John Colwell and biography as theology

Thanks to Andy Goodliff for flagging up the new title by John Colwell due to be published by Paternoster in December. John is one of our most original and constructively provocative Baptist theologians. His previous books on ethics, the sacraments and systematic theology through the Church Year are amongst the most valued volumes of those who've read them. Knowing the man, makes them even more trusted as the genuine wrestlings with faith and truth that they are.

This will be a book that combines biography, theology and pastoral reflection. John talks honestly of his experience of bi-polar illness, and does so as a man of faith seeking to make his human condition somehow capable of meaning within that faith. So the book will be theology lived, and tested in the valleys of deep darkness as well as the green pastures and occasional still waters. As one who teaches systematic theology, or dogmatics, or Christian doctrine, I am only too aware of how much theologising is so technically executed, so dependent on discourse as esoteric as any mystery religion, so inaccessibly beyond all but those who want to play the intellectual power games of the academy. So I'm always keen to find texts that have clear rootedness in and connections to the lived experience of people of faith. Only then do theology and biography enter a fruitful conversation to their mutual benefit.

One of my own research interests is the connection between Christian faith experience, church as community and people whose sense of self is different because of varied conditions that affect mental health.

Here is the information about the book with some significant endorsements.

Review

This book is a gift to anyone who has been touched by
the darkness of bi-polar illness. Colwells willingness to write
honestly about his illness will be an aid for those struggling with the
condition, but even more important is his use of the psalms and
attention to Jesus way of dereliction to locate how such illness is not
pointless. This is a book that needed to be written. But only someone
like John Colwell could write it. –Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity
School, USA

It
is a well-known fact that the Church doesnt do depression. Melancholy
just doesnt sit comfortably with our sanguine view of spiritual
progress. Thank God, however, that John Colwell has the guts to attend
to this erroneous state of affairs and offer us a spirituality that
embraces the wintry as well as the sunny seasons of our lives. –Ian
Stackhouse, Team Leader, Guildford Baptist Church, England

If
the best theology is attentive to Scripture, focused on Christ, and
meaningful for human life in all its messiness, then there are few
better examples than this new book by John Colwell. –Steve Holmes,
Lecturer in Theology, University of St Andrews, Scotland

Product Description

In this powerful book
on the experience of desolation John Colwell focuses on Psalm 22, read
in the light of his own struggle with bi-polar disorder and the
Christian belief that God the Son suffered in his humanity, to offer
existential-theological reflections on the experience of
God-forsakenness.

The author writes, My concern in writing this book
and in reading this psalm is to reflect on the felt experience of
God-forsakenness, my own and that of Christ in the light of this psalm;
to explore the theological and spiritual significance of this felt
experience for myself, for Christ, for Christians generally. If this
exploration proves to be helpful to me or to others then obviously I am
glad, but I am not writing this book to be helpful but rather to be
truthful (and perhaps hopeful). This is a personal journey of
reflection with a psalm which I invite you, the reader, to share if you
will.