andygoodliff

Top Ten Indispensable Books on Theology and Children

1. The Child in Christian Thought, (ed.) Marcia Bunge (Eerdmans, 2001)

2. The Child in the Bible, (ed.) Marcia Bunge (Eerdmans, 2008)

3. Graced Vulnerability: A Theology of Childhood by David Jenson (Pilgrim Press, 2005)

4. Welcoming Children: A Practical Theology of Childhood by Joyce Ann Mercer (Chalice Press, 2005)

5. Children and the Theologians: Clearing the Way for Grace by Jerome Berryman (2009)

6. The Vocation of the Child, (ed.) Patrick McKinley Brennan (Eerdmans, 2008)

7. Let the Children Come: Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective by Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Jossey-Bass, 2003)

8. Children of God: Towards a Theology of Childhood, (ed.) Angela Shier-Jones (Epworth, 2007)

9. Jesus and the Children by Hans-Ruedi Weber (WCC, 1979)

10. Through the Eyes of a Child: New Insights in Theology from a Child's Perspective (2009)

Christianity and Contemporary Politics

This is looking an important and fascinating book from Luke Bretherton due out in March 2010 (Just look at the comment from Stanley Hauerwas on the front cover - although Stanley does seem to say this about a fair few books these days!)

Relations between religious and political spheres continue to stir passionate debates on both sides of the Atlantic. Through a combination of theological reflection and empirical case studies, Bretherton succeeds in offering timely and invaluable insights into these crucial issues facing 21st century societies.
Explores the relationship between Christianity and contemporary politics through case studies of faith-based organizations, Christian political activism and welfare provision in the West; these case studies assess initiatives including community organizing, fair trade, and the sanctuary movement
Offers an insightful, informative account of how Christians can engage politically in a multi-faith, liberal democracy
Integrates debates in political theology with inter-disciplinary analysis of policy and practice regarding religious social, political and economic engagement in the USA, UK, and continental Europe
Reveals how Christians can help prevent the subversion of the church – and even of politics itself – by legal, bureaucratic, and market mechanisms, rather than advocating withdrawal or assimilation
Engages with the intricacies of contemporary politics whilst integrating systematic and historical theological reflection on political and economic life

Contents

The Terms and Conditions of Political Life.

Religion and Postsecular Politics.

Theological Politics and the Ecclesial-Turn.

Summary of Aims and Methodology.

1. Faith-Based Organizations and the Emerging Shape of Church–State Relations.

"Working Together": The Shaping of Relations between the State and Religious Groups in a Multi-Faith Society.

Social Cohesion, Social Capital, and the "Salvation" of Civil Society.

Liberalism and the Continuing Requirements of Public Reason.

Theological Politics and the Question of What Constitutes Faithful Witness.

Ecclesiology and the Political Mission of the Church.

2. Local: Augustine, Alinsky, and the Politics of the Common Good.

The Alinsky Approach: The Work of Broad-Based Community Organizing.

Eschatology, Politics, and the Mutual Ground of the Saeculum.

Christian Realism Redivivus?

A Thomistic Democratic Politics?

Reweaving Civil Society.

Politics without Piety Is Pitiless; Piety without Politics Is Pitiful.

3. National: Christian Cosmopolitanism, Refugees, and the Politics of Proximity.

Introduction.

Theological Politics and the Liberal Democratic Response to Refugees.

Refugees as Bare Life.

Bare Life and the Limits of Humanitarianism.

Hallowing Bare Life: A Doxological Response.

Hallowed Be Thy Name.

Sanctuary: The Practice of Hallowing Bare Life.

4. Global: Consumerism, Fair Trade, and the Politics of Ordinary Time.

Defining Political Consumerism.

Consumerism and the Formation of Desire.

Political Consumerism as Apprenticeship in the Virtues.

Political Consumerism as Neighbor Love.

Fair Trade as Contradiction.

Fair Trade, Globalization and the Emergence of Political Consumerism.

Ordinary Politics and the Peace of Babylon.

