Victoria Turner (Ed.), Young, Woke and Christian: Words from a Missing Generation, (London: SCM Press, 2022)

reviewed by Vicki Gale, Frontier Youth Trust

Victoria Turner curates an array of thoughtful reflections from 13 young contributors, who come from a variety of church backgrounds and traditions, offering boundary pushing views on a range of subjects including purity culture, feminism, ableism and mental health, and maybe something new and distinct on climate, racial inclusion, trans identity, food poverty and homelessness. Some of the contributions from the 168-page collection really clicked with me, others didn’t.

The word “woke” in the title needs to be addressed, as it is powerfully charged with a rich history and can often be misinterpreted. In his prologue, Anthony Reddie highlights the intention of using the word “woke” in the title, articulating that “wokeness” is used here with a progressive intention. Reddie talks of a new line of action in liberation theology with its focus on the experiences of the young.

A chapter that stuck out for me is Nosayaba Idehen’s, “Racial Inclusion: Guidelines to Being a more Racially Inclusive Church” where the advice is for the church “not to welcome the black family with tales of mission to some distant African country, which could be interpreted as micro-aggression. Instead involve them with church leaderships creating inclusivity through affirmative action and attention to the micro-aggressions that permeate church culture. Be direct.” Don’t just ask for volunteers to do the flowers, that will only ever attract the same five people! Although I liked this chapter, I am not sure how “woke” it is, even using the book’s definition of the word.

Another interesting chapter is Josh Mock’s, “Queer, Christian and Tired”. Here Mock emphasises that “As a queer Christian we must be unapologetic in our queerness” and act from a place of “queer celebration”. He explores the frustrations of dialogue with oppressive institutions, which seems more relevant than ever with LLF and the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church. Josh Mock alludes to the turning over of tables, by Jesus, to justify radical action, saying, “His overturning of the tables was a demonstrative action, designed to challenge economic exploitation and a ‘provocative assault on the priesthood and aristocracy’.” He says Jesus’ transgressive act offers a model of transgressive practice for queer Christians, going on to say that he views the oppression of queer Christians as blasphemous to the gospel message. Personally, I am uncomfortable with what I would call a “hermeneutic of convenience”.

I think my absolute favourite chapter is Shermara Fletcher’s chapter on homelessness. She offers a good theological reflection that seems so obvious and yet most of us aren’t doing it. Under a subheading, “radical Inclusivity”, she says “The Church should practise Christian diakonia, which is a deeper type of koinonia that describes a community that ‘works for the welfare of all its members as well as helping to build the reign of God throughout the entire world’”. This implies that homeless and hungry people should be wholly inside the structures of established churches.

I both loved and hated this book. The chapters are wide ranging with an assortment of authors raising issues and addressing them from a theologically reflective viewpoint. Each author owns their chapter, and each chapter is written from their place, their time and in their own words. The varied styles could be a strength or a weakness. For me, at times a weakness, as I like things to be ordered and methodical. That said, the author of each chapter shows what some of the social justice issues are and offers a possible solution. It’s up to us to respond in our own context, in our own time and in our own words. The book title suggests that young people are “the missing generation”. We need to ask ourselves if that’s true. Are they missing from God’s mission, or are they just missing from church? The issues presented in this book need to be addressed, not because they are popular with youth but because they are the gospel!

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Colin Smith, Using a Missional Framework: How to Discern a Missional Approach in Different Contexts, (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2023)

reviewed by Revd Katrina Hutchins, Vicar of Mears Ashby and Hardwick and Sywell with Overstone

As vicar of a rural benefice, this booklet is a perfect source of missional inspiration as we seek to reimagine and re-energise our post-pandemic priorities. What is God calling us to be across our four villages and new housing developments, across the generations and with the primary schools? The Cynefin framework that Colin Smith imaginatively explores will help us to discern where we are across the things we are already doing – collectively, individually – and to identify the gaps that God is inviting us to step into with him. Some of our mission is simple, some is complicated, but much is complex. There is no ready formula or solution to these “wicked” problems and “fantastic” opportunities. As Colin writes on page 4, God is encouraging us to “remove our shoes, place our feet on hitherto unknown ground and just walk, reliant only on the leading of the Spirit and the company we find along the way.” We don’t currently have any pressing decisions or burning platforms that require us to solve a chaos with God’s help, but you might have.

If you are looking to re-invigorate the life and witness of your church and discern how God is calling you to use your God-given gifts, this is a great place to start. In the introduction, Colin uses a powerful metaphor from Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See to get his reader thinking about how, as a leader, they might be constraining God’s creative Spirit. Where are we, as a Church, being held back by existing and new models of mission and ministry? Where is God inviting us to walk out into the unknown with him and have a go? It is a highly energising idea. Perfect if your church needs a refresh after the constraints and challenges of the Covid-19 years.

