the Cross of Christ

This book is John Stott's magnum opus, diving deep into the titular heart of the Christian faith. It is rigorous but accessible, profound but familiar, consistently biblically-grounded & full of pastoral application. Highly recommended reading for any Christian who wants to more expansively understand the wonderful divine mystery of Christ's substitutionary death for us and what it means. I've been reading through it ten or so pages at a time with my dad, which has led to some incredibly helpfully-edifying & spiritually-provocative conversations, so I would  highly recommend doing something similar to get the most out of this chonky tome - indeed, the edition I've linked here includes a study guide at the back, which we didn't use, but I imagine would be greatly fruitful.

the Vision of God

This book (available from the Internet Archive from that link for free) by Nicholas of Cusa* is an underrated classic of Christian mysticism. It eschews the argumentative polemic format & instead takes on a kind of prolonged doxology - which fully befits its core theme, the infinity of God. The first half circles around the implications of the ideas that God is omniscient & omnipresent, everywhere & everywhen & thus all-seeing, all-knowing; the theological groundwork discussed here is drawn out in subjective implication for the believer in how they relate to [i.e. can see, can know] God as, being as they are, finite. The second half is dedicated to unpacking the depths of the Christian idea of God as Trinity, and how this relates to philosophical notions of infinitude; followed with unpacking the nest of complexities in how Jesus relates to God as infinite - a hefty task which in my opinion Nicholas undertakes well. While perhaps not as original in content as some of his other works (see the * below) as this is merely expanding on well-trodden ground within Christian thinking, this book still explores some very cogent angles about essentials of orthodox faith & does so in beautiful language; definitely worth a read for any Christian wanting to pick at the scab of ignorance that has formed over the cut in their spiritual skin made by cognizance that we, as finite human sinners, somehow have to relate to an infinite incomprehensible perfect Lord.

* Yeh, what with this after this and that I've been reading a lot of him recently. What can I say? Interesting thinker!

Enjoying God

This book is another straight-up easy-to-read edifying banger from Tim Chester, who has made a habit of writing that kind of book. I've just binged it in more or less one sitting, which is particularly impressive at it's Christmas Day so to find such an uninterrupted run of free time is frankly shocking* - I'm staying back at my family's house for the holidays and this book was on the shelves of the absent lodger whose room (which is technically my old room anyway) I am temporarily occupying, so I decided to borrow** it as it's been a while since I read a theology book by myself.

   The book is organised in an extremely straightforward and helpful way. The first couple of chapters are largely introductory, initially opening a broad discussion of what we mean when we say or feel that we want more of God, before conducting a brief examination of what we mean when we say or feel that we're experiencing joy. Then the meat of the book is arranged into nine chapters, three for each Person of the Trinity, walking attentively through ways in which God breaks into our lives in the everyday and thus can be enjoyably related to therein. We enjoy the Father's generosity in every pleasure, His formation in every hardship, His welcome in every prayer; we enjoy Christ's grace in every failure, his presence in every pain, his touch in every supper; we enjoy the Holy Spirit's life in every temptation, her hope in every groan, her voice in every word. Following this, before a perfunctory concluding chapter, are a final pair discussing how we can enjoy God's love through one another and enjoy God's freedom through daily repentance and faith.

   As is his wont in his depth of distilled wisdom and insight, Chester has stuffed every one of these chapters chock-full of dense complex theological ideas - communicated helpfully in language that a twelve-year old could engage with without difficulty. I always recommend Tim Chester's books and this is no different - if your walk with God has started to feel a bit too austere, too ordinary, too rote, this book could be a great resource to kickstart your heart a bit in the direction of attentively and gratefully enjoying God for who He is more. Highly recommended reading for all Christians but especially if you're going through a bit of a slump.

* To be fair Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was on in the background.

** Cheers Bethan - though you'll likely never know.

Galatians Study

This book (available for free online from that link) is a Bible study by Tim Keller working through Paul's letter to the Galatian church. I've been working through it with my dad over the last few months, and would highly recommend it as a small-group study resource. The Galatian epistle is a potent little depth-charge of a book anyway, but Keller's insightful commentary and selection of passages from other theologians (especially John Stott and Martin Luther) who have written about the letter make this study extremely edifying and fruitful for thinking through Christian discipleship in powerfully provocative and helpful ways.

Luther's Large Catechism

This book (available online for free from that link) is the fuller version* of Luther's catechism (i.e. the basic text for introducing the tenets of a faith), and as such is probably one of the most influential key texts in the history of Protestant thought and practice. Lutheran** readers will likely be intimately familiar with it already but anyone with an interest in Christian history would find a lot to gain by reading it, and Christians of other denominations will discover in it a rich orthodox statement of how we are called, nay, privileged, to live by faith in the clear simple light of truth. I have no substantive theological or ethical bones to pick here - it is, from my perspective, a faithful and trustworthy testament and valuable for introductory teaching. It is consistently scripturally-grounded and remarkably well-written; Luther was not one to mince words and lays out these reflections on the Christian life and basic theological support for them in direct, accessible language.