Conclusion: Toward a Politics of Hospitality and a Theology of Politics.

Forthcoming Books on Colin Gunton's Theology

The Theology of Colin E. Gunton edited by Lincoln Harvey (T & T Clark, June 2010)

In The Theology of Colin E. Gunton, a number of contemporary theologians from across the world critically engage with the work of this influential British theologian. Gunton’s handling of the gospel of Jesus Christ is celebrated, key doctrines critically examined, and his contribution to the ongoing theological task carefully evaluated. Contributors address key issues at the centre of Gunton’s understanding of the Christian gospel, thereby enabling readers to appreciate how Gunton’s fundamental analysis of the relation between God, creation and Jesus Christ impacts the church’s ongoing task of faithful theological enquiry.

In this volume of essays, contributors explore Gunton’s constructive thinking on a range of doctrinal topics, as well as critically analyze Gunton’s theological method and use of the Christian tradition. As such, this collection of essays provides the Christian theological community with its first wide-ranging and carefully argued examination into the influential work of Colin E. Gunton. [The chapters by Robert Jenson, Steve Holmes and John Colwell were originally given at the 2007 day conference on Gunton]
 
Table of Contents

DOUGLAS FARROW, 'Foreword'

LINCOLN HARVEY, ‘Introduction’

ROBERT W. JENSON, 'A Decision Tree of Colin Gunton's Thinking'

JOHN WEBSTER, 'Gunton and Barth'

STEVE HOLMES, 'Towards the Analogia personae et relationis: Developments in Gunton’s Theology of the Trinity'

ALAN SPENCE, 'The Person as Willing Agent: Classifying Gunton's Christology'

PAUL CUMIN, 'The Taste of Cake: Relation and otherness with Colin Gunton and the strong second hand of God'

LINCOLN HARVEY,  'The Double Homoousion: Forming the Content of Gunton's Theology'

JOHN E. COLWELL,  'Provisionality and Promise: Avoiding Ecclesiastical Nestorianism?'

PARASKEVÈ (EVE) TIBBS, 'Created for Action: Colin Gunton’s Relational Anthropology’

JUSTYN TERRY, 'Colin Gunton's Doctrine of Atonement: Transcending Rationalism by Metaphor'

TERRY J. WRIGHT, 'Colin Gunton on Providence: Critical Commentaries'

BRAD GREEN, 'Colin Gunton and the Theological Origin of Modernity'

CHRISTOPH SCHWOEBEL,  'The Shape of Colin Gunton's Theology. On the Way towards a Fully Trinitarian Theology'

The other book is Spirit and Sonship: Colin Gunton's Theology of Particularity and the Holy Spirit by David Hohne (Ashgate, January 2010)

This book weaves together an interpretation of Christian Scripture with a conversation between Colin Gunton and Dietrich Bonhoeffer concerning the role the Holy Spirit plays in shaping the person and work of Christ. The result is a theological description of human personhood grounded in a sustained engagement with, and critique of, Gunton's theological description of particularity - a topic central to all his thinking.

In the course of the conversation with Bonhoeffer the book also offers one of few broad assessments of his work as a systematic theologian. In bringing together the work of two important modern theologians, this book explores both the possibilities of theology generated from Christian Scripture and the central importance of the doctrines of Christ and the Trinity in understanding what it means to declare someone or something unique. [This is a version of Hohne's PhD Cambridge thesis surpervised by David Ford]

Contents

Introduction

Establishing an exegetical description

Establishing a theological alternative

The spirit enables sonship

The spirit opens sonship

The spirit preserves sonship

Conclusion

The Politics of Discipleship

I find that Graham Ward is not an easy person to read. My knowledge of French philosophers is limited and he writes in a fairly dense way (like others associated with the radical orthodoxy movement). So I was pleasantly surprised by his latest book The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens (Baker, 2009). I've been able to understand (more or less) 75% of it! The book is a sequel to his earlier work Cities of God (Routledge, 2000) and Culture Transformation and Religious Practice (Cambridge, 2005), but also part of the J. K. A. Smith edited series The Church and Postmodern Culture, which is aimed a broad, nonspecialist audience - so why it is more readable than Ward's previous work.