Chapter 4 provides a template for a mission-discerning workshop. I can see myself using this in my own benefice to affirm what we are already doing, identify things that we could stop and explore the complex areas where we can take some fresh steps under the Spirit’s guiding. As part of this, I’d look to see who God is inviting to join these creative ventures – which church members have the gifts and/or the heart to go on an uncharted walk. Learning by doing feels so right at this stage of the Church’s life and evolution, as we seek to be “Simpler, Humbler and Bolder”.

Do take a look at this Grove booklet. And may the Spirit give you the courage and creativity to step out into the unknown. It is a place full of possibilities!

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Eve Parker, Trust in Theological Education: Deconstructing “Trustworthiness” for a Pedagogy of Liberation, (London: SCM Press, 2022)

reviewed by Sue Hart, Vicar Holy Trinity, Tidworth

I have rarely felt so ill-at-ease as I did when I found myself at theological college. I was reassured repeatedly (primarily by white men) that I would “adjust”, but it was only when I was able to articulate for myself the cause of my dis-ease that things started to fall into place. For me, it was the realisation that patriarchy was, as I expressed it, “mortared into the walls” of the august institution I attended; for Eve Parker, it is the colonisation of theological education that alienates, excludes and diminishes those who do not fit into the male, Western model of ministry that theological education promotes.

Parker’s book is a clarion call for systemic change in theological education, and therefore should be read by theological educators, decision makers in Ministry Division and those within dioceses contributing to the conversation around discernment, vocation and formation. But it would also be usefully read as a salve for those who have felt the discriminatory sting of ministerial formation located within an androcentric, Western, white norm.

Eve Parker’s forensic deconstruction of theological education arrives at a time of an overarching debate around trust in institutions. Following the damning conclusions of the IICSA (Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse) report into sexual abuse, and simmering polarisation around issues of sexuality and gender, the Christian church is no longer a place that necessarily engenders trust.

Parker suggests that this lack of trust reflects systemic failures in theological training, which are grounded in colonialism and patriarchy, and which ultimately fail to fully equip “students with the skills to bring about God’s kin-dom on earth.”^[1] Her central question in the book is whether theological education has “the capacity to help the Church bring an end to racism, sexism and classism, abolish socio-economic inequality, gender violence and environmental degradation?”

This core question is why, for me, the book is so important. Parker’s thesis is not merely an identity polemic arguing for comfier spaces for women, LGBTI+, non-binary, Black and brown people, but a total unearthing and inspection of the foundations of theological education. She encourages the reader to engage with epistemological questions and suggests that our white, Western, androcentric ways of knowing have colonised theological education to the detriment of wider social justice.

Parker argues that theological education has an epistemological problem, which requires a paradigm shift. The existing paradigm is that white/Western (predominantly male) theologies are the “norm” and world theologies are contextual. Parker argues that, by shifting world theologies from the periphery of theological learning, we may begin to decolonise our thinking and practice. Furthermore, she suggests that the division between “systematic” and “contextual” theologies is an erroneous one: that, in reality, all theologies are contextual and should be acknowledged as such in theological institutions. “Segregating theological voices into contextual theologies enables the continuation of white supremacy theology because the norm remains unchallenged, whereas decolonising the curriculum challenges the dominant culture” (p.152).

Possibly I am projecting my frustrations onto her, but I hear Parker’s voice as one of righteous anger at the damage and limitations perpetuated by too narrow a vision of theological education, which marginalises the voices, experiences and theologies of those outside of the Westernised academy to the detriment of the church and society as a whole.

I suspect that Eve Parker’s book will be intensely polarising. Those of us who have experienced theological training as somewhat traumatising due to an inescapable feeling of “I don’t belong here” will celebrate Parker’s ground-breaking book, which dissects theological education with a decolonising eye. But those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo will likely regard Parker’s challenge as an existential threat to the orthodoxy that helps maintain their privileged positions.

[1] Parker, along with other feminist and liberation theologians including mujerista theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz, preferences “kin-dom” over “kingdom” stressing the egalitarian nature of the gospel preached by Jesus, as opposed to the more hierarchical structures of a patriarchal society.

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Kelly Brown Douglas, Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter, (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2021)

reviewed by Cathy Ross, Church Mission Society

This book is divided into two parts and, as Brown Douglas says, traces her own journey of faith. The first part traces and explores what she calls America’s corrupted moral imaginary with respect to African Americans and race. The second part is a kind of theological testimony where she considers what it would mean to free the moral imaginary from a white knowing. She explores the ideas of reparations, “defunding the police” and the implications for the white community. She concludes by meeting the resurrected Jesus in Galilee as she did at a #BLM protest.

