Growth, in society and in church, is often assumed to be a good to which we must aim. The idea of growth as a response to decline is almost ubiquitous across the denominations. But as Christians, we need to have a much more complex and theological engagement with these commitments to growth.

By James Butler, editor of the new issue of ANVIL journal of theology and mission

This is what we attempted to do with the 2022 CMS Conversations Day, on which this issue of ANVIL is based.

How can we thrive in mission?

In planning the Conversations Day, the problem faced by the team of Cathy Ross, James Butler, Richard Passmore and Lori Passmore was how to promote it. Such is the societal and cultural commitment to growth that giving an event a title of “sustainability” does not really capture people’s attention. We live in a society that expects things to be dynamic and fast moving rather than sustainable and stable. We landed on the title of “thriving” trying to maintain a sense of the dynamic without it immediately having to relate to growth.

We wanted to ask how we could thrive in pioneering and mission in ways that were sustainable without having to automatically assume that things need to grow and expand. What do healthy and sustainable approaches to growth look like? What are the theologies and practices that might help us as we seek to thrive in sustainable ways?

Throughout the Conversations Day our contributors drew on their practice, thinking and reading to help us to reflect on thriving in sustainable ways.

Relationships, justice and the long view

There were three themes that we particularly want to highlight from the day that are also present in these articles.

The first is relationships; the reflections were about the primacy of relationship and community as the basis for sustainable practices. The articles challenge individualism and offer communal ways of thinking, such as the African concept of ubuntu – I am because we are.

Another key theme was justice; sustainability is deeply interwoven with justice. This is clearly seen in the climate crisis, where the effects will be most keenly experienced by the poor.

The third theme was eschatology. How do we have a longer view that does not just hope for better but seeks a Christian vision of the world renewed through the coming of the kingdom?

Article round-up

The first of our longer articles comes from Israel Olofinjana, who critiques western notions of sustainability and offers a different model for climate justice.

The second, from Alison Webster, offers community organising as a model of challenging and changing our neoliberal society.

In the third, Janet Williams has a conversation with Richard Passmore about her book Seeking the God Beyond and how the apophatic tradition may hold resources that can help us to thrive in sustainable ways.

The shorter articles turn more clearly to practice and the specific concerns of mission practice, pioneer communities and churches.

Tina Hodgett explains why she resists the impulse to measure outcomes in pioneering in the innovator space, while Paul Bradbury explores the proper context of the idea of measurement and claims that measurement should act as a servant and not our master.

Alison Boulton reflects on her own practice and experience of seeking to develop spiritual sustainability within a local community on a new housing estate over the past 14 years.

Caroline Kennedy offers practices that help her to sustain her own personal spirituality and reflects on how to “find the gold” and helps others to find it too.

Finally, Rosie Hopley recounts her own experience of entrepreneurship in social business, seeing how all can thrive: entrepreneurs, employees, trainees and wider community.

We believe that sustainability needs to be a word that we are much happier and able to engage with in mission, and one that needs clearer theological articulation and practices that help us to live sustainably day in, day out.

We hope this edition of ANVIL might contribute some important insights and practices to that ongoing conversation.

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Sustainability and mission: ANVIL journal volume 38 issue 2 now available

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Aaron J Ghiloni (ed.), World Religions and their Missions (2nd Edition), (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2022).

by Tom Wilson, St Philip’s Centre, Leicester

I’m presuming that readers of this review are mission-minded Christians interested in what they can learn about mission (broadly understood) both from their fellow Christians as well as followers of other world religions. I certainly found plenty of food for thought in this book. After an opening and orientating chapter, World Religions and their Missions is divided into two parts: reflections on particular belief systems and then discussion on the work of comparison of approaches.

Part one works alphabetically through seven belief systems in eight chapters. Rather than summarise the whole argument of each, I will instead note points that particularly struck me.

First, the reflection on mission in the Baha’i faith made me consider the challenge not of winning new adherents but the far greater struggle of deepening their faith. Second, on a related theme, the chapter on Buddhism explored the aim of a conversion of the mind rather than recruitment of numbers. Third, the chapter on Christianity reminded me of the sheer breadth and variety of expressions of faith in Jesus that have existed and continue to exist in the world today. Fourth, I really liked the explanation of Hinduism as “a complex network of closely associated religious traditions” (p.111), as well as the exploration of spreading dharma through proselytization and conversion, sitting in contrast with the process of awakening communion with the divine through bhakti. Fifth, I was slightly surprised by two chapters on Islam, but both were interesting, covering between them the example of the Prophet in da’wah, the history and practice of debate with Christians, the notion of justice as mission, rooted in the Qur’an and Islamic philosophy, as well as active in practice. Sixth, the potted history of Mormon mission was instructive. I found the discussion of the apocalyptic consciousness of the first Mormon missionaries especially enlightening, with the duality of either winning converts for baptism, or shaking off the dust from one’s feet as a sign of eternal rejection and damnation for those who refused to accept the Mormon teachings. The explanation of the current systematic Mormon mission, including the ancestor searches and vicarious baptism of the dead was also interesting. Finally, it was refreshing to see the mission of atheism, or “nonreligion” as the book terms it, discussed in some detail. I found the analysis that nonreligion has two missional aims: critique of religion and support for the views of the nonreligious, to be entirely convincing.

