Showing papers in "Theology in 2008"

Book Review: An Experiment in Providence: How faith engages with the worldAn Experiment in Providence: How faith engages with the world, JenkinsTimothy (SPCK2006), 146 pp, £9.99 pbk

Abstract: (2005) shows. A second concern is that the book underplays the enormous success of the British economy in the last decade. In 1976–77 the inflation rate reached 26 per cent and unemployment was set to climb to over three million, but today there is stable inflation and economic prosperity. How the churches respond to this, while addressing the remaining problems (gross inequality, pockets of dire poverty, etc.) remains a challenge for the future. Third, there is also a curious absence of references to Wales, given Professor Ballard’s location there. Nevertheless this is a collection of readings that has needed to be compiled for a long while. On every page I noted comments and questions. Today the churches struggle with finding a vision for their place in a fast changing, hi-tech economy, though the final readings on spirituality and pastoral chaplaincy today are very evocative. I finished this book remembering Cameron’s unkind quip to Blair: ‘You were the future once.’ So it was for industrial mission in the period 1940–1970. This book tells the story magnificently, and it deserves to be in the library of every British theological college and course, as their students wrestle with how the churches might become involved today with the economy.

Tikkun Olam: A Jewish Theology of ‘Repairing the World’:

Abstract: In Judaism, the process of tikkun olam, ‘repairing the world’, provides a theological imperative for social action. Tikkun olam is the fulcrum of my existence as a human being and as a Jew. For as long as I can remember, long before I knew the Hebrew term, I have believed that ‘repair of the world’ was the reason God placed me on earth. Born in the early years of the Second World War, I was conceived by my parents in their conscious fear that my father might not survive military service. At least I would be left behind to carry on the ideals and values of our family and the Jewish people. From the earliest years of my life, I experienced tikkun olam in partnership with people of other faiths. In the Utah of my birth and early years, I was in continual dialogue with the Christians around me. In a Catholic nursery school I attended in Salt Lake City, a nun taught me to pray before sleep every night, concluding with the Shema, which she taught me in Hebrew. As a young Jew I was always proud of my membership in our tiny ‘saving remnant’, and the Christians around me reinforced the powerful, positive sense of Jewish identity and commitment instilled in me by my Reform synagogue. The America of the forties and fifties was unquestionably a ‘shattered urn’. Drills for nuclear war and the injustices of racial segregation befouled the air I breathed. But equality and compassion were core ‘gut’ values in the lives of my clinical psychologist father and social worker mother. In isolationist, racially segregated ‘Bible Belt’ Texas state schools, I grew up an impassioned egalitarian on race and an advocate of the United Nations. The Christians around me honoured both my social activism and my religious Jewish devotion. In Black churches throughout North Texas I preached sermons as a teenage Jew championing racial equality. From worship in Black churches I grew in my own Jewish spirituality and in my aspiration of rabbinic calling, devoted to tikkun olam and to the teaching of Torah. One summer I represented my synagogue youth region as a participant in the United Christian Youth Movement. In partnership with the devout black and white Christians I met there I led sit-ins to break the racial segregation of the Dallas of those years. The world around me was indeed a ‘shattered urn’. Yet, working in partnership with the Christians around me, I acquired the faith

Being biblical? Slavery, sexuality and the inclusive community*:

Abstract: The use of the Bible in ethical debate has been central for the last two millennia. Current debates about sexuality, or the position of women in church leadership, are marked by both, or all, sides of the argument using Scripture. However, this has been true of many issues in the past. This is demonstrated in the debate about slavery two hundred years ago. Careful analysis of the use of Scripture in both the justification and critique of apartheid reveals how both sides quoted Scripture in its various modes, such as rules, principles, paradigms, and overall world-view. The biographical nature of the Gospels means that we must set Jesus’ rigorous ethical teaching in the context of the narrative of his deeds, including his open and welcoming acceptance of all people. It was an inclusive community of interpretation which changed the debates about slavery and apartheid, and a similar inclusive community is needed today.

