Just received the new biography of William Wilberforce, written by William Hague, who previously wrote the very good biography of William Pitt. What’s with all the William names? Having seen the film Amazing Grace, and read the John Pollock biography when it came out nearly 30 years ago, I’m looking forward to reading another account of what by any reckoning was a life of remarkable achievement. The early Evangelicals are too easily assumed to be pietistic, otherworldly and self-concerned about individual salvation, and it’s good to have an account of Wilberforce that takes his religious commitment seriously without allowing it to distort the story. He was BOTH compassionate by temperament and evangelical by commitment; evangelism and emancipation were not alternatives but complements; and the limitations in his vision and strategy, are too easily judged by hindsight and exaggerated by anachronistic applications of today’s standards. He was, in the most important senses, a good man.
Later this year Christology and Scripture, edited by A. T. Lincoln, will come out in affordable paperback. Meanwhile I have a library copy of the hardback. I am deeply persuaded of the Christological nature of a Christian hermeneutic of Scripture. "The sole and absolute authority in all matters of faith and practice is our Lord Jesus Christ, as revealed in Scripture" is one of the key principles of our Baptist Declaration of Principle. Later this year I have an essay in a forthcoming book on Baptist Spiritualities that explores the implications for Baptist Spirituality of a Christological hermeneutic. These interdisciplinary essays will force me to think through further the dogmatic, critical and practical implications of taking seriously the relations between Christology and Scripture.
One of the best titles I’ve come across for a while,(and I mean I like the evocative ring to it as well as the contents) Singing the Ethos of God. Brian brock from Aberdeen University explores several areas that are of personal interest to me. Psalms, Christian Ethics, Bonhoeffer, and the historically definitive psalms sermons and commentaries of Augustine and Luther which are important examples of why pre-critical exegesis is not to be dismissed by later practitioners of the historical critical approach. What’s more the book is written with verve and a sense of the importance of Scripture as reource not only for ethical reflection but for moral persuasion and personal transformation. I’m going to blog on this book in August when holidays are passed.
So my ‘Waiting Patiently to be Read’ shelf is now re-stocked. These three are now on the list of books I’m aiming to read at all costs in the coming year. What about youz yinz – what are the ones you’re going to read no matter what?
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