Part two is much shorter, with only two chapters. Chapter ten discusses how the study of mission has developed over time. The particularly useful parts of this chapter, from my perspective, were the discussions of religions not covered so far, acknowledging that Sikhism and Judaism both have missional aspects, as well as the missional focus of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The final chapter, on mission and interreligious dialogue, provides a robust framework for continuing the conversation in detail.

World Religions and their Missions is an interesting, if specialist, read. For Christians who work in interfaith, such as myself, it is a useful resource for nuancing and advancing what can sometimes be an overly simplistic and polemical conversation about mission. For those who train others for Christian mission, it is a useful way in to such discussions. It should therefore be on the shelves of mission training college libraries, for students to use as they develop their own practical and ethical frameworks for twenty-first century mission.

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David W Scott, Daryl R Ireland, Grace Y May and Casely B Essamuah (eds.), Unlikely Friends: How God Uses Boundary-Crossing Friendships to Transform the World, (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2021)

by Rev Dr Hannah Steele, lecturer in missiology, St Mellitus College

This fascinating book offers a variety of contributions on the theme of boundary-crossing friendships in mission. Compiled by four of her former students as a tribute to Dana L Robert on her 65th birthday, it focuses on a topic which has been central to her influential writings upon cross-cultural mission. With the current tendency to focus on strategy, resource and innovation in mission, this book is a timely reminder of the simple yet profound gift of friendship and its prophetic and powerful impact. Robert’s work reorientates us to the foundational practice of friendship in Christian mission and the wisdom there is to be gleaned from the lived experience of those who follow the missionary call of Christ. It follows a central thread in Robert’s own work, which asserted that in the development of world Christianity it is transnational friendships, often behind the scenes, that have slowly and faithfully shaped its emergence.

The book is structured around 12 differently authored contributions reflecting on the role of friendship in diverse contexts and thus raising a variety of critical themes. Soojin Chung skilfully tells the story of the inspirational Pearl Buck, who fought against the systemic racial hierarchy that persisted in transnational adoption. Buck’s own experience of adopting two mixed race children led her to conclude that cross-cultural love was the basis of true family, built on a vision that all humans are created in divine likeness. Michele Miller Sigg writes about Emile Mallet who, during the cholera epidemic in Paris in the mid-nineteenth century, built a network of female friends who ministered alongside street children, vulnerable women and women in prison, inspiring a new generation of Christian women to be missionaries. Taking us on a global and historical tour touching down in the East African revival, Latin America in the early twentieth century and Boston in the height of racial tension in the 1960s, Robert’s former students narrate stories of ordinary missionaries who go under the radar yet through the generosity of their practice of cross-cultural friendship enact the coming kingdom. There is much we can learn from them, and this collection of essays walks us through a journey in which we can do precisely that, challenging us to think about the narrowness of our own social interactions and the possibility of blessing if we are prepared to courageously cross boundaries in friendship.

The second half of the book attends to some of the challenges of such transnational friendships, engaging critically with the danger of cultural dependency and the ever-present danger of what Kendal Mobely astutely calls “the ethical dualism of white supremacy” (p.128). I would have valued this theme being expanded more, but one of the challenges of a collection of essays is the tendency to whet the reader’s appetite rather than offer a comprehensive dealing with a particular subject. I particularly appreciated Bonnie Sue Lewis’s contribution on the value of interfaith friendships and the mutual enrichments of friendships that cross even religious boundaries and open our eyes to ourselves, one another and the presence of God in the world.

In our post-Brexit Western context, where societal division seems more apparent than ever, the importance of friendship in crossing cultural and ethnic barriers cannot be underestimated and carries a prophetic and eschatological potency. Unlikely Friends presents a vision for friendships that transcend the often preferred comfort of homogeneity and alikeness to express something of the joy and value found in difference. While it would be disingenuous to speak of friendship as a “strategy” in mission this volume comprehensively demonstrates the role relationships have and continue to play in shaping world Christianity.

The final section contains tributes to Robert from colleagues and former students. This is perhaps less interesting to the reader wanting simply to explore the missionary and theological value of friendship, yet it is nevertheless testimony to the impact of a remarkable scholar, not least in terms of the sheer breadth of contexts those tributes come from. It would seem that Robert really is a living embodiment of her message.

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Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: for the 21st Century, (London: SCM Press, 2021)

by James Butler, Church Mission Society

Where to begin with a book which is widely regarded as a classic, and one I’ve heard described by one theologian as the most important book of the last 50 years? I do not claim to have grasped its profundity, nor taken in its careful argument in a such a way to make such claims, nor to add much to all that has already been written. While some of it is highly technical and specific (and I’m grateful to the foreword from Richard Bauckham for guidance on where to focus my attention), as Moltmann carefully opens up his main thesis, I could see why this was a classic that demanded careful attention.

