The Kenotic Trajectory Of The Church In Donald Mackinnon S Theology

The book explores those aspects of Donald MacKinnon's theological writings which challenge the claim of the liberal Catholic tradition in the Church of England to have forged an ecclesiological consensus, namely that the Church is the extension of the incarnation. MacKinnon destabilized this claim by exposing the wide gulf between theory and practice in that church, especially in his own Anglo-Catholic tradition within it. For him the collapse of Christendom is the occasion for a dialectical reconstruction of the relation of the Church to Jesus Christ and to the world on the basis of the gospel. His basic claim is that authentic ecclesial existence must correspond with what was revealed and effected by Jesus along his way from Galilee to Jerusalem to Galilee. Reflection on the Church thus takes the form of a lived response shaped by a Christocentric grammar of faith: the submission of the church to Jesus' contemporaneous interrogation, a sustained attentiveness to him and the willing embrace of his 'hour'.

Andrew Bowyer presents the first comprehensive examination of Donald MacKinnon's theology in relation to his moral philosophy. He offers an original and creative reading of MacKinnon's methodology, and important insights into the key influences and core questions which stood at the heart of his work. Bowyer outlines MacKinnon's contributions to Anglican theology in the aftermath of the Second World War, highlighting the “therapeutic” nature of his approach in as far as it combined a call for intense self-awareness with a commitment to moral realism. As one of the most influential Anglican theologians in the mid-twentieth century, MacKinnon's writings reveal him as a restive and unsystematic thinker. However, Bowyer argues that a series of reoccurring questions – 'obsessions' might better honour the memory of MacKinnon's temperament –appear throughout his work, relating to the tensions between the realism and idealism, the call to be “morally serious”, the nature of theological truth claims, and the perennially disruptive presence of Christ. Bowyer examines the key influences on MacKinnon's thought, the centrality of Christology to his project, his engagement with literature and literary criticism, as well as his response to Wittgenstein's later philosophy. This volume offers an appreciation of his contribution and a critique of his legacy.

Donald M. MacKinnon has been one of the most important and influential of the post-World War British theologians, significantly impacting the development and subsequent work of the likes of Rowan Williams, Nicholas Lash and John Milbank, among many other notable theologians. A younger generation largely emerging from Cambridge, but with influence elsewhere, has more recently brought MacKinnon’s eclectic and occasionalist work to a larger audience worldwide. In this collection, MacKinnon’s central writings on the major themes of ecclesiology, and especially the relationship of the church to theology, are gathered in one source. The volume will feature several of MacKinnon’s important early texts. These will include two short books published in the “Signposts” series during World War II, and a collection of later essays entitled “The Stripping of the Altars.”

In this bold and provocative invitation, Martyn Percy imagines what the post-pandemic Church might look like and sets out what it needs to learn. It argues that the Church needs to stop obsessing about itself – its size, its strategies to shore up decline, its waning public influence – and rediscover how to live as the body of Christ. In other words, what does it need to do in order to become more like Christ? As Christ poured out his life for the sake of others, he considers ways in which the Church might imitate Christ in practice today. Whenever Jesus visited anywhere beyond the confines of the Jewish community he immediately became socially useful, and so this extols such virtues as humble service in the community, not because it is an effective way to grow the Church, but because it is faithful to Christ’s own example. Avoiding responses such as exasperation, righteous anger at shortcomings or wishful thinking about returning to the past, he sets out a vision for the Church's future that is both biblical and christological. Incisive, imaginative and engagingly written, this will resonate deeply with many lay and ordained members of the Church.

From the time of Plato’s proposed expulsion of the poets, tragedy has repeatedly proposed a challenge to philosophical and theological certainties. This is apparent already in early Christianity amongst leading figures during the patristic age. But this raises the question: Why was the theme of tragedy still accepted and deployed throughout the history of Christianity nevertheless? Is this merely an accident or is there something more substantial at play? Can Christian theology take the tragic seriously? Must Christianity ultimately deny the tragic to be coherent, or might it be able to sustain its negativity? Some like George Steiner, David Bentley Hart, and John Milbank have doubts about such a coherency, but others think differently. This book aims to examine this debate, laying out the lines of disagreement and continuing tensions. Through a critical examination of the work of Donald MacKinnon and the eminent Christian thinker Rowan Williams, the book aims to show that there is a path for reconciling the claims of Christian orthodoxy and the experience of tragedy, one that is able to maintain a metaphysical foundation for both real transcendence and unfolding historicity, without denying either.

The Development of Anglican Moral Theology is the successor volume to The Origins of Anglican Moral Theology. It describes how Anglican theologians interacted closely with the moral philosophers of their day while providing a pastoral resource in the fast-changing period between 1680-1950. The book shows how vibrant and intellectually rigorous the tradition was, and includes detailed studies of the sermons of Butler, Wesley and Newman, the writings of William Law and Coleridge, and the later work of Maurice, Gore, Scott Holland, Moberly, William Temple and Kirk. This is the first account of this lively tradition of moral theology.

What constitutes the unity of the church over time and across cultures? Can our account of the church's apostolic faith embrace the cultural diversity of world Christianity? The ecumenical movement that began in the twentieth century posed the problem of the church's apostolicity in profound new ways. In the attempt to find unity in the midst of the Protestant-Catholic schism, participants in this movement defined the church as a distinct culture—complete with its own structures, rituals, architecture and music. Apostolicity became a matter of cultivating the church's own (Western) culture. At the same time it became disconnected from mission, and more importantly, from the diverse reality of world Christianity. In this pioneering study, John Flett assesses the state of the conversation about the apostolic nature of the church. He contends that the pursuit of ecumenical unity has come at the expense of dealing responsibly with crosscultural difference. By looking out to the church beyond the West and back to the New Testament, Flett presents a bold account of an apostolicity that embraces plurality. Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.