The T & T Clark Blog

Imprimatur: Church Dogmatics at the printers!

   

Good news for all who have pre-ordered the new Study Edition of the Church Dogmatics. And even better news for all who have been working on this for the last years... 

Today we have sent the last pdf (fascicle 31 - the General Index) off to the printers! This means we will be out in early April

To whet your appetites, here is the foreword to the new Study Edition:

Since the publication of the first English translation of Church Dogmatics I.1 by Professor Thomson in 1936, T&T Clark has been closely linked with Karl Barth. An authorised translation of the whole of the Kirchliche Dogmatik was begun in the 1950s under the editoriship of G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, a work which eventually replaced Professor Thomson’s initial translation of CD I.1.

Balthasar and the Resurgence of Traditional Catholicism

This is an extract of our forthcoming Balthasar: A Guide for the Perplexed by  Rodney Howsare. The book will publish in June in the UK and in August in the US. The extract is from chapter 7: Balthasar's Ongoing Role in Theology. Enjoy! 

Balthasar and the Resurgence of Traditional Catholicism

Once more, I intend in this short space only to raise questions for further discussion; I make no pretence at settling them. I stated earlier that when I began work on my dissertation in the mid-90’s, the main issue in Balthasar studies was to get Balthasar a hearing in a context still dominated by Rahner, Lonergan and Liberation Theology. Of course things were already changing. Milbank’s Theology and Social Theory had already come out in 1990 and Fergus Kerr’s, Theology after Wittgenstein had come out even before that. I mention these as just two examples of the growing dissatisfaction over an academic approach to theology that was still under the sway of Enlightenment patterns of thought. But once the modern has been put in its place, room is made not only for the postmodern (postliberal, radically orthodox, etc.), but also, in the case of some, for the pre-modern. In our own day, for instance, we are beginning to witness a new interest in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, not simply as a philosopher, and not simply out of historical curiosity, but as a theologian to be reckoned with.

Friday Free For All.

Well, it's Friday, so we'll just let you know what's up before the weekend starts and you have to get busy on that paper due Monday.

First of all, if you look at the right hand column, you'll see we've put up a link to join us on Twitter. Typepad has recently made it quite easy to make that available. Just click on it and join up. (@heleningram, thanks for the reminder!)

We've also made a link over there to join any and all of our mailing lists. We recently sent one out on our Theology titles. More should be coming soon.

Next weekend, Burke Gerstenschlager (that's me), will be attending SWCRS in Dallas/Fort Worth. If you want to meet to talk book ideas, let me know. I'll also be doing campus visits to TCU and SMU on Friday and am available Thursday afternoon, too. So if you're a scholar in the area and want to meet, let's get in touch. I'm just sticking to the Metroplex this time. Sorry, Baylor and everyone in Austin! We'll just have to do the two-step next time I'm in the Lone Star State.

Last but definitely not least we have some MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR news to tell you on Monday so be sure to check us out on Monday for that. Something NOT to be missed. SRSLY.

Hey, look! Everything in this post is free! Not bad for a Friday. (Good luck with that same business model, Twitter...)

Sacrifice Unveiled by Robert Daly

A guest post by Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Institute for Liturgical Ministries, Dayton, Ohio, USA.

‘For systematic, sacramental, and liturgical theologians, Daly’s four-decades long labour of love in coming to an understanding of Christian sacrifice is legendary.  Yet, read these words taken from one of the autobiographical pages toward the end of Robert J. Daly’s Sacrifice Unveiled:  The True Meaning of Christian Sacrifice: “I, who thought of myself . . . as a recognized expert on Christian sacrifice, discovered that I had . . . totally missed the central point.”  It takes a humble person of integrity, indeed, to admit such a momentous intellectual shift.  Culling from his previously published books and numerous articles on sacrifice, Daly lays out once again the historical and scriptural groundwork for a comprehensive understanding of sacrifice.  But this book is no mere updating of his earlier work.  It demonstrates fresh insight and impeccable systematic scholarship as he reverses his starting point and interprets anew. 

Daly begins by disclosing clearly and succinctly in the opening pages of Sacrifice Unveiled what has now come to be his central point:  Christian sacrifice is best understood as a Trinitarian, inter-personal gift-exchange.  It is a mutually self-giving event taking place between persons. Christian sacrifice does not begin with us and what we do for God, but begins with God and unfolds in a trinity of “moments.”  The first moment is the self-giving of the Father who sends the Son in an act of divine self-communication; the second is the self-offering response to the Father of the Son in his humanity; and the third moment is the self-offering response of Christian believers made possible by the Holy Spirit—who dwells within us and enables us to participate in this divine, Trinitarian gift-exchange.  The “true meaning” of sacrifice is only realized in self-giving as fulfilled in daily ethical self-giving; that is, the believer lives as Jesus did.

Paul and the Dynamics of Power in Paperback!