In the first part of the book, she argues that our moral imaginary has been corrupted by whiteness. She argues this compellingly with detailed examples of an anti-Black narrative from Aristotle through to Origen and Jerome, the slave trade, Jefferson and Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson to the MAGA narrative, where she sees “great” as a euphemism for “white”. She claims that Aristotle associated cowardice with the colour black, that in early Greek thought blackness was associated with hypersexuality, and that Origen associated a sinful soul with blackness – so, we begin to see where some of these tropes about blackness originated. Fast forward to the fifteenth century and the insulting and graphic description of the first captive Africans on European soil in 1444, then to the anti-black notions in Shakespeare and Kant’s racial theory, where he considered “the Negro race” the lowest in the human hierarchy. Jefferson, the father of America’s democracy, was a slave holder and held white supremacist convictions – extraordinary when he penned the self-evident truth “that all men are created equal”. Then we have the Jim Crow laws and President Woodrow Wilson who showed an anti-black film in the White House that presented the Ku Klux Klan as heroes. And then Trump. And this is just the first chapter. In the light of current discussions in the UK, I found the second chapter fascinating, where she argues that monuments and statues are not innocent. She is writing about Confederate statues and monuments and claims that they are powerful symbols of social memory that reify white privilege. This caused me to think about all the statues that celebrate Empire in Britain, not to mention the tiny percentage of statues that are women. The next chapter looks at the concept and legacy of white silence and the harm that has done to both Black and white people.

Part One sets the scene and paints a stark picture of what it means to live as a Black person in USA today. Part Two is more hopeful despite this bleak portrait. Brown Douglas claims that social memory can be reconfigured by remembering correctly, and here discusses in some detail the concept of anamnesis, which can change the gaze through which history is viewed. She also calls for proximity, essentially friendship. 75 per cent of white Americans have entirely white networks, and faith communities are equally segregated. Genuine friendship is needed that can begin to understand, see and feel the blatant racism and fear that Black people experience. She calls for a “defunding” of the police whose violence towards Black men is so hugely disproportionate.

Each chapter begins with a text from her son recounting some horrific incident or explaining his despair and lack of hope. Her final chapter deals with this: Where is the hope? Ultimately, she finds it in the Jesus of Galilee. She claims that Jesus’ invitation to his disciples is to go back to Galilee to return to a life-giving ministry. She discovers this, as well as the gift of laughter, which is subversive, at a #BLM protest. You will have to read the book to see how this happens.

I recommend this book, not only to gain a deeper insight into the American context of racism, but also because it throws light on our own prejudices, sacred cows and our own racism. You will be uncomfortable, challenged, informed and hopefully enabled to make a difference.

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Delroy Hall, A Redemption Song: Illuminations on Black British Pastoral Theology and Culture, (London: SCM Press, 2021)

reviewed by Rosie Hopley, CMS MA student

This is a book that offers a much-needed exploration of Black British pastoral theology from Delroy Hall, lecturer in counselling and psychotherapy at Leeds Beckett University. Hall draws on his pastoral experience and practical examples in this important work.

From the outset, I found myself glad that Hall returned to a childhood ambition to become a writer. I cannot help but wonder what other gems he might have written over the last 50 years had his talent been encouraged when he was a child (p.ix). It is too late to answer that question. However, in this book, he has proven that he brings an important voice for this generation, as he skilfully and with empathy shows how Black men can help themselves through self-love in his chapter Towards a Theology of Black Men.

I must confess, early on I wondered why his focus was on men, being a woman reading this text. It did not take long for me to understand why, and I commend him for it. A Redemption Song is a book I want to put in the hands of every Black man I know, in my own family and wider circles.

Hall does not shy away from the horrific history of the transatlantic slave trade, and he casts a forensic eye upon the disastrous impact it has had on those brutally wrenched from their homelands, and their descendants. If you want to gain an insight into the history and some of the impact of the historic slave trade, this is an excellent and accessible way to begin that journey of learning, as Hall brings a corrective focus to earlier, more sanitised narratives. The author powerfully interrogates this hard history. His handling of “The Good Friday of the Middle Passage” (p.18) is masterful – he brings truth telling, and an unflinching examination of the violence done to enrich and “advance the industrialisation of the British empire” (p.18). He does not shy away from clearly making the link between the terrors experienced in Africa and the Caribbean, and the tortuous journeys in between, with the fortunes made in the UK.

