Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine

Khaled Anatolios

Baker Academic, 2011

With this new book, Khaled Anatolios, professor of historical theology in the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, cements his position as a leading contemporary interpreter of the Council and of its great champion, St. Athanasius. The book is every bit the equal of his earlier work, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought (Routledge, 2004) and merits a close reading by patristic scholars and contemporary theologians equally.

Anatolios contends that “Nicaea,” that is, the doctrinal outcome of the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, the identification of God as Trinity, is not the result of speculation, whether about the nature of God or the nature of persons, but in fact expresses “coherent construals of the entirety of Christian faith” (1). In other words, the doctrine of the Trinity articulated at these councils and confessed in the Creed is not simply one doctrine alongside others. Its value lies in its explanatory power not simply with regard to the identity of God, but insofar as confession of this identity in turn shapes the rest of Christian faith.

This is a sweeping and attractive thesis. But one that is obviously difficult to demonstrate historically. Anatolios wisely eschews the diachronic route, and chooses instead to exposit three major interpreters of Nicaea: Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine of Hippo. His choice of exemplars is deliberate: the great champion of the fourth century followed by two fifth century figures, determinative for the shape of Trinitarian doctrine in East and West respectively.

First, however, some historical groundwork is laid with two opening chapters. The first details the run up to the Council of Nicea (325) and the years of ongoing controversy afterward. Anatolios rightly points out that the issue was not whether God was Trinity, but how. In the fourth century, the pivot on which this debate turned was the primacy of Christ. Was Christ united to God the Father as a matter of divine will or divine being? Although the major combatants leading to the Council were the presbyter, Arius and his bishop, Alexander, Anatolios helpfully demonstrates substantial theological diversity on both sides. This diversity ensured, further, that the controversy would continue for decades after the Nicene formula had been “settled.” In truth, it was as much the determination of Athanasius to defend the Council afterwards that made it the watershed in the history of Christian theology.  These chapters rehabilitate both Arius and Alexander by effectively getting them out of Athanasius’ shadow and presenting them as able Christian theologians in their own rights.

With the groundwork then laid, Anatolios can begin his expository work. His chapter on Athanasius devotes extended attention to the Orations and On the Incarnation as well as other works (Anatolios takes what is to me a novel stand—for him, the Incarnation does not antedate the Arian controversy, but is subsequent to it). Through his exposition, he shows how the debate about Nicaea’s homoousios is not simply about the primacy of Christ, but also how that primacy informs Christian faith as a whole and divine transcendence in particular. Athanasius’ position is that the Father-Son relationship is constituitive of God’s identity. As a result, Christ’s saving work is a manifestation of the divine nature as philanthropia (156). The Holy Spirit, futher, is the creative and salvific agent of that same philanthropia. As a result, not only is there is no divine “remainder” outside the confession of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but all of Christian existence takes place within that confession.

In his turn to Gregory of Nyssa, Anatolios highlights the vision of God as irreducibly active “within the dynamism of the Trinitarian life,” and who is, therefore neither static with regard to nor removed from creation.  Rather, the dynamic life that is the perichoretic unity of Father Son and Holy Spirit—which is the divine goodness—spills over into creating and redeeming that which is not God. On Anatolios’ reading, Gregory is not a Neo-Platonist who revels in divine ineffability and his mysticism is not “the Poltinian ascent of the alone to the Alone” (240). Rather, Gregory’s conception of divine ineffability is better understood as plenitude or inexhaustibility. It is because God, who really is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has in his goodness and activity drawn humanity into his very life that human beings will forever be moving “further up and further in” (to borrow from C.S. Lewis) to that life and our understanding thereof.

Augustine and his magisterial De Trinitate is then consulted as Anatolios reflects on what kind of knowledge of the Trinity is possible for human beings. Again, the doctrine of the Trinity is presented not as an abstract and speculative exercise but as one, reflection on which, leads to spiritual formation and the production of a particular kind of person. The real issue on Anatolios’ reading is not the “proof” of Trinitarian doctrine according to human reason to the deployment of analogies to ratify it according to standards of human rationality. Its purpose rather is first to expose and then to heal “the deep wounds of a radically uncertain self through the revelation of God through Chrsit and the Spirit” (279).

