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Book Review: Unsettling Arguments

Charles R. Pinches, Kelly S. Johnson and Charles M. Collier (eds.), Unsettling Arguments: A Festschrift on the Occasion of Stanley Hauerwas's 70th Birthday (Cascade, 2010), 356pp

There are few (if any?) theologians who are honoured with three festschrifts in their lifetime, but then Hauerwas is no ordinary theologian. In 2000, a group of British theologians (Forrester, Gunton, Milbank, Biggar, Loades, Woodhead, Wells, Nation) contributed to Faithfulness and Fortitude (T & T Clark, 2000). Five years later Hauerwas was honoured again with a collection edited by L. Gregory Jones and others, God, Truth and Witness (Brazos, 2005), with essays from the likes of Jenson, Bellah, Lindebeck, Burrell and Wannenwetsch. This latest collection on Hauerwas' 70th birthday are a group of essays from his graduate students, some of which are already established theological voices - Cavanaugh, Long, Cartwright, Shuman, Bader-Saye, McCarthy, and Bell, while others are newer voices emerging - J. Alexander Sider, Peter Dula, Jonathan Tran, Chris K. Huebner and Kelly S. Johnson.

While previous festschrifts have included both essays which directly engaged with Hauerwas and others less so, every chapter of Unsettling Arguments is a conversation between Hauerwas' theology and the criticisms made of him. This makes for a fantastic book as Hauerwas' own theology is dissected on issues such as race, bioethics, war, friendship, democracy, Judaism, family, feminism, higher education, discipleship, worship, reading, as well as the influences of Wittgenstein, Aquinas, Scotus and Yoder. Immediately one recognises the breath of topics that Hauerwas has addressed over his long career.       

The person new to Hauerwas would do well to start elsewhere (e.g. The Hauerwas Reader, The Peaceable Kingdom, A Community of Character or After Christendom?), but those who have some knowledge of the shape and content of Hauerwas' many writings, are in for a treat with this book, as his former students open up his theology in ways that both challenge it and push it to new places.  In many of the essays we get glimpses of the way Hauerwas teaches and helps produce such interesting dissertations from his students - in this way the book perhaps works well as a companion to Hauerwas' memoir Hannah's Child, especially the emphasis in that book on friendship. These are students turned friends, but friends who are happy to question and pick away at the positions and the arguments of their teacher. I come away from this book feeling their is much to learn not only from Hauerwas' theology, but also his way of doing theology in community. As Sam Wells puts it on the back cover:

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.

Brian Haymes honoured with festschrift

The Baptist theologian Brian Haymes was given a festschrift yesterday in recognition of his contribution to Baptist life and theology. The book called Questions of Identity - a signal back to small earlier work - is edited by Anthony R. Cross and Ruth Gouldbourne, two colleagues who together with Brian wrote On Being the Church (Paternoster, 2009). The book will be available here soon and I'm sure will be available at the Baptist Assembly. For more see here from one of the book's contributors, Simon Woodman. The contents of the festschrift are:

‘A Preacher of Integrity’: Brian Haymes—A Brief Profile...............................xi
 
Chapter 1
Turn or Burn!: A Nonviolent Reading of Fire and Burning in the Book of Revelation
Simon Woodman

Chapter 2
Further Reflections on a Sacramental Understanding of Preaching
Michael J. Quicke

Chapter 3
‘Ambassadors for Christ’ (2 Corinthians 5.20): Ministry in the New Creation
Sean F. Winter
 
Chapter 4
Re-Envisioning the Wall of Separation, or One and a Half Cheers for Secularization: Toward and Ecclesial Identity after Christendom
Barry Harvey
 
Chapter 5
‘Bearer of our Sins’: Atonement Theology after Steve Chalke
Nigel G. Wright
 
Chapter 6 
‘Through a glass darkly’: The Further Light Clause in Baptist Thought
Anthony R. Cross
 
Chapter 7
Dual Citizenship in Athens and Jerusalem: The Place of the Christian Scholar in the Life of the Church
Paul S. Fiddes
 
Chapter 8 
A Matter of Conscience: A Quest for Otherness
John E. Colwell

Chapter 9
The Prophet Oded as an Early Good Samaritan
Robert Parkinson
   
Chapter 10
Knowing Together the Mind of Christ: Congregational Government and the Church Meeting
Stephen R. Holmes

Chapter 11
Prophets and Pietists: Differing Faces of Baptist Identity
Faith Bowers
 
Chapter 12
Revisioning Identity: Mennonite Reflections on Narrative
Alan Kreider
 
Chapter 13
Story-telling, Sacraments, and Sexuality
Ruth Gouldbourne
 
Chapter 14
Afterword
Christopher Rowland

2nd Edition of the Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics

Only seven years after it was first published, there is a second edition out in April 2011 (currently only hardback) of the Hauerwas and Wells Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics. Table of contents below, the chapters in bold are new, others are apparently revised, and several chapters have new authors and one chapter on disability by Hans Reinder in Part IV has disappeared, with a new chapter by Brian Brock appearing in Part II. If the chapters have been revised, this second edition may well be worth getting - the first edition already on its way to becoming a classic.

