The T & T Clark Blog

Online Review: The Banished Heart

  
There is an online review of Geoffrey Hull's The Banished Heart on the National Review Site by Mike Potemra.

What happened to Fifties Catholicism?

In Hull’s thesis, the Sixties revolution in Roman Catholic practice was in large measure a result of the Counter-Reformation and Vatican I centralization of power in the papacy: In the traditional understanding, the pope was the “custodian” of tradition — but the response to the Protestant Reformation and the French Revolution made Catholicism expand that role significantly, from “custodian” to “arbiter” (the quoted words are Hull’s). The need for a strong defense against outside attacks on the Church made Catholics rally around the pope, in the name of orthodoxy, little intending that that same power could eventually be deployed in the interest of heterodoxy. (They might in this sense have benefited from an understanding of O’Sullivan’s First Law: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.” In this ecclesial case, of course, the contrast would not be the political one between right-wing and left-wing, but rather one between tradition and experimentation.) Hull writes: “There was a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the spirit of ultramontanism and the general acquiescence of Latin[-rite] Catholics in the Pauline liturgical revolution. Or, put another way, ultramontanism is the difference between the rebellious, strong-minded Catholics [who resisted Protestant changes in] 1549 England and the conformist, unthinking ones of the decades following the Second Vatican Council.”

You can read the full review here.

New Books Catalogue now online!

Our new Religion catalogue is now available online, covering Biblical Studies, Theology and General Religion titles. You can check it out here.

Free e-book preview available on Logos homepage!

Logos Bible Software are offering a promotional free preview of one of their e-books by Colin Gunton: The Promise of Trinitarian Theology. 

FreeBookPreview.com uses the free Logos Bible Software iPhone app to allow users to preview Christian books in their entirety for free. The app allows users to purchase the previewed title in electronic or print form.

‘The Origin of the Bible: A Guide for the Perplexed’

I’m sure that many of you browse our website but for anyone who is unaware – we are currently preparing for production another volume in our ‘A Guide for the Perplexed’ series titled ‘The Origin of the Bible’ by Lee Martin McDonald. This book will be available to readers in the US in February 2010 and UK readers will have to wait until April 2010.

Lee McDonald offers here a stimulating discussion regarding the history of the Bible as we know it today. How did the Jewish and Christian Bibles come together? Why were some ancient texts excluded or included? What were the criteria for such inclusion or exclusion? These and many other puzzling questions are answered in this volume.

We have received three excellent reviews from James H. Charlesworth, Timothy H. Lim and Peter Balla. All three are displayed below:

‘Lee McDonald is widely perceived to be in the front ranks of specialists on the origin of the Bible and the evolution of the canon. In this book, in a lucid engaging fashion, McDonald guides those who are perplexed about such origins. Jews and Christians find the revelation of God’s Will in the Bible and thereby establish a deeper self-identity. These, and all interested in Bible and canon, will find out from a luminary how the texts and words in the biblical canon were defined and deemed inspired. How did we get our Bible? This book gives you answers. It is superb for classes. I recommend it enthusiastically.’ - J.H. Charlesworth, George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature and Director of the PTS Dead Sea Scrolls Project, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA.

The Pope Has Landed

Well the Pope has landed in Edinburgh - obviously choosing to do so because that is where T&T Clark was founded.

Now, I make no secret of my own RC beliefs (and this does not imply any denominational leaning with respect to the list, or the company) and I'll equally make no secret of the fact that I am monumentally excited about this visit. This is my world cup, and  I will be on the bus to Birmingham at the weekend, waving a flag, and trying to ignore the ghastly CD of 'music' prepared for the visit. Think watered down 90s trance (clicking on this link is not advised for those with sensitive ears).

Continuum - of course - has some marvellous publishing which should excite people for the visit - including the guide for the perplexed on the Pope and all sorts of books on Benedict himself, The Ratzinger Reader, and lots of books on Newman - including a short biography by the late Avery Dulles.

So, let's see how the visit pans out.

TLS on Benedict XVI - A Guide for the Perplexed

There is a two page article by the TLS' religion editor, Rupert Shortt, on Tracey Rowland's Benedict XIV - A Guide for the Perplexed. The book does not appear to be exactly to his taste, but the article is well worth a read!

