Showing papers in "Theology in 2004"

God's Mother, Eve's AdvocateGod's Mother, Eve's Advocate:A Marian Narrative of Women's Salvation, BeattieTina (Continuum2002), xi + 241 pp, £18.93 pbk: A Marian Narrative of Women's Salvation

Abstract: detailed investigation of three particular areas theology and philosophy, spirituality, and politics. Throughout all three areas a characteristic combination of devotion to the traditions of the Church, allied to a radical and innovative use of these traditions, stands out. So Williams has some similarities to theologians in the 'Radical Orthodoxy' movement. However, the differences between Williams and Radical Orthodoxy become clear. Williams is considerably more positive towards secular thought, in the form of Hegel for example, and gives a more obvious weight to the term 'radical' (e.g, his practical involvement in CND). By contrast Radical Orthodoxy itself mostly disappoints by not delivering much that is radical. The section on spirituality focuses on Williams' debt to Eastern Orthodoxy. An emphasis on the 'negative way' stands out. While many theologians seem alarmingly knowledgeable about, say, the inner life of the Trinity,this cannot be said of Williams. Knowledge is always held in tension with unknowing and cheap answers are not available. The account of Williams' practical teaching on spirituality is concise and helpful. Perhaps in some relation to the theme of 'unknowing' is the recurrent criticism of Williams' 'abstraction' that Shortt picks up (pp. 6, 80, 116). Williams' theological work is said to operate at a level that yields little by way of specific consequences. This high level of abstraction disengages a debate from its familiar set positions with the positive result that apparently conflicting positions have to examine their assumptions and prejudices. It does not lead quickly to specific consequences or practical decisions. As a strategy, it is less open to someone in a role that requires relatively speedy and strategic decisions. This book has all the advantages and disadvantages of a sketch. It is engaging and captures the main features, but it lacks depth and has only limited detail. However, it would be difficult to do better in this number of pages. Most importantly, and essential to any adequate biograph)', Shortt has sufficient sympathy for his subject to allow a recognizable and credible portrait to emerge.

Where is Boasting?Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1–5, GathercoleSimon J. (Eerdmans2002), xii + 311 pp, $32.00/£22.99 pbk: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1–5

Abstract: This revision of a Durham doctoral dissertation investigates the ground for Jewish boasting in Romans 1-5 with the further aim of sifting claims by proponents of the 'New Perspective on Paul' (especially E. P. Sanders, J. D. G. Dunn and N. T. Wright). Gathercole knows the New Perspective (NP) well: his thesis was supervised by Dunn. His central question is essentially this: was the boasting Paul opposed based in the gifts of election or Torah (as claimed by some NP writers), or was it primarily a boasting of confidence in self-achievement or merit? Gathercole observes that Sanders' model of covenantal nomism in its concern for 'getting in' and 'staying in' neglects Jewish eschatology and the question of how to extend one's life, even after the grave. Did first-century Jews believe that they would gain entrance to the world to come simply on the grounds of divine election (grace) or because of their obedience to Torah? To answer this question, he embarks on a survey of relevant Jewish texts from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Qumran, the New Testament and post-70 CE writings, before focusing in the shorter, second part of his book on an exegesis of Romans 1-5. He finds that despite their diversity with regard to tIle exact nature of any future personal existence, the Jewish texts (particularly 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch) clearly indicate belief that confidence in a final vindication by God rested not only in his electing grace but also in human obedience. Eschatological salvation was seen as a matter of both election and reward; in many texts explicit reference to grace is hard to find, whereas a number of passages emphasize obedience, perfection and being worthy, This convinces Gathercole that the boasting Paul opposes in Romans is a Jewish claim to blamelessness at the great assize. At this point two fundamental questions arise which Gathercole does not sufficiently address. First, if he can adduce only one passage

Intersecting PathwaysIntersecting Pathways;Modern Jewish Theologians in Conversation with Christianity, KrellMarc A. (Oxford University Press2003), viii + 200 pp, n.p. pbk: Modern Jewish Theologians in Conversation with Christianity

Abstract: offers a needed apologetic for the contribution of the Reformed tradition: it takes church unity extremely seriously, yet is one of the most fragmented of traditions. Jeremy Morris, who initiated the Centre for Ecumenical Studies, asks how parishes or congregations can tap into wider ecumenical developments. There are contextual chapters on Europe (Keith Clements) and on Africa (Valentin Dedji), Christopher Hill outlines a possible route map towards visible unity and explores the role of episcopacy in this. The episcopate is an instrument of communion and therefore of unity. Non-episcopal Christians often rejoin that this claim rings hollow in their ears. They will need to see bishops as instruments of mission as well as of unity if they are to be persuaded (the 1998 Lambeth Conference began to think along these lines but did not attempt a theological basis for it). The late J.-M.Tillard brings us full circle: 'The Church of God on earth is visibly divided, but in its depth it is graced by the indivisible gift of God.' The cause of unity is the work of God and is therefore essentially unfathomable.

