Daniel W. Hardy

Book Reviews : Complexity

[1985], £9.95, pp. 269) to break down reservations about the Orthodox tradition and show that a theology which grows out of the eucharistic experience of the worshipping Christian and has the riches of the patristic writings to draw upon is a theology which speaks to all people in all places. He succeeds admirably. The result, here, is not another attempt to explain Orthodoxy, but a collection of essays in which a brilliant mind, steeped in the Orthodox tradition, examines some fundamental issues of Christian faith and experience. His knowledge of, and sensitivity to, the ecumenical scene give all his writings on the church a particular relevance; and his perspectives, for example, on the ordained ministry open new possibilities for Catholic and Protestant discussions which

Book Reviews : Readings in Theology

book, its ’rhetorical situation’ and vision of an alternative world. Outstanding are several recurrent themes in these chapters: insight into the creative opportunities which Revelation offers for the newer methods of criticism; the argument that Revelation ’is not chronologically ordered’ and concerned with the sequences of salvation history ’but theologically-thematically conceived’ ; and the critique of theories of a Johannine school and in their place a sense of continuity with Pauline traditions in Asia Minor. But what is disappointing is the lack of further development from already published articles. Indeed the later sections reflect approaches and methods which could have been applied consistently to the material covered in the earlier sections. If the titular reference

Book Reviews : Rahner's Concern for the Church:

The centenary of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1980 provided an occasion for celebrating the history of American biblical scholarship, and the ’socio-historical’ approach associated with Chicago Divinity School in the 1920s and ’30s attracted special attention. William J. Hynes’ monograph Shirley Jackson Case and the Chicago School (Scholars Press, [1981],

Today's Word for Today: VIII. Gerhard Ebeling

15.00, members

Man the Creature

10.00, pp. xii + 151, ISBN 0-89130-510-6) provides background information on Harper’s founding of the University of Chicago in 1892 and on Case’s background and training at Yale with B. W. Bacon and F. C. Porter. The two central chapters on Case as a NT scholar and

Teaching religion: A theological critique

Mattins the Abbot recited the six psalms constant in the Eastern office or rather ’recite’ gives the wrong impression: ’He spoke them as if they were being spoken for the first time, speaking them from the depths of his heart; and yet at the same time speaking them with the weight of almost three thousand years, a hundred generations of longing after God.... Scripture comes to fulfilment when it ceases to be scripture and becomes living speech.’ When the Abbot showed him the monastery library he introduced the works of the Fathers with the

The implications of pluralism for religious education

It is, of course, no secret that theology is a tissue of many things in interrelation. Begin at any point in it, and you will quickly be led to all the others—or at least the need for all the others. Eschatology requires one to talk about judgment and reconciliation, and they require talking about covenant, but discussion of the covenant requires finding the circumstances or context of the covenant, fallen creatures; and ‘fallen creatures’ brings one to talk about the creature, and in turn to treat his context, creation; and any elucidation of creation requires discussion of the action of God. So it may be seen that each notion demands another as an immediate context, and others as an ultimate context.