Simon Burton

Book Review: Protestantism and Individual Liberty of Conscience, The Peril and Promise of Christian Liberty: Richard Hooker, the Puritans and Protestant Political TheologyLittlejohnW. Bradford, The Peril and Promise of Christian Liberty: Richard Hooker, the Puritans and Protestant Political Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017.

chapter examines constructions of masculinity in 1QS and 1QM, The Rule of the Community and The War Scroll, thereby bringing insights from Masculinity Studies, which have featured in biblical studies since the 1990s into the domain of DSS scholarship, where these are less prominent. In doing so Keady also redirects the focus concerning impurity away from females (where it has often been centred) towards impure ordinary men. The next three chapters draw heavily on Susie Scott’s conceptual features of the everyday, with the fourth chapter examining women’s impurity in the light of empowerment, while the fifth contrasts ordinary impure males and females and the sixth brings in spatial considerations, with particular focus on the Temple Scroll and Rule of the Congregation. All three chapters provide close analysis of discrete DSS texts, offering careful referencing and, often, the text in the original language and in translation. This book demonstrates that both gender and im/purity are fluid, fluctuating and above all performative categories. Hence, masculine positions are dynamic, changeable and, consequently, a terrain of anxiety. Keady argues convincingly that male/female and purity/impurity are unhelpful binaries. Moreover, ordinary males in the DSS are rarely juxtaposed with ordinary women but rather with other males. Scholarly fixation on female impurity (particularly menstruation) has also had the effect of downplaying the social repercussions, including vulnerabilities, of male impurities (e.g., those associated with nocturnal emissions). Keady’s book offers a welcome foray of gender and masculinity studies into the corpus of DSS writings.

35.00 £29.99. pp. xv + 298. ISBN: 978-0-8028-7256-2).

by accurate science, and (3) why do we seem to spend most of our time talking past each other instead of addressing the core of our disagreements? Lin’s proposed contribution is to provide a framework within which we can conduct our debates over how to care for the environment. Lin draws together worldviews, ethical theories, philosophy of science, science policy studies, politics, and economics to create such a framework. By the end of his text, he offers an overview of the range of responses possible for approaching creation care and a guide for creating a synthesis of the various components of creation care debates—a synthesis that has the potential to lead to excellent creation care. His guide includes six elements: consideration of a multiplicity of solutions, utilisation of multiple understandings of environmental value, recognition of multiple forms of knowledge, avoidance of zero-sum thinking, acknowledgement of inherent paradoxes, and realisation of the importance of people within debates. Lin’s text is accompanied by an extended parable that introduces each chapter and concluding discussion questions at the end of each chapter. All who find themselves embroiled in environmental debate will benefit from considering Lin’s taxonomy of what goes into determining the content of environmental stewardship. While Lin attempts to make his text accessible to non-Christians, his Christian context is explicitly dominant by the close of his book—potentially alienating any non-Christian audiences. I would specifically recommend this book to Christians interested in engaging in dialogue about environmental issues in small group or one-to-one settings.

Book Review: Inventing and Reinventing the Reformation: Peter Marshall, 1517: Martin Luther and the Invention of the ReformationMarshallPeter, 1517: Martin Luther and the Invention of the Reformation (Oxford: OUP, 2017. £16.99. pp. xii + 243. ISBN: 978-0-19-968201-0).