   Luther kicks the document off with a walk through the Ten Commandments, and here we come to our first quibble - he messes with them a bit for reasons that elude me. He has condensed the first and second commandments into one, so that we end up with it being a total statement of non-idolatrous monotheism, but with no discussion of the "who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" portion of these lines in the actual Bible (check it out); he has then kept the list counting to ten by separating the tenth commandment into two. Quite what he was doing in this I cannot say... I mean, so much for sola scriptura, right? But his actual reflections on the Ten are thoroughly helpful. A few minor quibbles - in the section on respecting one's mother and father he extends this commandment to political authority, which rankles me as an anarchist. Further on that point in the section on "thou shalt not kill" he seems to make the point that state authority is exempt from this particular moral absolute, which rankled my anarchism-senses even more. He does in this same section say that enabling death by privilege and neglect is just as condemnable as outright murder though, which is a take Peter Unger would heartily approve. In the section on adultery, we have this fascinating and disturbing quote when he is talking about the problematic outcome of Catholic insistence on clerical celibacy: "For no one has so little love and inclination to chastity as just those who because of great sanctity avoid marriage, and either indulge in open and shameless prostitution, or secretly do even worse, so that one dare not speak of it, as has, alas! been learned too fully." [italics mine.] We all know too well the Catholic Church's historical struggles with abusive paedophilia - part of me wonders whether this was already rearing its head five centuries ago to the point that it was unspoken but common knowledge. The section on theft is wonderfully expansive - a full Marxist analysis of this bit would yield some truly spectacular insights, I feel. The section on lying is morally robust but could be made a great deal stronger with the inclusion of some generally-considered epistemology and psychology. And the section[s] on envy take an unexpectedly objective, active view of this particular sin, which I was raised to think was more the mere subjective passive condition of indulging jealousy, but that Luther seems to say is when one makes actual decisive effort to acquire the property of another.

   The sections walking through the Creed I have very little to say about - this is just hardcore solid uplifting theology communicated with a depth and a deftness I have seldom found elsewhere. His linguistic nuances when talking about "churchness" in the bit about the Holy Spirit are helpful, though I found his maintenance of institutional borders in those same paragraphs less so.

   His opening reflections on the Lord's Prayer are just beautiful in style and empowering in substance. The discussion on the request for "our daily bread" furthermore is intriguingly and helpfully ecological and sociological in its scope.

   The final section, dealing with the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, are also highly moving in their depictions of the spiritual realities contained within these ritual practices, and as a Quaker I found these parts rather convicting (Quakers in general do not formally practice either of these sacraments, as we take a more holistic symbolic view of their intent), in ways that bear further consideration on my part.

   Overall this is an incredibly powerful statement of some of the basic tenets of a good Christian life, written by one of the most reputable sources thereupon. Definitely worth a read if that sounds like the kind of thing you'd benefit from. And who wouldn't? God's goodness shines through clearly on every page of this thing; it leaves one hungry for grace.

* Compare with the Small Catechism that I read yesterday. I gave minimal reflections on that as it made more sense to do that here when reading the principal longer document.

** I consider Lutheranism to be the burning bridge between the Catholic and Protestant communions - and this comes across in Luther's own doctrine, attitude and style.

Glossolalia - Manmade or God-given?

This book, which unfortunately I am unable to provide any link for as it remains an unpublished and thus publicly unavailable work, is the undergraduate dissertation of Andrew Stovell - my father. It's a dispassionate and rigorous study of the phenomenon of glossolalia, more commonly known as "speaking in tongues", from both a biblically-considered and linguistic pair of angles. I've just read the whole thing in one sitting as I stumbled upon a chapter in another book about this and my mum mentioned "oh, dad wrote his thesis on that!" so I gave it an appropriate detour.

   It's a really interesting read. The first part lays out a groundwork for what glossolalia is, how it is portrayed and discussed in the Bible to start with, then briefly looking at how it has manifested throughout history, leading up to contemporary practices in charismatic churches. The second part is a literature review of other linguists' studies into the phenomenon, which deftly summarises the scant but deep insights of other academic perspectives, most of which this thesis's author largely supports in his argumentation. The third and final part comprises an in-depth phonetical and phonological analysis of ten recorded (and meticulously transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet in the lengthy appendix) examples of actual purported glossolalia, with some reflections as to the nature of these and what that implies as to whether they can be understood as language at all.

   Ultimately my dad concludes that the biblical accounts of "speaking in tongues" are quite clearly talking about "xenoglossia" (speaking a different real language) rather than "glossolalia" (speaking incomprehensible *possibly angelic* languages) and all scholarly analysis of modern such speakers drives to the point where we cannot confirm these instances to be of any real human language; indeed he goes further to point out that examples of glossolalia are very often characterised by frequent repetition of simple phonemes with no clear syntactical or grammatical logics at play, and thus even if we are to understand these utterances as divinely-inspired language of some form, it is odd to note that those divine languages must be overwhelmingly composed of the sounds babbling toddlers are wont to make. Which is to say, the actual spiritual gift of speaking in tongues is biblically historical and useful, whereas given the evidence we probably have to admit that the modern phenomenon of it is conversely essentially gobbledegook.

