Shaping Theology: Engagements in a Religious and Secular World

This is an innovative book about the shape theology takes in its varied interactions religious and secular, local and global, historical and contemporary, academic and practical.

For many years David Ford s theological thought has evolved in conversation with many different partners in the public sphere, non–faith communities, the church, Judaism, Islam, and the university. This theology is a way of thinking in search of wisdom, engaging with practices and the life of the imagination as well as with ideas, arguments, discernments, and decisions. Nourished by scripture together with premodern, modern, and contemporary sources, it seeks to shape a wise faith. This approach to theology has become increasingly influential and Ford is recognized as one of the most important, creative, subtle and accessible theologians working today. In his many works he has developed the relationship between theology and each of these other spheres, but this is the first book to bring together a multifaceted, well–rounded account of theology s involvement with these conversation partners.

Permissions.

Acknowledgements.

Prologue.

Part I: The Wisdom of Theology.

1. Theology.

2. A Long Rumour of Wisdom. Redescribing Theology.

Part II: Wisdom among the Religions.

3. Faith and Change: A Christian Understanding.

4. Reading Scripture with Intensity: Academic, Ecclesial, Interfaith, and Divine.

5. Developing Scriptural Reasoning Further: Reflections on Scripture, Reason and the Contemporary Islam––West Encounter.

Part III: Wisdom in the University.

6. Knowledge, Meaning and the World′s Great Challenges: Reinventing Cambridge University in the Twenty–first Century.

7. Faith and Universities in a Religious and Secular World.

Part IV: Theological Interpretation of the Bible.

8. Divine Initiative, Human Response, and Wisdom: Interpreting 1 Corinthians Chapters 1––3.

9. Barth s Interpretation of the Bible.

Part IV: Thinking Further –– Theological Topics.

10. The God of Blessing Who Loves in Wisdom.

11. Tragedy and Atonement.

12. Apophasis and the Shoah: Where was Jesus Christ at Auschwitz?.

Conclusion: Twelve Theses for Christian Theology in the Twenty–first Century.

Index

David F. Ford is Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of numerous books, including: Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love (2007), The Modern Theologians, 3rd edition (edited with Rachel Muers, Blackwell, 2005), and Theology: A Very Short Introduction (2000). He is a member of the editorial board of a number of major journals, including Modern Theology and Scottish Journal of Theology.