the Spirit of Life

This book is the fourth of Jürgen Moltmann's series of contributions to systematic theology, this one dealing with the Holy Spirit's nature, character, and activity. The book is subtitled "a universal affirmation" and it delivers on this promise, as I will expand on later. For now, let's go through a rough outline of its contents - after a brief introduction discussing contemporary approaches to pneumatology, the book is split into three main parts:

1. Experiences of the Spirit - starting with a consideration of how God, being immanently transcendent, is experienced through experiences of life itself; then how the Spirit has been experienced historically, as divine energy, through God's people, the Shekinah, and messianic expectation; and finally Trinitarian experiences reflected in Christ's own spirituality, the spirit of Christ, and the mutuality between these two members of the Trinity.
2. Life in the Spirit - here we deal with the spiritual vitality of life; the liberation aspect as the Spirit bestows freedom upon its subjects; the justification aspect as the Spirit brings justice to victims, perpetrators, and structures; the regeneration and rebirth themes; the holiness which the Spirit helps people grow into through sanctification; the specific charismatic powers that the Spirit bestows upon select individuals and the purposes of these; and lastly how all this fits into thinking about mystical experience.
3. The fellowship and person of the Spirit - we first look at experience of fellowship and how this is interpenetrated with experience of the Spirit, how this is expressed in Christianity, and how loving relationships embody a social experience of God's being; then move onto ways of describing the personality of the Spirit through a range of utterly inadequate but humanly helpful metaphors (grouped into personal, formative, movement, and mystical), the streaming divinity of the Spirit's personhood, and how this fits together with various conceptions of the Trinitarian schema [the final section of this last bit takes a bit of a left turn to consider whether the filioque is a superfluous addition to the Nicene Creed or not, which is a bit detached from the rest of the book but in such an ecumenical sequence of ideas it's good to have it in there].

   So clearly this book covers a lot of ground - and the same caveats as I've given in previous posts about Moltmann's books apply here. But that subtitle, "a universal affirmation", truly does describe the overall bent of this book: while it is densely academic in style, to grasp the thrust of the arguments being made is to genuinely be held close in the encouraging embrace of the Holy Spirit as that which loves and affirms life in itself - I've labelled the post for this one "spirituality" not because it offers anything new or innovative to the Christian experience of spiritual life but because it so deeply and roundly affirms the goodness and the dependability of the basic facts of the Christian life insofar as it is spiritually experienced. The world these days is all too often dark and confusing, and much of the time I find it hard even with my faith to look to the future as the site of many tangible promises for human flourishing; but this book has done more to restore my trust in God's ineffable brilliance and unpredictability and love for that which is recognisable yet new, fresh, surprising, than almost anything else I've ever read. If you're only going to read one book out of Moltmann's contributions to systematic theology, I'd make it this one, as it will give you an identity statement and modus operandi for arguably the most mysterious member of the Trinity, that will deepen your cognizance of God's work in the world and your life, and broaden the intake valves of your heart for abundant security of hope and joy.

Fire with Fire

This book by Naomi Wolf is a powerfully optimistic perspective on the rising tide of female power toward the end of the 20th-century, envisioning how this trend can be held onto & grown into the 21st.*

   The text is split into five parts: firstly, an examination of what she calls the "genderquake" and the declining hegemony of masculine power, with a concomitant shift in female consciousness; secondly, considerations of where feminism may be falling short of its potential in recent years as it becomes co-opted by middle-class consumer models alien to its radical roots; fourthly, a dissection of the feminine fear of power & the need for a new psychology to emerge to overcome this; fifthly & finally recommendations for where to go from where the book concludes.

   I neglected to mention the third part above as that forms the longest chunk of the book, and is most central to Wolf's whole gist with it. Here she outlines two competing traditions within feminism as she sees it: "power feminism", which is all about maximally fighting for & holding onto equality without shame or doubt; and "victim feminism", which is more about emphasising the difference between men & women then highlighting the ways in which the former harm & suppress the latter all in an impotent hand-wringing sort of way. Wolf makes it very clear that she vehemently feels victim feminism has run up against number of cultural & socio-political impasses, and is now largely holding the wider movement back. There are implications in these chapters to be found of relevance to modern marginalised communities - those protesting their rights on the streets versus those who would rather simply retreat into a demarked safe space. In my opinion Wolf goes a little too harshly in her critique, and though her principles are in the right place she can't expect everybody to have the circumstances or disposition necessary to join her at the same exact spice level of her own activism. Another critique I would make is that her discussion of feminism in general is far from satisfyingly intersectional, though given the age of this book I suppose that's to be expected.

   While outdated in many places, I still found this a compelling and interesting perspective on the promise & potential of feminism, and though the basic points are almost certainly better said more relevantly to the 2020's by more recent authors, I guess this would be worth a read if you're interested in the evolution of contemporary feminist thought.

* So much & yet so little has changed since this was published over thirty years ago - one has to wonder how much of this book's core theses would still be held by Wolf today, as well as how many extra chapters she would need to add to discuss the tectonic shifts in feminism generally in those intervening decades.