   If your curiosity is so piqued by this post that you actually want to read this, and if you do have a linguistic interest in the veracity of speaking in tongues I would recommend this as a resource certainly, but as I mentioned it's not published anywhere so if you find yourself desperate drop me a comment and I'll ask my dad whether we can scan it into a more easily distributable .pdf or something.

the Prophetic Imagination

This book is one that I have read before since the start of this blog, hence the link above leading back to my prior post. I've been re-reading this in chunks with my dad, and frankly have to say I found this an incredibly edifying procedure, as not only was I re-treated to Brueggemann's incisive theological points but also the rich and often surprising conversations with my dad after each chapter or so. I said before in my original post that this book is challenging but well worth a dive, and off the back of this more recent experience I will add that I particularly recommend this book as something to go through as part of a small-group study, as it has plenty of practical provocative material from both Old and New testaments that should get a cluster of Christians thinking prophetically, and that can hardly be a bad thing.

Metanoia

This book by Alan Hirsch and Rob Kelly is, as its subtitle proclaims, a study of "how God radically transforms people, churches and organizations from the inside-out". The book is divided into two sections: why and how.

   The "why" section first deals with the potential problems that any church faces, and the grim apocalypse of failure in the face of such. We then dive into "metanoia" (a Greek word meaning roughly "to go into the Big Mind") as a practice of continually returning oneself to Godward sight and re-tuning our learned habits and ideas to better fit God's moulds. The next chapter looks deeper into the sinful, finite nature of human beings to explicate why this is such a necessary process. Then, a christological consideration of how only by decidedly and intuitively continuing to maintain our union with Christ is the kind of transformation metanoia brings possible. Finally a reflection on the human heart, and how only when in all its parts - mind, soul, and will - it is consciously and deliberatively united with Christ will we see the fruit we desire.

   The "how" section builds off of this seamlessly; after an introductory section emphasising the essentiality of being willing to unlearn and relearn things, we see how communities can be transformed by metanoia on three levels: at core a new paradigm (a fundamental kernel to "blow the collective mind"); built off which are new platforms (structural developments that help reshape and keep "the collective soul"); and lastly embodied in new practices (any practical habitual means of "engaging the collective will"). This section is littered with examples but insistent on its message that no single strategy can work conclusively in any context - our models of church must be Christ-centred and Christ-grounded, but beyond that everything we do that we think of as church must be open for question and evolution.

   I found this book eye-opening and liberating in many ways. Hirsch writes from experience as someone deeply involved in very innovative and effective church-planting/growing organisations - and that experience very much comes through in this text. Anyone involved in Christian leadership would benefit greatly from this profound little book.

Body

This book by Paula Gooder is an exploration of Judeo-Christian conceptions of the body and its relation to spirituality, as expounded in the Bible, with particular focus on the writings of Paul the apostle. She finishes her introduction with a very helpful and nuanced glossary of Hebrew (eg. nephesh) and Greek (eg. pneuma) words that she places under systematic consideration throughout the book - I found myself returning to this list multiple times throughout reading but you get used to the fine-tuned differentiations in definition as you go. Several chapters deal with biblical conceptions of the soul and how it relates to the body, both in life and in eternity, and having never read anything about this before I found these particularly illuminating chapters. The text overall makes a brilliant case for inclusion of our consideration of the body in holistic Christian spirituality. Would recommend for anyone interested in these topics; it's academically written but not inaccessibly so.

Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy

This book by Orthodox pastor Andrew S. Damick is, essentially, a more-or-less [as far as I can tell with my limited knowledge] comprehensive survey of Every Christian Denomination And Why They're Not As Correct As Mine [i.e. Orthodoxy]. Instead of cherry-pickingly flattening every different interpretation of Christianity to form a new questionably-coherent picture of orthodox faith as some have, Damick is serious in his assertion that the Orthodox Church is the sole inheritor of an unbroken apostolic succession all the way back to Pentecost and therefore has the best claim today of being the most Christian Christianity out there. Obviously, such a project would lend itself quite naturally to spiritual pride & factionalism, but in my opinion Damick approaches the task with a humility & a generosity of understanding that, while far from ecumenical in scope, lays foundations for conversation such that ecumenical projects in the future might learn about & respect other traditions better.*

   The book's contents, thus, are as follows:

• introduction: brief reflections on the nature/purpose of religious truth.
• Orthodoxy: a portrait of the Orthodox Christian faith - we get the essential non-negotiable doctrines laid out in a mere two pages. This is followed by a listing of all the major heresies, the majority of which were stamped out [or at least argued into ridiculousness] in the earliest centuries of Church history.
• Roman Catholicism: an explanation of the Schism & the differences that both led up to it & developed after it, then going on to discuss the most major of these - those relating to the Pope, the sacraments, the nature of salvation, and the filioque.
• Protestantism: starting with a dissection of the five solas which emerged in the Reformation & the new traditions that sprang up around them - Lutheranism, the Reformed churches, Anglicanism [and its baby Methodism] - but oh no, this revolution won't stop! - as the Magisterial Reformation gave way to the Radical, ecclesiology itself was deconstructed & reimagined, as new denominations continued to proliferate - Anabaptists & Baptists, Moravians, Puritans [including my homefolk Quakers, who don't get nearly enough discussion in here] etc - flippin' 'eck it still won't stop, we get past The Great Awakening & Protestantism is continuing to question itself into fragments along lines of individualistic experiential faith, with this new Evangelical thrust developing theologies like restorationism, adventism, dispensationalism, etc - all the way up into the present & the foreseeable future.
• Pentecostalism: many would lump this in with the rest of Protestantism [even though it's already had three chapters to itself, greedy] but Damick makes a pretty solid case that it's different enough to constitute a whole new fourth paradigm of Christian expression - from its origins in the Holiness movement to its global reach as a charismatic denomination.
• Non-mainstream Christians: i.e. the kind of denominations that most other Christians agree don't count as actual Christians because they're so weird - for a few examples the Unitarian Universalists, Christian Science, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, etc.
• Non-Christian religions: this is easily the weakest chapter of the book - Damick is in his element discussing theological heterodoxies within the umbrella of Christ but his perfunctory surveying here leaves a lot to be desired - Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism & Scientology all only get three pages each [atheism is relegated to an appendix] - but then I suppose this book never claimed to be a full guide to world faiths, rather an apologetic project for Orthodoxy.
• Concluding remarks: a very reasonable & Christlike consideration of how an Orthodox Christian should relate to anyone from any other faith.