Hall deftly interacts with other Black British theologians like Kate Coleman, Robert Beckford, and Anthony Reddie, as well as African American theologians like James Cone. It is as though he gathers some of the greatest thinkers into a room and begins to carefully engage with their offerings. I felt richer for it, and eager to read more of their works. Examples that he has woven in from history include the voices of those who paved the way for the emancipation of their people, such as the revolutionary Baptist deacon Sam Sharpe, and writer and abolitionist Equiano. Such accounts cause this reviewer to want to revisit these stories, these histories, looking through the lens of resurrection.

Suffering and hope are pivotal themes, and I was thankful for how Hall embeds the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection throughout the text. His chapter titles give some clue: The Middle Passage as Existential Crucifixion; Body Broken Eucharistic Violence and the Sam Sharpe Revolt; Eucharistic Encounters, Towards an African Caribbean Diasporan Pastoral Theology.

The provision of questions at the end of each chapter plus a wealth of resources will help the book spark much needed conversations. I can imagine a group of Black men using this as a book to study their way through history, their own stories and the passion story of Christ. I believe they would not be the same as they were at the beginning as they encounter the suffering and sacrificial Christ in its pages. Hall sets out to offer a Black theology in his quest for the care of souls, minds and bodies, and he does it well.

Delroy Hall has served his readers well with his book, and I encourage people to read it – to get an insight into Black British pastoral theology. It is a book of hopeful redemption, in the words of Bob Marley (p.92). It is an ode to the “resilience of the African spirit… and the enduring belief in the creator and its enduring legacy for people of African descent” (p.11).

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Miranda Harris and Jo Swinney, A Place at the Table: Faith, Hope and Hospitality (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2022)

reviewed by Idina Dunmore, Pioneer Curate at St John, Southall Green

I found A Place at the Table to be a beautiful book that deftly defies literary categorisation. It is edited and part-written by Jo Swinney, together with gathered writings of her mother, Miranda Harris, who tragically died in a car accident along with two friends and colleagues in South Africa in 2019.

This book, arising out of that time of grief and loss for Jo and her family, is a combination of memoir, biography, lived-theology, Christian discipleship and a missional reminder to all of God’s ever-welcoming love. Jo describes the content as a “smorgasbord”. This is apt, as the rich variety of writing is arranged to correspond with a meal’s structure: hunger, preparation, welcome, at the table, the clean-up, the forever feast.

Each chapter has the following aspects crafted through it:

• theological and explanatory content from Jo.
• notes gleaned from Miranda’s writing: over 20 years of drafting about community and belonging, notes of talks, newsletters and more.
• creative retelling of meal-based Bible stories.
• edited sections of Miranda’s journal entries from 1983–2019.

The last of these was recovered from the river following her fatal accident, which is extremely moving and worthy of reflection as she quotes 2 Tim. 4:18: “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory …”

Peter and Miranda Harris were the pioneer founders of A Rocha, which describes itself as: “a global family of conservation organizations working together to care for creation” (www.arocha.org). Through her collated writings in this book, Miranda paints a compelling picture of their family life, rooted in A Rocha communities in Portugal and France, detailing the way they lived out A Rocha’s founding value of community (one of five values beginning with the letter “C”). Jo Swinney has become the director of communications for A Rocha International, so naturally the history and heart of A Rocha’s eco-narrative permeate this book, and important details of her own life story are included among Miranda’s writings.

Jo sets out her hope that the reader of this book will gain a deeper personal understanding of the hospitality God offers each of us, and be moved to experience the joy and wonder of hospitality by practically reaching out in welcome, especially beyond our comfort zones, to build significant relationships in community.

The variety of sources of writing give this book a vibrant and reflective feel, and the editors have tried hard to clarify the different voices using distinct fonts and illustrated page breaks. However, personally I found the multi-faceted structure confusing at times, being unsure whose voice I was reading, especially if I dipped into the book. In trying to tie so much material together, I also wondered if the opportunity to dive deeper into each topic was lost, for example drawing out learnings about hospitality across more diverse cultures, or greater critical discourse into justice and equity for the growing number of people in food poverty within the UK and across the world.

In a similar way to Miranda and Jo, my passion for welcome and hospitality began when I lived in a missional Christian community in London. Through a ministry of presence, we wanted to learn to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbours as ourselves” Luke 10:27. We invited many people into our home, which initially developed into a weekly bring-and-share drop-in meal with neighbours and friends, and subsequently became a Fresh Expression congregation called The Table.

