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Reason, Theology, and the Genome: One Day Conference

The Mcdonald Centre, based at Oxford, is hosting its last conference:

Reason, Theology, and the Genome: A Conference on the Ethics of Human Enhancement

What is the place of theology in the growing debate over genetic engineering and human enhancement? Are theological reasons of interest only to believers? Or, as Michael Sandel and Jürgen Habermas have both suggested, might they be important for society generally, for secular and religious alike? Reason, Theology and the Genome brings together a distinguished international panel of speakers, representing many different disciplines and points of view, to consider the relevance of theology to one of the most important questions of our time.

Who: Michael Sandel (Harvard, author of The Case Against Perfection), Paul Griffiths (Sidney & Exeter), Anja Karnein (Frankfurt), Robert Song (Durham), Nigel Biggar (Oxford), and others. (View Full Speaker Bios)

When: 9 October 2010, 9:00-5:30

Where: Christ Church, University of Oxford

What: Conference Programme

Cost: £35 (current students £20); includes lunch

More details here

Book Review: The Theology of Colin Gunton edited by Lincoln Harvey

Lincoln Harvey (ed.), The Theology of Colin Gunton (T & T Clark, 2010), 217pp (with thanks to T & T Clark for review copy)

This book has been a long time coming. It is now 7 years since Colin Gunton died and there has still been very little engagement specifically with his work, although see the recent monograph from David Hohne. Gunton has tended to be criticised for his criticism of Augustine and along with John Zizioulas his use of the Cappdocians. This edited collection of new essays therefore is very welcome, because Gunton was a brilliant theological mind, who was beginning to offer one of the most interesting British systematic theologies for a long time. Sadly we only have an unpublished draft of a first volume.

Many of the essays track the way Gunton's theology developed. Robert Jenson examines Gunton's major theological decisions, John Webster studies Gunton's use of Barth, Stephen Holmes looks at the doctrine of the trinity, John Colwell, the doctrine of the church and final essay by Christoph Schwobel provides us with the shape of Gunton's theological thought. Other essays pick up the content of particular doctrines: Alan Spence on christology,  Paul Cumin on the doctrine of God, Paraskeve Tibbs on anthropology, Justyn Terry on atonement and Terry Wright on providence. Lincoln Harvey's contribution explores Gunton's theological method and Brad Green engages with Gunton's interpretation of modernity. Harvey has gathered together an excellent line-up of theological voices, some already established and some just starting out; some who were Gunton's colleagues, some who were his students and some who found him as a dialogue partner in their postgraduate studies.

The tone is generally positive towards Gunton's theology. Webster is the most critical, but not overwhelmingly so. Webster still acknowledges the huge contribution Gunton made to British systematic theology. At a number of points in the book, Gunton is described as rescuing Christian theology when many thought it redundant. (Gunton's loss has left a huge whole that has not been filled by any theologian working in an English university. This is not to say English theology is not interesting and constuctive, but that Gunton and co. at King's and Webster - then of Oxford now of Aberdeen - were doing systematic Christian doctrine in a way that is no longer happening). Steve Holmes, a student and later colleague of Gunton, demonstrates in his essay that he is moving away from Gunton's theology as he seeks to develop his own contribution - he is much less critical of Augustine - while being grateful to Gunton for providing an example of how theology should be done. In Paul Cumin and Lincoln Harvey, two of the final students who begun their PhDs with Gunton, he is still seen as the theologian of choice and in a book that seeks to examination Gunton's theological thought, it is helpful to see how Gunton's project can be continued (pace Bernhard Nausnera's recent SJT article). Jenson provides a response to those that critique Gunton's criticism of Augustine ('Did Gunton overdo it? Probably ... But was Gunton just wrong? I think not ...'), which I think has merit (although we wait to see Lewis Ayres forthcoming Augustine and the Trinity).

I hope this book marks the beginning of further engagements with Gunton. He remains one, if not the, British theological (and nonconformist) voice of the last century. This book certainly shows why Gunton's theology matters, as he tried to show why the doctrine of the Trinity mattered. I hope T & T Clark will publish a paperback version as sadly the cost of a hardback will prohibit many from purchasing a copy. A final word from Webster on Gunton:

Systematic theology owes Gunton an immense debt. He gave intellectual and rhetorical weight to the task of Christian theology in Britain at a time when the majority believed it to be redundant. He was animated by the momentous ideas of Christian dogmatics; though sometimes in his writings they were clumsily or hurriedly expressed, he loved to let them loose and watch what happened. He edified students and colleagues in the academy and the church by restless intellectual energy, by cheerful partisanship, by his catholic range of interests, above all, by his conviction that the gospel is a grand matter for the mind (p.29).

Hauerwas on the Essential Task of Ministry: Speaking Christian

This week I accepted a call to be the minister of Belle Vue Baptist Church, Southend. After three years of ministerial formation at Regent's Park College (and another four years of theological education at King's College London before that), I will be ordained in September as a Baptist minister. We are in the process of packing up and saying goodbyes as we prepare to leave Oxford, where we've lived for the last two years.

I've been reading some words from Stanley Hauerwas in a recent address given to those about to enter ministry in the Mennonite church. He begins with wondering why on earth anyone would want to be a minister today because:

The lack of clarity about what makes Christians Christian, what makes the church the church, and continuing ambiguity in our diverse denominations about ordination itself should surely make anyone think twice about becoming a minister. Moreover the lack of consensus about what it might mean for anyone to act with authority in our society and the church cannot help but make those of us who are not ministers wonder about the psychological health of those who tell us they are called to the ministry.  