   I do consider myself an orthodox Christian, and following reading this book I am highly amenable to Orthodox Christianity - I checked Google Maps to find my nearest such church & it's half an hour down the motorway, which rules out a weekly shuttle as I don't drive, so however much theological unlearning I've been able to do with Father Damick's help I will still be worshipping as a Protestant** for the foreseeable future. This book is one I would recommend as a resource to help those confused about Christianity's internal diversity navigate the complex tangles of difference; just don't use it as such if you don't want whoever you're getting to read it to find Orthodoxy the most compelling expression of the faith.

* Although within the text itself Damick only uses the phrase thrice, the general thrust of potential spermatikos logos is littered throughout - he discusses both all heterodox Christianities as well as other religions not as if they were false, but as if they were incomplete. Very helpful little clarificatory nudge there.

** I'm a member of an Anglican parachurch community as well as a regular attender at both an FIEC church & Quaker meetings. Put me in a box.

the Courage to Be

This book by Paul Tillich is what I wanted Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety to be - a philosophically coherent and spiritually compelling discussion of anxiety, fear, and existential dread, as these are psychologically dissolved in the ontological freedom of faith which gives us "the courage to be".

   Tillich is always an interesting theologian to read in large part because he starts off seeming to not be doing theology at all. The first five chapters of this book are all grounded in philosophy and psychology, and only in the final chapter does he tie everything together into points immediately apparently relevant to the religious life of a believer. The first chapter is a rough introduction to the concept of courage in relation to being, walking briskly through Plato to Aquinas, the Stoics, Spinoza and Nietzsche; the second constructs a conceptual framework for anxiety through the interrelation of being and non-being (alongside this ontology he also sketches the three main types of anxiety natural to humankind - that is death, meaninglessness, and condemnation); and the third briefly deals with pathological anxiety and the circumstances that cause it to arise - also making a rough delineation between what needs treating pastorally and what medically. Chapters four and five then take the plunge into applying these foundations to two different manifestations of the courage to be: firstly the courage to be as a part of a larger whole, having a confident identity as a member of a collective (with a deeper inspection of conformist tendencies in Western democratic societies); then the courage to be oneself as the unique individual one is - unsurprisingly reflected to a great degree in the cultural and intellectual developments of existentialism. The final chapter then offers a third model of the courage to be, one which absorbs and transcends the previous two - this is a model only attainable by faith in the grace of God: when humankind encounters the divine and knows it is accepted by it, we are presented with a heavenly acceptance of who we are, and by accepting this acceptance we can start to grow in a confidence of our individual and collective identities, which as they develop give us an ever deeper penetration into the relationship with God that makes such courage to be possible.

   This was a very insightful read. Tillich's breadth of applicable understanding in both philosophy and psychology make for some very unexpected avenues of thought that nevertheless find their fruition in the conclusions. I'd highly recommend this book to readers of any faith who want to dive deeper into the means of avoiding despair at the human condition.

Union with Christ

This book is a collection of essays by the Puritan thinker Thomas Boston, on a theme which the title probably makes clear enough. I've been reading this through with my dad and have found the experience soundly edifying and an effective mode of discipleship, intellectually and spiritually. Boston's prose, though old, is not archaic, and thus relatively easy to read and interpret. The points he makes are very gospel-grounded; I don't think anything in this book would be at all controversial to most orthodox Christians, and I do think that much of what is in here would be of great help to those same in the deepening of their conviction as regards their union with Christ, as is the gist of the New Testament.

Signs of the Spirit

This book is an interpretation by Sam Storms of Jonathan Edwards's Religious Affections - part paraphrase, part summary, part commentary, in view of making the old Puritan's immensely dense & hard-to-read ideas in their original text more accessible to the modern layperson. Edwards easily ranks among the most important American theologians in history but he is notoriously difficult, obtuse even, in his writing style, so a book like this that attempts to communicate his arguments in shorter clearer sentences is of much value. The Religious Affections as a text is concerned with establishing biblically and doctrinally sound principles by which we may discern whether the spiritual experiences and outputs of a person's life can be known to be genuinely imparted by the Holy Spirit and thus attest to the authenticity of that person's faith.

