Editorial

Abstract

This issue of Theology offers some fascinating and stimulating interdisciplinary articles – the first three from authors who will already be familiar to regular readers. Professor David Jasper, who has done so much to establish the scholarly area of theology and literature in the UK, offers a fresh take on Graham Greene’s novels. Tom McLean continues his exploration of theology and theatre. In his previous article (Theology Vol. 122, no. 4, pp. 244–51) he compared liturgy with theatre and now he looks to acting theory to understand better the role of those leading worship. Dr Stephen Laird is even more ingenious, using his unusual experience of the art trade in order to assess claims about biblical provenance. A fourth interdisciplinary article is by a new contributor, Dr Peter Gent. He builds upon his recent Oxford PhD to show how artefacts can shape human thought and behaviour and how, in turn, this can be related to different ways in which the Bible is used. Finally, Dr Mark Laynesmith offers another ‘Difficult text’, this time on the command to ‘be perfect’ that is placed by Matthew at the centre of the Sermon on the Mount – a command that is both profoundly challenging and deeply puzzling. Sadly, the review in this issue by Graham Howes, a long-standing friend of mine, is his last. He has died aged 82, having contributed a number of very thoughtful and knowledgeable reviews on Christian art to Theology over the last few years. He spent almost his entire career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, first as a student and then as a Fellow. Working closely with Robert Runcie when he was Archbishop, he drafted or commissioned many of his speeches and was instrumental in enabling the momentous Archbishop’s Report Faith in the City. From time to time Theology has paid attention to cathedrals as increasingly significant places of ‘sacred space’ (see especially Theology Vol. 118, no. 6, pp. 404–37). But, in empirical terms, what exactly is ‘sacred’ space? Here is a new multidisciplinary collection that explores some socio-psychological answers to this question: