John E. Colwell, http://astore.amazon.co.uk/andygoodliff-21/detail/1842274988/026-3020406-1656416, (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2007), 135pp. (with thanks to Paternoster for a review copy)
John Colwell continues to provide Baptists and others with examples of excellent theology. In 2001 Living the Christian Story was published, a book on Christian ethics. In 2005 Promise and Presence was published, a book on sacramental theology. And now The Rhythm of Doctrine is published providing a systematic theology based around the liturgical year.
This is a short book - it's a sketch, in the style of Kathryn Tanner's recent Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity (2001) and Colin Gunton's The Christian Faith (2001), where the reader is provided with a fairly brief treatment of Christian doctrine, with the promise or hope in the preface or introduction for a longer and more detailed treatment to follow. This at frequent moments is both tantalizing and frustrating as the reader is left wanting a fuller argument or discussion.
This is a novel description of dogmatics from a theologian who has excellent grasp of the tradition and systematic theology. Whereas most systematic theology follows the creed (God, creation, Christ, atonement, Spirit, church), Colwell has decided to follow the liturgical year - Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, All Saints - with his desire to write a systematic theology rooted in the worship of church. This allows the different doctrines to breathe and find a life in the context of worship. Colwell wants to avoid the way that too much systematic theology is often detached from the life of the church.
Colwell, as he states in the introduction is a theologian who owes a debt to Stanley Hauerwas. This is evident in his desire to see doctrine and ethics as 'a single theme' and not related disciplines: 'there can be theology, no knowledge of the true God, without worship, and there can be worship or theology with transformation, without ethics' (p.3). Colwell therefore attempts to link each of the seven seasons to one of the seven virtues (hope, love, faith, wisdom, justice,temperance and fortitude). In a similar way to Sam Wells 'recent God's Companions (2006) and the Wells and Hauerwas edited Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (2005), Colwell argues that worship (and especially the sacraments) shapes us the ethical life. So Advent teaches us about hope, Christmas about love, Lent about temperance and so on. He acknowledges that this is more 'a convenience of systematic tidiness rather than a matter of any inherent association' (p.10), by which I think he means that some of the virtues could be placed (naturally) with a different season. Having said that, I did enjoy and found helpful the way Colwell brings the seasons, the doctrines and the virtues together in each chapter.
This is a systematic theology for the church. It is both readable and academic. In its attempt to bring doctrine and ethics together it reminded me of Barth's Church Dogmatics, albeit a very brief version. It is exciting, because it demonstrates the importance of doctrine, doxology and ethics, where so often in the life of the church they are separated from one another. In A Better Hope, Hauerwas has a chapter called 'Worship, Evangelism, Ethics: On Eliminating the "And",' which I think Colwell does so well in this book. I hope this book gets widely read. Although he is not a big fan of labels, this is an example of deep church theology, rooted in the tradition - both systematic and doxological - and with a proper concern for the life of the church in the present. I encourage John to one day develop this brief sketch into a detailed presentation. It would be an even bigger gift, than this short book is already, to the church.
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