The book is divided into 2 halves: 'world' and 'church'.  The 'world' section is brilliant. Three chapters on democracy and the shift to postdemocracy; globalization; and postsecularity and the new visibility of religion. A very helpful survey and description of what is taking place in the western world, engaging with a wide range of sources, including J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and Brett Ellis, Amercian Psycho. The 'church' section I found more disappointing. There were some interesting bits, especially the reflections on the city and the struggle for its soul (if you're in a city centre church well worth reading), but where I wanted it to be more grounded and practical, it remained at what felt a fairly detached argument level.

This is a book definitely worth reading and I look forward to where the project goes next and it continuing to written for a broad audience.

New Book by John Colwell Coming Soon ...

Why Have You Forsaken Me? A Personal Reflection on the Experience of Desolation by John Colwell (Paternoster, December 2009)

In this powerful book on the experience of desolation John Colwell focuses on Psalm 22, read in the light of his own struggle with bi-polar disorder and the Christian belief that God the Son suffered in his humanity, to offer existential-theological reflections on the experience of God-forsakenness. The author writes, My concern in writing this book and in reading this psalm is to reflect on the felt experience of God-forsakenness, my own and that of Christ in the light of this psalm; to explore the theological and spiritual significance of this felt experience for myself, for Christ, for Christians generally. If this exploration proves to be helpful to me or to others then obviously I am glad, but I am not writing this book to be helpful but rather to be truthful (and perhaps hopeful). This is a personal journey of reflection with a psalm which I invite you, the reader, to share if you will.

This book is a gift to anyone who has been touched by the darkness of bi-polar illness. Colwell's willingness to write honestly about his illness will be an aid for those struggling with the condition, but even more important is his use of the psalms and attention to Jesus way of dereliction to locate how such illness is not pointless. This is a book that needed to be written. But only someone like John Colwell could write it. --Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School, USA

It is a well-known fact that the Church doesn't do depression. Melancholy just doesn't sit comfortably with our sanguine view of spiritual progress. Thank God, however, that John Colwell has the guts to attend to this erroneous state of affairs and offer us a spirituality that embraces the wintry as well as the sunny seasons of our lives. --Ian Stackhouse, Team Leader, Guildford Baptist Church, England

If the best theology is attentive to Scripture, focused on Christ, and meaningful for human life in all its messiness, then there are few better examples than this new book by John Colwell. --Steve Holmes, Lecturer in Theology, University of St Andrews, Scotland

Forthcoming Books for 2010

Christian Doctrine (SCM Reader) by Murray Rae, Stephen Holmes and Lindsey Hall (February 2010) - This is a sequel of sorts to The Practice of Theology: A Reader by Colin Gunton, Murray Rae and Stephen Holmes.

Belief, Practice and the Church: Unattended Moments by Martyn Percy (Ashgate, May 2010)

Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness by Luke Bretherton (Wiley-Blackwell, January 2010)

The Blackwell Companion to the Nineteenth Century Theologians edited by David Fergusson (Wiley-Blackwell, March 2010) - I think this is a project that Colin Gunton was editing before he died in 2003. If its the same one, Colin I think was writing the chapter of Scheleiermacher and Stephen Holmes was writing the chapter on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, amongst others.