Religion and Psychoanalytic Thought: A Contemporary Re-Evaluation.

Abstract: In the year of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s birth, 2006, there was much discussion, particularly in literary journals, of the contemporary cultural legacy of Freudian thought. These commentaries all appear to share a basic common structure. Like contemporary Marxists, contemporary Freudians seem compelled to adopt a defensive tone. It is impossible to be a Freudian today without first admitting to Freud’s failings. Slavoj Žižek’s articulation of this is as lucid as it is typical: psychoanalysis, he points out,

Thinking about Demons and the Demonic

Abstract: How best to approach the subject of the demonic? Along with the serious historical and theological questions about how to interpret accounts of demons and demon-possession, whether in the world of the New Testament or in the world today, there also has to be a frank recognition that – for all sorts of reasons – the task is, as we might say, ‘devilishly difficult’! It is interesting, by the way, that demons and the demonic still haunt our language: ‘I can’t imagine what possessed me’; ‘They behaved like monsters’; ‘Are you out of your mind?’; ‘What’s got into you?’; and so on. It is as if we need vivid language for making sense of our inner and outer worlds, a language of malevolent power, invasion, possession, corruption and irrationality to give voice to our sense, in various times and places, that our attempts to construct and sustain an orderly moral universe are under threat or can be sustained no longer. I cite a few examples. First, at the most benign end, one thinks of how effectively C. S. Lewis – shaped and informed, no doubt, by his deep immersion in medieval and Renaissance language and imagery of the demonic – makes gently ironic use of devils like Screwtape in the service of a popular and widely appreciated exposition of Christian character and morality. Second, in darker vein, eminent sociologist David Martin, in the context of a sermon, testifies to the reality of what he calls ‘disorderly powers’ and ‘dark, driven energies’:

Book Review: The Way according to Luke: Hearing the whole story of Luke-ActsThe Way according to Luke: Hearing the whole story of Luke-Acts,BorgmanPaul(Eerdmans2006), 416 pp, £12.99 pbk

Abstract: Hananiah a false prophet (the LXX does not even sense a bona fide test here). To be sure, other modern scholars put this sense down to ideology or after-the-fact justification, and Moberly is right to see the limitations and biases inhabiting their exegesis. But this fails to explain how what he is doing is any more theological than his interlocutors, especially when the views of older commentators like Calvin are dismissed without much in-depth discussion of the issues that were at stake in the frame of reference governing their assumptions about law and prophet. For all this, Moberly is to be applauded for putting his oar in the water. The book will stimulate debate and hopefully push us toward a keener sense of what it means to seek a theological reading of the canonical Scriptures, Old and New Testaments. The book is well written, clear in its argumentation, and at certain points quite helpful in breaking an impasse. It would be good if Moberly put his hand to commentary writing. One book crying out for fresh treatment is Jeremiah. It is surely a modern prophetic task to help us hear these voices as they would have us hear them and Moberly has begun some important work here in an ambitious and thought-provoking monograph.

Reflections on The Good Pub Guide

Abstract: We gave up holidays in 1994, but when we moved to Devon, five years later, with the children more or less off and away, my wife and I began to go out to local pubs occasionally for a meal. So did thousands of other people: summer or winter, midday or evening, weekday or weekend, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times we have found pubs completely empty. It did not take long before we discovered The Good Pub Guide, a review of the best pubs in Britain, edited by Alastair Aird and Fiona Tapley, which in 2007 celebrated 25 years of publishing.1 The Guide has an annual editorial that reflects on the state of Britain’s pubs, raising issues that lend themselves to theological reflection. I want to explore three of these, under the heads of community, identity, and sacred and secular space.

