The T & T Clark Blog

Reviews for 'Stepping out with the Sacred'

It's worth having a look at Val Webb's website. There are some very good reviews of her latest book with Continuum, Stepping out with the Sacred. You can find a preview of the title here. Enjoy!

New Review of The Christ’s Faith in the Journal of Reformed Theology!

The late Flip Theron (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa) reviewed Michael Allen’s The Christ’s Faith: A Dogmatic Account (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology, 2009) in the latest issue of the Journal of Reformed Theology (Fall 2010). Theron offers high words of praise: “the way in which Allen fleshes out his agenda is nothing short of riveting . . . the author tackles his task with extreme subtlety.”

The Christ’s Faith coheres with orthodox Christology and Reformation soteriology, and needs to be affirmed to properly confirm the true humanity of the incarnate Son. Without addressing the interpretation of the Pauline phrase pistis christou, this study offers a theological rationale for an exegetical possibility and enriches a dogmatic account of the humanity of the Christ.

Theron’s words are the latest praise for this volume, about which Matthew Levering has said: “Biblical scholars and theologians on all sides of the debate will find here dogmatic theology at its biblical, ecclesial, and ecumenical best.”

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.

‘Ecclesial Repentance. The Churches Confront Their Sinful Pasts’

I have received very interesting endorsements for Jeremy M. Bergen’s book and thought I could share these with you. ‘Ecclesial Repentance. The Churches Confront Their Sinful Pasts’ is being worked on as I am posting this and this book won’t be published for quite some time, however, following my usual routine with the manuscript I have asked people to read and to endorse it. I’ve been pleasantly surprised when all of them have agreed to write reviews for this work. Right now I am pleased even more as three endorsements have come to my inbox and it is great to see that Jeremy’s book has been received so warmly! This book offers a very topical debate on recent events regarding the Church that we are all, to some extent, familiar with.

So, without further ado, here they are:

‘This is a wonderful example of systematic ecclesiological inquiry that is disciplined both by faithful dialogue with the doctrinal tradition and by critical engagement with what churches and church people are actually doing. In the first part of the book, Bergen present an immensely helpful analytic description and assessment of a wide range of concrete examples of acts of apology and repentance performed in recent years by churches, governments and other groups, together with their varied receptions. Reflecting upon this material in the second part, he constructs a bold yet deeply thoughtful ecclesiological proposal that deserves careful consideration, not least for its ecumenical benefits. Particularly significant is his proposal that the Church’s continuity over time derives not from claims about some ideal or institutional element. Rather, he reworks the creedal ‘communion of saints’ – and sinners! – to argue that it is these practices of repentance and forgiveness, enabled by the Holy Spirit, that enable us both to appropriate our churches’ pasts and be drawn up in Christ into the life of God. It is thus ‘through repentance the Church may be granted a share of its own continuity in God’s triune life’, and thus truly be the Church.’ – Nicholas Healy, St. John's University, NY, USA.

Online Review: Reading the Decree

There is a new online review on the Barth Center website for David Gibson's book Reading the Decree, reviewed by Sung-Sup Kim.

This book offers a carefully constructed comparison of Calvin and Barth with a close reading of their exegetical works. Too often these theologians’ dogmatic characteristics have been attributed to everything from their philosophical mindset to their quirky personalities, but not enough to differences in how they read the Bible. Gibson draws attention in the right direction. Furthermore, the distinction between soteriological and principial christocentrism (and the corresponding distinction between extensive and intensive christocentrism) that he places in the center of his thesis has the power of simplicity to carry the whole argument to the end with coherence.

You can read the full review here.

More on Bonhoeffer

I thought I might share this interesting comment with you. I found a discussion on another book on Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas, published by Thomas Nelson this year. The reviewer, Andy Rowell, writes that "until now, American readers have lacked an account of Bonhoeffer's life that is both thorough and engagingly readable, a book that captures the full sweep of his remarkable story and highlights its meaning for us today."

In response to that author and scholar Charles Marsh comments:

In fact, there are a number of excellent biographies that offer an "account of Bonhoeffer's life that is both thorough and engagingly readable....that captures the full sweep of his remarkable story." The best is Ferdinand Schlingensiepen's "Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945, Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance," published in translation last month by T & T Clark/Continuum. FS worked closely with Bethge and served on the editorial board of the 16 volume Bonhoeffer Werke. A nice bonus: FS got permission from the Bonhoeffer family to print previously unpublished photographs.

See his full comment here. (click on comment tag)

If rumours are anything to go by, Charles Marsh is working on a major study of Bonhoeffer's time in the United States...

Online Review: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Church Times had a very nice review of Schlingensiepen's new Bonhoeffer biography last Friday. It is now available online. I would not have thought that one could cover Boswell and Johnson and also Abaelard and Heloise in a review of a book on Bonhoeffer, but there you go...

"Few people, since the time of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, have been as fortunate in their biographers as Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Eberhard Bethge. His is, and will remain, the standard life by a friend, a kinsman, and a compan­ion. Still, as he himself admitted, a book of more than 1000 pages is too long for many readers, and in any case perspectives have changed since 1967, new material has come to light, and an author can no longer take for granted an immediate knowledge of the complexities of life in both Church and State in the Third Reich.