Finally, Anatolios’s conclusion draws together the expository strands of previous chapters to show how a robust conception of the Nicene doctrine of God is not isolated, but continues to impinge upon Christian understandings of Scripture, Tradition and hermeneutics, worship, creation, salvation, and humanity.  Although a fitting, and from my perspective, very satisfying conclusion, readers who are not interested or trained in patristics might want to read it before the long expository chapters. It will help orient them, and indeed give them a persuasive argument  to stick with the longer chapters when the exegesis gets detailed.

Highly recommended to specialists and interested non-specialists.

Athanasius

Peter J. Leithart

Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spiriutality

Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering, eds.

Baker Academic, 2011

With this book, Peter J. Leithart continues to establish himself as a thoughtful interpreter of early Christianity. Athanasius exhibits many of the strengths that mark his previous foray into the fourth century, Defending Constantine.

First, it is a solid biography. Athanasius has been for centuries a key figure in Christian thought. If his (in)famous opponent, Arius, was for centuries the heresiarch then Athanasius was the champion of Trinitarian orthodoxy.  Even one of the back-cover blurbs on this book speaks of the Alexandrian bishop as a “superhero.” Leithart does readers a great service by introducing us to someone, however heroic, who was not “super.” That is, not beyond or above the affairs of us mortals. Athanasius is presented here as the champion of the Nicene faith, to be sure, but in a way that keeps his feet on the ground.

Second, it is theologically astute. This ought not to be surprising given the series in which this volume appears.  The series is not about history for its own sake. Such contributions are indeed valuable. But series editors Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering have crafted this series such that each volume will seek to allow its subject (in each case, a church father) to speak on matters of metaphysics, exegesis, dogmatic theology and spirituality not simply to a contemporary audience, but to one interested in furthering ecumenical conversation between evangelicals (Boersma) and Roman Catholics (Levering) and—I do hope—other Christians as well.

Leithart accomplishes this task well, setting the standard to which other contributors will be wise to aspire. We are treated not simply to a careful exposition of key themes in Athanasius (in a way that avoids the triumphalism of previous treatments), but to an exposition that maintains an eye to contemporary conversation with, among other people, Karl Rahner, Catherine Mowry LaCugna and Henri DeLubac.

Chapters 3-6 here deserve particular attention. Dealing with God, Creator/Creation, Salvation and Sancitifcation respectively, Leithart presents a fourth century father who finds the center of all his theological work in Christ, the Word made Flesh. The fact of Christ, we might say, forces a radical re-conceptualization of God and God’s relation to the world that completely transforms metaphysics even as it retains the classical language. With the happy result that Arius is presented as not being nearly radical enough in his attempt to articulate the Gospel using the metaphysical concepts he had to hand. Arius’ heresy lies not in the fact that he went too far, but in that he did not go far enough!

Some readers will certainly hear in that last paragraph more than a little of T. F. Torrance and it is clear that Torrance’s own work influences Liethart’s reading of the great Bishop. But this is no weakness. If anything, it is a reminder of just how much Torrance, and Barth before him, retrieved of the classical tradition when they turned again to Jesus Christ as the starting point of all theology and exegesis.

I warmly recommend this book as an introduction to Athanasius, as a work of theology in its own right, and as a continuance of the conversation among Christians who, while divided by the sixteenth century, are searching in the fourth century for ways to grow toward the One who has united us to himself in the Spirit to the glory of the Father.

Developing Ears to Hear: Listening in Pastoral Ministry, the Spiritual Life and Theology

ed. Aaron Perry,

Emeth Eress, 2011

Full disclosure: Aaron Perry, associate pastor at Centennial Road Church in Brockville, is not only my  co-author, he is my brother. So, you are free to consider this review as biased. It no doubt is.

Bias or no, this is a good book. Its thesis is easily summarized: “listening matters” (p. 197). Whether the focus is pastoral ministry, spirituality, or theology, the ability to listen actively is an overlooked skill. Perry aims to rehabilitate this virtue.  His goal is ambitious. He hopes his readers will leave his book not simply better equipped to listen to people, to God, and to the Church. He hopes that they will leave the book convinced that “listening” is the disposition that churches ought to adopt as they orient themselves toward the world.