For this reason, I resonate with very many aspects of this book, but would recommend it to a wide audience because it is readable and accessible. Both for those new to considering God’s welcome, and for those of us for whom hospitality is a foundation of faith, this book offers an inspirational life story, with basic theological background and practical “how-to” pointers. For example, the bibliography includes recipe books! I loved the simple points of challenge, and the sparkling creative prose. This may also be a book to gift to others, as I am sure that Jo also hopes that those undecided about Christian faith will be impacted by her mother’s testimony of a God who loves each of us, and longs to transform us, with the ultimate assurance that Miranda is now celebrating the “forever feast” of the “best meats and finest wines” (Isa. 25:6) with Jesus.

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Kwok Pui-Lan, Postcolonial Politics and Theology: Unraveling Empire for a Global World, (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2021)

reviewed by Cathy Ross, Church Mission Society

Kwok Pui-Lan wrote this book during the ongoing protests in Hong Kong and in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. As she reflected on these and other major world events, she struggled to find theological resources to help her make sense of what was going on in the Asia Pacific region. Much of the political theology that she found remained immersed in a Eurocentric mindset, so she decided to use a postcolonial approach to reflect on these issues. She claims that we also need imagination to do this, so she defines postcolonial imagination as “a desire, a determination and a process of disengagement from the whole colonial syndrome, which takes many forms and guises.” (p.10). She goes on to critique the classic understanding of political theology and proposes a transnational and multicultural articulation of the origins of political theology to try to avoid a Eurocentric bias. She remains true to this throughout the book where she draws on a broad range of scholars and theologians to decentre the West.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part is a historical and sociological analysis of Empire with particular reference to race, religion and the role of American Empire. Much of this may be familiar, but to see it through the eyes of a feminist Hong-Kong Chinese theologian is illuminating. For example, the explanation of the concept of tongzhi with reference to identity can be seen as a postcolonial “gesture” that challenges homogeneity and binary classifications.

The second part explores decolonising theology by looking for different images and sources. She claims that we need to understand how many Christian symbols have been borrowed from imperial cultures and how this has reinforced Empire, so we need to look for alternative sources – the forgotten, hidden or silenced voices. Too often theology has been done by elites, clergy, the academics (I note the irony here of reviewing such a book), while we need to hear the voices of lay people, women and those outside the gilded circles. There are informative chapters on Asian feminist theologies and a fascinating case study of the Hong Kong protests and civil disobedience.

I found the final section on practices the most helpful. Her chapter on “Teaching Theology from a Global Perspective” is a must read, where she raises questions of pedagogy, approach and what it actually means to teach theology from a global perspective. These are questions with which we wrestle constantly as a teaching team at CMS. How do we avoid treating Majority World students as representatives of their entire culture? How do we help Western students feel they have something to share? She begins this chapter with a compelling quotation from African American scholar and activist bell hooks, “As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognising one another’s presence” (p.141). That is the dream. There are chapters on postcolonial preaching, inter-religious solidarity, peacebuilding and finally a postcolonial critique of mission. These chapters are full of practical examples and stories. If you want idea on how to decolonise preaching and worship, you will find some here.

I warmly commend this book. It is a book that engages theology with our current issues such as #BLM, climate change, the political struggles in Hong Kong, the ongoing injustices of the pandemic. These are the issues that we need to discuss and reflect on theologically and she brings a perspective and insights that will be challenging for some Western readers. It is not an easy or comfortable read but these are the books that stay with me and force me to ponder and reconsider a Eurocentric mindset that needs constant disruption.

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Anthony Reddie, Introducing James H. Cone: A personal exploration (London: SCM Press, 2022)

reviewed by James Butler, Church Mission Society

This is Anthony Reddie on top form. It might seem unusual to talk about a theology book as a page turner, but this certainly was for me. Reddie’s passion for James Cone, Black theology and racial justice come through clearly and powerfully. This book is not a simple introduction to either the person of Cone or his work but, as the subtitle expresses, it is a very personal exploration for the author, and one which benefits from this autobiographical approach. It is no easy task, but Reddie somehow manages to tell his own story in a way which draws you in to his love and appreciation of Cone. This is a world that Reddie knows intimately and he deftly weaves history, personal stories, Cone’s writings and life, and a wealth of other writings into a coherent and engaging read. It is a book written for its time, with references to Covid-19, Trump and of course George Floyd, who was murdered by a policeman in Minneapolis in May 2020, meaning it is also a rich cultural commentary with a strong challenge to turns words to action.