Introducing Christian Ethics and Christian Ethics: An Introductory Reader by Sam Wells and Ben Quash (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)

Secularization and Its Discontents by Rob Warner (Continuum, March 2010)

Jesus Christ: Understanding the Son of God by Nigel Wright (BRF, November 2010)

Christ the Key by Kathryn Tanner (Cambridge, February 2010) - these were originally the 2007 Warfield Lectures

The Deliverance of God

I have the Deliverance of God. A copy of the book that is. Flip it's big! You can see why it took Douglas over fifteen years to write. It is without a doubt the book on Paul to read this year, all 1300 pages. Fantastic front cover, designed, like his previous book, by his wife Rachel. (The front cover says a foreword by N. T. Wright, but this doesn't appear, although he does write some words for the back cover). The only initial and relatively minor annoying feature is the lack of footnotes and instead an end 'notes' section. Douglas' thesis, if you've not read his work (like The Quest for Paul's Gospel, which is like a trailer/preview of Deliverance) before will utterly challenge how you interpret Paul's letters, especially Romans. I was fortunate to have been taught by Douglas for two years during my undergraduate degree (2002-3), which I discovered after reading the preface was still relatively early on in the book's development, and have been convinced of his reading of Paul for a while. It's still great to read it in its final form ... and will now be very interesting to see how its received. There is a special seminar devoted to it at SBL with Michael Gorman, Alan J. Torrance and Douglas Moo offering responses. One other small note for now is that you can find a reference to this page on my blog on p. 1041, footnote 10.

I know Douglas is taking something of a short break now in terms of new projects, although at some point in the future we should a book length treatment on Paul's biography. But for now we will just enjoy the Deliverance of God.

Douglas Campbell's Deliverance of God is now available

After a long time waiting, Douglas Campbell's mammoth book The Deliverance of God is now out. And the first blog posts are already appearing (Jim West and Peter Leithart). I hope my copy will be waiting for me when I arrive back in Oxford next weekend.

My last sunday in Bath this weekend, then a week's holiday in the Brecon Beacons and then back to Oxford and normal blogging service should resume.

The two months in Bath have been a really good experience (more reflections to follow). I also managed to get a visit to London in to hear Steve Holmes give a paper on reading Calvin the right way up (see his post) and a visit over to Peasedown St John to see Anthony R. Cross, who is the new Director of the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage at Regent's Park College, Oxford, and the donator to me of several books from the Paternoster series on Baptist history and thought amongst others. Despite two visits to Bristol we did not manage to get to the Banksy's exhibtion (the second visit we queued other two hours but didn't get in, but did manage to the reach the point where we could buy an ice cream!).

forget about The Shack, read Marilynne Robinson

Kim Fabricus wills us to read great novels, like Orange Prize Winner Marilynne Robinson, whose two novels Gilead (2004) and Home (2008) are fantastically rich theological explorations, unlike the awfully written The Shack (which I have read, and while I applaud what it is trying to do, came away disappointed, especially with its anti-church flavour), which Eugene Peterson is not and will never be the new Pilgrim's Progress. Sean gives two snippets from Home to whet your appetite. Ben reviews Gilead here and Sean writes about it here. I read Gilead last summer and looking forward to reading Home this summer. 

The Guardian has a number of articles on Robinson (here and here).

Fergusson's 2008 Gifford Lectures to be Published in July

Faith and its Critics (OUP)

Heralded as the exponents of a 'new atheism', critics of religion are highly visible in today's media, and include the household names of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. David Fergusson explains their work in its historical perspective, drawing comparisons with earlier forms of atheism. Responding to the critics through conversations on the credibility of religious belief, Darwinism, morality, fundamentalism, and our approach to reading sacred texts, he establishes a compelling case for the practical and theoretical validity of faith in the contemporary world.

An invitation to engage in a rich dialogue, Faith and Its Critics supports an informed and constructive exchange of ideas rather than a contest between two sides of the debate. Fergusson encourages faith communities to undertake patient engagement with their critics, to acknowledge the place for change and development in their self-understanding whilst resisting the reductive explanations of the new atheism.

Readership: All with an interest in questions of faith in contemporary society and the arguments of 'new atheism'; students and scholars of the relationship between science and religion; of the sociology of religion

Contents
Introduction
1. Atheism in historical perspective
2. The credibility of religious belief - claims and counter-claims
3. Darwinism - how much does it explain?
4. Religion, art and morality - invention or discovery?
5. Is religion bad for our health? Saints, martyrs, and terrorists
6. Sacred texts - how should we read them?
Conclusion