Donald MacKinnon's Theology
Donald MacKinnon's Theology

Author: Andrew Bowyer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-08-22

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0567681254

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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.

The Kenotic Trajectory of the Church in Donald MacKinnon's Theology
The Kenotic Trajectory of the Church in Donald MacKinnon's Theology

Author: Timothy G. Connor

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2011-09-29

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0567434583

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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'.

On Tragedy and Transcendence
On Tragedy and Transcendence

Author: Khegan M. Delport

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2021-10-08

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1532697767

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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.

Theology, Comedy, Politics
Theology, Comedy, Politics

Author: Marcus Pound

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1506458351

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What relevance has comedy for the global crises of late-modernity and the theological critique thereof? Coming out of the experience of war, a generation of modern theologians such as Donald MacKinnon, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and, more recently, Rowan Williams, in their accommodation to literature, choose tragedy as the paradigm for theological understanding and ethics. By contrast, this book develops recent philosophical, anthropological, and psychoanalytical studies of humor to develop a theology of comedy. By deconstructing secular accounts of comedy it advances the argument that comedy is not only participatory of the divine, but that it should inform our thinking about liturgical, sacramental, and ecclesial life if we are to respond to the postmodern age in which having fun is an ideological imperative of market forces.

Barth and God's Story
Barth and God's Story

Author: David F. Ford

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2008-07-01

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1606080563

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Karl Barth interpreted the Bible in a creative and controversial way. One key to his method is his handling of biblical narratives. He argues from them to his theological conclusions in ways that have many parallels with the literary criticism of realistic novels. The role of the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel story is perhaps the most fascinating question, and Barth produces an original and, in literary terms, extremely sensitive understanding of it. The biblical narratives are also vital for his doctrine of God. Overall, there is in the Church Dogmatics a Christian spirituality that is based on reading the Bible in a particular way. Narrative has been one of the richest themes in recent Christian theology. Its importance in all religions and cultures is obvious, and one of the most powerful factors in the way the Bible crosses barriers of time and place is its inclusion of so many good stories. But what happens when these stories are rigorously examined and reflected upon in theology? What is the relationship of theological to literary interpretation? How can stories be central to a theology while keeping their integrity as vivid, universal literature? There is no general answer to such questions. I have taken one modern theologian of international significance, Karl Barth. By concentrating on that part of his method which has to do with narrative, I have attempted both to offer a new assessment of his achievement and also to open a door into his works that will help to make them accessible to those of many backgrounds and cultures with a keen interest in narrative and literature. --from the Preface

Kenotic Ecclesiology
Kenotic Ecclesiology

Author: John C. McDowell

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2016-12-01

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1506418988

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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.”

Christian Theology and Tragedy
Christian Theology and Tragedy

Author: Kevin Taylor

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-23

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1317166604

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Drawing together leading scholars from both theological and literary backgrounds, Christian Theology and Tragedy explores the rich variety of conversations between theology and tragedy. Three main areas are examined: theological readings of a range of tragic literature, from plays to novels and the Bible itself; how theologians have explored tragedy theologically; and how theology can interact with various tragic theories. Encompassing a range of perspectives and topics, this book demonstrates how theologians can make productive use of the work of tragedians, tragic theorists and tragic philosophers. Common misconceptions - that tragedy is monolithic, easily definable, or gives straightforward answers to theodicy - are also addressed. Interdisciplinary in nature, this book will appeal to both the theological and literary fields.

Christian Theology and Tragedy
Christian Theology and Tragedy

Author: Dr Kevin Taylor

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2013-06-28

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1409481603

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Drawing together leading scholars from both theological and literary backgrounds, Christian Theology and Tragedy explores the rich variety of conversations between theology and tragedy. Three main areas are examined: theological readings of a range of tragic literature, from plays to novels and the Bible itself; how theologians have explored tragedy theologically; and how theology can interact with various tragic theories. Encompassing a range of perspectives and topics, this book demonstrates how theologians can make productive use of the work of tragedians, tragic theorists and tragic philosophers. Common misconceptions – that tragedy is monolithic, easily definable, or gives straightforward answers to theodicy – are also addressed. Interdisciplinary in nature, this book will appeal to both the theological and literary fields.

Christ the Tragedy of God
Christ the Tragedy of God

Author: Kevin Taylor

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-09-21

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1351607839

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Tragedy is a genre for exploring loss and suffering, and this book traces the vital areas where tragedy has shaped and been a resource for Christian theology. There is a history to the relationship of theology and tragedy; tragic literature has explored areas of theological interest, and is present in the Bible and ongoing theological concerns. Christian theology has a long history of using what is at hand, and the genre of tragedy is no different. What are the merits and challenges of placing the central narrative of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ in tragic terms? This study examines important and shared concerns of theology and tragedy: sacrifice and war, rationality and order, historical contingency, blindness, guilt, and self-awareness. Theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Martin Luther King Jr., Simone Weil, and Boethius have explored tragedy as a theological resource. The historical relationship of theology and tragedy reveals that neither is monolithic, and both remain diverse and unstable areas of human thought. This fascinating book will be of keen interest to theologians, as well as scholars in the fields of literary studies and tragic theory.