PART I Studying Ethics Through Worship.

1 Christian Ethics as Informed Prayer (Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells).

2 The Gift of the Church and the Gifts God Gives It (Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells).

3 Why Christian Ethics Was Invented (Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells).

4 How the Church Managed Before There Was Ethics (Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells).

PART II Meeting God and One Another.

5 Gathering: Worship, Imagination, and Formation (Philip Kenneson).

6 Greeting: Beyond Racial Reconciliation (Emmanuel Katongole).

7 Naming the Risen Lord: Embodied Discipleship and Masculinity (Amy Laura Hall).

8 Being Reconciled: Penitence, Punishment, and Worship (John Berkman).

9 Praising in Song: Beauty and the Arts (Kevin J. Vanhoozer).

10 Collecting Praise: Global Culture Industries (Michael L. Budde).

11 Praise: The Prophetic Public Presence of the Mentally Disabled (Brian Brock).

PART III Re-Encountering the Story.

12 Reading the Scriptures: Rehearsing Identity, Practicing Character (Jim Fodor).

13 Listening: Authority and Obedience (Scott Bader-Saye).

14 Proclaiming: Naming and Describing (Charles Pinches).

15 Deliberating: Justice and Liberation (Daniel M. Bell).

16 Discerning: Politics and Reconciliation (William T. Cavanaugh).

17 Confessing the Faith: Reasoning in Tradition (Nicholas Adams).

PART IV Being Embodied.

18 Interceding: Poverty and Prayer (Kelly S. Johnson).

19 Interceding: Giving Grief to Management (Michael Hanby).

20 Interceding: Standing, Kneeling, and Gender (Lauren F. Winner).

21 Being Baptized: Race (Willie Jennings).

22 Being Baptized: Bodies and Abortion (Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt).

23 Becoming One Body: Health Care and Cloning (M. Therese Lysaught).

24 Becoming One Flesh: Marriage, Remarriage, and Sex (David Matzko McCarthy).

25 Sharing Peace: Class, Hierarchy, and Christian Social Order (Luke Bretherton).

26 Sharing Peace: Discipline and Trust (Paul J. Wadell).

PART V Re-Enacting the Story.

27 Offering: Treasuring the Creation (Ben Quash).

28 Participating: Working Toward Worship (R. R. Reno).

29 Remembering: Offering Our Gifts (D. Stephen Long and Tripp York).

30 Invoking: Globalization and Power (Timothy J. Gorringe).

31 Breaking Bread: Peace and War (Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells).

32 Receiving Communion: Euthanasia, Suicide, and Letting Die (Kathryn Greene-McCreight).

33 Sharing Communion: Hunger, Food, and Genetically Modified Foods (Robert Song).

34 Eating Together: Friendship and Homosexuality (Joel James Shuman).

35 Being Silent: Time in the Spirit (Michael S. Northcott).

36 Footwashing: Preparation for Christian Life (Mark Thiessen Nation).

PART VI Being Commissioned.

37 Being Blessed: Wealth, Property, and Theft (Stephen Fowl).

38 Bearing Fruit: Conception, Children, and the Family (Joseph L. Mangina).

39 Being Sent: Witness (Michael G. Cartwright).

Afterword.

40 The Virtue of the Liturgy (Jennifer Herdt).

41 Afterword (Rowan Williams).

Book Review: Christian Doctrine: A Reader / All Will Be Well: Explorations in Universalism and Christian Theology

Murray Rae, Stephen Holmes and Lindsey Hall, Christian Doctrine: SCM Reader (SCM, 2010)

Back in 2001 Murray Rae and Steve Holmes, alongwith Colin Gunton published The Practice of Theology, which articulated the then King's College London approach to doing theology. With the unexpected death of Colin Gunton, Lindsey Hall has joined Rae and Holmes in producing this sequel which is a reader in Christian Doctrine. Finally, something to compete with McGrath who dominates the theology reader market. Nine chapters cover the major topics of Christian doctrine - the doctrine of God (divided into patristic and reformation to modern day), creation and providence, person of Christ, work of Christ, the Holy Spirit, doctrine of humanity, the church and eschatology. Other topics not covered here, like a doctrine of revelation, can be founded in The Practice of Theology. The strength of a reader is it gives the student an overview and a taster of how doctrine develops and the names of those who have historically made major contributions. 

