Robert Burns
Goldsmiths, University of London
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Expository Times | 2004
Robert Burns
and 1986, a remarkable period surely resembling something of a ’Field of the Cloth of Gold’ for Reformation scholars. Key themes identified in ’Liberation theology’ (because Christian affirmation simply had to be worked out in the political sphere); 6vang6lisme (the Erasmus of devotional, biblical and patristic studies now having far more appeal than he who once hid behind the skirts of Dame Folly); grammar and rhetoric (or the debt Erasmus owed his Classical masters); and, supremely for some, the dominant image of Erasmus the theologian. Avoiding
Expository Times | 2004
Robert Burns
Olivier C16ment, You are Peter: An Orthodox Theologian’s Reflection on the Exercise of Papal Supremacy (London: New City, 2003. £7.95. PP. II2. ISBN 0-9042.87-87-4). This small paperback which at first sight might seem to be an inevitably superficial popular pamphlet manages to contain, first, an accurate, carefully organized, comprehensively informative and dispassionate survey of the development of Roman Catholic claims about the papal authority from the beginnings of the Christian era to the present, and of Eastern reactions to them. After that, it provides a lucid, courteous but candid review of the major changes which have occurred since Vatican II, pointing up what appear to be positive new developments on the one hand, and what might be retrograde steps on the other. Finally, there is a ’Postscript: For a Common Future’ which offers a thought-provoking appraisal of the material and spiritual, political, ethical and religious future of mankind as a whole, and the planet which is its home. In short, without becoming banal at any point, it places the issue of church unity and papal authority in a world-historical and futurological
Expository Times | 2003
Robert Burns
by Colin E. Gunton under the title The Theology of Reconciliation (London: T&T Clark, 2003. ~z~.oo. pp. 177. ISBN: 0-567-0888908). The editor himself both introduces and concludes the papers, in the latter essay making his own constructive remarks about what is required in a theology of reconciliation. He has fielded a noteworthy team. Christoph Schwobel, Douglas Farrow, Murray Rae, John Webster, Sue Patterson and Robert Jenson explore various theological aspects of the theme, while Douglas Campbell has a textually focused and compressed essay on Galatians 3:z8 and Brian Horne pursues Dante’s understanding of the atonement. Karl Barth is a background contributor, the contours of his thought frequently, but certainly not always, being a point of reference for discussions of this or that aspect of ’reconciliation’. The collection is a mixed bag, with a pretty equal division of the contents into strong and mediocre contributions. Both the first and the last of the essays, apart from the editor’s own, respectively illustrate the fundamental methodological and conceptual questions that attend the discussion of this theme. Thus Christoph Schwobel appears to derive his dogmatic proposals about reconciliation from the strict biblical vocabulary of reconciliation; Douglas Farrow, in one of the stronger essays, shows the problems with this approach, though not by way of explicit engagement with his fellow-author. Robert Jenson, in a very brief contribution, uses the word ’reconciliation’ in a variety of ways to try out a claim that reconciliation occurs within God Himself
Expository Times | 2003
Robert Burns
are more likely to search for meaning and purpose beyond the boundaries of organizational religion. In particular, he utilizes his own version of the concept of ’Generation X’, derived originally from the work of Douglas Coupland, to try to identify those who reject traditional religion in a pre-packaged form. In the early chapters he provides a sketch of the now familiar territory of contemporary religion delineated by Grace Davie and Steve Bruce before moving to a more detailed description of ’Generation X’, defined simply as ’those who have a particular way of looking at the world’ (p. 27). There are fleeting references to the sociologists Ulrich Beck, Zygmunt Bauman and Anthony Giddens, but no real exposition of their views. The search for meaning in the
Expository Times | 2003
Robert Burns
Jerusalem have been sacralized by religion. The whole area has experienced loss of many types. At every place where people have been killed there should be mourning and acts of commitment in which other communities join. Yet there, as in the former Yugoslavia, different religious traditions fuel nationalism. In a study of the war in the Sudan we are reminded that in different cultures, there is considerable flexibility about how Shari’ah law is interpreted. Nevertheless, when a group is using their religion to ’win’, it is the hard face and the inflexible interpretation which tend to prevail.
Expository Times | 2001
Robert Burns
Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key (T&T Clark, 2000, £29.95, p. 443, ISBN 0-567-08755-7) by Paul Vallière explores a modernizing or ’reconstructionist’ (to use the author’s term) movement among Russian Orthodox thinkers which sought to ’go &dquo;beyond&dquo; the fathers’ whilst retaining a ’patristic foundation’. It selects three key figures for extended treatment, namely Aleksandr Bukharev (1824-1871), Vladimir Solovyev (1853-1900), and Sergii Bulgakov (1871-1944), and the final chapter surveys their impact up to the present. The author is perhaps sometimes overeager to defend them against the attacks of ’Neopatristic’ Orthodox thinkers such as Georges Florovsky or Vladimir Lossky, but he is by no means indiscriminately uncritical. The book is thoroughly researched, engagingly written, and has an excellent bibliography. The chapters on Bukharev, which portray him as the pioneer of the movement, are the first account of his life and work in English. His approach to the Bible was
Expository Times | 1998
Robert Burns
At a practical level, the book is a veritable minefield for the expositor. It is over-loaded with stimuli and clearly presented theses on the various aspects of sin. It begins with meditations that act as a warm-up for the task ahead. It then moves into a systematic examination of sin without any hint of heaviness or boredom. This is not a tired thesis being presented here, but one bursting with energy. It concludes on a very helpful note: the application of doctrine to the problems facing the contemporary church. Gestrich’s formidable strength lies in two methodological tools. He has this wonderful way of summarizing his thought as he goes on (a la Jimmy Dunn) which means you can skim read for the argument and then go back for content. The second is his ability to do what German Lutheran systematicians do best: putting the content down in user-friendly theses. Buy this book: meditate upon it: preach it! It will revive even the most tired minds and reach parts of the church other theological books cannot reach. GRAHAM McFAPLANE, LONDON BIBLE COLLEGE
Expository Times | 1997
Robert Burns
are intrinsically unpredictable. Secondly, there is the recognition that an exclusively reductionist view of complex systems with its ’bottom-up’ explanation of behaviour is inadequate: the system as a whole exerts ’downward’ causation upon its constituent parts. From these premises the author demonstrates that God can relate to such a world (and communicate with its evolved inhabitants) without interrupting any of the perceived laws of nature. The incarnation of Jesus is then restated not as the descent of God into his world but as the revelation of God’s immanence from within the process. ADAM FORD, LONDON
Expository Times | 1996
Robert Burns
All thinking Christians surely need to come to terms with Leibniz’s notorious claim that ours is ’the best of all possible worlds’. No better guide could be recommended than this lucid, sympathetic, and masterly interpretation by Donald Rutherford of Leibniz’s unpublished and published works informed by an impressively authoritative knowledge of the latest scholarship: Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (Cambridge University Press, 1995, £35.00/
Expository Times | 2003
Robert Burns
54.95, pp. 301, ISBN 0-521-461553). Too much of the latter according to Rutherford ignores the ’central theological commitments’ of Leibniz, who is convincingly cleared of the charge of ’simple-minded optimism’ elaborated in Voltaire’s Candide. What emerges, however, is that Leibniz’s world is ’best’ only to a God conceived as a detached omniscient aesthete intent