The editor’s ambition is matched by the quality of the presentations, which—unlike many collections—are both even and consistently thought provoking.  As might be expected, the majority of the authors reflect not only Perry’s own Wesleyan tradition but also the denominational commitments of his publisher, Emeth Press. (The collection is the fifth volume in the “Asbury Theological Seminary series in world Christian revitilization movements in Pietist/Wesleyan studies”). Perry’s limits, however, are not rigid. He  has also secured Roman Catholic (Stephen H. Webb), Lutheran (Timothy J. Furry), Orthodox (Frederica Matthewes-Green and Edith M. Humphrey), and Anglican (Ephraim Radner) contributions. The absence of a Reformed contribution is notable. But this is a quibble (and, honestly, largely my own fault as I had to decline the invitation to contribute an essay because of other commitments).

Perry’s collection also has the virtue of focusing more on quality than on name recognition. Daryl MacPherson, Kenneth Gavel, and David Higle likely are names most of you don’t recognize. Their essays, however (on spirituality, the trinity, and college ministry respectively) need to be on the reading list of people in pastoral/parish ministry. They were certainly important to me in my transition from the secluded life of the academic to much more fulfilling role “in the trenches.”

So, are Perry’s ambitions met? His more modest ones certainly are. Many readers will come away convinced that our culture loves noise (just like Lewis’ Screwtape!) and listens badly, and that far too many Christian leaders have not paused long enough to see just how we have become captive to that noise.  His contributors’ advice will equip readers to shift out of that frenetic and loud environment.

The grander vision—to provoke a shift in many churches’ understanding of their mission away from business and toward contemplation—is a welcome one and deserves as wide a readership as possible. I hope its influence is pervasive.

A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good

Miroslav Volf,

Brazos, 2011

Christians and the Common Good: How Faith Intersects with Public Life

Charles E. Gutenson

Brazos, 2011

I have chosen to review these books together, but not for the reason you might think. At first glance one might surmise that having almost identical titles (though the titles and subtitles are reversed), and coming from the same publisher, these would overlap a great deal. After all, the titles make perfectly clear that both writers are committed to the notion of the Common Good—i.e., that there are social goods which are, or should be shared by all regardless of faith commitments. And both writers write from the conviction that people of Christian faith should strive for those goals without having first to check their faith at the gateway to the Public Square. One might think, then, that there would be sufficient overlap to try to mediate a conversation between the two books.

This, however, is not true. In fact, the books are very different (and one suffers from having been poorly titled—more on that below). It is their differences that make setting them side by side interesting. It is their contrasts that I wish to explore here.

First to Miroslav Volf’s slim but valuable volume, A Public Faith. Volf writes to sketch an alternative to the extremes he calls “totalitarian saturation of public life with a single religion as well as to secular exclusion from all religions from public life,” (xiv).  He explicates the former with a summary of the intellectual foundations for militant Islam as articulated by Sayyid Qutb and does so deliberately. The strategy is not, however, to demonize Muslims or Islam, but to frame the debate clearly—and Qutb if alarming, does have the virtue of clarity. Volf goes on to say—and it is worth reiterating here—that many Christians could and do embrace Qutb’s argument, whether knowingly or not, when they nostalgically long for a return to a Christian America, or more frighteningly, talk about taking America back.

The latter extreme is left less-well defined. It fears “the imposition of religious views” and “often elicits demands for the suppression of religious voices from the public square,” (x).  I can be safely left like this because, simply, this is the world defined by the media and political classes of the West. It is the pond most of his readers swim in, so to speak. Volf holds against this view—and he is right—that it is not so much misguided as demographically done. Birth rates, immigration patterns, and the reality of modern ease of travel mean that the world is becoming more religious, not less so. And that means debating the relative values of a strictly enforced secularism in Public Life is pointless.

