise and smoke that cloud the splendour of Heaven; His name is His sign, the sign that shows that He is the true God; His name is His signature, so to speak, His monogram, His seal, His stamp (His trademark, if you will!) – whatever bears His stamp is God’s. God would certainly have had the power to be nameless; but because He loves clarity and hates obscurity He preferred not to be a nameless God. (Walter Lüthi)

Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the NT demand that God have a proper name. In the MT, God’s self-revealed name is YHWH, the meaning of which is filled out in Israel’s experience, primarily that of liberation from Egypt and the coming into their own land of promise. When we come to the NT, we learn that God’s proper name is ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’. Again, the believing community is given to know this name, and so God, in the experience of redemption, this time final. This name-knowing and redemption both happen in the one place. More specifically, they happen in a person, Jesus Christ.

Robert Jenson notes that the NT understands by God ‘whoever raised Jesus from the dead’. This identification by the Resurrection, Jenson argues, ‘neither replaces nor is simply added to identification by the Exodus’. Rather, ‘the new identifying description verifies its paradigmatic predecessor … Thus “the one who rescued Israel from Egypt” is confirmed as an identification of God in that it is continued “as he thereupon rescued the Israelite Jesus from the dead”’.

Colin Gunton Day Conference

I have mentioned this before on this blog, but it’s probably worth re-mentioning. A day conference to celebrate the theological work of the late Professor Colin Gunton is scheduled for Monday 10 September 2007 at Spurgeon’s College, London.

The title of the conference is The Triune God in the Theology of Colin E. Gunton. The conference will be held on Monday 10 September 2007, at Spurgeon’s College in London (from 10:30 am to 4:45 pm). There will be four speakers who will present papers on some aspect of Gunton’s theology:

Robert W. Jenson (Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton)
John E. Colwell (Spurgeon’s College, London)
Stephen R. Holmes (St Mary’s College, St Andrews)
Douglas H. Knight (Birkbeck, London)

The deadline for those wishing to book a place at a reduced rate is Monday 4 June.

If you have any questions regarding this conference contact Terry Wright at guntonconference@hotmail.co.uk

The Offence of Beauty: A Conference

Trevor Hart, Jeremy Begbie, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Robert Jenson, Carol Harrison, Bernard Beatty, and Patrick Sherry … apart from the obvious omission of Forsyth, who else could you possibly want at a conference on such a theme? Anyway, here’s the blurb:

The colloquium takes place at a time of considerable and growing interest in the intersections of theology, beauty and the arts. Its particular concern is with the concept of beauty, and what a Christian theological perspective on beauty might have to offer to the arts today.

In recent decades, among those who practise, think and write about the arts, the notion of beauty has often come under deep suspicion. For many who have not dismissed it as irrelevant, it has even become a matter of offence.

For some, beauty is an offence against truth, a lie in the midst of a world that is so obviously not beautiful. The quest for beauty in the arts is the quest for an illusory consolation, signalling a primal human urge for order in a world we cannot bear to admit is destined for futility.

The pursuit of beauty has also been seen as an offence against goodness. In the hands of the comfortable and powerful, the love of beauty – in the arts as much as anywhere else – is a luxury that can easily muffle the howl of those who know little or no beauty, distracting us from our obligations to those in need. Or, from the other side, beauty dulls the oppressed to the injustice of their predicament.

Beauty is also distrusted insofar as it is assumed to ‘harmonise away’ the evilness of evil. In particular, there has been a distrust of theories of beauty in which the notions of balance, symmetry and equivalence predominate, where evil’s irrational, intrusive quality is suppressed, where it is subsumed into a harmonious metaphysics of necessity and seen as part of the necessary balance of things. Art, it is said, must never collude with such schemes.

Undoubtedly, the Church and Christian theologians have been as responsible as any others for generating and encouraging these suspicions. The question arises, however: can there be a theological perspective on beauty that takes these suspicions seriously, while at the same time refusing to set aside the notion of beauty altogether? More particularly: in what ways can attending to the triune God of Jesus Christ, and this God’s gracious, reconciling, self-revealing activity in and for the world, inform and transform our conceptions of beauty? In this light, are there ways in which it might be quite legitimate to speak of the ‘offence’ of beauty – especially in relation to the ‘scandal’ at the heart of the Christian faith, the vindication of the crucified Jesus? And – the focused concern of this colloquium – what might such theological construals of beauty imply about the way we practise, interpret and enjoy the arts in the twenty-first century?

More information:

• Registration – book online now for the ITIA 2007 conference!
• The ‘Offence of Beauty’ – the conference theme
• Conference schedule
• Conference speakers and presenters
• Short paper sessions – proposals
• Download a conference poster

Dialog

The latest issue of Dialog: A Journal of Theology is now out and includes some interesting papers. The theme is Luther. Some highlights for me include:

Did Paul Get Luther Right?
David A. Brondos

Abstract: Did Paul and Luther proclaim the same gospel? Although Luther’s understanding of the work of Christ and his idea of the “joyous exchange” between Christ and believers reflect many ideas that are foreign to Paul’s thought, both agree on the heart of the gospel, namely, that justification is by faith alone, since “faith alone fulfills the law.” In Christ God graciously accepts sinners just as they are, so that as they live out of faith, trusting solely in God for forgiveness and new life, they may become the righteous people God desires that they be, not for God’s sake, but for the sake of human beings themselves.

Paul and the Revisionists: Did Luther Really Get it All Wrong?
Karl P. Donfried

Abstract: After the advent of the “new perspective” on Paul as explicated in E. P. Sanders, Krister Stendahl, and N.T. Wright, we need to ask: did Luther get Paul right? In this essay, Donfried analyzes N.T. Wright along with David Brondos on whether Paul—and Luther—properly interpreted concepts such as “law” or “justification” in light of ancient Judaism(s). In contrast to the “new perspective,” Donfried argues that Paul got the Judaisms of his own era right and Luther got Paul right: we are justified or rightwised before God because of the presence of Jesus Christ in the faith of the one who believes.

A Theological Autobiography, to Date
Robert W. Jenson

Jenson’s final word: ‘to be authentic, theology must be written for the undivided church that the Spirit will surely someday grant. I intend to keep trying.’