Redemption and Self-deception

Abstract: For eight years from 1996 to 2004 I worked as the policy officer for the Church of England, and in part for the other churches, on mental health and criminal justice. With other churches we did much about the grave issue of paedophilia, and worked on projects befriending sex offenders on their release from custody. We also worked on schemes to visit long-term prisoners who were murderers: those who were, in the jargon, lifers. And because it was important that what we said to Government, and in our projects, was based on experience and not simply theory, on many occasions I visited murderers and sex offenders in prison. I used to come back to my wife after these visits drained, needing to be made aware that there were ordinary people who were not driven by uncontrolled urges and living with dark fantasies that dominated their every waking moment. At such moments the liberal view of humanity I normally believe in used to be shattered. The liberal view, for want of a better word, is one of rationality, lucidity, consistency and being able to comprehend what lies in front of us. Self-deception is anathema in this world-view. So it was in September 1996 that I took the train to Durham. I remember vividly spending half an hour in the maximum-security wing of Durham’s maximum-security prison. In front of me was a young man who was plainly homosexual and who equally clearly denied this. Twice he had picked up in clubs young men of his own age; twice he had killed them; and twice he had disposed of their bodies. I spent a long time in his prison cell talking to him on his twentieth birthday, with cards from his family around him and paper bunting draped around the cell. He spoke of the long years that lay ahead, of his family’s love, of why he had done what he had. As I spoke to him I realized I was confronting at a very deep level what it meant to be human in an unbearable way. He had been bullied for being homosexual at school and he had internalized this. It was clear that this man was not rational, was not benevolent, and his actions had irrevocably and very easily slipped into cruelty. There was a rudimentary self-awareness, but only very little. He was barely out of his teens, and he was very sad, very scared about the years ahead. He was also a gentle man with a camp smile that invited you to come and talk to him, with an amusing turn of phrase, and he possessed a slim, attractive and very fit body. He worked out in the gym, as many maximum-security prisoners do.

Richard Dawkins on being a Christian

Abstract: In The God Delusion, and indeed elsewhere, Richard Dawkins argues that referring to a young child as a ‘Christian’ (or a ‘Catholic’, or a ‘Muslim’, and so on) is not only false, but constitutes ‘a form of child abuse’.1 Since a Christian or a Muslim is someone who believes that a certain set of (for Dawkins) ludicrous propositions is true, it makes no sense to speak of a ‘Christian’ or ‘Muslim’ four-year-old, since he or she is not capable even of understanding such propositions, let alone properly affirming them. This is an important and persistent point for Dawkins, and one he has made numerous times both in speech and print. It has previously appeared, for example, in his acceptance speech for the American Humanist Association’s ‘Humanist of the Year’ for 1996, as well as in his Tanner Lectures, delivered at Harvard University in 2003.2 In The God Delusion itself, Dawkins identifies it as one of the four main ‘consciousness-raising’ reasons for writing the book. As he puts it:

Sacred History, Saivite and Christian:

Abstract: Saivism, the worship of Siva as the supreme God, is the form of Hinduism most widely followed among the Tamil people of Southern India. Although its antecedents extend as far back as the Indus valley settlements of the third millennium BCE, it first appears in a recognizable form in the devotional literature of the fifth to seventh centuries CE. This literature, written in Tamil, was the earliest Indian religious literature in a language other than Sanskrit. It consists mainly of sacred hymns, and was composed by the Saivite saints known at the Nāya nmār, who were responsible for the conversion of the Tamil people from the prevailing Jain and Buddhist religions to the worship of Siva.1 The life stories of the Nāya nmār are contained in a verse epic known as the Periya Purān. am (‘the great ancient history’), which is one of the twelve books that comprise the sacred canon of Tamil Saivite scriptures.2 It was written with an apologetic purpose, probably in the second quarter of the twelfth century CE, and holds a similar place in the Saivite canon to that of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. When a Christian reader familiar with the Bible enters the world of the Periya Purān. am, he finds himself in a landscape that is at once alien, but paradoxically at the same time strangely familiar. The familiarity stems from the fact that Saivism, like Christianity, is rooted in a spirituality of loving devotion to a gracious God.3 So in the Periya Purān. am we read stories of heroic devotion to Siva and of sacrificial service to fellow human beings that are readily intelligible, even appealing. However, those very acts of service and devotion that seem to have a familiar ring, can also shock the Christian reader by the novel and unexpected forms which they take, owing to the fundamental disparity of their underlying values and theological presuppositions. In this paper we shall look at a number of events recorded in the Periya Purān. am which seem to bear a close resemblance to events in the Bible, and at the same time note the differences which become apparent on closer inspection.