   Storms (or perhaps Edwards, I have no means of telling what the original text's chapter division scheme is like) opens with a brief introduction on the nature of true spirituality - that is, a life of faith characterised by love for and joy in Jesus Christ - and that such a life will manifest spiritual affections, experiences of mind & heart that lift one into cognizant fellowship with the divine. He then establishes the biblical foundations for this concept, and briefly discusses its utility in prayer, praise & preaching. Then we get to the list of twenty-four affections at the core of the book: the first twelve are "signs of nothing", i.e. spiritual or psychological or emotional experiences that, however much they may feel or appear to be religious at face value, are actually inconclusive in determining whether they are genuine signs of saving faith; the subsequent twelve however are, according to Edwards, sure signifiers that the person experiencing the affection is numbered among God's children. Thus:

1. Affections that are truly spiritual and gracious arise from influences and operations on the heart that are supernatural and divine.
2. The first objective ground of gracious affections is the transcendently excellent and amiable nature of divine things as they are in themselves, and not in any conceived relation to self-interest.
3. Those affections that are truly holy are primarily founded on the loveliness of the moral excellence of divine things.
4. Gracious affections arise from the mind being enlightened rightly and spiritually to understand or apprehend divine things.
5. Truly gracious affections are attended with a reasonable and spiritual conviction of the judgement, reality and certainty of divine things.
6. Gracious affections are attended with evangelical humiliation [that is, authentic humility in Christ's service].
7. Gracious affections are distinguished from those that are false in that they are accompanied by a change of nature.
8. True religious affections reflect the character of Christ; they produce and promote the same love, humility, forgiveness & mercy that we see in him.
9. Authentic affections soften the heart and produce a tenderness of spirit and sensitivity toward sin.
10. Godly & gracious affections differ from those that are false in their beautiful symmetry and proportion.
11. When genuine gracious affections are experienced in high degree, it serves to intensify one's longing for more.
12. Gracious affections always bear the fruit of holiness of life.

   I haven't read nor have any plan to read Edwards's original work, so I can't say to what degree the unpacking of each of these does justice to the spiritual depth or intellectual integrity of the arguments presented in simplified summary, but Storms certainly doesn't come across as being less thorough than he should be.

   Alongside the interpretation of the Religious Affections, this book includes a second part - again part paraphrase, part summary, part commentary (and part lengthy direct quote) of another work by Edwards, his testimony as originally told in a short autobiographical text called the Personal Narrative; I found this part of the book extremely edifying and challenging as a subjective story of coming into and growing in relationship with God - it deals in considerable depth the religious affections of Edwards himself (chiefly sorrow at the vileness of his own sin & sweet joy at the beauty of God's holiness) as he walked his spiritual path, and thus complements the main bulk of this book perfectly in a less abstract, more applicable manner.

   Ultimately though I don't think this is a book I would recommend much. Its subject matter is theologically, spiritually and psychologically interesting, but as things stand we as humans can never attain a God's-eye-view of the true heart of another, and with experiences and expressions of affection in word and deed being often distorted by the muddy mixture of sin and liberation from it in the hearts of even true believers, it is impossible for us as creatures to perfectly discern the spiritual health of anyone, including ourselves. Such judgement is ineffable, God's alone, and only He knows the full roster of his elect. So though Edwards's system for ascertaining whether one's faith is authentic is coherent and hard to find much to argue with in terms of its orthodox grounding, it isn't particularly practical for either individual or corporate spiritual instruction. "You shall know them by their fruits," says Jesus, but again sinners may by common grace produce good fruit and the redeemed may still harbour fleshly inclinations, so any hope of us being able to properly categorise people as elected for salvation or not evaporates on contact with a creation that still groans in its wait for renewal.

the Reason for God

This book by Tim Keller is a reasonably accessibly-written but thoroughly intellectually-robust apologetic for the Christian faith. I recently read Francis Spufford's marvellous effort at proposing an entirely irrational apologetic, so I thought I'd balance it out with something that appeals more to the head than the gut - and this did not disappoint. I have read this book before, the summer before I started this blog, so retained a sense of its general gist, but it was truly a pleasure to revisit the concrete arguments.

   Keller splits the book into two sections of seven chapters each.* After a brief introduction exploring the helpfulness and limits of doubt in our contemporary skeptical culture, the first half digs into some of the biggest obstacles in the way of people coming into meaningful contact with the Christian faith, and for each shows how all of these hurdles are actually based on unprovable "faith" assumptions in themselves. These issues are:

1. the problem of Christianity's exclusivity when there are so many other competing religions
2. the problem of suffering, which exists despite God being supposedly purely good & all-powerful
3. the restrictive limitations following Christianity places upon a human life
4. the historical injustices & present hypocrisies of the Church
5. the thorny issue of Hell - surely a good God wouldn't be so extreme as to condemn people to an eternity of suffering?
6. the challenge supposedly posed by science, which many consider to have disproved religion for good
7. the logical and ethical snafus entailed in taking the Bible literally
   
   Having dealt with some of the strongest and commonest arguments against Christianity, we then have a short intermission chapter which considers the subjective nature of rationality itself. Then we head into the second set of seven chapters, which pose some of the strongest reasons for Christian belief.
   