If compared to McGrath, the SCM reader has chapters on creation and the Holy Spirit, but ulike McGrath does not have chapters on the sacraments (although the chapter on church includes extracts on the sacraments) and theology's relationship to world religions. The SCM reader includes the Baptists Charles H. Spurgeon, H. Wheeler Robinson and Paul Fiddes, McGrath includes no Baptists (this may reflect the input of Holmes who is a Baptist).

No reader can be complete, but this SCM reader has much to commend it. I found many names I have not come across before and so it fulfils its brief, as much as it is able, in providing a wide range of voices to widen the student's horizons. For those interested in what Christian theologians have said about its beliefs over its 2,000 year history, this is a fantastic place to start.

Gregory MacDonald (eds.), All Will Be Well: Explorations in Universalism and Christian Theology from Origen to Moltmann (Cascade, 2010)

There is been something of a revival of interest in universalism in recent years. This is in part down to Robin Parry, who has written one monograph - The Evangelical Universalist (SPCK, 2008) under the pseudonym Gregory Macdonald and edited two collections, of which this is one and the other is the earlier Universal Salvation? The Current Debate edited with Christopher Partridge (Paternoster, 2003). Alongside this have been a number of monographs on universalism from the likes of Steven Harmon on Gregory of Nyssa, Origen and Clement of Alexandria; Morwenna Ludlow on Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner; and Tom Greggs on Origen and Karl Barth.

This is a fantastic collection of essays each looking at different theologians/pastors who have argued for Christian universalism or in a few cases like Forsyth and Barth come close to universalism. Some names are well known like Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Schleiermacher, Balthasar and Moltmann. While others, especially in the section on seventeeth to nineteenth centuries are less well known - for example, James Relly, Elhanan Winchester and Thomas Erskine - but demonstrate that universalism in different forms has been present throughout the history of the church.

The whole book is ably introduced by Macdonald (aka Parry), where he situates universalism in the theological space between dogma and heresy. He argues that it is neither a doctrine that must 'required or forbidden', which allows it a new space than it has previously had, where it had (and for some still does) verged on heresy. Oliver Crisp's chapter on Barth (his third study on Barth and the charge of universalism) is a good and convincing read claiming Barth's theology is ultimately universalist, although Barth (and others have) claimed otherwise.

I hope this book will aid a positive discussion of universalism and see more theologians happy to either become convinced universalists like Parry or at least see it as an acceptable doctrinal position for Christians.

Both these books will also be reviewed in the next edition of Regent's Reviews due in April.

British Baptist Biblical Scholars (2) Ronald E. Clements

1929-

PhD (Sheffield, 1961, supervised by F. F. Bruce) - 'The Divine Dwelling Place in the Old Testament

1960-1967 Lecturer in Old Testament Language, Literature and Theology, University of Edinburgh
1967-1984 Lecture in Old Testament, University of Cambridge
1984-1992 Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament, King's College London

Major Publications

God and temple (Basil Blackwell, 1965)

Abraham and David : Genesis XV and its meaning for Israelite tradition (SCM, 1967)

The conscience of the nation: a study of early Israelite prophecy (Oxford, 1967)

God's chosen people: a theological interpretation of the book of Deuteronomy (SCM, 1968)

Exodus (Cambridge, 1972)

Prophecy and Tradition (Blackwell, 1975)

A century of Old Testament study (Lutterworth, 1976, rev ed. 1983)

'Patterns in the Prophetic Canon' in George W. Coats and Burke O. Long (eds.), Canon and Authority: Essays in Old Testament Religion and Theology (Fortress, 1977)

Old Testament theology: a fresh approach (Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1978)

Isaiah and the deliverance of Jerusalem: a study of the interpretation of prophecy in the Old Testament (JSOT, 1980)

Isaiah 1-39 (Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1980)

'"A Remnant Chosen by Grace" (Romans 11.5): The Old Testament Background and Origin of the Remnant Concept', Donald A. Hagner and Murray J. Harris (ed.), Pauline Studies: Essays Presented to Professor F. F. Bruce on His 70th Birthday (Paternoster, 1980)

'The Unity of the Book of Isaiah', Interpretation 36 (1982)

In Spirit and Truth: Insights from Biblical Prayers (John Knox Press, 1985)

'Isaiah 45.20-25: The Goal of Faith', Interpretation 40 (1986)

Jeremiah (Interpretation; John Knox Press, 1988)

'Solomon and the Origins of Wisdom in Israel' in James L. Crenshaw (ed.), Perspectives on the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honor of Walter J. Harrelson (Mercer, 1988)

Deuteronomy (JSOT, 1989)

(ed.), The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Pespectives (Cambridge, 1991)

Wisdom in theology. The 1989 Didsbury Lectures (Paternoster, 1992)

'The Good Neighbour in the Book of Proverbs' in Heather A. mcKay and David J. Clines (eds.), Of Prophets' Visions and the Wisdom of Sages: Essays in Honour of R. Norman Whybray (Sheffield, 1993)