The need for a shorter study was met in 1992 by Renate Wind’s A Spoke in the Wheel; and Ferdinand Schlingensiepen now meets our other needs with this equally admir­able work. It is a standard biography in 12 chronological chapters, start­ing with Bonhoeffer’s privileged birth in the noonday of the cultural élite of Wilhelminian Germany, and ending with his horrific death on the gallows in the twilight of a truly evil empire.

It was not only faith in Jesus Christ, but also the inner security that he gained from his family, his education, and his position in society, which gave him the inner strength progressively to detach himself from the particularities of class, nation, and denomination in order to become a “man for others”, and thus to belong to us all as a teacher and martyr of the universal Church.

Bethge was writing when it was still necessary to convince a sceptical German public that the conspirators against Adolf Hitler were not trai­tors but true patriots. Schlingen­siepen emphasises rather the explicit connection that Bonhoeffer made between theology and political action. “It was theological thinking and decisions that made this Con­fessing Church pastor a member of the Resistance movement.”

He has made excellent use of newly opened archives of both the Resistance and the Confessing Church, on the one hand, and of the various competing, gangsterish institutions of Hitler’s Germany, on the other.

Bonhoeffer’s correspondence with his fiancée, the talented and spirited Maria von Wedemeyer, which was not available to Bethge, deepens and humanises the por­trait­ure. They were never alone together during their engagement, which consisted of “eighteen agon­izing farewells”; and yet this is a love-story to set beside that of Hélöise and Abelard."

Read the full review here.

As mentioned yesterday, amazon.com and amazon.co.uk are running a special offer on the book.

New issue of Princeton Theological Review online!

The latest issue of the Princeton Theological Review is now available online. I carries among other stuff a review of Michael Allen's The Christ's Faith by Evan Kuehn. You can find it in the pdf on page 97-98. Enjoy!  

"Allen’s contribution to the question of Christ’s faith is both richly substantive and far-reaching. The thesis is carefully executed. Apart from merely arguing for a certain position, Allen recognizes the obstacles and concerns blocking an embrace of the human faith of Christ by Reformed theologians, and he seeks to allay these concerns through appeal to Scripture and ecumenical dialogue between Thomist and Reformed traditions. In this goal he is impressively successful. Even those personally unconvinced of the human faith of Christ will find a compelling account of the receptiveness of Reformed and Chalcedonian dogmatic commitments to such an affirmation."

Review in the Church Times

Canon Paul Bradshaw has kindly reviewed Laszlo Dobszay's book on the Restoration and Development of the Roman Rite in last week's edition of the Church Times. 

"A STEADILY growing body of literature is building up within Roman Catholic circles that claims that the liturgical reforms that have emerged within that Church are not what the Second Vatican Coun­cil originally in-tended. It is argued that the Roman Rite had previously always dev­eloped “organically”, whereas the new rite represents a complete rup­ture with that tradi­tion. In this stable László Dobszay’s book firmly belongs.

What is unique about his con­tribu­tion, however, is that he is not urging a “reform of the reform”, as others tend to do. He does not think “that the content of the post­conciliar reform liturgy can really be reformed”. Instead, what he advo­cates is that existing alongside this modern rite should be “a process of continuous and organic develop­ment of the classicalRoman Rite”, whose 1962 form has recently been authorised for use in Latin by Pope Benedict XVI. 

The bulk of this substantial book is a series of very detailed proposals for doing this within what the author believes to be the true spirit of the Second Vatican Council, even including a limited use of the ver-­nacular. His suggestions are not res­tricted to the eucharist alone, but also cover the daily office, the calendar and lectionary, Holy Week rites, and — as might be ex­pected from a musicologist — the chants of the mass."

Read the full review here. 

Online reviews in Systematic Theology

News have reached us about two online reviews:

The Centre for Barth Studies have put a review on of Paul Dafydd Jones' "The Humanity of Christ" by Darren O Sumner.

"The Humanity of Christ supplies the field of contemporary Barth scholarship with one of its most significant works of the twenty-first century so far through a thorough examination of a major locus in Barth’s theology. Originating as a doctoral dissertation at Harvard University and recently honored with the Templeton Award, Paul Dafydd Jones’ book examines Christology diachronically through the Church Dogmatics. As the title suggests, at issue for Jones – associate professor at the University of Virginia’s Department of Religious Studies – is Barth’s robust account of the humanity of Jesus Christ, in opposition to the common charge “that Barth’s strong affirmation of Christ’s divinity makes for an enfeebled account of Christ’s humanity” (3). Meticulously researched and organized, the work synthesizes much of the Dogmatics, offering summaries and insightful analysis of Barth’s theology."

You can read the full review here.

The other review is from Themelios for a volume in our T&T Studies in Systematic Theology: Reading the Decree by David Gibson.

"This is a fine book that deserves a wide reading from students of Calvin, Barth, and the Reformed tradition, as well as all those interested in the doctrines of Christ and election. Gibson shows familiarity with the works of Calvin (both commentaries and the Institutes) and Barth as well as the vast secondary literature; he also sees the limits in many scholarly tendencies (e.g., the tendency to see primarily philosophical grounds for both Calvin’s and Barth’s doctrine of election). Above all, he shows acuity in tracing the underappreciated influence of exegesis upon two master theologians. One can only hope that many will follow Gibson’s example in showing the way in which biblical exegesis has shaped dogmatic reasoning on various topics within the Christian tradition, and we might pray that many more will be inspired to imitate this biblical pursuit."

You can read the full review here.