Tomáš Halík wins Romano Guardini Prize

Tomáš Halík, a philosopher, sociologist and theologian, is the recipient of the 2010 Romano Guardini Prize of the Catholic Academy in Bavaria, Germany. He is awarded for „outstanding merits in interpreting contemporary society.“ This European prize is granted every other year and was already given to Werner Heisenberg, a physicist and Nobel Prize laureate, Richard von Weiszäcker, German President, Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, theologians, Karl Orff and Krysztof Penderecki, composers, Cardinal Franz König and others in the past. The prize will be delivered on the 27th September in Munich (in honor to R. Guardini who died in Munich), laudatio will be presented by Mr. Karel Schwarzenberg, a Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. Professor Tomáš Halík will deliver a speech on “The power over power” during the ceremony. Prof. PhDr. Tomáš Halík Th.D. (1948) teaches philosophy and sociology of religion at Charles University in Prague; since 1990 he has been a President of Czech Christian Academy and has been involved in interfaith relations.

 
Halík was an active member of religious and cultural dissent during Communism, after 1989 has lectured at a number of universities and international institutions around the world. His books are published in English, German, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Slovenian. Most recently a Chinese edition is being prepared. In 1992, Pope John Paul II. appointed him advisor to the Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Believers and in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI granted him the title of Monsignor - Honorary Prelate of His Holiness. Halík is a member of many institutions, such as the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and was awarded with various prizes worldwide.

Tomáš Halík is a contributor to Religious Roots of Contemporary European Identity. 

Paul: A Guide for the Perplexed featured on Scot McKnight's blog

Thought you'd all like to know that Timothy Gombis's new 'Guide for the Perplexed' on Paul is being featured on Scot McKnight's blog (thanks, Scot!) This is a link to the Paul section of the blog, which gives you both the entries on the book so far.

The book should be a great adoptable for courses on Paul. Anyone who'd like an inspection copy can fill in our inspection copy request form here. Part of the book can be previewed using the above widget.

Didn't we have a loverly time the day we went to Bangor... for BNTC

Last week Anna and I went to Bangor University, for the British New Testament Conference which was celebrating its 30th anniversary.

I must say that I had not been relishing the three and a half hour train journey, and was particularly grumpy about having to change trains. However, the last part of the journey, along the north coast of Wales was beautiful, with castles and bays, and boats and in the end I rather enjoyed it. There was also the fact that the 1979 hit by Fiddler's Dram, 'Didn't We Have a Lovely Time the Day We Went to Bangor' was on loop in my mind for the whole time. Hear it here, on youtube. Wikipedia tells me it was actually inspired by a day-trip to Rhyl, and Bangor got the free publicity simply because its name has two syllables. The Rhyl council got very upset about this. So, I take pity on them by posting the following link.

We were also blessed with delightful weather, which made a few hours of sight-seeing very pleasurable. We visited Bangor Cathedral (founded by St Deiniol in 525 - well before Canterbury), and I was delighted to see that various chairs, benches, screens etc were carved by Robert 'Mouseman' Thompson, and bore his distinctive mouse trademark. We then made a trip to Bangor Pier (one of the longest in the UK at 497 metres!) and had an ice-cream, before heading back to the conference.

The conference itself was particularly well run, and very enjoyable. It was a little poignant as the department at Bangor is closing and many of the staff moving down to form, with Lampeter, what will be known as University of Wales, Trinity St David. In many ways this seems like a very sensible and positive move - creating a strong and dynamic department. But in others it makes one worry about the fact that there are far fewer departments in this field than there used to be.

The papers I attended were all good fun, particularly the 'Debate on Q' between an absent Francis Watson (using his avatar of Simon Gathercole) and Christopher Tuckett.

We had good book sales, particularly of Ecological Hermeneutics  and of our new Guide for the Perplexed on the New Testament and Jewish Law, by James Crossley. See previews below.

There was also much interest in Maurice Casey's forthcoming masterpiece. 'Jesus of Nazareth', which will be out in October.

Interview with Avihu Zakai on Jonathan Edwards

There is a very interesting interview with Avihu Zakai, author of Jonthan Edwards's Philosophy of Nature

on the Jonathan Edwards Society website. You can read it in full here.