Simon Woodman is a Baptist minister and has been Tutor in Biblical Studies at South Wales Baptist College since 2004. He is also a fellow baptist blogger (see here) and author of The Book of Revelation (which I reviewed here).
Last year you published The Book of Revelation. Why the interest in Revelation, which seems often misused or never used in church?
I fell in love with Revelation when I was in my late teens, and have
continued to find it a much-misunderstood and therefore sadly
much-neglected text. Either that or people become obsessed with it and
end up in all sorts of strange places. Trying to avoid either extreme,
I firmly believe that Revelation has a very important message for our
time: challenging us to step away from our addiction to the ideology of
empire, challenging us in our consumerist attitude towards the rest of
the world, and challenging us to regain a perspective which places God
revealed in Christ by the Spirit at the centre of our lives and at the
centre of the world we live in. The key verse in Revelation is, I
think, 11.15, when the voices in heaven proclaim "The kingdom of the
world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he
will reign forever and ever." I wonder what it means for us to join our
voices with those of heaven to proclaim in the present the in-breaking
kingdom of God? I've got a paper being published later this year on how
the book of Revelation can be a Gospel for the Environment, where I
conclude that although human ingenuity may or may not solve the current
ecological crisis, when humans persist in dancing with empire, they
always inevitably end up embracing Babylon.
What theologian/scholar has had the most influence on your theology?
Do I have to choose only one? If so, then I think it has to be Richard Bauckham. Not only has he published ground-breaking work on the book of Revelation (and other subjects), but he writes in language I can understand. In both of these senses, he's a bit of a hero of mine. But coming in close behind are J.D.G. Dunn (whose work on Paul is similarly both brilliant and comprehensible), Christopher Rowland (always creative, exciting, and accessible) and D.S. Russell (who combines the heart of a Baptist pastor with the mind of an apocalypticist).
Back in January, you hosted an international colloquium on baptist
hermenuetics. How did it go? And whats happening to the papers?
This was a really successful colloquium, which I co-hosted with Helen
Dare. The inspiration for it was a simple question: Does being a
Baptist make any difference to the way we read the Bible? So, to answer
this, we got together a good group of biblical scholars, and asked them
to give papers on the subject of 'Baptist Hermeneutics'. A full list of
who was present and what papers they gave can be found here. The papers from the
colloquium will be published sometime in 2010, in a volume from Mercer
University Press. Hopefully they will take the conversation started at
the colloquium to a wider audience, and will stimulate further debate
around this issue.
What was the last book you read?
The most recent book I read was work-related: Brian Brock, Singing the Ethos of God - On the Place of Christian Ethics in Scripture. It's a wonderful exploration of theology and ethics, and repays the effort it takes to read it in depth. The most recent non-work-related book was Ben Elton's dystopian post-apocalyptic fantasy Blind Faith, which is both an easy read and, in true Ben Elton style, a thought provoking and funny satire on the world we find ourselves in.
How does being a baptist shape how you do theology?
That's a really good question. I think I am 'dissenting' to the core, and so find myself valuing direct engagement with scripture over and above church dogma. I think I bring to my theology a threefold emphasis: a Christological focus, a gathered-congregational understanding of the church, and a believer-baptising expression of discipleship. This makes me (some might say) an anti-Christendom revolutionary intent on destabilising the church in the name of the gospel of Christ. They might say that, I couldn't possibly comment.
What do you think will be major discussion points in baptist theology over the next 10 years?
I hope we can negotiate the sexuality and gender debates with grace and love, and I hope that, important as these debates are, they will not define us. I think there is much to be done in terms of exploring the implications of the love of God in Christ for the totality of his creation: This includes how we relate to those beyond the traditional boundaries of the church, how we relate to those who cry out to us from the depths of their poverty, and how we relate to the created order whose groans are getting louder. The key question, it seems to me, is how do we learn to sing the song of the in-breaking kingdom of God to a world which remains firmly enthralled to the tune of another kingdom?
Can you tell us anything more about your current writing project/s?
I've got a number of projects on the go at the moment. I'm working on a paper on preaching, looking at the time Hanserd Knollys got stoned in the pulpit (Valentine's Day 1645). I've a collaborative project in the offing looking at the book of Revelation in contemporary culture. And I'm continuing to think about what it means to do biblical studies as a Baptist (see my answer to the colloquium question above).
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Tall, dark, and handsome. (Or, alternatively, as someone who had better remain nameless once put it to me in a job interview: Arrogant, opinionated, and dismissive
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