Moltmann’s key claim is that we must have a theology of eschatology; a theology that pulls us out of the mechanistic closed universe of modern thinking, and to realise that the kind of hope Jesus promises is not one in continuity with the way the world is, but a radical change. He is critical of what he calls “a theology of the eternal present”, where theology becomes linked to the revelation of God in place. Moltmann argues that God’s presence, for Israel and in the life, death and revelation of Jesus is about promise. The point of God’s presence is always in relation to the promise of the future that is yet to come to pass. This means that Christian theology must have the future in sight, it must be about the future that God promises to bring about, rather than about bringing the present into line with God’s eternity. In this way it unsettles followers of God to “strike out in hope towards the promised new future” (p.89). Moltmann takes almost the entire book to work through the theological implications of such a position: he traces the problem through (mainly German) theological thought in chapter 1, discussing it in relation to history in chapter 2 (particularly through the history of Israel), and through Jesus, and particularly the resurrected Jesus, in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 then begins to explore the consequences of this eschatological perspective to understand what “history” is.

It is only chapter 5 where some of the more practical implications of this theology begin to be explored. In particular, he looks at what it means for the church and Christianity in the modern world. It is by far the shortest chapter and remains fairly abstract and big picture. I think it is safe to say, though, that in reality much of the rest of Moltmann’s great library of works is him working through the implications of this Theology of Hope for the church, for mission and for the world.

The new edition has a new introduction by James Hawkey and includes a lecture from Moltmann delivered in Westminster Abbey in March 2020. Neither add a great deal to what is already there, and Richard Bauckham’s introduction remains a much more significant help in engaging with Moltmann’s work, but they do highlight the continuing need to reflect on eschatology in light of all that is going on in the world. The fact that Moltmann’s lecture took place just before Britain went into full lockdown seems particularly poignant.

So why should you read this book? Well, I have greatly appreciated the challenge to think about the world and theology eschatologically. In the West we are wedded to a sense of progress, to a capitalist outlook that assumes that all can be put right if we work better and harder. Moltmann’s Theology of Hope interrupts this assumption and sets our sights on the future promises of God. Similarly, for churches increasingly drawn to see the world in immanent terms, we desperately need this challenge and to be drawn into God’s promised future; something which is in radical discontinuity with the world as it is, and something we are being invited to participate in and hope for.

This book is not easy going, but it is rewarding. It is not particularly focused on practice, but it paints a compelling vision of theology, and indeed mission, that is focused on God’s future through Jesus Christ, by the Spirit.

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Joseph Sievers and Amy Jill Levine (eds.), The Pharisees, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021).

by Tom Wilson, St Philip’s Centre, Leicester

The Pharisees invariably get bad press in sermons. The purpose of this book is to encourage preachers and teachers to think again. The book’s basic argument is that any account of the Pharisees given in the Gospels is polemical, one side of a debate conducted in a particular style. Unthinking repetition of these stereotypes can, at worst, contribute to continued antisemitism. Lest the reader rolls their eyes and thinks of political correctness gone mad, I personally have witnessed and heard from Jewish friends of many incidents of precisely this problem.

The write up of a conference held at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 2019, The Pharisees is perhaps not the kind of volume to read cover-to-cover in one sitting (specialist academics and book reviewers aside). The price tag may also mean those on a limited budget might look to a library to provide an opportunity to read it. But these points aside, this is a text that is well worth engaging with. In the prelude, Craig Morrison discusses where the name “Pharisee” comes from. He explores Leo Baeck’s focus on linking “saintliness” with “separation” as well as Louis Finkelstein’s argument that Pharisees were “separatists” within the Synagogue. He also covers New Testament approaches.

The first main part explores historical reconstructions. Many of these essays are specialist: a detailed exploration of 4QMMT from the Dead Sea Scrolls and what archaeological finds tell us about Pharisees being two examples. There is also considerable discussion of Josephus and the New Testament texts. Here essays range from detailed discussion of a particular passage (the woes against the Pharisees in Matthew 23) to more general questions as to whether Paul was a “perfectly righteous Pharisee” made all the more righteous by meeting with Jesus, and the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees. This section contains essays that any serious student of the New Testament ought to read. What is particularly useful for those who tend to only engage with Christian (Evangelical) scholarship is that there are various perspectives present. It is, in my view at least, helpful for those who preach and teach the New Testament to understand how painful some of our most treasured texts are to other audiences.

