Robert MacSwain

‘A generous God’: the sacramental vision of David Brown

I received an invitation from John Hoffmeyer, President of the Society of Anglican and Lutheran Theologians (SALT), to participate in their 2014 meeting on the general theme of ‘Sacramental Theology’. However, it was not the theme itself but his specific description of it that caught my attention: ‘with this theme [he wrote] we do not intend to limit presenters to a focus on ritual practice. We are interested in broad and creative thinking on the sacramental presence of the divine.’ And that phrase, ‘broad and creative thinking on the sacramental presence of the divine’, sounded like an excellent summary of the sacramental theology of David Brown, who retires this year (2015) as Wardlaw Professor of Theology, Aesthetics, and Culture at the University of St Andrews. As we will see, it is difficult to think of a better extended example of such ‘broad and creative thinking’, but, in addition to introducing and summarising Brown’s work in this area, I will also consider critiques of it from both philosophical and theological angles. Before assuming his position at St Andrews in 2007, Brown had spent 14 years as Fellow and Chaplain at Oriel College, Oxford, and 17 years as Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham and residentiary canon of Durham Cathedral. It was during his early years in Durham that he first engaged with sacramental theology in a substantial way, and these initial forays were both collaborative and interdisciplinary in nature. In 1993, Brown and Ann Loades – then Professor of Divinity at Durham – organised a major series of lectures in sacramental theology to mark the 900th anniversary of the founding of Durham Cathedral. This series resulted in two volumes of essays by theologians, philosophers, historians, musicians, biblical scholars, and literary critics, edited by Brown and Loades. While Brown and Loades did not contribute chapters of their own to these two volumes, the respective joint introductions – ‘The Dance of Grace’ and ‘The Divine Poet’ – express their contemporary Anglo-Catholic sacramental