Socio-cognitive Structures The ‘Invisible Noticeboard’ and Church Text as Social Practice:

Abstract: Marvin the (Ritch-Riker's Guide to the Galaxy) Paranoid Android's tendency towards depression deserves our compassion. However, his claim to intellectual superiority vis-a-vis humans ('I've a brain the size of a planet') is overblown. Anyone who has ever doubted the power of the human brain has never studied a (so-called) exotic language. The language used in my own linguistic training was Cherokee, and the experience of studying this tongue has greatly deepened my sense of awe for God-given human abilities. Our (British) Cherokee lecturer he'd interned among them remarked that it was really quite unbelievable that a child learns this language. After ten humbling weeks, I could see what he meant. It was as if, after a ten-week driving course, I'd only got as far as letting off the hand-brake. No wonder Native American languages were used as codes in World War II. We certainly are curiously and wonderfully made when it comes to native language learning. My main focus here is that in this process a child exploits her amazing ability gradually to infer (and unconsciously internalize) both grammatical and social rules. A prominent modern view of (even second) language learning is that the latter should be seen primarily as anaspect ofsocialization not just as about learning that 'chien' means 'dog'. It is helpful to keep this perspective in mind when thinking about the breath-taking human ability especially children's to infer both church and underlying (socio-)theological grammars.

Truths from Strange Times

Abstract: A remarkable trend in Russian fiction in the final decades of the Soviet Union and thereafter has been the reintroduction into it of religious themes. One commentator has remarked on a 'growing and striking recognition of the pragmatic value of religious belief',' discussing such trends as 'God-searching', pantheism and religious materialism in contemporary Russian writing. Another, writing about a debate concerning some novels published in the late 1980s, remarks that' \"dogmatic atheism\" was deemed by most commentators to be a worse offence than \"God-seeking\" ... a noteworthy development'v The reasons for this trend are complex, and appear to be (at least in part) due to a desire to defend 'Russian historical and spiritual continuity':\" but regardless of the motivation of the authors concerned, this is a trend through which some powerful theological insights have emerged. An earlier essay\" argued that important theological perspectives may be obtained from the fiction of those authors from the former Soviet Union whose sufferings under that regime have informed and directed their subject-matter. The purpose of the present article is to extend that argument by examining the writings of Leonid Borodin, who himself suffered periods of imprisonment, and who has subsequently been described as 'one of the most rapidly maturing contemporary prose writers ... one of the most talented \"pens\" of the Russian Party'.\" Borodin has been quoted as saying, 'I have had an easy life. I never faced the problem of having to make a choice.\" He was born in Irkutsk in 1938, and went to Irkutsk University in 1956 to read history; but he was expelled a year later for organizing a student group called 'Free World'. He worked in a variety of manual jobs before obtaining a diploma from a teacher-training college. Teaching at a school near Leningrad (of which he later became principal), he joined a group called the All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People (VSKhSON), whose members were Russian nationalist militants dedicated to the overthrow of Communism and its replacement with an Orthodox Christian state. This group was uncovered by the KGB in 1967. Borodin was arrested, along with the leaders of the group, and sentenced to six years in a labour camp. He was released in 1973, and settled in the town of Obninsk, in

The Parable of the Talents and the Economy of the Gift

Abstract: I was walking in Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens, enjoying the rich colours of the trees in all their autumnal glory set off as they were by a wonderful crisp clear blue sky, when on a small hill studded with chestnut, beech, maple and oak trees I met the family of a colleague who is an economist and whose children had almost completely buried him in leaves. I found this an engaging sight and not just because of the joy of seeing friends so evidently enjoying each other out of doors. Resources are only really interesting to economists when they have the potential through monetary activity and market behaviour of becoming scarce, for only such resources are capable of generating surplus value. Now leaves of course are a resource, which in the autumn are by no means scarce. And yet here was an economist deriving one of the most valuable experiences that this life has to offer the bonding and intimacy of parent and child through the mediation of a resource which so long as there are trees is unlikely ever to be recognized as valuable to an economist.