This point, of the reception history of texts, is the central focus of part two. The sweep of history is broad in this section, beginning with the Church Fathers: Justin Martyr, Hegesippus, Hipolytus of Rome and Epiphanius of Salamis, as Matthias Sked explains how Pharisees were used as a symbolic group to suit the theological purposes of the authors. At the other end of this section, Philip Cunningham looks as how Pharisees are portrayed in Catholic religion textbooks, noting with disappointment that stereotypes and inaccuracies abound. Essays in this section discuss portrayal of Pharisees in art and in films, the Oberammergau Passion Play, as well as medieval scholars, Martin Luther and John Calvin. The tone of the section is one of Christian recognition of and repentance for past sins. There is a long, and deeply troubling, history of Christian antisemitism, which stands at odds with Jesus’ own Jewish identity, not to mention his command that we love everyone, including those we theologically disagree with, as ourselves. While it is true that Christians and Jewish people disagree as to our understanding of the person and significance of Jesus of Nazareth, the way in which Christians have done so has all-too-often brought nothing but shame and disgrace to our faith.

The third part provides suggestions as to how we can improve. All those training for ministry, or indeed who preach regularly, ought to read or listen to Amy-Jill Levine at least once. Not because you will necessarily agree with everything she says, but because her views will certainly make you think. This is certainly true of her essay on preaching and teaching about the Pharisees in this volume. Levine is a New Testament scholar of considerable standing, who is also Jewish. Her scholarship is on the liberal and revisionist side, and in other writing she has challenged the historicity of different aspects of the Gospel accounts. That is an area that is open to debate; what is not debatable is her experience of (unthinking) antisemitism perpetuated by both popular Christian preachers and Sunday school teachers, as well as by New Testament scholars. But Levine doesn’t just find problems. She also suggests solutions such as labelling discriminatory art, providing historical information in the church newsletter to supplement the sermon, utilising resources specifically written to help the preacher avoid antisemitism, as well as teaching more generally on the history of Christian–Jewish relations. Perhaps most importantly, Levine encourages Christians to work with Jewish people in developing appropriate responses.

Christians believe they have good news to share. Many Jewish people hear us sharing hatred, discrimination and prejudice. The only way to deal with this problem is for honest conversation resulting in meaningful change. It may not be the case that your Jewish friends and colleagues will come to faith in Christ. But at least they’ll learn you love them enough to be willing to admit your mistakes and change where you’ve got things wrong.

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Andrew Hayes and Stephen Cherry (eds.), The Meanings of Discipleship: Being Disciples Then and Now (London: SCM Press, 2021)

by James Butler, Church Mission Society

Discipleship seems to be popping up everywhere. The term that is. Whether it is in the denominational calls to renewal to reverse church decline, or the multitude of courses and programmes emerging from organisations supporting mission and learning in churches, discipleship has become the most common way to frame this. The Meanings of Discipleship is therefore timely, a prolonged theological reflection on discipleship through its meaning, history and practice. The book has much to offer in drawing the reader to a multitude of sources to enrich the understanding and practice of discipleship. It is an edited volume split into two parts. Each part is also split into two sections.

Part 1 is “A very short history of discipleship”, looking at the early foundations and the architects of discipleship. The first three chapters turn to the New Testament, the early church and medieval Christianity respectively. The next five look at particular key figures such as Benedict, Calvin and Ramabai. There is a helpful basis for much of the discussion here, and some important insights emerge through the chapters, around agency, holiness and church. The problem with the section is it does not, in my opinion, have enough focus on drawing out the learning for the contemporary church. Partly due to it being a multi-authored volume it does not have a sense of forward motion and the reader is left to do much of the work of making the bigger connections.

Part 2, entitled “Imperatives for Discipleship Today”, turns much more clearly to the contemporary context. Helpful chapters on missionary discipleship by Kirsteen Kim, on Eucharist Discipleship by Matthew Bullimore and Relational Discipleship by Stephen Cherry are for me the heart of the book and the most important contributions to the discussion on discipleship. Bullimore’s account of the everyday and domestic and its relationship to prayer and eucharist I found particularly compelling. The five chapters on priorities for contemporary disciples – while all strong and engaging essays with much to contemplate and draw from – felt like they needed a bit more direction and to be more focused on exploring the “meanings of discipleship”.

The fact that, as the title indicates, discipleship has many meanings, causes problems for the book. While this is an important observation about the language of discipleship and one which I would have liked to see given greater attention, it means that the offerings in the different chapters cover a huge range of topics – from medieval pilgrimage to racial justice, from historical “architects” of discipleship such as Benedict and Bonhoeffer to trans experience. While all these chapters offer fascinating insights in their own right, because of discipleship’s many meanings it was harder to see what they offered together to the contemporary understanding of discipleship. I felt there were assumptions about what discipleship was within the different chapters that were not always brought to the surface. And I would have liked to see more engagement between the chapters – something which is, admittedly, tricky in an edited volume.

I think Hayes and Cherry have a keen sense of the issues at stake in the contemporary use of the language of discipleship around agency, connectedness, ecclesiology, desire and holiness and would like to have seen the volume explore these in more detail. Hopefully there is more to come from them around these themes.