Seven years after publishing his first book on public theology, Chung has released a second book on such matter, connecting that topic with postcolonial theology. This book provides a comprehensive investigation of postcolonial public theology from three perspectives, namely, (1) hermeneutical interpretation (Chs 1–3); (2) scientific understanding (Chs 4–6); and (3) interreligious dialogue (Chs. 7-9), as well as an afterword concerning ecology. As an Asian-American scholar of world Christianity who has taught in a Lutheran seminary for many years, his interests on Asian theology and Lutheran theology are noticeable, especially his engagement with Kazoh Kitamori’s assessment of Luther’s theology of the cross (Ch. 1) and the correlation between Bonhoeffer’s status confessionis and Minjung theology (Ch. 2). Also, the book pursues an extensive investigation of interreligious conversations, especially with Buddhism (Chs 5, 8) and Confucianism (Ch. 2, afterword). It also deals with public theology in a colonised context, showing how those who were oppressed in the past can reconcile with the oncedominating power of the colonisers (Chs 4, 9). The book offers a wide-ranging engagement with the ideas of public theology, highlighting the otherness of the colonised in a postcolonial world, and seeks to bridge the gap between the powerful and the powerless ones. Employing Luther’s hermeneutics of the gospel as viva vox evangelii, the book provides a helpful analysis of the complexity of the postcolonial context and suggests a Christian response to these dilemmas. While this book opens the dialogue of postcolonial public theology, several questions can be asked regarding the choice of topics. For example, although ecology is a huge topic in public theology, the afterword about ecology seems to be slightly irrelevant to the previous discussions. Moreover, while Confucianism can contribute to the conversation about ecology, its linkage with postcolonial theology is not obvious or, at least, is not shown in the chapter. Another minor issue is that this book has several typographical mistakes, especially as the word ‘public’ theology is sometimes written as ‘pubic’ theology (pp. 47, 62, 144). Nonetheless, as one of the first books that attempts to analyse this complicated matter, Chung’s book has begun this much-needed conversation and should be applauded for its efforts to engage in such dialogue.

Book Review: The Reformation and the Championing of the Literal Sense: Iain Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of ScriptureIainProvan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Waco, TX: Baylor UP, 2017.

Chapter 4 is a strong presentation of the case for reading these 12 prophetic books as one literary collection the ‘Book of the Twelve’. Evidence to support this claim is offered in the form of catchword analysis, an account of unifying themes, e.g. repentance, the day of the Lord, the broken and restored covenant, and the promise of a new David. It is a weakness of this chapter that no engagement is made with those scholars who do not accept the suggestion that the twelve prophets can be read as one literary unit. Part 2 consists of twelve chapters, one on each of the twelve books of the Minor Prophets. In these chapters there is much useful information on these books which would be helpful for preaching and teaching on the Minor Prophets. However, following the chapter on the unity of the twelve in one ‘Book of the Twelve’. it is disappointing that there is no consistent attempt made in the analysis of each book to further demonstrate the unity of these prophetic books in one literary composition. This volume could be profitably used by church members and teachers in the church, but does not achieve its aim of demonstrating the unity of the ‘Book of the Twelve’.

49.95. pp. xii + 712. ISBN: 978-1-4813-0608-9.

Birds are everywhere. One of the reasons for this ubiquity is the power of flight, allowing the exploitation of a wide range of habitats which might be otherwise inaccessible. That they participate in so many domains and do remain relatively abundant, allied with at times breathtaking beauty, has meant that they have provided a rich source of aesthetic, cultural and scientific reflection. These deliberations can provide an opportunity for us to reflect on the very boundaries of our own human perspectives on the world. This diverse group of organisms may provide a heuristic device to think of ourselves as if from nowhere, freed from the entanglements of being human. In this chapter, we consider some of the ontological, epistemological and, ultimately, ethical issues thrown up by an attempt to become placed outside of ourselves, imagining the terms of other beings with very different lives to our own, lives largely indifferent to our own. We argue that the ‘difference’ of these winged creatures might help us, in this potential age of the Anthropocene, to develop a stance of ‘epistemic humility’. Such humility recognizes the limits of our knowledge in a way that enables us to become receptive to listening to nature’s story.

Book Review: Bonaventure And Affective Mysticism: Robert Glenn Davis, The Weight of Love: Affect, Ecstasy, and Union in the Theology of BonaventureGlenn DavisRobert, The Weight of Love: Affect, Ecstasy, and Union in the Theology of Bonaventure (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017.