   
8. the orderliness (and indeed existence) of the universe & meaningfulness
9. the innate sense of moral standards that seems essentially universal to humankind
10. the existential hole that sin leaves in the human heart, which we try to fill with idols but can only be satisfied by God
11. the radically distinctive nature of the Christian gospel as compared to other religions
12. the rationally revolting but emotionally intuitive core of Christianity - the incarnate God crucified for our sake
13. the resurrection of Jesus & the explosive emergence of the early Church being the simplest & best historical explanations for each other
14. God's Trinitarian nature providing a cogent & appealing explanation for the natures of creation & humankind

   Having dismantled some of the strongest arguments against and illumined some of the clearest arguments for Christianity, the concluding chapter is a gentle but confident prod for the reader of what to do if they feel themselves approaching a faith that they can truly call their own. After the philosophical and theological weight of the chief portion of the book this provides a comforting pastoral cool-down, though for non-Christian readers this may well be the most challenging part of the whole text.

   Overall I think this is a great book for making the case for Christianity in as best reasoned a way as possible. Keller never lands on absolute proof, but his earlier chapters show that nor do critiques of faith; and his points throughout cohere to short-circuit "absolute rationality" into a more pragmatic reasonability to which I think Christian belief is well-suited. A highly recommended book for Christians who want to supplement their own skillset in arguing for the Kingdom, and moreso a must-read for those whose curiosity about Christian faith is drowned out by overwhelming presumption that the case against it is too strong.

* Summarising the arguments Keller makes in each of these chapters is beyond the scope of this post, so you'll just have to take my word for it that his treatment of all matters discussed is intellectually humble but compellingly-put. And hey, I am a completely fallible blogger so if you don't want to take my word for it, you'll have to read the book and decide for yourself.

Just Living

This book by Ruth Valerio is a brilliant resource for furnishing a Christianity-shaped thought train about social, economic and environmental justice. Its ideas are presented with ample but not suffocating explanation, and plenty of pragmatic but not exhaustive pointers for further consideration or praxis.

   The first third of the book explores the fields of the issues at hand; the nature and complexities of both globalisation and consumerism, and then the specific economic-cultural context the modern Church finds itself in when relating to these - hegemonic as they are.

   The middle third is the meaty theory section, where we really dig into theological and philosophical groundings for the origin and trajectory of applicable ethics: Valerio first looks at how simply neglecting the Church's relationship to socioeconomic justice leads to a Christianity that is merely therapeutic and basically capitulates to consumer capitalism; next we consider how the Church should relate to money and property, with a look at the ascetic monastic traditions (with St Benedict and St Francis especially focused on); then finally how Aristotle conceived and Thomas Aquinas developed notions of the interrelation of justice and temperance as virtues, and how these uphold human flourishing when rightly understood and practiced.

   The final third of the book is given over to practical exhortation - prompting the reader to think of what they can do to put these ideas into practice, and making the case for doing so. This includes: reorienting our perspectives to be more cognizant of socioeconomic and environmental injustice; aligning our attitudes toward money and material goods to Biblical ethics, and following on from that seeking to consume as ethically as we plausibly can; engaging fruitfully with our local communities; stepping into activism to provoke change in unsustainable & unjust structures; and lastly making prayerful & fruitful use of the time that is given to us.

   I have to say, as someone who has already put a great deal of thought into the nature & necessity of Christian work for ethical, justice-oriented living, I didn't personally learn a lot from this book. However I did find it edifying & encouraging, and it helped strengthen & deepen my understanding of the shared space my faith & my social/political inclinations occupy. Valerio's credentials as a theologian are just as valid as her credentials as an activist and from reading this book you will be left with an indelible sense of engaging with the wisdom & insight of someone who really does their best to walk the walk they talk. It is also highly readable, and though dealing with some relatively complex topics (especially in chapter six) it skilfully explains everything with minimal jargon, of both the theological & the socio-political kinds. I'd highly recommend this as a book to give to Christians who take following Jesus seriously but don't seem all that fussed about justice; it might serve to tip them over the fence.

the Trinity and the Kingdom of God

This book by Jürgen Moltmann is one I've read pretty recently, hence that link leading to my last post about it. The reason I'm doing another post is that I've been reading through it with my dad, to help prompt us to challenge each other into thinking deeply about theology. I can only say it's been a pleasurable and edifying experience, and on a second read a lot of his arguments hit home far more clearly.

Renewal as a Way of Life

This book by Richard Lovelace is a guidebook for Christian spiritual growth. It is a condensed version of Lovelace's prior book Dynamics of Spiritual Life, but also entails an extra seven years-worth of reflections and learning around individual and corporate renewal, so it goes beyond the original in many regards.

   The book is split into three main chunks. Firstly, in exploring the normal Christian life, we consider how our lives are to be centred on God and His Kingdom; here we are given the "preconditions for renewal", those being an awareness of God's holiness, expressed in His love and His justice, and a complementary awareness of the depth of sin both in oneself and in the world. Orienting one's heart and mind in these ways is the root of sustainable and renewable spiritual life.