So what is the alternative between—to use Richard John Neuhaus’s shorthand—a Religious Public Square and a Naked Public Square? Part I (chapters 1-4) develops a negative answer to this question. The alternative is one, first of all, which is aware of faith’s many malfunctions. There are four: Functional Reduction—when the language of faith is deployed “to promote perspectives and practices whose content and driving force do not come from or are not integrally related to the core of the faith,” (10); Idolatic Substitution—when “God” no longer refers to faith’s true object, but to a caricature created by the imagination; Idleness of faith—when faith, for one or more reasons, is relegated to the private, failing to have any significant public presence; and Coerciveness of Faith—when faith surpasses activity for hyperactivity and seeks to impose itself (i.e., Qutb, above or, more provocatively, C. Peter Wagner and the New Apostolic Reformation). If faith-perspectives do indeed belong in the Public Square, they will have to face, name, and criticise these malfunctions honestly and promote instead an authentic account of human flourishing.

Part II (chapters 5-7) follows with a sketch of the positive contours. A public faith committed to human flourishing will first, be both confident of its own identity and committed to deep pluralism as a political project. Christians will come to the public square as unapologetic Christians, in other words, and will work to provide similar space for people with other convictions and none to do the same. They will come intent on sharing what Volf calls wisdom. That is, they will come not to ensure that the “religious add-on” to an otherwise happy life is accounted for, but instead to offer a vision of life fully informed by the riches of Christian faith. Finally, a commitment to deep pluralism is revisited positively as “hermeneutical hospitality,” by which Volf means that Christians will come to the Public Square open to the insights of other traditions.  Such openness, Volf insists, need not imply a weak-kneed relativism or a loss of nerve in the face of religious plurality. It rather flows from  Christian convictions about humanity created in the image of God and about Christ, who is the source of all truth wherever it might be found.

This is a fine and important book which, I hope, will find a readership across a wide spectrum, whether that spectrum is defined as academic/popular, liberal/conservative, Democratic/Republican, religious/secular, or in any number of other ways. It quite rightly lays the theological groundwork upon which Christian engagement in Public Life can take place as authentically Christian and authentically Public. Most importantly it does so without absolving readers from making their own prudential judgments about specific policy issues and in so doing, rises above the tribalism of much of contemporary politics and in so doing, calls politics to its nobler ideals.

Which brings me to Charles E. Gutenson’s, Christians and the Common Good. I indicated above that I though the book was poorly titled—in part this judgment reflects the simple fact that I read Volf’s book first and allowed it, however unconsciously, to frame my approach to this one. The main title of Gutenson’s book is accurate. The book is written to a Christian audience and is about how Christian commitment ought to impinge upon the Common Good. It is the subtitle that is, unfortunately, misleading. For the book is not about “How Faith Intersects with Public Life.” The book would be better entitled, “How Faith Informs, Supports and Invariably Should Lead American Christians to Support The Democratic Party.”

While I offer that subtitle with a wink and a grin, I do think it is substantive and certainly more accurate than the actual one. For rather than appeal to all sides—as Volf does—Gutenson takes a side and argues quite passionately for it.  In so doing, Gutenson maintains all the strengths of an earlier, similar book, Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics (Wallis also pens the foreword here). Sadly, however, he also offers the same fundamental flaw. Like Wallis, Gutenson’s critique of the Christian Right as Constantinian and surreptitiously Theocratic fails to understand just how his own project can be seen as strikingly similar.

With regard to biblical hermeneutics, for example, Gutenson reads the Bible like many a right-wing theocrat—namely, as though one can step directly from biblical injunction to public policy. The difference is, Gutenson accentuates different biblical passages (those concerning poverty) and seeks to dismiss as not as important those highlighted by the Religious Right (those concerning abortion or homosexuality). And this is the book’s great flaw, in my view. In so collapsing the horizons of biblical and modern American political life, it removes informed political theology and prudential judgment from the conversation. And, frankly, these are two things that politically engaged American Christians need if they are going to transcend the mess that has engulfed public life in the United States over the last 4 Presidents!

In fact, as I read the book, a goateed Leonard Nimoy kept intruding upon my thoughts. That might need a little explanation—in the original Star Trek series, in the episode “Mirror, Mirror,” Captain Kirk was, as a result of a transporter malfunction, sent to an alternative universe in which the Terran Empire was as aggressive and cruel as the United Federation of Planets was as peace-loving and benevolent. The Empire’s “Evil Spock,” as he came to be known, sported a goatee so that he could be distinguished from the logic loving Vulcan of the Federation.