 

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We are very pleased to announce that Paul and the Dynamics of Power. Communication and Interaction in the Early Christ-Movement, by Kathy Ehrensperger will be available in paperback this summer. This volume examines Paul’s use of power and authority, though Ehrensperger also discusses a wide assortment of ideas on how this use of power should be evaluated.

This careful analysis of many interpretations of this subject illustrates Kathy Ehrensperger’s way of understanding the power, and she conveys her thoughts beautifully by employing in her study such wide-ranging figures as Derrida, Michel Foucault and James Scott.

I imagine many of you are already familiar with this volume, for those who are deciding whether Paul and the Dynamics of Power should be their next purchase; here are some very interesting and commendable views:

'This is a beautifully written and immensely stimulating book, with which every serious student of Paul ought to engage. One of its greatest merits is to show that even asymmetrical power relationships are not necessarily relationships of domination/ subordination, nor temporally permanent, nor lacking in mutuality and interdependence. Not only might this encourage a rethinking of our images of Paul; it also represents a challenge for Christian life and practice within contemporary Church and society.' - Ian Boxall, St Stephen’s House, Oxford, UK in Scripture Bulletin

‘This is an excellent book for New Testament courses in Paul and in hermeneutics. Courses in Paul need to be engaging these contemporary approaches and this book provides an excellent and accessible discussion.’ – Warren Carter, Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School, Forth Worth, Texas, USA

‘Ehrensperger’s Paul and the Dynamics of Power is the kind of book that appears once in a decade. From page one, it is exciting, well-defined in terms of its limits, but wide-ranging in its research.’ – Robert L. Brawley, Professor of New Testament Emeritus, MCCormack Theological Seminary, Chicago, USA

Paul and the Dynamics of Power is available in the UK in May 2009 and in the US in July 2009.

Another Endorsement for "Calling for Justice"

Professor Jon Fuller, S.J., M.D., who is a staff physician with the Center for HIV/AIDS Care at Boston University, has offered this wonderful review of our recently released Calling for Justice throughout the World. Here, he gives a comprehensive endorsement of the book's inspiration and purpose and of the women whose contributions to both the volume and the fight against the pandemic are so important. Please enjoy!

In July of 2006, a remarkable, first-of-its-kind conference in Padua, Italy brought together more than 400 moral theologians from 63 countries to reflect on “Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church.”  The meeting was certainly notable for the papers presented, but it was important for another reason as well: this gathering allowed theologians from vastly different cultures not only to meet their fellow scholars face-to-face, but also to reflect as a cohort of professionals on their identity, capacity, and mission in service to the Church and to the human community.  Ten papers were presented in Padua on the topic of HIV/AIDS, but the meeting also became – in the words of editor Mary Jo Iozzio – a “rolling stone” that led to further analysis by theologians particularly interested in the pandemic.  This collection represents the further reflections of 25 women theologians representing 15 countries and 7 global regions.

Indeed, this collection by women is mostly about women.  But perhaps because of their lived experience of being biologically (and often culturally and economically) more vulnerable than men to becoming HIV-infected, women have also been able to identify with other marginalized and vulnerable groups whose voices must also be heard and for whom solutions must also be found.  These groups range from the elderly and physically or developmentally disabled to African Americans, children, addicts and migrant workers.   These reflections are contextualized not primarily in the realm of sexual ethics, but rather as failures of justice whose solutions must be based on the claims of human dignity, and on the church’s professed interest in a preferential option for the poor.   It is by the epic milestones of Catholic Social Teaching that several of these analyses find their way, beginning with Rerum novarum (1891) and Populorum progressio (1967), and culminating in the prophetic language of the Latin American bishops conferences held at Medellin in 1968 and in Puebla in 1979. 

The Apostles' Creed and Its Early Christian Context

 

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In The Apostles’ Creed Piotr Ashiwn-Siejkowski offers a very interesting debate on the Creed and ‘its difficult jargon’, in hope to make it more accessible to a wider audience. Trying to portray the Creed as a lively narrative, Ashiwn-Siejkowski takes the reader on a very interesting journey, which covers a multitude of issues regarding the Apostles’ Creed; starting with the twelve pronouncements and their formulation.

Ashwin-Siejkowski traces the most important Christian theological debates that inspired each statement and looks for ideas behind each creedal pronouncement. The way of portraying all these issues simply makes us aware not only of the richness of early Christian thought, but it also emphasizes the ‘polyphony’ of theologian opinion so characteristic for the Christianity in that period. Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski takes us through the various testimonies of these theological arguments, namely the Gnostics, ‘heretics’, as well as Jewish and pagan critics of Christian faith.