   Secondly, we look at the unholy trifecta of phenomena which constitute the "dynamics of spiritual death": those being the flesh, the world, and the devil. This middle section of the book is chock-full of practical insights into discerning when & where these are at play, and then navigating around or through them as we continue living under & for God.

   The third and final section explores the dynamics of spiritual life. The first chapter in this part dives into the Messianic victory of Christ and its explosively potent implications for followers of Jesus; the next two chapters dig deeper into how living out these implications manifests in firstly individual and secondly corporate (church) renewal. In these chapters we are introduced to the primary and secondary elements of renewal. Primarily, through faith in Christ as individuals we can be assured that we are accepted by God (justification), free from bondage to sin (sanctification), not alone thanks to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and granted authority over the spiritual powers of evil. Secondarily as we live in the light of these assurances we can follow Jesus into the world, presenting his gospel in proclamation & social demonstration (mission); we can depend on the power of the risen Christ in solitary & corporate prayer; we can enjoy community in the united body of Christ on micro- & macro- levels; and we can ever-more-progressively have the mind of Christ toward both revealed truth & our own cultural contexts by integrating theological learning & practice.

   I got a lot out of this book. It's accessibly written & consistently focused, leaning on the orthodox essentials without getting bogged down in theological corners; it's thoroughly Biblical throughout (with a Scripture quote or two on almost every page) & never tries to do more than it claims to be aiming to. Each chapter is closed off with a half-dozen or so discussion questions, as Lovelace does mention in the introduction that this would be an ideal book to work through with a small group of fellow disciples, and I imagine that doing so would be an incredibly fruitful experience, but so is just reading it to yourself. This is a book that does not make light of how difficult the Christian path can be at times, but it steadfastly instils confidence that if we have our eyes, hearts & minds attuned to God-in-Christ we will continue down the path of renewal until we are called home.

the Coming of God

This book is the fifth and final of Jürgen Moltmann's contributions to systematic theology, and as the title may suggest to the astute reader this one deals in-depth* with eschatology. As with the posts about the previous four I will give a rough overview of the book's contents before giving a bit of commentary, and as this is the last book in this series as is my wont I will then dive into some broader thoughts and reflections on the five book series as a whole. The contents of this book are split into five broad chunks:

1. Eschatology today - the transpositions of eschatology into time and eternity respectively; then the notion of God's comingness; then a tour through some key thinkers in Judaism who have contributed to a rebirth of messianic thinking.
2. Personal eschatology (i.e. eternal life) - conceptions of death as the end of life; contrasting ideas across the immortality of the soul or the resurrection of the body; a consideration of whether death is a natural ending or the consequence of sin; the prickly question of exactly "where" the dead are; and finally the psychospiritual experience of grief and mourning.
3. Historical eschatology (i.e. God's Kingdom) - political and apocalyptic versions of "the end" of history; the messianic picture; three wildly differing conceptions of millenarianism followed by a sharply nuanced consideration of whether millenarianism is even necessary; a look at exterminism (the idea that through military, ecological, or economic factors humankind may simply commit itself to an apocalyptic physical end - that is, death); a further consideration of whether apocalypticism is a necessary component of eschatology at all; and lastly an optimistic but grounded view of God's promises about the restoration of creation, in which he meticulously walks us through the theological and biblical cases for and against the idea of universal salvation (and I'll be honest - this was a big red flag initially given the particular flavour of Protestant orthodoxy I grew up in, where Hell is a necessary given, but I'm far more agnostic about the whole tangle since reading this chapter).
4. Cosmic eschatology (i.e. the New Creation) - firstly using Sabbath and Shekinah as springboard concepts into the future of creation; then the question of whether when the end comes creation will be annihilated, transformed, or deified; the ends of time and space in the eternal presence of God; and finally the scriptural metaphor of the heavenly Jerusalem as God's conclusive cosmic temple.
5. Divine eschatology (i.e. God's glory) - how all eschatological issues ultimately lead to the total and perfect self-realisation and self-glorification of God, in which a redeemed humankind is included as participant to the eternal experience, as God and His creation experience a total and perfect endless fulness, a feast of pure unending joy.

   So that's what's in here. Much of it was initially surprising to me, especially the universalism, but as I read and considered I realised more and more that the gravitational centre and methodological nature of Moltmann's theological system is so finely tuned to the core concepts of who we know God to be and logically extrapolating (with an almost outrageously generously ecumenical list of inspirational sources for these arguments) how, God being as God is and the world being as we understand it, the biblical worldview tends to lean further one way than another, and it all points not to fear and exclusivity but to redemptive renewal and inclusion and hope and joy.