Generally, I think this volume makes a helpful contribution to the discussion around discipleship and offers a multitude of perspectives that will serve scholars and practitioners as they reflect on the meanings of discipleship. I recommend the essays from Herman Paul, Anthony Reddie and Rachel Mann in particular as deeply thought provoking and challenging. Overall, this is a rich book with much to recommend despite the limitations suggested above.

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Jeremy Thomson, Interpreting the Old Testament after Christendom: A Workbook for Christian Imagination, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021)

by Miles Hopgood, Ewing, New Jersey, USA

A workbook suggests a series of problems to be solved, which is how Thomson presents the task to the reader in Interpreting the Old Testament after Christendom. In trying to read the Hebrew Bible (or First Testament, as the author prefers), Thomson sees the modern Christian as beset on all sides by impediments. The Shoah exposed the contributions of the Christian tradition to the genocide of European Jews, demanding an undoing of its supersessionism. The decline of Christendom in the West has decentred the Bible in its cultures. The breadth of literature in the Hebrew Bible is a challenge. In the face of all this, Interpreting the Old Testament offers the reader only what it can: an honest assessment of the challenges and an approach whereby the Christian imagination might be drawn authentically and responsibly to engage with these Scriptures.

The approach Thomson advocates is less a formula and more a series of loci or points around which his engagement with the text centres. He takes as his starting point the intertextuality that defines the presence of the First Testament in the Second, looking to how its authors quote, allude and echo the Hebrew Bible in their own writings. He balances this intertextuality with an emphasis on reading whole books, reading any passage through the genre and motifs of the book as a whole. To demonstrate how this approach looks Thomson focuses on four books – Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings – as proofs-of-concept for his method. From these examples, Thomson concludes with a summary of what he recommends: a preference for a canonical (as opposed to narrative) approach that emphasises the conversation within and between the books themselves, aimed at facilitating greater access to these books at all levels of education and familiarity.

Despite its laudable goals – or perhaps, because of them – Interpreting the Old Testament after Christendom will prove frustrating to readers. The title of the book will be read by many as promising something it does not adequately deliver, which is an interpretive approach equal to the challenge the Hebrew Bible presents. This is, I believe, by design: the problem Thomson sets before the reader is one he knows he cannot solve for them, and so he sets about equipping them to wrestle with it instead. Still, some will be frustrated by the author alerting them to the difficulty of the challenge without providing a tidier solution. Similarly, the book does not match well with any one audience. A lay reader will be overwhelmed by the wealth of scholarly engagement, whereas the interdisciplinary nature gives the book a jack-of-all-trades feel in the hands of an academic. Pastors appear to be its target audience, and they may make good use of it; however, the lack of stronger signposting and better organisation in its writing will make harvesting its value tougher going than need be.

Interpreting the Old Testament after Christendom is, in short, the book its subject matter warrants. It is upfront in its challenge, offering much insight at the cost of much work, so much so that many who pick it up will deem it not worth the effort. While it could have been made easier to engage, those who know the value of what it covers are encouraged to make the time to read it.

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David F Ford, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021)

by Howard C Bigg, Cambridge

This long-awaited commentary does not disappoint. One commentator calls it a feast, and so it is. This commentary is unusual in that it is not the work of a New Testament scholar. The author was, before his retirement, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. He has been working on the book for twenty years and acknowledges the many individuals and institutions who have helped to shape his thinking. As I am personally acquainted with the author, however, and have heard him speak on various occasions, I can say unequivocally that this is the author’s voice.

What kind of commentary is it? It began life as a contribution to the Westminster John Knox Belief series aimed at a broad readership in churches of many traditions, but more broadly anyone in varied cultures who “is open to an intelligent faith that engages… with the Bible and with the contemporary world”(p.xi). When the commentary grew too large to be accommodated within that series, it was taken on by Baker Academic.

The commentary is organised devoting a chapter to each chapter of the Gospel. It is based on the English text of the NRSV, but Ford’s fluency in Greek enables him to focus on particular words helpfully transliterated. The introduction poses the questions Why John? Why now? It is important to read it because Ford surveys a number of essential matters, chiefly the all-important question of the identity of Jesus in John’s Gospel. He also draws attention to how John envisages an ongoing drama in the lives of Jesus’ disciples and those who will be drawn to believe through their testimony (cf. John 20:31). Ford believes that John knew the synoptic Gospels, but his post-resurrection stance leads him to make use of traditional material in a thoroughly Johannine manner (e.g. the cleansing of the temple: 2:13–22). Otherwise, Ford does not overly concern himself with matters of historical criticism.

In his treatment of chapter 1 Ford lays out a rich panoply of Johannine concepts, beginning with the momentous “In the Beginning was the Word” recalling Genesis 1:1. Then follows in the prologue (vv. 1–18), a cascade of words familiar to readers of John’s Gospel: life, light and darkness, glory, grace and truth. The rest of the chapter (vv. 19–51) introduces further key terms: the witness of John the Baptist, Jesus the Lamb of God, Son of God and, in v. 51, the mysterious Son of Man. Then in verse 38ff comes the delightful little story where Jesus invites the first disciples to follow him, thereby introducing the key theme of discipleship.