The book is made up of two parts, the first part exploring Cone’s work through the theological themes of God, Jesus Christ, the Church and anthropology (Black people and Black power), and the second introducing key texts of Cone as chosen by Reddie. In the first part Reddie begins with an introduction to Cone’s “theological persona”, looking at the challenges of being a Black person in academic theology and the way Cone has navigated that world. Each of the following chapters pick up the key themes bringing challenges and insights that disrupt the status quo, confront dominant assumptions present in theology, churches and society, and draw out the liberative themes present in Cone’s theology. This book is deeply rooted in Cone’s work but does not provide a systematic account of Cone’s arguments, rather it weaves together stories, theological accounts and contemporary events to show how Cone’s Black liberation theology works. For this reason I would actually recommend this as a very good introduction to Black theology as a whole, not just the work of Cone. Reddie draws from a wealth of voices and accounts and on reaching the end of the book I had a growing list of authors I wanted to explore further.

Part two takes a deeper dive into key texts, maintaining the story-telling style and continuing to locate Cone within a broader landscape of Black theology and academic theology as a whole. This is certainly no hagiography and Reddie is balanced with his account, taking critical voices seriously and developing his own critiques of Cone. The chapter focused on Cone’s book The God of the Oppressed was a particularly powerful chapter that laid bare the problem with “whiteness” as a way of viewing the world and the prophetic challenge Cone offers.

There are a lot of things this book does not do: it is not an in-depth biography of Cone, and it is not a systematic account of his theology, but it is pretty clear that Reddie never intended it to be so. It is a passion project, which I think draws the reader into the world of Cone and his significance for today in a way that a more straightforward biographical or theological account could not. I highly recommend this book on multiple levels: as an introduction to Cone, to Black theology and to Reddie’s own life and work. It is a challenging read due to the way Reddie calls those of us with privilege, particularly those who benefit from “whiteness”, to recognise that privilege and to confront systemic injustice which we have been conditioned to not see. As one would expect from Reddie, he does not pull his punches. He presents a clear and direct critique of whiteness in theology and church through the work of Cone, and yet remains generous, welcoming everyone to participate in the world in a more liberative and just way.

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Mark Scanlan, An Interweaving Ecclesiology: The Church, Mission and Young People (London: SCM, 2021)

reviewed by Cathy Ross, Church Mission Society

The book is billed on its back cover as offering “a fresh vision of Christian community as constructed for and by participants as potential ecclesial spaces” to create church. Its focus is on youth ministry, but it has wider appeal as a result of Scanlan’s helpful analysis and suggestions for how to establish a faith community. Scanlan himself declares that the book is about church, mission and young people.

The book is in three parts. The first part is more theoretical, providing a theological and sociological platform for his argument. One of his key missional arguments here is that we must be willing to be led by the young people themselves. We must challenge our own assumptions as to why young people do not affiliate themselves with the church. These are important missiological principles – be attentive to the context, listen to and learn from the locals! The second part develops what Scanlan calls “an interweaving ecclesiology” by presenting us with case studies of two Christian youth groups. This is important work because it is always interesting to see what is happening on the ground in real life, or the lived experience as we now call it. He explores how these groups already have an ecclesial imagination and how that can blossom into a fuller ecclesial life. However, this will be on their terms and with their leading. The final part is a more general analysis and critical conversation between Fresh Expressions, pioneer ministry and the church more generally.

The second part is important for developing his metaphor of an interweaving ecclesiology which I like – it is evocative, visual, and dynamic. It suggests a kind of movement and even disruption as interweaving happens. Scanlan resists setting or creating “solid boundaries” (p.157) perhaps picking up Pete Ward’s metaphor of liquid church. In her recent book, Disclosing Church (Routledge, 2020) Clare Watkins writes about the “edgelessness” of church; she wants to see church as a kind of verbal expression of what church could be rather than in the more static noun form. This is what Scanlan seems to be articulating – that there is a hidden ecclesial discourse within these youth groups that can disrupt and interrupt our usual ways of thinking about church. He argues that church has an inherent fluidity in its very nature, is dynamic and will always be emerging in new spaces, and so requires a kind of ambiguity and porosity. He suggests a kind of reversal in ecclesiology so that instead of beginning with an idea of what church might look like, we wait for the ecclesial life to emerge with the aid and discernment of the Spirit. This begins by people coming to know Christ within that community and allowing the ecclesial space and form to emerge. Scanlan goes on to discuss in some detail the outworkings of these ideas.

The third part takes these ideas further in a conversation around Fresh Expressions and pioneering. I was especially interested in his insights around pioneering, which he believes could release creativity and allow both attentiveness and ambiguity to be embraced. He defines pioneering “as the ability to live in the ambiguity of the interaction of church and not church, in the definitional uncertainty of potential ecclesial spaces” (p.233). He claims that the pioneer can remind us of our own fragility and ambiguity and is one who can bring to light those hidden discourses and spaces where Christ is at work. Scanlan is a fan of ambiguity and picks up on Jonny Baker’s writings on ambiguity and imagination. Baker believes that ambiguity creates space for imagination and that the church needs much more of this. Scanlan agrees and believes that it is through exercising imagination and living with ambiguity and fragility that “new threads might be woven into the tapestry of the church” (p.234). This is an ongoing process – it is never finished.