'Wisdom, Virtue and the Human Condition' in M. Daniel Carroll (ed.), The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson (Sheffield, 1995)

Old Testament Prophecy: From Oracles to Canon (Westminster John Knox Press, 1996)

Ezekiel (Westminster John Knox Press, 1996)

'The Deuteronomic Law of Centralisation and the Catastrophe of 587 B.C.' in John Barton and David James Reimer (eds.), After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Mason (Mercer, 1996)

'Deuteronomy' in New Interperter's Bible Vol II (Abingdon, 1998)

'"Who is Blind But My Servant?" (Isaiah 42.19): How Then Shall We Read Isaiah?' in Tod Linafelt and Timothy Kandler Beal (eds.), God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann (Fortress, 1998)

'The Sources of Wisdom' in Warren S. Brown (ed.), Understanding Wisdom: Sources, Science and Society (Templeton Foundation, 2000)

The book of Deuteronomy: a preacher's commentary (Epworth, 2001)

'Isaiah: A Book without an Ending', Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 97 (2002)

'Proverbs' in James D. G. Dunn and John William Rogerson (eds.), Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (Eerdmans, 2003)

'The Former Prophets and Deuteronomy - A Re-Examination' in J. Harold Ellens et al (eds.), God's Word for Our World: Biblical Studies in Honor of Simon John De Vries (T & T Clark, 2004)

'Prophecy Interpreted: Intertextuality and Theodicy - A case study in Jeremiah 26.16-24' in John Goldingay (ed.), Uprooting and Planting: Essays on Jeremiah for Leslie Allen (T & T Clark, 2007)

Can Evangelicals be Universalists and one-day conferences

Yesterday was my 3rd one-day conference in a fairly short space of time. Its good to see the Baptist colleges - in this case two of the conferences we're organised by Spurgeon's and Regent's - organising these kinds of days. The third conference I made was organised by the Joint Public Issues Team (Baptist, Methodist and URC working together on political issues).

The conference yesterday on can evangelicals be universalists was the most worthwhile of the days in terms of content. Robin Parry and Derek Tidball sparring on the question - I side more with Parry who wants to claims evangelicals can be universalists - with additional short papers from Graham Watts and Nigel Wright. The day ended up being the most interesting because it didn't attempt to do too much and so was more focused. The other day conferences while not being pointless, did try to do too much in what is basically 6 hours (with 1 hour for lunch) and a more focussed discussion on one question/issue would have been more helpful. Also small group discussion in these kinds of days is always hit and miss.

The content from the Joint Public Issues Team is now available via here. The talks and conversations from yesterday will appear at some point on the Spurgeon's website.

So here's to more one-day conferences, but making them focussed and not to do too much. Regent's via the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage are hosting a second one day conference on Saturday 14 May 2011, which will also include the Baptist Historical Society's AGM and annual lecture, this year given by Steve Holmes. more information here.

Trends and Directions in Baptist Theology

In the latest Expository Times is an article on trends and directions in contemprary Anglican theology. It got me thinking if a similar such article could be written about Baptist theology. Ian Markham recognises 5 camps among Anglicans: liberal (e.g. Richard Holloway and John Shelby Spong), conservative (James Packer, Ephraim Radner), 'mystical' (Sarah Coakley) and 'radical orthodoxy' (John Milbank, Graham Ward, Catherine Pickstock) , ecclesiology and culture (Kathryn Tanner, Daniel Hardy, David Ford, Martyn Percy, Esther Reed, Keith Ward), and Rowan Williams.

In terms of number of academics engaged in theological research, British Baptists are not at the same level. There is an increasing number of Baptists engaged in doctoral work on a variety of topics (the annual Whitley lecture testifies to a variety of interests), but many, if not most, remain in local church ministry subsequently. Even those who are tutors in our colleges find little time to devote to ongoing research. So are we able to distinguish any trends or directions or camps among Baptists?

In terms of trends I guess we might acknowledge the number of works in the latest decade that both affirm and want to explore a sacramental theology (see John Colwell, Paul Fiddes, Anthony R. Cross and others) and in a related way also those who might be labelled 'catholic' baptists, whose work engages the contemporary ecumenical scene and has a renewed interested in the historical traditions of the church (in the US see Steve Harmon, Curtis Freeman, Beth Newman, Philip Thompson and Barry Harvey). In addition to this is an interest in a theology of covenant (see particularly Paul Fiddes). In terms of future directions there seems to be a new interest in hermenuetics and what baptists might offer and how they might practice reading the bible together (see the new book on this subject edited by Simon Woodman and Helen Dare, and also Sean Winter's Whitley Lecture) - the impact and whether it continues remains to be seen.

Apart from this, Baptists generally seem to plough their own furrows.