Book Review: British Methodism: What circuit ministers really thinkBritish Methodism: What circuit ministers really think, HaleyJohn M. and FrancisLeslie J. (Epworth2006), 336 pp, £16.99 pbk

Abstract: This book seeks to analyse the results of a questionnaire sent to all the presbyters exercising pastoral responsibility in British Methodist circuits in spring 1997. Although most of the respondents already felt that they did not spend too little time on office work (p. 191), an impressive 74 per cent nonetheless found time to return the questionnaire. Before reaching the statistics, the reader is offered an introduction to British Methodism. This may help those unacquainted with Methodism to grasp the development of the movement from its eighteenth-century origins in the broader Evangelical revival through nineteenth-century expansion and division to reunion and decline in the twentieth century. The structure of this section, however, is rather confusing and the reliance on quotations makes some paragraphs an irritating mosaic of secondary snippets and bracketed references. One would not easily discern, moreover, that Methodism has developed theologically since the death of John Wesley in 1791. Twenty-three chapters follow, each devoted to one topic of the questionnaire. The chapters are identical in structure: a couple of pages ‘setting the scene’ and describing the questions asked, a summary of results (‘listening to the ministers’), a discussion of any differences in the expressed views of women and men, and of older and younger ministers, and some conclusions. The survey begins with Sunday services and proceeds via doctrinal diversity (including ethics) to multiple pastorates, the practice of ministerial itinerancy and views on the organization of Methodism and prospects for Christian unity. An appendix of statistical tables helpfully lists the statements to which respondents were asked to express assent or dissent on a five-point scale (p. 66): this, apparently, is the methodology of ‘empirical theology’. Wading through a swamp of statistics left this reviewer uneasy about the whole enterprise. There are curious choices in the questionnaire: why, for instance, ask about the ethics of involvement in political parties (not surprisingly, only 2 per cent opposed this), but not about issues of peace and war? The chapters on ‘moral and ethical controversy’ shrink on closer inspection to sex and a caricature of the ‘nonconformist conscience’ – perhaps because the underlying principle that political leaders should demonstrate moral integrity is hard to reduce to a simple statement measurable on a five-point scale? Irate Local (lay) Preachers were incensed that many ministers found much worship dull, but is worship to be evaluated solely in terms of the satisfaction of the individual? Statistics encourage a

The Leeds Israel–Palestine Forum’s Principles for Promoting Healing and Peace in Israel/Palestine

Abstract: Everything began with a letter to St George! The letter, incorrectly addressed to St George himself due to a mail-merge error, was to the Rector of St George’s Church in Leeds from a local Zionist group offering a talk on the state of Israel. The church had a number in its congregation who were interested in the topic, especially since a former church member had spent some years working in Bethlehem in the West Bank. A presentation by the Zionist group was arranged. The meeting was somewhat heated: one member of the church walked out at what he perceived to be the racist tone behind some of the Zionist’s remarks. Some in the group tended to focus on the injustices they saw being perpetrated in the West Bank against the Palestinians: others tended to be more sympathetic to the Zionist cause, focusing on the intolerable suicide bombings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It seemed right that we should then invite a speaker who might put the Palestinian point of view. A Moroccan Muslim, a former member of his university’s Palestinian solidarity group, offered his services. What became clear to us was that Jews and Muslims in Leeds had never met to discuss the issue of Israel and Palestine. Perhaps it was felt to be too contentious. St George’s offered to promote a conference which would aim to have Jews and Muslims in Leeds, along with some Christians, get together to meet with and to listen to one another. We envisaged around one hundred from the three faiths getting together in a local hotel. Our aim was not to solve the Israel–Palestine issue (it was not in our power to do that – any ‘solution’ must be worked out by the people of the countries involved) but to enable Jews and Muslims in Leeds (together with a small number of Christians) to listen to the point of view of each other. It was to be a ‘listening’ conference. As we prepared for a one-day conference the London bombings of 7 July 2005 took place. The Leeds Muslim community was shocked that some of its own men could perpetrate such an outrage. The leader of the London bombers, Mohammed Siddique Khan, believed