So, while this is a book born out of experience of being with young people, it has much wider resonance and challenge for all of us. Of course, there is much more. Scanlan looks at the nature of the institution, the role and place of sacraments, the importance of relationships, the place of Scripture, pastoral care and prayer brought into conversation with the practices of actual youth groups. I warmly commend this to anyone interested faith, mission and wondering just what church might be in our times.

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James K. A. Smith, How to Inhabit Time (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2022)

reviewed by Tom Wilson, St Philip’s Centre, Leicester

Smith describes How to Inhabit Time as an invitation to an adventure, a book to dwell in, a text to contemplate, rather than merely read. His central thesis is that “knowing when we are can change everything” (p.xiii). We must learn to inhabit history, recognise that we are temporal beings; in the words of his subtitle, understanding the past, facing the future, living faithfully now.

In his introduction, Smith makes a convincing case for the spiritual significance of timekeeping, and argues against what he calls “nowhen Christianities” which do not understand the time they are in.

The book is divided into six main chapters, interspersed with three meditations on sections of Ecclesiastes. The first meditation is on Eccles. 3:9–15. Smith discusses the ambiguity of 3:10. Is it “I have seen the burden God has laid upon the human race” (NIV) or “I have seen the business that God has given everyone to be busy with” (NRSV)? Is being in time a burden or a gift, or both?

Chapter one explores what it is to be a temporal creature, critiquing the Christian tendency to nostalgia and discussing how to engage with the fossils of history. Chapter two then examines how to learn from ghosts. There are some particularly powerful short reflections in this chapter, including on the spiritual lessons to be learned from the different growth rates of tropical and arctic trees, and the migration of the monarch butterfly. Smith notes we’re neither blank slates nor robots, but God’s creatures in the flow of time.

The second meditation is on Eccles. 7:10–14, on the dangers of nostalgia and the march of time. Chapter three then explores time as kairos, noting how Jesus calls followers, not simply eyewitnesses, and that Christianity can collapse time, interweaving the lives of the saints regardless of their chronological placement. Chapter four builds on this with an invitation to embrace the ephemeral, urging us to learn to love what we’ll lose. One way Smith recommends we do this is to leave our phones at home and simply savour the moment. He asks, “What if enjoying mortality means we stop chasing the wind and learn how to hoist a sail?” (p.103).

The third meditation explores Eccles. 11:7–12:8, noting even the mist and vapour that obscures is a gift of God. Chapter five then invites us to inhabit our now. Through meditations on gardening, Smith discusses the importance of living in whatever season of life we are in, which requires Spirit-filled discernment and the courage to let go. While the Bible may not change, the way we hear it does, depending on what season we are in. Chapter six encourages us to not live ahead of time, reflecting on Augustine’s City of God, and 1 Thess., among other texts. We should be orientated to the future, but living in the present, crying both “how long Lord?” and “maranatha!”.

The Epilogue contains a beautiful post-Communion prayer, including the line “We thank you that in you we are kept safe forever, and that the broken fragments of our history are gathered up in the redeeming act of your dear Son” (p.171). This sums up Smith’s point in How to inhabit time, that God holds us, cares for us and sends us out in his service.

How to Inhabit Time is a text to treasure; to read right through, but also to dip into. To take your time with, to savour. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a thought-provoking exploration of what it means to live a faithful Christian life.

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Dale C. Allison Jr., Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2022)

reviewed by Simon Baigent, Pioneer mission student, South London

A mentally healthy young man, staring into the night sky, has a profound numinous experience. A loving, Divine (he supposes) presence briefly engulfs him, accompanied by intense light and leaving a sense of deep calm. He decides to commit his life to Christianity both personally and in academic study. This story, and the whole first chapter, was, like that teenager’s epiphany, both unexpected and beautiful. I cried.

The young man’s difficulty was that neither academia nor the church felt safe places to unpack his mystical experience. They had no room for his reality; he must be wrong, mistaken or freakishly unusual. And yet the evidence Princeton theologian Dale Allison presents here is that these types of experience are surprisingly common. Self-censorship and uncoordinated research obscure the reality. The book is woven through with many more stories and testimonies, from studies conducted in various times and places, illuminating Allison’s argument that to experience what he calls the “metanormal” is far from unusual.

