Chris Cocksworth, former principal of Ridley Hall and now Bishop of Coventry reviews John Colwell's Promise and Presence in the latest edition of Ecclesiology 5 (2009). Here is some of what he says:
'Often books full of promise do not deliver. This one does. The reader is taken into the presence of a theological mind grappling at a fundamental level with the nature and activity of God and, moreover, into the presence of Christian person, with deep evangelical convictions, writing honestly and movingly about his experience of the promised presence of God mediated through the creaturely means of Church and sacraments ...
... [Promise and Presence] shows that it is possible to work from the basis of Nicene orthodoxy to a robust sacramental theology which takes seriously catholic principles about the real action of God through the life of the Church, evangelical emphases on the graciousness of the gospel and the freedom of the God of the gospel, and pentecostal experience of the dynamic of the Spirit's power in the world. It deserves to be read carefully and discussed fully.'
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