In this doctoral thesis, Kasari usefully reminds us of the rich and complex echoes which operate between details of the divine promise to David mediated by Nathan and David’s following prayer, on the one hand, and passages throughout much of the Hebrew Bible, on the other. He will probably also persuade us that a rich and complex history may be latent in these many links. In his scrutiny of this key ‘deuteronomistic’ text, Kasari navigates resolutely between competing receptions of the so-called Göttingen school of the early 1970’s. But this reader is far from persuaded by his meticulous recovery of a development in many layers, reaching back to the time of David himself.

27.99. pp. vii + 195. ISBN: 978-0-8232721-3-6).

This work, which is the first of four volumes within this gospel series, seeks to provide a reading companion to Luke and begins with a preface that orientates the reader to the Gospel of Luke and the nature of this work. It is clear from the outset that the volume is aimed towards a religious audience with little to no prior knowledge of the gospel backgrounds. Accordingly, Fogarty commences by offering a basic overview of Luke’s background— such as authorship, dating, and oral transmission. While this is clearly important for framing the later discussion, it is not balanced in its discussion and would have befitted from the inclusion of alternative scholarly positions. Beyond this introduction, the work is framed by the discussion of how this text can be used today. Fogarty makes it clear that Luke does not present an omniscient Jesus that foresaw twentyfirst-century dilemmas, but a Jesus who inspires faith. Consequently, he proposes that his work (and Luke) be read with eyes of faith and used in conjunction with the spiritual exercises of meditation and contemplation. The body of the work is divided into twentytwo bite-sized chapters that trace and synopsise the Lukan narrative as found in the NRSV. While providing minimal commentary and intertextual references to other New and Old Testament books, Fogarty seeks to frame the creation of Luke’s gospel in light of Luke’s desire to create a book of faith and theology. To this extent, Fogarty down plays the historicity of the gospel text and makes a number of statements regarding its un-historical nature. Although this is not problematic in itself, Fogarty often presents only one side of the argument, which (as this book is presented to lay people without scholarly training) could be seen as oversimplifying some of the issues. After completing his discussion on the Lukan narrative, Fogarty concludes with a brief chapter (four pages) on inspiration. Beginning with a statement from Vatican Two, Fogarty proceeds to characterise and explain how the Fundamentalist movement requires the belief in the ‘literal meaning of everything written in the Bible’ (p. 133) and that this is an untenable position. Accordingly, the Roman Catholic perspective is to be desired and adopted. Overall, while this book could be useful for lay readers who would like a guide to reading Luke, it would be best paired with another work in order to provide a more nuanced introduction to interpretive and literary issues. In light of this, a bibliographic section for other works to consult would be a beneficial addition to such an introductory work.

What Is It Like to Be a Bird? Epistemic Humility and Human-Animal Relations

In this volume 14 colleagues and friends pay tribute to Nigel Wright who in his own writings spans allegiances at once Free Church, charismatic, Evangelical and Anabaptist. I have here to confess that my computer, innocent of J.W McClendon’s usage, was anxious to over-ride the usage of baptist without a capital letter to reflect that wider phenomenon, with its roots deep in the Radical Reformation, but renewed in the Evangelical Revival and the charismatic and Pentecostal renewals of the last century, often designated by the language of those which belong to the Believers’ Church tradition, which is where Wright positions himself. Here are writings which come from the disciplines of church history, systematic theology, biblical exposition, ministerial formation, and applied theology, often reflecting on writings from Wright’s own fertile and stimulating pen. These are helpfully listed at the end, works which, as Stephen Holmes points out, successfully straddle the worlds of academy and Church, operating at both the level of good scholarship and popular exposition. The authors properly note how frequently Wright deploys the word ‘radical’ in his writings and accordingly offer a volume exploring the radical dimension in contemporary Baptist thought examining trends in missiology, ecclesiology (including especially the nature of ministry), church-state relations and Evangelical identity. Here are reflections showing how the B/baptist tradition has been reshaped during the last 60 years, an incomplete process which readers are challenged to engage, semper reformandum. Here is a Christ is a passionate, readable and highly constructive book.