Anyway, my point is twofold. First, whether one sees Gutenson as goateed or clean-shaven, as auguring for the Evil Empire or the Friendly Federation, will largely depend on the assumptions about public life that one brings to the book. Christians who tilt left already will be comforted by Gutenson’s support and will cheer him on as he rounds on Republicans. Christians who tilt to the right will find his arguments weak and his criticisms aimed at straw. And second, a reader with any distance from these sorts of debates will also see just how similar—in good and bad ways—both sides are.

Now, I must tip my own hat. I am a Canadian. However, I do not define my Canadian-ness through shallow Anti-Americanism. Just the opposite, in fact: I am an Americo-phile. So, I hope that my frustration with Gutenson’s book is not taken as self-congratulatory America bashing. Also, while I am a political conservative, I am one in the classic sense of the word. That is, I am unhappy with (North) American politics’ tendency to collapse every possible debate into one which pits individual freedom (the libertarianism falsely named conservativism) against social responsibility (the progressivism falsely named liberalism).

There is another way—what British theologian Philip Blond calls Red Toryism (a term he stole he stole from Canadian political discourse). I can’t unpack that here. For now, it is enough to say that the current polarity that is destabilizing our body politic needs to be re-examined from a Christian perspective if a Christian politics is going to have anything important to say. Volf’s work contributes to the project; Gutenson’s, sadly, does not.

Preaching as Worship: An Integrative Approach to Formation in Your Church

Michael J. Quicke

Baker Books, 2011

This was a hard book to read and is a harder one to review. This is not because it isn’t a good book—it is very good. Rather, because I could never really escape the feeling that I’m not part of its target audience I never really entered into the book. I remained detached. And that’s odd. Preaching is a subject about which I am particularly passionate, I wanted to be passionate about this book, and throughout, I was left “on the outside looking in.”

So perhaps that’s the best place to begin. Michael J. Quicke is C. W. Koller Professor of Preaching and Communication at Northern Seminary, near Chicago. He is a Baptist; the Seminary at which he teaches is Baptist; and the target audience, I think, should be seen as belonging to the same sub-group. If you are from free-church traditions and care about the integration of preaching with worship, you will find much in this book that is sound and helpful advice. If you are from a liturgical tradition, you will leave this book as I did; thinking something like, “Yes, of course. Now please help me preach a better sermon.”

The first two chapters diagnose a problem that Quicke calls, Small Picture Worship. Small Picture Worship, and its homiletic counterpart, Myopic Preaching, name what for many believers is a typical worship service. It is, first of all, fundamentally Unitarian in structure. Drawing particularly on James Torrance, Quicke has in mind the worship service in which God is distant from the worship that is essentially, a human activity. Small Picture Worship is, secondly, minimally Scriptural. The Scriptures, when used at all, are merely a jumping off point for the sermon. They are not integrated into the music, the prayers, or much else that has preceded the sermon. Third, Small Picture Worship is—and this follows on directly form the second poing—disconnected from Myopic Preaching. It is as though Preachers and Worship Leaders, each with their own sets of weekly responsibilities, only see each other on Sundays. And if the music, prayers, Scripture readings, and sermon are thematically related, this is accidental.

The next six chapters articulate an alternative to myopic preaching and small picture worship. Such worship is one that, foremost, is explicitly Trinitarian—self-conscious about its place in the Son’s eternal offering of Love to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Worship is the love between Father and Son into which the community of faith is invited through the Holy Spirit. God is Worship’s primary Subject, Object, and Audience. Second, Big Picture Worship is one in which the sermon is fully integrated. The sermon, hymns, prayers, and Scripture readings all intersect, interrelate, with each sounding out the other. The connections are neither accidental, nor haphazard, but deliberate and planned. Third, the Holy Scriptures organize the integration. Whether preachers and worship leaders both use a lectionary, or other methods, Scripture is the great organizer and shaper of the liturgy, which in turn organizes and shapes the community. Which is the last plank in what we might call the big-picture-worship-platform. Worship, grounded in Trinitarian theology and integrated and organized by Holy Scripture, has as its goal, community formation—the building up of the people of God.

The final five chapters sketch a path to get the small-picture reader to the big-picture goal. While there are practical suggestions and tips throughout the book, these last chapters are the most applicable. Using learning to swim as a metaphor, Quicke takes readers through six “Worship Swim Stages.” I found these chapters to be the best by far in the book and left wondering whether a wiser reading strategy might have been to begin at chapter 10, continue to the end, and then pick up at the beginning.

