My Charles Taylor article in SCE

The December issue of Studies in Christian Ethics is out, and with it my article entitled:

" ‘In Spirit and In Truth’ - Can Charles Taylor help the Woman at the Well find her authentic self? "

Studies in Christian Ethics 2008 21: 325-341.

If you would like to read a copy, let me know (with your email address, if I don't already have it) and I can send you one. Or at least the first 25 of you.

Churchman - Equality

Oh, and in other news, I notice the second in my 'The Christian Revolution' series has been published in the latest edition of the Churchman 122/3 "The Christian Revolution: 2. Equality".

Churchman article

This Summer's Churchman has hit the shelves of theological colleges and pastor's studies everywhere and it includes the first in my series of three articles entitled The Christian Revolution. This issue contains 1. Liberty.

Lee Gatiss has an interesting article on Richard Baxter, too. And Tony Wright concludes his two-parter on Death, the Dead and the Underworld in Biblical Theology.

Him

I am also experimenting with a follow up to the YOU book, called HIM.

I'd love your thoughts.

Anvil

Please pardon the blatant self-promotion, but - what is a blog for if not that?

In the latest issue of Anvil, I have an article on Chris Wright's The Mission of God - much of which was trialed here on this blog. Chris also adds his response to the four reviews that appear, and there admits to having read the debate as it developed here!

In the same issue, I have smaller reviews of Mark Thompson's A Clear and Present Word , Bernd Wannenwetsch's Political Worship, and Sam Well's God's Companions.

I also note that Wannenwetsch has edited a collection of essays, Who Am I? Bonhoeffer's Theology Through His Poetry. Alas, T&T Clark are offering it at the mighty price of £55!! That's 140 AUD!! (or 110 USD). Ouch - looks like a trip to the library to read that one...

Publication of some reviews: Anvil and Churchman

Hey, I have had two reviews published just recently. One is of Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine and finds itself in the latest Anvil 24/3.

The other is in Churchman 121/4 and is of the first two volumes of Goldingay's Old Testament Theology.

Just thought you might like to know...

On the Religion Report talking about Benedict's encyclical

You can listen to a discussion I had with the ABC's Stephen Crittenden on Benedict XVI's latest encyclical here. It is about 44 mins into the programme.

This Blog's Greatest Hits

Well, here is a list of the posts that have scored the most comments on this blog. What I note is that those with more pastoral themes (such as the previous post) seemed to have garnered most interest. The list:

bible and theology

jungel

sacraments

the art of blogging

talking to an atheist

the great evangelical bible swindle

creatio science and calvin

von balthasar and impassability

corporal punishment

violence what is it

if Christian schools were really Christian

gurus

order in genesis 2 and 3

straining at gnats

David Hicks

power of scripture

a tension in evangelicalism

about blogging

brief sydney lives

pierced for our transgressions

is postmodernism passe?

office politics

cuteness and its relevance for evangelical ethics

professionalism vs amateurism

gentle answer turneth away wrath

a good lecturer

collapse of evangelical consensus

gentle answer discussion continued

Psalm 95 at St Ebbe's

Listen to my sermon on Psalm 95

Notes on Humility VIII

Ok, this IS possibly a bit weird: posting a link to the audio of my sermon on humility but there you go.

On the way in to church to preach this sermon my dear spouse raised the possibility, ever so gently, that blogging was actually an exercise in wanting to be noticed: i.e., not exactly humble.

Great time to tell me!

Vanhoozer and the atonement, more of.

[For your greater edification and entertainment, a photo of me graduating with the Master of Studies (Research) degree from Oxford, a degree I didn't even know I was enrolled for or intend to achieve! But they let you wear a fancy gown, so - what the hey!]

I have been enjoying re-reading some of the essays in The Glory of the Atonement (ed. Hill and James). The survey of the biblical and historical material is thorough and careful and leaves me in no doubt that, if one wants to excise sacrificial language from the atonement (see below) or remove the substitutionary aspect, one does so against the overwhelming testimony of the scriptures and the tradition. Which is not to say that there isn't a subjective side to the atonement: it is just that if one has only the subjective side, it ain't enough.

Anyhow, Vanhoozer's essay is my favourite so far ("The Atonement in Postmodernity") - partly because it serves as a handbrake on some of the other essays. He goes so far as to accept the postmodern critique of theoria, at least up to a point. He writes:

The postmodern challenge requires us to develop a nonreductive doctrine of the atonement that perceives the saving significance of Jesus' death in terms other than this-worldly economies of exchange...

What the doctrine of the atonement attempts haltingly to articulate is the equal ultimacy of God's love and God's light (justice, holiness). On the cross neither mercy nor justice loses out; the cross is rather their mutual fulfillment. It is precisely for this reason that theories of the atonement must resist explanations that reduce the significance of Jesus ' death either to unconditional mercy or to uncompromising justice.

Review published in Studies in Christian Ethics

My review of -

Elizabeth A. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). xvii + 335 pp. £26 (hb), ISBN 0–231–12986–6.

has been published in Studies of Christian Ethics 20.1 (2007) p. 125f.