It is impossible to do adequate justice to this excellent commentary, but readers may get a brief glimpse of Ford’s ability to question familiar interpretations of key ideas by focusing on a single term: truth. In 16:13 Jesus assures his anxious disciples that after his return to the Father, the Holy Spirit will “guide you into all the truth”. How comprehensive is this? Ford notes the numerous attempts to limit this to a “neatly defined package of meaning” (p.316). The activity of the Holy Spirit is far greater than merely reminding the disciples and their successors of truths already revealed. The Gospel is clear too that truth is inseparable from action. In 3:21 John links truth and light in a passage contrasting lovers of darkness with those who come to the light. Later, in chapter 18, in his confrontation with Pilate, Jesus accepts the title of king but proceeds to fill it with his own meaning: “For this I was born, for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (18:37).

I should just mention Ford’s indebtedness to the work of Richard Hays, who expounded the value of figural interpretation which he defined as “the discernment of unexpected patterns of correspondence between earlier and later events or persons within a continuous temporal stream”. Applying this principle to John, Hays writes that “even more comprehensively than the other gospels, John understands the Old Testament as a vast matrix of symbols prefiguring Jesus”. This way of interpreting will frequently alert readers to recognise this principle at work. An excellent example of this can be seen in Ford’s treatment of the cleansing of the temple (2:13-25). In reading the Gospel alongside the Old Testament, Ford consistently uses the Greek translation (LXX).

I have no doubt that anybody who buys this commentary will find in it an imaginative resource, opening up new ways of understanding and applying this wonderful Gospel. My only minor quibble is that I don’t think the average reader will know what “midrash” is (p.58).

To conclude, I think this commentary could profitably be read right through such is the quality of the narrative. My verdict is, buy this book!

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M Daniel Caroll R and Vincent E Bacote (eds.), Global Migration & Christian Faith: Implications for Identity and Mission, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022)

by Joseph Ola, Missio Africanus, Liverpool

The Yoruba people of Nigeria have a saying: “The conflagration that destroyed the king’s palace only makes it more palatial.” In other words, there are blessings hidden in every disaster. Such is the story behind the publishing of this book, born out of a 2020 Wheaton Theology Conference that was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a Nigerian involved in missionary work in Britain in both church and academic contexts, this reviewer – along with millions of other diaspora Christians – lives in the reality of the tensions of global migration and its intersection with the Christian faith. In many of the migrant churches in Britain I have encountered in the course of my study and research, immigration issues are top of their prayer list and often the highlight of the “testimony time” (a time when church members give a praise report on an answered prayer) in their church services. Many pastors, church members and Christian scholars are understandably concerned with the refugee crisis both in their own immediate contexts and globally. While being aware of the different perspectives on (im)migration that are shaped along political lines, our Christian faith demands that we think Christianly about the intersection of our faith and the volatile subject of migration. This book definitely is a helpful resource in that regard.

The diverse disciplines of the contributors resulted in a rich variety of perspectives presented in the volume which are neatly categorised into four sections: Historical Perspectives (two authors), Biblical Foundations (four authors), Theological Reflections (two authors) and Ecclesiological and Missiological Challenges (three authors).

The Historical Perspectives section dwelt mainly on the Reformation era by reconsidering two writings of Martin Luther (Leopoldo A. Sánchez M.’s essay) as well as the Bible translation endeavours of the Reformation refugees as they took the Bible “on the run” with them and endeavoured to vernacularise across language frontiers (Powell McNutt’s essay). I found Sánchez M’s proposition insightful – that we are not only saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone based on scripture alone to the glory of God alone (the five solas of the Reformation) but also because of God’s generosity alone (sola hospitalitate).

The Biblical Foundations section begins with editor M. Daniel Carroll’s fresh consideration of the Book of Genesis both to reconsider the concept of the image of God and the various strands of migration in the Book. Likewise, C.L. Crouch, in his contribution, considers the concerns of involuntary migration from the prophetic books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the “emergency theology” that emerges from such contexts. Joshua Jipp, through the books of Luke and Acts, and Nelson Morales, through the books of James and 1 Peter, offer a lens that glorifies the cross-cultural mission of the gospel of Christ.

In the Theological Reflections section, Peter Phan makes both literal and figurative use of the terms “home land”, “foreign land” and “our land” as raw materials to tease out a theology of place that reflects the stages of the migration experience of many migrants. Then Daniel Groody creatively theologises on illegal border crossings by identifying Christ’s miraculous conception in the womb of a betrothed virgin as a somewhat “illegal border crossing” in its own right.