He goes on to say that the essential task of a ministry is

is to be a teacher. In particular, you are called to be a teacher of language ... I think the characterization of the challenges facing those going into the ministry is the result of the loss of the ability of Christians to speak the language of our faith. The accommodated character of the church is at least partly due to the failure of the clergy to help those they serve know how to speak Christian. To learn to be a Christian, to learn the discipline of the faith, is not just similar to learning another language. It is learning another language.   

This is not a new thought from Hauerwas, but it is a good reminder of what ministry is all about.

Reading the Theology of Colin Gunton

  Thanks to T & T Clark Kirsten and I have been enjoying an excellent collection of essays on the theology of Colin Gunton edited by Lincoln Harvey. I think we're reading John Webster's chapter on Gunton and Barth in this picture, which includes a great quote (see below). In my opinion theology doesn't get much better than Gunton and its great to see the likes of Webster, Robert Jenson, Steve Holmes, John Colwell, Christoph Schwoebel and others engaging positively with this British theologian. They demonstrate together that Gunton is a voice that cannot be, and should not be, ignored.

'... Gunton's self-conception as a theologian: he valued openness, freedom, range; he listened unusually carefully but not too long to his masters and then made up his own mind; he never evaded theological responsibility by hiding in the skirts of the tradition. Barth would have enjoyed that kind of feisty Christian independence.'

New festschrift for Hauerwas on 70th birthday

A third festschrift for Hauerwas is just out ... the first was on his 60th birthday - Faithfulness and Fortitude edited by Sam Wells and Mark Thissen Nation (T & T Clark, 2000) and was made of mainly UK contributors (including Colin Gunton, John Milbank, Nigel Biggar and Duncan Forrester); the second was on his 65th birthday - God, Truth and Witness edited by Greg Jones, Reinhard Hutter and C. Rosalee Velloso Ewell (Brazos, 2005) and contributors included Robert Jenson, George Linbeck, Robert Bellah, David Burrell and Bernd Wannenwetsch.

Unsettling Arguments: A Festschrift on the Occasion of Stanley Hauerwas's 70th Birthday
Edited by Charles R. Pinches, Kelly S. Johnson, Charles M. Collier (Cascade, 2010)

Contributers are all former Hauerwas students:

Scott Bader-Saye
Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt
Michael Baxter
Daniel M. Bell Jr.
Jana Marguerite Bennett
Michael G. Cartwright
William T. Cavanaugh
Peter Dula
Chris K. Huebner
Kelly S. Johnson
D. Stephen Long
M. Therese Lysaught
David Matzko McCarthy
Joel James Shuman
J. Alexander Sider
Jonathan Tran
Paul J. Wadell
Theodore Walker Jr.

"Stanley Hauerwas is a public provocateur, a ravenous reader, a restless wrestler with the truth, and an eccentric devotee of baseball, murder mysteries, and liturgically-shaped discipleship. But most of all is he is a devoted, demanding, and dogged academic father to dozens of doctoral students. The breadth of his character takes a community to display. Here, more than ever before, that community of character does in public what Hauerwas and his students do best: tussle, and refine, and introduce new interlocutors, and dismiss out of hand, and rephrase more charitably, and rediscover ancient wisdom, and go back to Aquinas, and quote Barth, and dismantle platitudes, and unsentimentally face the gift and demands of Christ for church, academy, and politics today. This is a work of love turned into a call to renewal, a family reunion transformed into a symposium, a tribute in the guise of a challenge. Admirers and critics of Hauerwas will be enriched by these compelling essays, an ordered array of disagreements in love."
—Sam Wells

Hauerwas, Milbank and Bretherton in London on 18th October

Don't miss out on Stanley Hauerwas in Conversation with John Milbank & Luke Bretherton to mark the publication of: Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir
BY STANLEY HAUERWAS

on Monday 18th October 2010 from 5.30-7.00pm at the Great Hall, Strand Campus, King's College London

Demand is sure to be high and spaces are limited. Please ensure you RSVP before the 8th October 2010 to be added to the guest list.
Email anita@hymnsam.co.uk or telephone: 020 7776 7550.

More reviews of The Deliverance of God

I have previously drawn attention to reviews by Francis Watson and Beverley Gaventa. There is also one by Douglas Moo in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 53.1 (2010), which I have not yet been able to access.

Two new reviews have appeared in the Church Times and Reviews in Religion and Theology 17.3 (2010) by New Testament scholar and biblioblogger Nijay K. Gupta. Gupta ends his review with this paragraph:

While few scholars will accept Campbell’s proposals in full, I have benefited much from reading this magnum opus. Many of his critiques of what he calls ‘Justification Theory’ are valid and need to be pondered, and some even need to be redressed. So, one will gain from Campbell-the-critic. In the midst of his argumentation, he also presents many summaries of scholarship relating to soteriology and theology in general (including appraisals and critiques of the New Perspective on Paul). Furthermore, from his work on Romans, I believe he has opened up (though not for the first time) the perspective that Paul was seriously
concerned with opposition in Rome and his letter has serious marks of a defensive and headstrong tone as he sought to preserve the theological purity of the gospel there. Thus, one can gain from Campbell-the-Pauline-historian. Finally, his passion for igniting in readers a vision for a more transformative and liberating soteriology is salutary. This is Campbell-the . . . well, zealot. In the end, whether his views are favored or dismissed, they cannot be ignored. Though he has some serious concerns with Luther, I think he would echo the reformer’s resolute attitude: ‘Here I stand, I can do no other . . . ’