All these views, discussions and ideas presented by Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski clearly show us how important the Creed and its understanding by the readers are for the author, who simply says:

‘I have also been thinking of a way to introduce the Creed and its difficult jargon to a much wider group of readers even than my students and parishioners. However, I am aware that there will be a number of Christians for whom this Creed is incomprehensible, even irrelevant. For them the Apostles’ Creed could be put on a shelf of the British Library to gather dust, and not many people would notice its disappearance from the liturgy. Against this way of thinking, I would like to argue that the theological content of this specific Christian confession may still inspire our faith, and at the very least challenge our intellect. It may stir up a new desire to know more about the history of Christianity. The early Christian theologians are not mummified, satanic saints or villains from Madam Tussauds’ Museum of Wax Figures. Some of them were later labelled ‘heretics’, but I treat them with respect. All of them, the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’, are still very much alive and the Apostles’ Creed echoes their important theological quarrels. Those ancient Christians were passionate about God and their relationship with the divine. This book will explain more about their disputes. However, I don’t approach the early Christian theologians on my knees, and neither do I encourage my readers to do so. I cannot hide the fact that I admire some of them, while others I would not invite to dinner, but voices of the latter are still recorded in the following chapters.’

The Apostles’ Creed and Its Early Christian Context is available in the UK in May 2009 and in the US in July 2009.

New Release: The Command of Grace

We have just published the second book in our new Transformation Theology series: The Command of Grace by Paul Janz.

Here are a couple of endorsements to whet your appetites: “Offering a sophisticated, lucid, and original argument for reorienting Christian theology toward God’s living reality…this book is an outstanding feat that will provoke discussion on the limits and powerful potential of theology for many years to come. Anyone concerned with the intersection of theology and philosophy today will learn a tremendous amount from this work.” Leora Batnitzky, Professor of Religion, Princeton University

“Combining rigorous rationality with an engaging enthusiasm, this book crafts a theological apologetics that is at once original and instructive of how we can freshly avail ourselves of key elements of tradition. With clear, gracious, and compelling writing…an example of constructive theology at its best.” Elizabeth Ann Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Theology, Fordham University

“A highly original and intellectually stimulating exploration of the Christian claim to tell the truth about God from a rising star in the British theological firmament.” Alister E. McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology, Oxford University

“The need has become urgent for the re-formulation of a genuine ‘theological apologetics’...Janz’s book is a most welcome initiative, ably steering a clear path between an introverted Christian fideism on one hand and a ‘nowhere’ world of neutrality occupied by neither believers nor their doubters. A tour de force.” Denys Turner, Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology, Yale Divinity School

  

Online review: Revelation and Reason

Andy Goodliff has posted an online review of Colin Gunton's Revelation and Reason on his blog . Enjoy!

As the title suggests the book explores the relationship between revelation and reason. With Kant, we find reason is all and there is little room for revelation, this generally continues until Barth's return to revelation as primary. Brazier in his foreword suggests the book be seen as a companion to The Barth Lectures. I think it should also be seen as the background to Gunton's 1993 Warfield Lectures A Brief Theology of Revelation, his systematic account of the doctrine of revelation. And it can also be seen as a history of Western philosophy and theology: there are sections on Locke, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Kant, Descartes, Torrance, Barth, Aquinas, Anselm, Pannenberg, amongst others. As Holmes suggests, whether you agreed with Gunton or not, he had read, taught and knew well the different philosophers.

The book is now available in the UK and in the  US. 

Humanity in the Mystery of God

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The synopsis for this particular book describes it as a unique study of Schillebeekx theological anthropology and his thoughts on God, understood as a creator and a redeemer.

The idea of the book sounds intriguing indeed, and Jennifer Cooper makes it even more interesting by starting her work with these words:

 'Edward Schillebeeckx has never written a theological anthropology. In fact it is even possible from his own writings, to suggest he has deliberately not done so. Instead his theology is a sustained and varied reflection on the nature of God who is both creator and redeemer. His theology is a ‘treatise’ on the God who is God for humanity. This means of course his theology is always both a reflection on the nature of God and at the same time, a reflection on the meaning of humanity. And so for Schillebeeckx what it means to be fully human is discovered in the relationship between the mystery of God and the mystery of humanity.'

These sentences give us a pretty good picture describing the main ideas of this work and if you look at the chapters and their arrangement you will find that Cooper's thoughts are explained in a clear and understandable way. What else should be said about this book?

I think that Philip Kennedy says it best in the passages below:

'Humanity in the Mystery of God is fascinating to read and a mine of information. It explains lucidly the influence on Schillebeeckx of his theological and philosophical masters, Marie Dominique Chenu and Dominic De Petter, and sets him in a wider historical context. Very elegantly written, its greatest strength is that it is highly original. It is the only work I know of which concentrates on the theological anthropology of Schillebeeckx in the early phases of his career. All other books devoted to his life and thought focus on his later theology. Cooper’s text has the singular strength of being able to demonstrate not only a continuation between Schiillebececkx’s early and late theologies, but also that it is not really possible to understand his writings of the 1980s and 90s without attending to the theological principles he first enunciated in the 1940s and 50s.'

Philip Kennedy, Mansfield College, Oxford, UK

Humanity in the Mystery of God is available in the UK in June 2009 and in the US in August 2009