Allison leads us through just a few common categories of encounter, perhaps with an eye to the word “religious” in his subtitle. His research takes in the blissful (as in chapter one) and the less common terrifying encounters; angelic interventions, then pre-death (in the room) and near-death (on the “other side”) experiences. He makes the point that while patterns emerge time and again, such occurrences are no respecter of religious faith, moral character, emotional fragility or intellectual capacity, considering that some on their deathbed have little or no brain tissue intact.

Encountering Mystery does not divert into the already theologically well-trodden arenas of Christian spirituality or the charismatic, but Allison does take a detour into people’s experience of prayer. Why is there so little study of the inner mechanics of praying? What occurs in the mind’s eye? His own straw poll shows vast discrepancies.

Any inquiring mind should enjoy Allison’s exquisitely academic and engagingly human style. The author’s hope, though, must be that this book is picked up by the sort of theologians and church leaders who had nowhere to put the experiences of that teenager on his starlit rooftop. And not least because that young man was Professor Allison himself.

With such readers in mind, then, he moves on to discuss some of the rational, epistemological, theological and, finally, pastoral questions posed by this material. Our church and community leaders, who so often either dismiss the inexplicable or too quickly explain it, would do well not just to read this book, but to hear and hold our own people’s stories. We might at least, with Dale Allison, or Mary in Luke’s gospel, find space to treasure all the words and ponder them in our hearts.

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Roger Schroeder, Christian Tradition in Global Perspective (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2021)

reviewed by Cathy Ross, Church Mission Society

This is vintage Roger Schroeder and you will not be disappointed. Obviously in 300 pages he cannot cover the whole of the Christian tradition and choices have to be made. He discusses this in his Introduction and situates the book within the field of “new church history”. It attempts to have a polycentric perspective and to focus more on Majority World stories and movements, which have not often featured in the more traditional accounts. He includes the lived experience of Christian communities as well as official councils and tries to place these within the wider historical and political context. There are eight chapters that divide history up in a recognisable way. What gives this book a particular flavour is its framework of focusing on six primary threads of Christian tradition: Scripture; liturgy, sacraments, and art; ministry and organisation; spiritual, religious, and social movements; theological developments; and mission, cultures, and religions. This structure emerged from a course he had taught with Dr Amanda Quantz at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, so in a sense the book has been tried and tested.

The book does what is says it will do. I found the framework a helpful and, for me, a new way to navigate the thousands of years of Christian tradition. Using the same structure for each chapter does inevitably involve some limitations but it also offers a familiarity and an ability to compare and contrast across the ages. There were familiar stories as well as stories I did not know, and so it has certainly expanded my knowledge and appreciation of world Christianity. Did you know that Patriarch Timothy I consecrated a bishop for the Tibetans in the eighth century and that “he assisted a growing number of churches, monasteries and episcopal sees across what are now the nations of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikstan.” (pp.73–4)? Two hundred years later there were 200,000 members of the Kerait Turks ready to be baptised in Northern Mongolia; the gospel having been brought to them by Christian merchants. Stories like this are found throughout and leave us to ponder what might have been, or indeed what the role of “Christian merchants” might be today.

I particularly appreciated the mission, cultures and religions thread at the end of each section. This thread integrated many of the insights of the chapter in ways that were appropriate for the context of the time but also offered challenges and suggestions for us in our contemporary context. The story of Dominic in an all-night conversation with a Cathar, and Raymond Llull’s mission to Muslims offer us insights into the power of listening and the worth of good conversation. Llull even convinced the King of Aragon to assist in founding a school for training missionaries in the thirteenth century.

Schroeder has also made an effort to tell some less well-known stories and to reframe others. He explains that Catherine of Siena expressed Aquinas’ ideas on redemption in a more experiential way and was one of four women to be named a doctor of the church. He names two Native American Christian women as people important for First Nations Christianity in the seventeenth century. Sadly, he does not tell us more about them. Maybe no more is known about them, but it is good to read the names of these women, as women were so often written out of or ignored in mission history.

The final chapter on the post-Christendom West and non-Western Christianity introduces us to several major reversals in the twentieth century, notably the growth of the church in the Majority World. He quotes Sunquist, who believes that the single most important transformation in the twentieth century was the “rise of the ‘fourth-stream’ churches: those that are independent and rise up, or suddenly spring up, in local context.” (p.274). These are churches that emerge through the inspiration of the Spirit and can be found on every continent. He explores the tremendous growth of the churches of all denominations in the Majority World, the involvement of women in mission and changing attitudes towards culture in this century.

While the coverage is inevitably brief, I found this an informative and helpful overview and appreciated the tracking using the threads of Christian tradition. Liturgy, Sacraments and Art was the briefest thread in each section – I would have liked to read more on art especially, but I was pleased that this was acknowledged and tracked. I would recommend this book for those who want a broader and more global perspective on Christian tradition.

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