In the final section on Ecclesiological and Missiological Challenges, Mark Douglas links climate change with migration and international law. George Kalantzis’ vivid account of Europe’s largest refugee camp in Lesbos suggests new ecclesiologies that can help in rehumanising people living in Lesbos-like realities, to the point where they can begin to consider themselves not only as refugees but also as people capable of hosting others with what they have to offer to the wider Body of Christ and the society. In the final contribution in the volume Sam George adapts the Missio Dei missiological terminology to remind readers that God is always on the move (Motus Dei), thus defining mission as following God on the move with a continuous intentional realignment of our steps with God’s.

In its entirety, the volume is an attempt to use the Bible, Christian theology and church history as collaborative tools in shaping a missional response to the global migration and refugee crises. While the editors and most of the other contributors live and work in the United States of America (four from Wheaton College and eight from elsewhere – mainly from institutions in the United States), the book contains helpful and provocative insights for church leaders, mission partners, students and anyone involved in cross-cultural ministry from across the world – at least, those who are able to afford it.

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Lucinda Mosher (ed.), Freedom: Christian and Muslim Perspectives (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021)

by Tom Wilson, St Philip’s Centre, Leicester

This edited collection reflects the proceedings of the 18th annual Building Bridges Seminar, which brings together Muslim and Christian scholars from around the world and was held in Switzerland in 2019.

Part one contains the opening plenary addresses of the gathering: C. Rosalee Velloso Ewell provides a Christian perspective and Tuba Isik a Muslim one on the topic of freedom. Azza Karram offers a few brief reflections on both essays. Part two focuses on Islamic texts on freedom. There are texts to discuss, drawn from the Quran and Hadith, from premodern Islamic writings and from writings in the modern period. There are also three essays, which introduce the three text selections. Part three does a similar job for the Christian texts, although in this case there are four selections: Old Testament, New Testament, the classical period and the modern period. Part four has one essay – some reflections on the seminar from Lucinda Mosher, the editor of this volume.

Rather than list the contents in exhaustive (and probably exhausting) detail, I will instead reflect upon the usefulness of the volume and the lessons it offers for other forms of Christian–Muslim dialogue. I will make four points. First, as a written record of interfaith dialogues, Freedom perhaps is best read as a stimulus for further conversations between Muslims and Christians about the nature of freedom in the many and various contexts in which we find ourselves. There is some reward in reading it by yourself and reflecting on what you find. I suspect there is much more to be gained if it is used as a way into conversation.

But second, this is a very intellectual and academic approach to dialogue, which will only work for an educated elite. So perhaps this is more a library resource or a book to buy a single copy of and use in planning dialogue events. The more practical questions, of how do we live well together in shared space, are notably absent – a curious oversight in a dialogue about freedom. Surely questions of how to live out my religion freely without harming others ought to be front and centre to the endeavours of an organisation such as Building Bridges. I would certainly advocate they become central to any dialogue group that uses this book as a stimulus for their own conversations.

Third, as well as being not enough, there is also far too much in this book for most dialogue groups to work with. This is especially true of the secondary texts, but even the wealth of scriptural citations would take a while to work through. There is a need to plan any dialogical encounter carefully, and be very clear on aims and expectations. The desire to include female and male voices from a range of Christian and Muslim theological perspectives is one to emulate as far as is practicable. It should be noted that, as with any selection, some are inevitably ignored. The lack of black voices is noted by Mosher, and does mean Freedom lacks some crucial perspectives.

Fourth, dialogue is founded on friendship; there are hints that Building Bridges is a gathering of friends, doubtless a changing and developing group, but with a core who have built relationships of trust in which truths can be spoken. Ultimately, this is where freedom lies, in our decisions to learn to live well together.

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Steve Taylor, First Expressions: Innovation and the Mission of God, (London: SCM Press, 2019)

by James Butler, Church Mission Society

First Expressions is an important contribution to the conversation around Fresh Expressions and new forms of church. By returning to alternative worship and emerging church groups that he had spent time with over 11 years previously, Taylor is able to provide a longitudinal study and begin to respond to the questions Fresh Expressions continually face around longevity and sustainability. Starting from his own experience of leading a “first expression” of church and seeing it grow and thrive and then come to an end, Taylor takes a fascinating journey exploring different experiences of these experimental Christian communities. He helpfully distinguishes between these “first expressions” of church and the institutional body seeking to learn from and resource these kinds of churches, “Fresh Expressions”. I found this a particularly significant insight which recognises their unique and valuable contributions.

The book is laid out in four parts. The first part, consisting of three chapters, introduces first expressions, processes of innovation and the practical theology underpinning the project. It is about paying attention to the particular and the church “body-ing forth in innovation”. Taylor firmly locates first expressions within innovation. The exploration of innovation moves it beyond what we might consider a Silicon Valley approach, drawing insights from ecosystems, indigenous understandings of innovation and from craft. These provide lenses through which innovation in Scripture can be seen afresh. His evaluative questions, which he forms through the chapter, are particularly helpful for drawing churches and communities into much more helpful and sustainable ways of being.