A neglected theologian John Sandwith Boys Smith1

Abstract: I think it was in 1990 that the Revd Andrew Macintosh, then Dean of Chapel at St John's College, Cambridge, mentioned to me that a former Master of the college had moved into accommodation near to New Cross in South London where I was then an incumbent. When I visited John Boys Smith I found a man with a lively and well-stocked theological mind. Next time I was in Cambridge I looked for his name in the University Library catalogue and found a single entry: a booklet entitled Christian Doctrine and the Idea of Evolution,2 published in 1930. Thus began my interest in a theologian who deserves more attention than he has been given. With the help of the Librarians at St John's College and of Boys Smith's son Stephen I have been able to study his Fellowship thesis and his sermons. This article explores some of the questions which I found myself asking.

What's Under the Microscope?: Revisiting E. C. Hoskyns on the Object of New Testament Study

Abstract: Sir Edwyn Hoskyns has rightly been described as 'the most inspiring British New Testament teacher' of the generation between the two world wars} when together with G. K. Chesterton he was perceived as one of 'the two outstanding names' in Christian thought in England.' There are leading New Testament scholars still alive today who owe their careers to his influence: Christopher F. Evans and Reginald H. Fuller were alnong the last students whom Hoskyns sent to study with Adolf Schlatter at Tiibingen, while according to C. K. Barrett it was quite simply Hoskyns who (with F. N. Davey) 'set me on my way' and 'did more than any others to create in me a determination to study the New Testament'.\" Another leading theologian significantly shaped by Hoskyns was Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury 1961-74. But Cambridge is often less than kind to its heroes. Although he had been on friendly terms with the Norris-Hulse Professor F. C. Burkitt (1864-1935), within a decade of his death Hoskyns's nearly twenty years of work in Cambridge were already largely dismissed or ignored by leading liberal colleagues like Charles Raven, F. S. Marsh and J. F. Bethune-Baker,4 even if Dodd acknowledged a debt to him.f Hoskyns's talented student and collaborator Noel Davey was excluded from a Cambridge lectureship largely on the grounds of 'old animosity', as more than one observer has thought:\" though this of course remains in the end undemonstrable. If this was a sort of damnatio memoriae, it remained of course partial and incomplete, being interrupted, for example, by Christopher Evans's guest lectures on Hoskyns in the Faculty to mark the publication of Crucifixion Resurrection? But tIle virtual absence of friends and students from tIle Faculty meant that Hoskyns's heritage inevitably faded: since my own first arrival in Cambridge half a century after his death. I have heard reference made to Hoskyns at most once or twice and invariably by Corpus people. Nothing much has been written about Hoskyns since a monograph by Richard Parsons in 1985; and it is probably fair to say that he is now largely unknown among New Testament scholars. Nevertheless, I suspect the time may be ripe to revisit all unfinished conversation.

Academic theology and ministerial formation: towards a contemplative approach

Abstract: There have been numerous moves to integrate theological training for ministry with universities, and the Hind report, recently endorsed by General Synod, supports this trend.1 This essay is written...

How Does the Work of Rembrandt van Rijn Represent a Calvinist Aesthetic

Abstract: In his article 'Towards a Protestant aesthetics: Rembrandt's 1655 Sacrifice of Isaac', David R. Smith states that 'neither the pictures nor the documents prove [the artist Rembrandt] to have been anything but a confirmed Calvinist'.' In this article, I will not attempt to prove whether Rembrandt was or was not a confirmed Calvinist. Rather, I will show that, using a variety of criteria, Rembrandt's work represents a Calvinist aesthetic. There is certainly plenty of evidence to support David R. Smith's view. Rembrandt's father, Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn, a miller by trade, was a lifelong member of the official, Reformed Church.i He married Rembrandt's mother, Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuytbroeck in the Reformed (Calvinist) Pieterskerk, Leiden, on 8 October 1589 and both his parents and eight of his nine siblings were buried there.' Rembrandt himself, born on 15 July 1606, was baptized in the Reformed Church." In 1634, he married Saskia Uylenburgh there and in the subsequent seven years his four children were baptized there. As R. B. Evenhuis points out: 'To be allowed to marry and to have your children baptized in the church, you had to be a member.f These facts lead Evenhuis to conclude, like Smith, that Rembrandt was a confessing member of the Reformed Church. But other information, particularly about the groups and individuals with which Rembrandt spent much of his time, leads some commentators to draw different conclusions about Rembrandt's religious persuasion. W. A. Visser 't Hooft discusses this in Rembrandt and the Gospel. These facts are useful to us, as it is rare that artists are not influenced by their background. But, as I have said, my aim here is not to prove or disprove Smith's argument, but to show how Rembrandt's work represents a Calvinist aesthetic. But before I begin this task, let me enter a couple of caveats. First, as Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann notes: '[the works of this period] fulfil certain functions; they have a certain audience; they have certain patrons; only to a limited extent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries does Dutch art reflect the personal convictions of the artist." Volker Manuth" notes the 'varied religious

