booklogging

Smail, Tom.
Like Fother like Son, the Trinity Imaged in our Humanity.
Paternoster Press, 2005, 304pp. ISBN 1-84227-324-6

This is a good successor to Tom's earlier books starting with 'The Forgotten Father'. The style and sizes are similar. Those knowing Tom's work already will not be surprised at the orthodoxy, biblical and careful building of arguments found in this book. Neither will you be surprised at his willingness, within that framework, to take positions that are critical of some received wisdom. He carefully examines the notions around 'image' and then goes on to a robust defence of Trinitarianism.

It was good to see the human imaging of God treated not just in terms of the individual but also of the social and a well argued relating of original sin to the social dimension of being human making good use of Alistair McFadyen's 'Bound to Sin'. The contemporory flirtation with Pelagianism is put in its place, though I suspect that it may not convince the semi-Pelagian approaches which are more characteristic of present viewpoints, still the labels Augustinian and Pelagian serve well to characterise two different fundamental approaches to the understanding of sin and its effects. I think that the view taken in this book, actually undercuts a lot of the controversy in practice.

There is a useful and helpful 'compare and contrast' between western and eastern approaches to the Trinity which pulls out the strengths and weaknesses of each. And I felt that the discussion of creativity was potentially very helpful for those engaged in artistic endeavour.

In the edition I have, the front cover illustration is an interesting photographic echo of Rublev's famous icon Hospitality at Mamre, more commonly known as the icon of the Holy Trinity. The interest is that it raises an issue that the book addresses quite creatively: that of gender and the image of God. This is where I suspect that the most heat could be generated, but I do feel that what Tom invites us to consider is, to be sure, challenging, but probably needs to be done. Overall he defends the notions both of gender equality and of gender difference. I think he probably succeeds in both but at the risk of being misunderstood to be returning to patriarchy. Ultimately I don't think he is making any apologetic for patriarchy but rather giving a position which can affirm the statistically significant differences that tend to be associated with gender and which are showing up in scientific study (and even popular culture, as Mars and Venus, directions and maps etc etc) but also strongly underpin a basic equality. I will leave you to decide whether he succeeds, but it was to my mind one of the more intriguing and thought-provoking sections of the book. He writes that the chapter was placed late in the book precisely because of its potentially controversial nature.

Labels: Christian, theology, Trinity

This book does what it says in the subtitle. It is global in that the contributors are Christians from various parts of the world: South America, Asia, Europe. The pieces are united in making affirmation of Christ's uniqueness in the face of a religiously plural world. The general tone is evangelical and much of the energy of most of the contributors seems to be found in 'preaching to the choir'. On the whole it is not making a case for exclusivism or inclusivism (these being the normal evangelical positions on multi-faith matters) so much as helping readers to feel that these positions are what they should be holding onto: it is largely an exercise in bolstering the party lines rather than exploring the facts of religious pluralism and attempting to do theology with them. There is another strand to the collection which is exemplified by the final essay on Buddhism which is outlining points of contact to better enable Christians to explain the gospel.

From the foregoing, you would be correct to infer that this book, on the whole does not give readers the tools to enter the debates about religious pluralism going on globally; it is more concerned to secure readers in an existing set of commitments. That said, the first chapters which outline historical and basic theological data are probably useful introductory texts for those beginning to think about the issues in a more sustained way. However, the book on the whole does not signal ways forward in handling probably one of the more common and perhaps urgent questions that this arena of enquiry throws up, that of the fate of the unevangelised. One essay does deal with this, but not in such a way as to give a survey of the approaches which might be useful to those trying to gain depth in their thinking about the matter.

There are a handful of contributions which seemed to me to deserve a wider hearing; Veli-Matti Kärkäinen deftly handles Barth and other more contemporary theologians in thinking about the Trinity. And writing on Christianity in relation to Judaism, Ellen Cherry produces a very thought-provoking piece that challenges the Christian reader very strongly and really provokes engagement with the issues and leads one to see more clearly the logics of both sides of the divide. Ng Kam Weng's essay about Muslim-Christian matters makes very good use of the insights of Kenneth Cragg and draws out some of the key issues from a Christian perspective in such a way as to make this essay something I would consider putting into the hands of those beginning to enter into intelligent debate with Muslims as a way to begin to orientate themselves (pun intended!). I felt that the editor's piece on relating to Buddhism was good at introducing the basics of Buddhism and the potential difficulties of sharing the gospel with Buddhists, but I was concerned that the nature of desire in each respective thought-world was too easily assimilated and so an opportunity was lost to explore an important set of issues around the nature of human beings in theistic and non-theistic systems.

I would have liked to have seen more attention in the collection as a whole to the issues of dialogue and evangelical responses to it. Relatedly, there is no well-developed consideration of the ethics, rhetorics or manners of interfaith encounter, and given the basic apparent posture of the complete collection, that is an omission that can be ill afforded in a book aiming at a global affirmation of anything. It would also have been good to have at least given pointers to the wider debate around inclusivism and exclusivism. However, it may be that to do the latter would risk alienating a large potential market.

In sum, a handful of the pieces are definitely worth having to refer to and to help introduce some of the issues and to help one appreciate the internal logic of non-pluralist Christian positions. It won't on the whole help to open up the wider and perhaps more important global debates to evangelical readers, however.

Labels: Christian, Evangelical, multi-faith