The second part revisits the 11 communities Taylor first researched in 2001, of which only five are still in existence. In chapter 4 he reflects on spending time with each of those five and begins to identify key themes around sustainability. In chapter 5 he spends time talking to those who were involved in the first expressions that came to an end, like the one he had led. Again, there is wisdom drawn from these experiences, both in what might have helped the first expressions to develop differently, and from the ecclesiology which is being revealed in these stories. An ecclesiology that reveals the models of church-as-gathered and church-as-growing to be deficient.

Part three focuses on the role of Fresh Expressions as organisational innovation. In the three chapters, Taylor spends time developing the theology that rooted Rowan William’s approach to Fresh Expressions, the ways in which Fresh Expressions brought about ecclesial innovation and the organisational structures that enable mission.

Chapter four begins to draw out the implications for a theology of first expressions. Taking the four marks of the church – one, holy, catholic and apostolic – he reflects on the learning from the longitudinal study.

One of the most helpful chapters for me was exploring authenticity and what it means for the church to be “one”. Taylor contrasts authenticity-as-originality and authenticity-as-sincerity. The former is the experimental and innovative, finding a contextual understanding of faith in a new culture, the latter is about discerning how it is a sign of God in the world. While Taylor is not questioning the need for discernment, what he is pointing out is that there are far more resources dedicated to discerning God in the past than in the present, and without the resources focused on that discernment stability and continuity becomes implicitly valued over the innovative and new. Because Fresh Expressions inadvertently conflated the two there is always a pull back to continuity and stability.

For all the discussion and interviews it felt a little detached from practice and there is some work to be done by the reader to make the connections. It was perhaps slightly long, and as a result it lost some of the focus of the earlier sections as it reached its concluding chapters. However, this is a significant piece of work, for a number of reasons: It provides a longitudinal and honest view of these “first expressions” that does not shy away from the difficulties and struggles and provides important perspective on such community; it is based on careful, in depth qualitative research that enables the wider church to listen carefully and attentively to these groups; and it develops an approach to innovation that encourages a more complex and sustainable approach to church.

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Jione Havea, Doing Theology in the New Normal: Global Perspectives (London: SCM Press, 2021)

by John Wheatley, CMS MA graduate and Frontier Youth Trust

A friend of mine, with no connection to church, recently had a wayward son return to the family home. Her eldest was not best pleased. In discussing this I was able to share the story of the prodigal son. For me this is when theology is most alive: when our lived experience sheds light on old stories in a way that opens new possibilities. Doing Theology in the New Normal is a book that explores global experiences of COVID-19, using them to uncover how theology has, or should have, changed for the post-pandemic world.

Jione Havea has curated this collection of essays from theologians around the world and interspersed them with poetry. Published in 2021, these pieces were written at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, reflecting on the impact of lockdowns and public health interventions, and seeking connections with historical and theological themes. The 350-page volume contains a diverse range of perspectives – some that clicked, and some that didn’t. I was particularly moved by Sung Uk Lim’s essay on the Korean idea of Untact. In this piece Lim draws a connection between Jesus’ healing touch and the public health regimes of the pandemic era. In this contrast we explore boundary crossing in Mark’s Gospel. It brings fresh perspective on the call for the church to align itself with the hurting, outcast and untouchables. This piece related well to my own context as a youth worker on a UK council estate. Likewise, in their chapter, Angelica Tostes and Delana Corazza explore a mission spirituality built on shared, communal values. They look to the Latin American concepts of Buen Vivir (good living) as models and inspiration for transforming the whole community through solidarity. What I valued so much in these chapters was the theological exploration of a cultural idea that came to the surface during COVID-19, but that has actual real-world application in our communities now – this is local theology at its best!

However, despite these notable exceptions, it would be fair to say that I found the book hard going. It may be that looking back from the summer of ‘22 makes the subject matter unrelatable as a time that we’d rather forget. More depressingly, the collection presents a hopeful new dawn beyond COVID-19, which – given the Ukrainian war, a cost-of-living crisis and other painful realities – feels rather misplaced. The hardest part for me is that some of the authors seem to be doing their theology outside of an immediate ministry context, which makes much of the work feel academic rather than practical. In this way, the book pulls together grand overarching narratives around COVID-19, but fails to relate to either the lived experience of the pandemic, nor the less-than-hoped-for “new normal”.

At its best, the contributors of this book show us how the church can pioneer new ideas and new ways of doing theology built on the cultural resources of the day. For us ordinary do-it-yourself pioneers, who are doing our best to find meaningful connection between cultural context and the wisdom of the Christian story, there are some selected pieces of brilliance among the essays that represent good local theology. These could have significant application in our practice. But for the most part, this is a book for those studying the discipline of contextual theology, and probably those looking back with interest at the COVID-19 2020–21 pandemic years. For sure, it is a book best borrowed from the library. Still, doing theology is always an act of hope – hope that a new normal is possible even in trying times. This book is a manifesto of hope from within the darkest moments of recent history.

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