Am I Still a Deacon?: Reflections on the First Twelve Months in Priest's Orders

Abstract: The title of this paper might seem a little simplistic: a question to which the answer is a very simple ‘yes’. Ordinands are told again and again in theological college that even once ordained priest, or indeed bishop, their diaconal identity is never lost. The lived reality, it seems, is not quite so straightforward as all that. Following on from my paper on the first twelve months as a deacon,1 I seek to examine the ways in which being ordained priest has helped either to clarify or to complicate the thinking that I had done about my own diaconate. In my previous paper I explored diaconal ministry through the lens of the liturgical role of the deacon at the Eucharist. I highlighted the role of ‘taking the gospel into the midst of a group of people’, of the ‘calling to repentance, celebration, intercession, community building and mission’, and of standing at an ‘oblique angle’ to the president.2 I anticipated, with priesthood, a gathering, presidential role which might be rather different. It must be noted that I do not set out to undertake a comprehensive theological analysis of the issues around the order and the role of deacons as compared to priests or bishops. That is not to say that this work does not need to be done, or that the very real crisis in Anglican circles about exactly what we do believe about the distinctive order of deacons should be sidestepped. Such questions are being addressed by theologians, and will be referred to in the course of my paper. Although the scope of this essay rules out an in-depth theological study, it is recognized at the outset that any thoughtful examination of the lived experience of a deacon or a priest ought at least to attempt to begin with theology rather than personal experience or emotion. I will begin this reflection by recapping my current situation as a curate in Gloucester Diocese. I will then consider the expectations that I had a year ago about my forthcoming ordination to the priesthood. By considering the current theological thinking in the Church of England about deacons and priests, and by using examples from my own experience and from other parts of the Church of England, I will attempt to illustrate how the theory ‘cashes out’ in practical ministry. It is recognized from the outset that any conclusions are necessarily both provisional and subjective.

Book Review: Speaking in Tongues: Multi-disciplinary perspectives:

Abstract: ‘minimalist’ sociology of religion, suggesting that ‘the silences and hesitations that punctuate religious occasions are no less interesting in themselves than the peaks and troughs of religious experience or the tectonic movements of religious change’ (p. xviii). Douglas Davies then looks anthropologically at the ‘silent speaking’ that is a part of many forms of religious tradition (as in private prayer); Freda Mold provides an excellent account of links between the concern for the body in the sociology of medicine with that in the sociology of religion (for example in complementary medicine); and Matthew Wood makes connections between the sociology of religion and sociological studies of ethnicity and race. Such collections are seldom completely unified in theme or even in style and this collection is no exception. The editors provide a very clear introduction, which certainly helps, and have tended to include essays that are making a genuinely new contribution to the discipline. Even so I would have preferred a collection more unified around the third section. James Beckford himself has often challenged sociologists of religion to relate their discipline more seriously to sociology as a whole. In this third section contributors do exactly that. It is particularly fruitful and could indeed be taken further.