Legion

This book by Dan Abnett is the seventh Horus Heresy novel, and the strangest yet by a mile. The Adeptus Astartes are barely in it! For the majority of the narrative we're following regular human soldiers through a largely uneventful* conflict where despite the overall lack of significant threat there is a significant aura of uncertainty due to the secrecy and shadiness of the Alpha Legion, the Astartes supporting them in this arena - secrecy and shadiness only compounded by the Alpha Legion's primarch Alpharius never quite seeming to be exactly the same person twice, though nobody can ever quite exactly tell as all of the Alpha Legion look so similar. The chief secondary plotline follows a mysterious immortal human called John Grammaticus, who is on a mission all his own to manipulate the Alpha Legion into contacting and collaborating with The Cabal, an inter-species collective of concerned parties working for the future cohesion of galactic order. Without giving away too much about what Alpharius and company make of the Cabal, or Grammaticus's role in things, there is a serious bombshell in here about how an Astartes Legion may choose to throw their weight behind the forces of heresy not out of disloyalty to the Imperium but out of sheer, cold, calculated pragmatism for the greater good. This is a disarmingly gripping instalment in the series - no major epic battles, but a deeper, sharper war over trust and truth.

* So much so that there is a solid six-page passage devoted to describing a weird little game that the troops play amongst themselves wherein they have to find a rock head only just smaller than the next biggest rock head someone else has. I found this bit thoroughly entertaining.

Descent of Angels

This book by Mitchel Scanlon is the sixth instalment of the Horus Heresy mega-series. In this one we open into a time before the Great Crusade had even properly taken off yet - those days when the Emperor (who we do get a snapshot glimpse of partway through for the first time in the series) was still collecting the primarchs from across the galaxy - in this case, Lion el'Jonson* of the planet Caliban, which is home to knightly orders sworn to protect the citizenry of their world from the great and terrible beasts which pretty much control the deep, dark forests covering most of the planet. Throughout the book we follow cousins Zahariel and Nemiel on their journey from supplicants to the Lion's knightly Order, to their establishment within the ranks as fully-grown knights, then the utterly unexpected arrival of Imperial forces turning Caliban's forests into factories and its culture into a mere expansion of the Emperor's divine mission to unite humanity - the shock of this transition is tempered significantly by the acceptance of both into the ranks of el'Jonson's new Astartes Legion, the Dark Angels, and these brave children of Caliban join the Crusade rolling through the galaxy to whatever end. So ultimately this book is less epic in scope than most of the previous instalments, but it provides a vitally interesting window into what worlds (and primarchs) may have been like before the Emperor came along to bestow upon them their Imperial destiny, and explores the potential sources of friction from this grand inclusion.

* Easily my favourite primarch so far - he just oozes chivalry and charisma.

Zen in the Art of Writing

This book is a collection of essays by Ray Bradbury on the art of writing. He was an exceptionally prolific and deeply skilled writer so it goes without saying that this is a very readable text. Moreover the nature of the thoughts and insights he has on the writing process, from the quandaries of inspiration to the mechanics of typing, are incredibly useful - I read this as I am suffering from somewhat of a creative slump in my own writing activities, but I have to say I found Ray's words here to be immensely liberating, empowering, and so forth. If you're already a fan of Bradbury's work you might find this an interesting insight into his process, but really the main bulk of potential audience I would recommend this to is creative writers themselves. Take good advice from an expert.

2023 catch-up

So last year I read forty-seven books, which is not bad but not amazing for a year on this blog. Let's get right into a bit of a recap...

• I read The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time: it's alright, I suppose
• The Cloven, the final book in Brian Catling's Vorrh trilogy, was immensely satisfying
• One of my favourite Discworld novels so far
• I finally finished the re-read of the Gaunt's Ghosts series that I started last year
• Even more Warhammer 40,000 novels
• And even more - though rather than grimdark these ones were genuinely funny, one following the haphazardness of orks at war and the second following the petty feud of two ancient necron rivals
• And I must be insane because I've started reading the Horus Heresy series
• Inspirational and invocational Christian books
• The second [on creation] and third [on Christ] books in Jürgen Moltmann's series of contributions to systematic theology, which I'm really getting a lot out of
• A book that made me want to do better as a white person
• Classic anarchist theory from Kropotkin
• Pete Bearder's excellent work in the theory and practice of poetry - as well as poetry itself from both the London Underground and medieval Persia
• Ancient Jewish apocrypha
• A very depressing document detailing much of the problems in my old church
• Søren Kierkegaard's very difficult theory of anxiety and sin
• Reading Korsgaard's brilliant book on active selfhood for the third time
• This fun, magical little kid's book which I bought for my niece
• Bertrand Russell's very long very good History of Western Philosophy
• And finally, I'd be astounded to discover that this wasn't the worst thing J.D. Salinger ever managed to get published - as someone who loved all four of his books, this was a genuinely upsetting experience to read

   That's it for some of the highlights (and lowlights, although thankfully this year there seem to have been very few of these). Onwards into 2024 - and hopefully an increasingly more diverse reading journey! Thanks to all my many many readers [lol] for sticking with my ramblings here, hope you've been enjoying following along with all the random fictional and non-fictional things I put in my brain.

Peace & love

Isaac Stovell