So, why was I left out? Well—and this is a fault of my own tradition—Quicke takes for granted that preachers are passionate about preaching.  I have heard too many 5 minute “random-thoughts- after-Coach’s-Corner-loosely-based-on-the-readings” homilies to make the same assumption. Not only that, but Quicke also assumes that all his readers struggle with small picture worship. Nevertheless, his big picture solution looks a lot like what Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox folks do every week. As a result, I was left thinking two thoughts: (1) that a better subtitle for the book might have been “Why Baptist Preaching Needs Catholic Liturgy,” and (2) that a more helpful book would be titled “Why Catholic Liturgy needs Baptist Preaching.”

Right Here Right Now: Everyday Mission for Everyday People

Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford

Baker Books, 2011

As I completed my Ph.D. in the mid 90s, I spent a day with Bishop Lesslie Newbigin. Meeting with the great evangelist, apologist, missionary and Bishop, remains one of the foundational experiences of my life and ministry. Bishop Newbigin returned from a life spent serving the Church of God in India to find that the UK itself needed to be converted. And he began to write about it (Perhaps his most famous book is The Gospel in a Pluralist Society). From those writings came the Gospel and Our Culture Network, which in turn gave rise to what we now call Missional Church and the work of George Hunsberger, Alan Roxburgh, Alan Hirsch and others.

As one mentored by Newbigin both directly and through his works, I would like to think that I am on the same page as Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford, authors of Right Here Right Now, in the conviction that the West itself is now the mission field, that it needs to be converted by the Gospel of Jesus. This book is a kind of field manual for Christians and churches who think similarly.

The contents are bookended by a prologue and epilogue both penned by Hirsch alone. Entitled, “Briefing: Right Here—Frameworks for Missional Christianity” and “Debriefing: Right Now—Recovering Missional Moxie,” these works are a sort of intellectual/theological scaffolding designed to support the contents of the middle chapters.

The middle chapters, authored mostly by Lance Ford, are themselves divided into three sections. The first, “Putting Our Hearts Into It (Missional Paradigm)” orients readers by calling them away from a largely cerebral and interior Christian faith, to a passionate and active one. This is then followed by three chapters gathered under the title, Wrapping Our Heads Around it (Missional Analysis). These describe the predicament of the late modern Western church from the missional perspective developed previously. Finally, the last section, “Doing Something about It (Missional Action) gives three chapters of very practical suggestions for Christians and churches ready to move in missional directions. Each chapter contains several “Just Sayin’” side columns authored by Hirsch as a kind of commentary to the main text and ends with ideas and suggestions for forming a missional lifestyle.

So, am I on the same page as the authors of Right Here Right Now? For the most part, yes. As a working pastor in an urban, downtown church, I can say without qualification, the contents of this book are excellent. The book’s starting point—that the mission field is “us” and no longer a dark-skinned, far away “them,” is absolutely right. Its insistence that working in this mission field is to engage deliberately in counter-cultural practices that call into question our culture’s materialism and consumerism, is welcome. Its practical suggestions—which come both at the end of each chapter and receive special attention in section three—are clear, straightforward, and adaptable to many situations. As a result, I would recommend this book to any church or individual disciple who might be either beginning to think in more missional ways, but not sure how to practice them or beginning to practice a more missional expression of Christian faith, but not sure how to think about it. In fact, I am going to recommend it to a couple of active bible studies in my parish.

And yet, as a theologian, I am left with a number of questions for the authors. The questions, by the way, really are questions and I have invited Alan Hirsch to respond to them. I hope he does. They’ll make for a good conversation.

Anyway, I found that even though the content of the book is superb, the rhetoric of the book really set my teeth on edge at points. First, this book like so many others, continues whipping Christendom as THE ONE GREAT MISTAKE. No doubt there are lots of Borgia Popes, Crusades, and heretic-burnings that require condemnation. But for each of these there are also mission-minded Popes like Gregory the Great, social-justice advocates like Francis of Assisi, preachers like Dominic, and evangelists like the countless Celtic missionaries who set off from Northern Britain and Ireland to re-evangelize large swaths of Europe in the Dark Ages whose examples could continue to inspire were they given the chance. Blanket condemnations of Christendom seem to forget that our faith came from somewhere. It didn’t die with the Apostles only to be resurrected by Martin Luther or Menno Simons. How might this book be different were it to consider as possible examples the very different but equally missional Christendom approaches of Sts. Francis and Dominic?