Relating Mark's ‘stilling of the Storm’ Pericope (Mark 4.35-41) to Discipleship Today: An Experiment in Resurrection Faith*

Abstract: ‘In the end is my beginning’. Nowhere does T. S. Eliot’s profound utterance resonate more sonorously than in the young man’s announcement to the mournful women tending the place where Jesus once was, but is no longer: ‘But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you’ (Mark 16.7). Galilee, of course, is where it all began. It was around the north-eastern reaches of the eponymous lake that Jesus emerges from oblivion to announce good news and recruit for God’s Kingdom causes. Galilee remains the locus for much of Jesus’ ministry and, for this reason, is associated, actually as well as symbolically, with his presence. Equally, from the perspective of Jesus’ first followers, Galilee is where they served their apprenticeship under his tutelage. For Mark, then, Galilee is far more than a geographical reference, it delineates the co-ordinates of encounter – where and in what mode of being Jesus continues to make his presence felt. If there is any truth in this assessment then we misunderstand the evangelist if we claim that his Gospel is devoid of resurrection appearances. From his perspective, all sixteen chapters (our divisions not the author’s!) bear witness to Jesus’ enduring impact and impetus. At one level, each pericope purports to instantiate an episode from Jesus’ earthly ministry while, at another, existential level, it discloses the heuristics of faith. That is to say, it demonstrates how Jesus continues to be present within the community he called into being. Reading Mark’s Gospel in this way draws us into another level of engagement where, in addition to learning how the initial impulse of Jesus impacted upon his earliest followers and those whom he encountered, we also discover what it means for us to be recipients and conductors of that impulse today. What follows, then, is an exploration of resurrection faith. Taking the narrative of the stilling of the storm as our point of departure, we consider what

Unfinished Dialogue?: The Reception of Lesslie Newbigin's Theology

Abstract: The inadequate recognition of the theological concepts of significant 20th century missiologist Lesslie Newbigin are discussed in light of his marginalisation among Christians, church and academic theology. It is suggested that Newbigin's theology is relevant presently for his efforts to establish an authentic missionary engagement with Western culture through books and the 'Gospel and Our Culture' initiative.

Is baptism ‘complete sacramental initiation’?

Abstract: A cathedral newsletter recently invited candidates to come forward for confirmation preparation classes, adding: ‘the Church of England believes that baptism is complete sacramental initiation.’ Naturally, if this were the case, nothing very positive could be said about why anyone should want to be confirmed. ‘Baptism as complete sacramental initiation’ (BACSI) is now an unquestioned orthodoxy among many of us and influences church policy. However, I confidently assert that officially the Church of England believes no such thing. Moreover, there are strong theological, pastoral and ecumenical reasons for Christian initiation to be seen as a process that involves several vital steps, including confirmation and first communion. Two unacceptable consequences of BACSI are: first, if confirmation is retained, it is not seen as a sacramental act and therefore lacks a rationale; second, sacramental initiation is regarded as already complete, short of participation in the Eucharist.1 In the Church of England, the Ely Report on Christian Initiation (1971) was the first blast of the trumpet in favour of BACSI. It rightly pointed out that baptism ‘cannot be added to, supplemented, or “completed”’, but went on to draw the conclusion (a conclusion that, I would say, does not follow from the premise) that baptism is ‘the one and complete sacrament of Christian initiation’. After baptism, there could be no further degrees of initiation: ‘It is initiation.’ (This also seems to assume that baptism comprises the totality of initiation, not merely its complete sacramental dimension, so that there is no element of initiation that is not included in baptism.2) The 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church of the USA endorsed BACSI. ‘Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church’ (p. 298). Confirmation becomes the first occasion of ‘mature public affirmation’ (p. 412) of the baptismal commitments made by those baptized at an early age.3 In 1991 the fourth International Anglican Liturgical Consultation, meeting in Toronto, stated roundly in its report Walk in Newness of Life: ‘Baptism is complete sacramental initiation and leads to participation in the Eucharist.’ However, it is significant that Common Worship has not embraced BACSI. It clearly treats initiation as a process and a sequence. In this respect, it continues the tradition of the Book of Common Prayer. A

How Unlike an Angel the Youth in Mark 16

Abstract: Most scholars today hold that the youth at the empty tomb in Mark 16.5–8 is meant for an angel. Vincent Taylor’s authoritative judgement has rarely been challenged over the last fifty years,1 and most subsequent treatments of Mark have adopted the same position;2 those that do not seldom stop to refute Taylor’s case.3 Yet, reexamined, Mark’s youngster has not even one of the attributes by which the ancient world would have recognized a heavenly being.

