John previously answered a few questions here and has kindly agreed to answer a few more with the publication of his new book.
For those who have not read your new book - Why Have You Forsaken Me?
(Paternoster, 2010) can you quickly summarise what it's about.
It's a personal reflection on Psalm 22: the first two chapters are largely
autobiographical, giving a brief account of the experience of bi-polar
illness, then there are a couple of chapters reflecting directly on the
psalm, two chapters reflecting on the significance of Jesus words from the
Cross in Matthew and Mark and finally two chapters reflecting more generally
on the relationship between God and suffering.
Has this been your most difficult book to write?
Yes (Promise and Presence was more demanding academically but not as
personally painful)
Do you think the use of autobiography and theology is something which we should encourage? Alongside your book is the recent theological memoir
Hannah's Child from Stanley Hauerwas.
All theology is inevitably autobiographical - though this is often
unrealised and unacknowledged. Surely theology demands truthfulness and
truthfulness admits that we read Scripture and inhabit a tradition as the
people we are, shaped by specific contexts, communities, and experiences. I
had the privilege of reviewing Stanley's 'theological memoir'- I couldn't
commend it too warmly: it puts flesh on his extraordinary contribution and
theological development. [John's review will appear in the next edition of Regent's Reviews]
In the book you're fairly critical of contemporary worship, I wondered if
you thought there is anything positive we can say about the deluge of new
worship songs of the last thirty years?
I don't think it's just contemporary worship that is at fault (though the
fault is most marked in contemporary worship and collections of songs). We
still manage doctrinal proclamation (though probably not with the same
effect as previous generations), we're strong on praise and especially
strong on personal adoration, but we're lamentably weak on lament and lament
is where a fair proportion of any church congregation find themselves.
You have now returned to local church ministry after sixteen years as a
college tutor. Has it been good to get in the same pulpit and visit the
same people week in, week out?
Fifteen years actually - I believe God called me to pastoral ministry and,
though being a tutor at Spurgeon's had a strong pastoral element, I'm
delighted to be back in a local church for the next few years and sharing
Word and Sacrament with the same people week by week.
Are you still finding time to read and write?
This past year has been frustrating for a number of reasons with which I
won't bore you. I'm woefully behind with my reading schedule (though it is a
demanding one) and a number of factors have militated against much writing -
just a few reviews and isolated articles.
What three things would you say are important to those, like myself,
beginning ministry in a new church?
I'm tempted to say prayer, prayer, and prayer. There may be people who can
maintain a walk with God without any formal structure but I commend a formal
pattern (rhythm) of prayer as indispensible to the Christian life and
certainly to Christian ministry - so establish a rhythm of daily and
seasonal prayer and a pattern of retreat. And, whatever you do, don't give
way to the temptation to become a mere manager or chief executive - God has
called you to be a minister of the Word and Sacrament so don't allow
anything to displace that priority.
What is your next writing project?
I'm not sure that I really have one. I've started work on an exploration of
virtue (All you need is love?) and I'd like to follow that with a
re-examination of the nature of sin and of 'original sin' - but my priority
at present is to be a faithful pastor to the people here and within the
community in which I find myself.
In your previous book, The Rhythm of Doctrine, you offered a novel but
brief systematic theology shaped around the church year. You weren't sure
it would work and were waiting to see what kind of response the book
received, before possibly considering an expanded version. Have you been
surprised at the positive response and does this mean you will go ahead and
offer us the first systematic theology written by a British Baptist
theologian for a long time?
As I admit in that book, the aim of writing a systematic theology is
immensely pretentious and I'm not convinced that I'm a sufficient scholar
for the challenge. Certainly I could only attempt it if life was more free
from other and more pressing responsibilities. Neither do I know whether a
publisher would be interested in such a long-term project from a relatively obscure writer. But if it did come about I hope it would be even more
'different' than Rhythm of Doctrine suggests. I'm ever more convinced that
the only appropriate voice for theological reflection is that of worship and
prayer, that the systems that have come from Reformed scholasticism are far
too shaped by Enlightenment rationalism (and detachment), that we're too
preoccupied with answers and not sufficiently humbled by questions, that the
form of much systematic theology itself denies that witnessed in its
content. Maybe I'll try a collection of prayers and poems.
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