Second, when the authors say things like Christianity is in decline, I demur. Certainly, pockets of the Church are declining but globally—if the demographic work of Philip Jenkins is any indication—the modern era is, to use John Paul II’s phrase, a new Spring time for Christian faith! An example from my own denomination: the average Anglican is a 20 something African single mother. But you’d never know it by looking at my congregation on a Sunday morning. So, how might parts of this book change if the authors acknowledge that only segments of the Church are declining?

Sometimes these remarks like these are followed up with well-intended, passionate exhortations to get on with mission because “all this is well within your power and means,” (p. 56). When this happens, the theologian in me wants to say, that way lies Pelagianism (that view of Christian faith that says, success or failure, it really is all down to us). I am sure that the authors do not intend to do this—in fact, they weigh in against such views in other parts of the book. How might these passages look had they been written with a stronger doctrine of God’s sovereignty in the background?

Similarly, the language lends itself to the view that the decline of the (segments of) the Church is our fault. This may well be true, but is it exclusively so? Could it be that many North American denominations and congregations are declining not because of our lack of effort, but because of the chastening hand of the loving Father who needs, right here, right now, to save sinners by rescuing them from wayward churches? What if our decline continues even after we embrace a missional worldview? How does the sovereignty of God extend to churches in decline? Might fidelity to the Gospel be called for regardless of whether declines are reversed?

As I say, these questions really are questions. They are offered to generate a conversation. They are, I would like to think, the questions that Bishop Newbigin himself would have posed. For as much as he was realistic about the challenges facing Western Christianity, he never lost his optimism for the Church. For him—as it should be for all of us—the Church belongs finally to the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist,” (Romans 4:17).

The Truth Shall Make You Odd: Speaking with Pastoral Integrity in Awkward Situations

Frank G. Honeycutt

Brazos Press, 2011

I came to this book with eagerly, inspired by its provocative and wonderful title. As a new priest in a new parish, I am confronted with the need to tell sometimes hard truths almost daily and have very little experience to draw upon. So, the counsel of an experienced pastor whose parish is in many ways like mine—downtown, facing new experiences of struggle, having to rethink our mission, etc.—was, I hoped, going to inflate and invigorate even as it prepared me better to handle those difficult conversations and situations that form so much of parish life and good pastoral care.

I was not disappointed. Frank G. Honeycutt is senior pastor of Ebenezer Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Columbia South Carolina and though we are separated by tradition (I’m an Anglican) and geography (my church is in Northern Ontario, Canada), as I opened to the Introduction of this book I immediately felt as though I was in the presence of a mentor. The introduction is plain spoken in its appeal: whether they know it or not, Christians need pastors who tell them the truth; pastors who are not “quivering masses of availability.”

The main body of the work then expands on this call. The two chapters that make up Part I lay the groundwork by reflecting on how untruth and truth penetrate our lives.  In Chapter 1, Honeycutt gives us a sustained reflection on the “Devil and All His Empty Promises,” challenging younger pastors (and older ones) to take seriously the source of deception. Honeycutt’s straightforward speech about the Devil and the demonic is as welcome as it is bracing! The temptation to untruthfulness, if not outright lying, surrounds me, at least. I want to comfort people; I want them to like me. Both of these wants—as legitimate as they might be—can be chinks that can be exploited by the Devil. They can become ways through which he prevents me from telling the truth to people who need to hear it.

Chapter 2 then turns to the role of truth in conversion. Conversion, not in the sense of the once-for-all encounter with the Lord Jesus in baptism, but conversion in the sense of daily living into our baptismal vows, putting off the life of sin and putting on the righteousness of Christ. Lutherans, Honeycutt admits, don’t really have a strong doctrine of sanctification. To which I would only add, “Not just the Lutherans!” Our life in Christ is grounded in hearing and speaking the truth and allowing that truth to soak into us, to challenge us, to change us as we are continually converted to Christ in the everyday messiness of our lives, whether as individual disciples or communities of faith.