   I trust it is abundantly clear that I am coming at this not as a professional academic with anywhere near enough experience or learning to start poking series critiques into Moltmann's system; I have approached these books as an enthusiastic amateur thirsting for a solid and coherent basic framework to hang my comprehension of Christian theology upon, and old Jürgen simply happened to be the first theologian who had composed such a framework that I happened to decide to pick up and work through. But I am deeply glad for that fact. These books have been an intellectual challenge, to be sure, but the more of them I read the more all the rest of what had come before made sense, and the richer my grasp of many of the fundamental tenets of Christian faith became. Obviously there are the big three caveats, which I have mentioned in posts about previous books in this series - firstly, that these books have been translated from German, so sentence structure is often quite difficult to follow; secondly, that Moltmann, being an academic theologian primarily writing to contribute to ongoing discourse within academic theology, while far from being recklessly obfuscatory or obtuse, is not writing for an entry-level audience, and so much of what he's talking about is quite difficult to get one's head around on first reading (or even second or fourth); and thirdly that Moltmann, being an academic in general, has a nasty habit of dumping in a random phrase in Greek or Latin (or even French or German sometimes) without offering a translation for it, even in the footnotes.** These pre-warnings aside, I think most moderately-educated-in-theological-terminology folks would find this series of books largely agreeable in style and especially in substance; Moltmann throughout this systematic theology has drawn widely and humbly on everything from Eastern Orthodox mysticism to strictly Reformed doctrinal positions and Catholic catechisms to Latin American liberation theology, and managed to work all of it into a cogently and compellingly structured model of what we must be talking about when we talk about the Trinity, or creation, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, or the apocalypse, or many other enormous and intimidating themes in the thought that has grown up around Christian faith - a model that while intellectually satisfying still leaves one with a sense of immense mystery and wonder at God's ways and being; a model that is not dry and stultifying but openly celebratory of the goodness of God and the life-giving truths that He has left us to work out and live in.

   As I said, this is the first systematic theology I've read, and I hope I won't be mentally lazy enough in the rest of my reading journey that it's my last - but it's been a thoroughly engaging and liberating one, and I would heartily recommend this whole series to any Christian who like I was finds themself in search of a holistic roadmap to thinking about their faith. Heck, I'd even recommend it to non-Christians who simply find Christian theology to be full of inconsistencies and contradictions, as they may well realise through Moltmann's rigour and breadth that there is far more internal logic at play than an external observer would easily guess.

* I say in-depth because all five of Moltmann's books in this series dig pretty deeply through eschatology, but only in this concluding volume is it front and centre in consideration.

** Which is frankly absurd, I mean, it's not like the footnotes couldn't spare the time. There's a lot of them (and honestly many of them add an excellent clarificatory point to the main text) in all five volumes.

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.

the Way of Jesus Christ

This book is the third of Jürgen Moltmann's series of contributions to systematic theology, and this instalment deals with Christology, as the title probably suggests. He very deliberately opts to consider the subject matter through a messianic lens, which makes sense as Jesus was the Messiah, although this makes the points elucidated in this book altogether more rooted in Jewish tradition than most Protestant Christology tends to consciously be, which is interesting. What Moltmann has to say is broken down into seven broad chapters:

1. The messianic perspective - the genesis of its hopes, the development of the hoped-for figure therein, and a consideration of what we learn about this from Jewish-Christian dialogue.
2. Trends and transmutations in Christology - its identity and relevance as a field of thought, how its theme and scheme can be interpreted through cosmological and anthropological lenses, and what all this looks like in the modern context of a scientific civilisation.
3. Christ's mission - his birth and baptism in the Spirit, the gospel's relation to the poor, the sick, the demon-possessed and the outcast, the broader ethic of the messianic way of life as expressed and taught and lived in Jesus, and the person of Jesus as embodied in his relationships to God and the rest of humanity.
4. Christ's suffering - starting with the notion that his passion event provides an apocalyptic horizon to world history, then going on to consider the nature of his death, the presence (or rather absence) of God throughout, the overall purpose of his death, and how this is echoed in martyrdoms throughout history in remembrance.
5. Christ's resurrection - viewed through an eschatological lens, we look at the unique character of Christian faith in this event, then dissect the theological and historical problems of the resurrection as a historical phenomenon and the theological and natural problems of the resurrection as a [super]natural phenomenon, before finally thinking about the spiritual unification process foreshadowed by the resurrection as an event.
6. Christ in cosmic terms - first outlining historical and ecumenical views of such, then a look at Christ as the ground of creation, his relationship to evolution (is he its driving force, its victim, or its redeemer? Moltmann makes a case for all three), and his establishment of a basis for the community of creation.
7. Christ's parousia (that is, second coming) - the nature of its expectation, the character of the promised one who is coming "again", the event of the Last Day itself, the category of Heaven, the righteousness of the foretold judgement, and finally affirmed embodiment.

   Obviously there is a lot going on in this book (as there has been with all of Moltmann's books that I've read so far and I expect nothing less of the fourth and fifth) and it would be ludicrous for me to attempt to summarise what is said herein. I will say though that as with the books on the Trinity and creation Moltmann here delves into corners of theology that comprise the home turf of questions I have always had but never quite known how to pose; he has an uncanny knack for uncovering something so intellectually obscure that it seems almost esoteric but once discussed and placed into proper context provides new and fruitful ammunition for starting to grasp the divine mysteries underlying the Christian faith. The same caveats apply here for the first two books - that is, that being translated (very well, but still) from German means the text's structure is often a wee bit confusing, and Moltmann has that incorrigible academic habit of dumping you with a phrase in Greek or Latin that even the footnotes refuse to clarify in English for the heathen reader - but overall this is a largely readable book for how dense its ideas are, and I think any Christian reader willing to be patient and thoughtful with a meatily rewarding series of trains of thought will find a great deal in this book to flesh out their understandings of Christ's being, mission, and meaning.