Books Reviewed in Modern Believing 48:2 April 2007
Mark Thiessen Nation
John Howard Yoder: Mennonite Patience, Evangelical Witness, Catholic Convictions. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006)
Reviewed by Neil Messer
The American Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, who died aged 70 in 1997, has a deservedly high profile in North America, as Mark Thiessen Nation takes pains to point out in this fine new study of his life and work. He is less celebrated, I suspect, elsewhere in the English-speaking theological world, but he deserves to be better known for several reasons.
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Edited by Brian Davies,
Aquinas's Summa Theologiae: Critical Essays. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Pp. xix, 270.)
Reviewed by Thomas O'Loughlin
The key to this volume is the rationale of the series to which it belongs: ‘[to offer] insightful and accessible essays that shed light on the classics of philosophy' (p.ii). It is an implicit acknowledgement of the place many today grant Aquinas as a philosopher that, in a series, so far, of seventeen volumes, this is the only one dedicated to someone who lived between the time of Aristotle and Descartes.
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George Pattison,
Thinking About God in an Age of Technology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp.271.)
Reviewed by John Hughes
George Pattison's latest book, Thinking About God in an Age of Technology , continues to develop some of the themes and interests that have been evident in his other recent works, such as Agnosis: Theology in the Void , or The End of Theology – and the Task of Thinking about God , applying them to the great modern ‘problem' of technology. Pattison's is an unusual voice in the contemporary theological scene, combining currents that are normally disdainful of one another: for example, a modernism which is highly suspicious of even the most minimal doctrine and seeks to embrace the spirit of the age, and an interest in such famously counter-modern high theorists as Heidegger. One senses Pattison is aware of this and a little defensive of his not-fitting. This combination of concerns ought to make the book appeal to a wide range of thinkers, pushing them at the boundaries of their own thought, but one fears that it is equally likely that most will simply go away frustrated: the theologians feeling that the theology is far too tentative, while the secularists see no point in even raising the question; or the modernists frustrated with Pattison's anxieties about technology, while others feel he is insufficiently critical.
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Ken Stone
Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective. ( London: T & T Clark, 2005. Pp. 185.)
Reviewed by Robert Thompson
This stimulating contribution to the Queering Theology series is worth it just for the ironic playfulness of its title. Stone appeals to the rhetoric of 'safer sex' as a model for engagement with biblical texts. Biblical interpretation, like sex, can be pleasurable and life enhancing but it can also be violent, even death producing. Therefore there is a need for the 'creation of safer textual intercourse' (p. 12).
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Steven Shakespeare and Hugh Rayment–Pickard,
The Inclusive God: Reclaiming Theology for an Inclusive Church. (London: Canterbury Press 2006. Pp.128.)
Reviewed by Adrian Alker
Do you know of any church which does not claim to be inclusive? Which church would not say that it welcomes all people? Not many! At a time of declining church membership we see all kinds of initiatives – fresh expressions – to reach out to people who are not to be found in our churches on Sunday. However, we are also living through a time when issues around inclusivity, such as the debate over women bishops and gays in the Church, seem to fuel so much bitter conflict and debate.
The Inclusive God is a timely piece of writing which, as the foreword by Giles Fraser makes clear, strongly asserts that Christianity is inclusive to its core. Whilst we are seeing a number of Christian organisations campaigning on specific matters, this book invites us to step back from particular issues and understand how inclusivity is integral to all Christian theology. The authors in this respect have done a great service in convincing us that inclusivity is not an optional extra but at the heart of the mission and ministry of Christ.
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Thomas P. Rausch,
Towards a Truly Catholic Church: An Ecclesiology for the Third Millennium. (Collegeville, Minnesota: Michael Glazier/Liturgical Press, 2005. Pp. xii, 235.)
Reviewed by Paul Gadie
In this book, Rausch offers the reader an ecclesiology developed from his own perspective (an American Jesuit and Professor of Catholic Theology) heavily influenced by the voices of other academics, from Orthodox, Protestant and Evangelical traditions.
He hopes to rediscover a unity between the divided churches in order that they ‘enter into full communion with each other' (p.7) and offers us four underlying principles. First, the Church is to remain rooted in the teachings and actions of Jesus and, secondly, is founded on the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, whilst the New Testament provides a foundation for understanding the Church, it may not be read without a ‘pre-critical' approach to the text. Finally, knowledge of church history is essential for an ecclesiology aware of its structures and origins. These principles have contexts: the Second Vatican Council, the movement of Catholic ecclesial understanding and its understanding of other churches from 16th to 20th century; an ecumenical approach capable of challenging church disunity; and the global context as ‘globalization becomes the context for any serious and “genuinely” catholic consideration of the Church' (p. 11).
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Brian J Walsh and Sylvia C Keesmaat,
Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire. ( Illinois: IVP Press Downers Grove, 2004. Pp.256.)
Reviewed by William S. Campbell
The authors, Walsh a chaplain at the University of Toronto, and Keesmaat, who teaches at the Toronto Institute for Christian studies, have combined to produce an accessible and challenging volume reading the message of Colossians in stark antithesis both to the first century Roman Empire and also to the consumer driven imperialism of contemporary North America. This political reading of a shorter New Testament letter gives a good account of the all-pervading ideological claims of Roman Imperialism and likewise a sharp analysis of contemporary ideologies and value systems.
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