Against the Grain and with the Grain José Saramago's The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and R. M. Lamming's as in Eden

Abstract: With so much emphasis falling on the reader in contemporary hermeneutics, this article is an attempt to consider two very different examples of the rewriting of biblical stories in fiction as sites for pluralistic readings. In our time the reader is often torn between the docility of a traditional reading approach, which pays respectful attention to the text, and the combative approach associated with the hermeneutics of suspicion. Put another way, it is the difference between reading with and against the grain. This tension is nowhere more evident than in the reading of rewritten Scripture, where the reader responds to a writer who often parades himself or herself as an against-the-grain reader of a text normatively read with the grain. The term ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ is perhaps an understatement in relation to Saramago’s novel, The Gospel according to Jesus Christ. A better description might be ‘the hermeneutics of opposition’, or even ‘the hermeneutics of violence’, since the work adopts a determinedly oppositional stance towards traditional Christian theology, making the Jesus of the title the victim of a capricious god of violence. The main features of the narrative are the location of the origins of Jesus’ self-consciousness in his father Joseph’s guilt at not warning the families of the twenty-five victims of the massacre of the innocents of Herod’s intentions, and his subsequent suicidal mission to go to the aid of a stricken neighbour drawn into the Zealot cause. Joseph’s crucifixion at Sepphoris becomes the model for that of Jesus himself, who actively encourages the false apprehension that he has political ambitions to become ‘King of the Jews’ in order to hasten the sacrificial death which God has ordained for him. In this effort Judas is enlisted by Jesus to betray him to the Jewish high-priestly authorities. The counterpoint to all this is the love affair between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, while the narrative as a whole is brooded over by the sinister figure of ‘the Pastor’, who appears menacingly at various points in the guise of a shepherd or dark angel, finally collecting the blood of the crucified Jesus in his bowl at the close. At many points in the novel the reader’s attention is held by the elliptical relationship between what is narrated and familiar passages from the four Gospels. For example, the forty days of temptation

Book Review: Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross:

Abstract: by the editors seek to place the discussion of the relationship between philosophy and theology against the backdrop of current debates. Section 1 offers a range of perspectives on ‘Reason, Rationality and Traditions of Rationality’. Section 2 considers issues in ‘Meaning, Language and Interpretation’. Section 3 considers issues related to ‘Experience, Imagination and Mysticism’. The range of themes offered suggests something of the diverse interests of the contributors. For example, the reflection on reason and rationality relates most closely to the concerns of analytic philosophy, but this does not mean that the essays presented in this section are uncritical of such a perspective. In particular, the section’s contributors seek to challenge the claim that notions of transcendence are inevitably to be excluded if reason is allowed to shape one’s engagement with religion. Perhaps the most interesting – and challenging – essays are to be found here. Charles Taylor considers the nature of secularity, showing effectively the way in which there is a tendency to ‘naturalise’ a secular perspective, which leads to a corresponding failure by theorists to take seriously issues of transcendence. Chris Firestone’s essay on Kant, also in this section, is perhaps the best of the volume. Scholarly and fascinating, he argues that ‘rational religious faith, for Kant is rooted in the transcendental needs of reason’ (p. 90), and this necessitates understanding the role that the Christian faith plays in securing Kant’s moral theory of religion. But the exploration of reason is not the only focus for the volume: Nicholas Lash makes a strong case for considering the relationship between imagination and reason through a discussion of the language used of God, and he challenges religious believers to become more theologically sophisticated and articulate in their use of God-language. This is a demanding volume of essays and some of the pieces presented will be more satisfying for the general reader than others. But the attempt to consider the relationship between philosophy and theology in a new way is to be commended: for this reason it deserves the kind of careful reading demanded by its contents.