Having so set the foundation stones, Honeycutt spends the next five chapters looking at those situations where it is the most important to be truthful and the most tempting to avoid it: the week-in, week-out encounter with the Word of God that is the sermon (ch. 3), the regular task of pastoral visitation (ch. 4), the increasingly important place of catechesis (ch. 5), the funeral (ch. 6) and finally, the Council or Church Board meeting (ch. 7).  The material in these chapters is rich and compelling. I found myself not only wanting to crib from Honeycutt’s own ideas, but also led into creative paths as he reflected on the place of truthfulness in these places.

I must confess, however, that my two disappointments arise in Part II, the first in the chapter on preaching. In a section entitled “A Wideness in God’s Mercy,” Honeycutt exhorts those of us who would preach to remember that preaching should begin and end in grace, that God alone is the judge, and that the saving work of Christ on the cross knows no boundaries that we can imagine. All good. It is also clear that Honeycutt is decidedly uncomfortable with the notion of hell even as rightly upbraids those Christians who believe in hell a little too much or too happily. So far I’m cheering.  But, given Honeycutt’s audience (mainline Lutheran) and mine (mainline Anglican), I was hoping for some advice on how to talk about hell with people who long ago have relinquished any notion of divine judgement. If some fundamentalists need to be cured of their addiction to damnation, a few others need to be freed from the lie of naive universalism. I wish Honeycutt had said more about that.

My second disappointment arises in the chapter on funerals and really is not so much a second disappointment as a second instance of the first. “Practice,” Honeycutt advises, “biblical restraint in describing a realm we cannot know in full.” This is superb advice! And as it is unpacked, I find myself warming to it (not least because I am preparing for my first funeral in this parish). But, again, Honeycutt’s silence goes too far. Surely he’s right to say that no pastor should comfort bereaved people with bromides that have little to do with biblical faith in the resurrection. But when he says, “According to this doctrine [i.e., the resurrection of the body] both body and soul kick the bucket together when we breathe our last,” (p. 135), I must demur. It seems to me that this assertion, made this strongly, commits the same sin as those who would assure us that heaven is a grand family reunion right down to the fried chicken. They both claim to know too much. Surely pastors can say that those who have departed this life united to Christ remain,  in death, united to him even as we must admit to not knowing just what that union looks like.

These disappointments, however, should not cloud just how important this book is already in my reflection on ministry. I hope, rather, that my readers will regard my pauses as invitations to Honeycutt (and others) for further conversation. I highly recommend this book to all, and especially for those who, like me, are green in the parish and, these days, need all the help we can get!

From the Library Journal. Congratulations to my fellow contributors and the editors of this fine volume. HT, Terry Kennedy at Providence Theological Seminary Library.

FYI – review in Library Journal

Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. Zondervan. 2011. c.864p. ed. by Glen G. Scorgie & others. ISBN 9780310290667. $39.99. REF
Scorgie (theology, Bethel Seminary) and Simon Chan, Gordon T. Smith, and James D. Smith III’s impressive and well-researched volume assembles 34 articles and almost 700 dictionary entries signed by an international group of scholars. The first section presents six- to seven-page entries on topics such as spiritual theology, human personhood, education and spiritual formation, and liturgical spirituality. Also included are articles describing the history of Christian spirituality from 100 C.E. to the present. Each article is followed by a bibliography and a further-reading list. The second section is a dictionary with entries on a broad variety of subjects: biblical figures, popes, mystics, saints, philosophers, spiritual leaders, and educators, as well as concepts and areas of concern including poverty, humanism, suffering, vows, the Kingdom of God, and peace. Dictionary entries conclude with cross-references and a further reading list. Scorgie’s intended audience is the evangelical community, but the wide scope of material covers foundational areas of interest that will appeal to people along the spectrum of Christianity. BOTTOM LINE This clear, understandable text with its singular features and perspective deserves a place alongside Philip Sheldrake’s The New Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality(Westminster John Knox Press, 2005) and Arthur Holder’s The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Valuable for educators, clergy, students, and general readers; highly recommended for academic, seminary, large public, and church libraries.—Jackie Parascandola, Columbia Univ. Libs., New York