World without End: Christian Eschatology from a Process Perspective - Edited by Joseph A. Bracken (ed.) (original) (raw)

2006, Reviews in Religion and Theology

0), xxxiv + 475 pp., pb £20.00 This important volume contains three reports published in the last two decades from the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England: We Believe in God (1987), We Believe in the Holy Spirit (1991), and The Mystery of Salvation (1995), together with an excellent foreword by Stephen Sykes, who chaired the Commission from 1997 to 2003, and a comprehensive index of all three texts. As productions of Commissions of the Church of England, these texts take their place in a series of such reports written since 1976, but are especially significant inasmuch as they are all unanimous reports and attempt to present a systematic teaching of their respective doctrinal loci. As such they represent significant documents for the Anglican Communion, and further, witness to an ecclesial body's attempt to address the fundamental question of the relationship of theology and church. Sykes' foreword contextualizes the work of the Commissions within Anglican teaching and theology, and the disciplines of 20th century philosophy and theology in general. Further, Sykes in particular takes up the position of the reports vis-à-vis contemporary problematics in theology-he mentions trinitarian theology, God's impassibility, and the use of scripture in particular-before considering their status as official publications of the Church of England. We Believe in God sets the tone for all three books, and it is important here to register their presentation: they are not given as technical theology texts; they do not attempt to be comprehensive; they are not confessions or 'articles'. They are instead explorations of the life of faith, a fact that is deeply germane, for they are explicitly pastoral in the attempt to speak to the church at large while at the same time attending to contemporary scholarly concerns. We Believe in God lays a broad foundation by discussing methodological and epistemological issues before turning to three chapters on God, Jesus, and the apostolic faith as found in the scriptures (the focus on the Bible alone is notable throughout the reports). The final three chapters then present a pastoral doctrine of God known through prayer and encounter, before finishing with 'The God in whom we trust'-a meditation on sovereignty, suffering, and faith. I highlight here the chapter on the Trinity-the report presents the doctrine of the Trinity as a subject to be considered through prayer, consonant with early