Alternative ReligionsAlternative Religions:A Sociological Introduction, HuntStephen J. (Ashgate2003), xix + 268 pp, £47.50 hbk; £16.99 pbk: A Sociological Introduction

Abstract: Jews were invited by God to share in the work of redemption. He saw the establishment of the state of Israel as evidence that God is still active in history. If the other three thinkers stood rather apart from Jewish communal life, Greenberg, despite opposition from some modern Orthodox Jews, tried to break down barriers inside and outside the Jewish community, unify the American Jewish community and reintegrate it into American Christian culture. His response to Christian anti-Judaism, like that of the Eckardts and Paul van Buren, minimizes the differences between the two religions, so that Christianity becomes in effect 'Judaism for the Gentiles'. This leads Krell to a very interesting discussion of the relation of the two covenants. Discussing the ideas of these thinkers would enliven some dialogue groups, but this scholarly and wide-ranging book is not easy to read. I hope, however, that this will not stop those seriously interested in Jewish-Christian dialogue and those concerned to articulate a meaningful faith in a post-Holocaust world from struggling with it.

God, Spiritual Formation, and Downward Causation

Abstract: In recent years, the notion of downward or 'back-handed' causation has become increasingly important in the natural sciences, especially in biology. It is equally important in religions, since without it, it is impossible to understand a major way in which God and the future act causatively in human life. At first sight, the idea of downward or 'back-handed' causation seems counter-intuitive, because we tend to think of causes as sequential: one event leads to a second event in such a way that the second is a consequence, direct or indirect, of the first. If I push a book, it moves in that sequence of two events, the one earlier than the other. It seems, therefore, paradoxical to think of subsequent states being causative in relation to the present. But the trouble here lies in the word 'cause'. This was recognized by Donald Campbell when, in 1974, he used the phrase 'downward causation' to describe the evolution of the jaws of a worker or termite ant. It is clearly true that all the processes involved at the higher level of organization conform to laws at the lower levels, down to the level of subatomic physics. From the 'bottom-up' perspective, the sequence is from DNA to protein to termite jaw. However, other laws are also involved in the production of a successful jaw (for example, the hinge surfaces and muscle attachments of the jaw conform to the Archimedean laws of levers). As termite ants move into available environments, natural selection sifts differentially which jaws (i.e., which ants with which jaws) are successful in terms of survival and reproduction. Those higher-level laws, along with selection at the level of organisms, set the conditions for events and substances at the lower level: they are required to account for 'the particular distribution of proteins in the jaw and hence the DNA templates guiding their production';' Campbell comments: 'Even the hence of the previous sentence implies a reversedirectional 'cause' in that, by natural selection, it is protein efficacy that determines which DNA templates are present, even thoufh the immediate microdetermination is from DNA to protein.' This

Descent into Hell, Ascension, and Luther's Doctrine of Ubiquitarianism:

Abstract: Of all the doctrines of the Christian faith, descent into hell and ascension into heaven are arguably the most implausible to the modern Western mind. We no longer live in the three-decker universe where such doctrines could make sense. Consequently, if these doctrines are to be a resource for current theology, we need to get beyond their mythological garb to whatever theological insights they might contain. At face value, the two doctrines of descent into hell and ascension seem to affirm Christ's absence. Regardless of how we interpret descent into hell whether it is a circumlocution for death or a mythical portrayal of Christ's ministry to the damned the initial meaning is that Christ had (temporarily) departed from the world of the living. Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday Christ lies in the grave, leaving his abandoned, despairing disciples to mourn his absence. Christ's absence also seems to be the underlying meaning of the doctrine of the ascension. If we follow Luke's Gospel (Luke 24.1-53), Jesus ascended to his Father on the evening of Easter Sunday. According to the account of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1.1-11), however, Christ ascended into heaven after 40 days, leaving the disciples alone until their reception of the Spirit. Whichever version of the ascension we favour, the fact remains that the disciples are left without Christ. Descent into hell and ascension thus share a common emphasis on Jesus' absence. Whereas the absence in the case of the descent into hell is three days, however, with the ascension it is, as Acts 1.11 makes clear, an absence until the parousia. The disciples, then, are situated on an axis between the two points of Christ's presence, namely his earthly presence and his return to usher in the Kingdom. Christ has still not yet returned and thus we, like the disciples, continue to live in the ongoing period of Jesus' absence. This absence raises the question: how are Christians to live lives of discipleship in view of Christ's absence? To put it another way, does Christ's' ascension entail his abandonment of the earthly or does it constitute a new mode of presence in the world? It is precisely such questions that underlie the controversy between Luther, Zwingli and Oecolampadius concerning the nature of the Eucharist.