Christian Thought in the Twenty-First Century: Agenda for the Future ed. by Douglas H. Shantz and Tinu Ruparell (review)

The Chair of Christian Thought was founded in 1987 at the University of Calgary, with a mandate to “serve as a bridge between the academic study of religion and Calgary’s churches” (1), in part through a regular lecture series. The current incumbent of the chair, Douglas H. Shantz, and his colleague at the University of Calgary, Tinu Ruparell, invited past lecturers to reflect in writing on the states of their respective fields as a way of celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the chair. The result is the present edited volume.

In form, the collection consists of twenty-five short articles by these prominent scholars, organized into five sections. Part 1, “Historical Perspectives on the Christian Tradition,” includes articles on historical Jesus research by Craig Evans, medieval studies by Dennis Martin and Denis Renevey, early modern Protestant history by Shantz, historical theology by Margaret Miles, orthodoxy and evangelism by James Payton, and “Religion’s Return” by Lamin Sanneh.

Part 2, “Philosophical and Theological Issues,” draws together more general reflections on religious ambiguity and analytic philosophy by Terence Penelhum, the need for greater openness in evangelical theology by Clark Pinnock, the renewed vitality of process thought by John Cobb, Jr., and a litany of pressing contemporary challenges by Douglas John Hall.

Part 3, “Encounters with Religious Pluralism and the Frontiers of Science,” true to its word, includes accounts of religious hybridity, dialogue, and comparative theology by Paul Knitter and Keith Ward, quantum theory and providence by John Polkinghorne, and recent developments in bioethics by Margaret Somerville.

Part 4, “The Academy and the City,” focuses on the place of religious faith in modern society. Only Wesley Kort’s piece, entitled “The City and the Church,” reflects directly on the deep ambivalence of Christian traditions toward urbanization. Other articles focus more on various metaphorical “sites” where religious faith has found new forms of expression in the secular academy, with Marguerite Van Die highlighting the study of “lived religion”; Charles Nienkirchen, spirituality studies; Peter C. Erb, popular literature; and former Chairholder Alan Sell, historical theology. The final section, “Approaches to English Literature and Film,” continues along similar lines, with articles on the religious potential of great works of art to disrupt both settled Christian convictions and the canons of literary theory, with treatments of the “transmodern” theory of Mikhail Bakhtin by Susan Felch, John Milton’s Paradise Lost by Arlette Zinck, the writings of Thomas Merton by Bonnie Thurston and Lynn R. Szabo, and contemporary film studies by Anne Moore.

Alan Sells notes that one purpose of the Chair of Christian Thought was to reveal how “Christian Thought not only can, but needs to, carve out an unprivileged path in the disciplinary jostle which is academia” (151). This volume can be read as a range of diverse assessments of this “unprivileged path,” ranging from Dennis Martin’s negative pronouncement that “higher education as a thirst for truth, for figuring things out . . . is largely gone” (27) to Peter C. Erb’s upbeat analysis of the resurgence of Christian theology in the purportedly secular discipline of religious studies at the precise moment it was supposed to have been stamped out (144–5), as well as everything in between. Lamin Sanneh narrates a resurgence of a different sort: the profoundly rapid growth of charismatic Christianity in China and the global South. His piece offers useful context for the rest of the work, suggesting that the joys and angst of Christian scholars in a secular academy may well represent at best a provincial concern, distant from the future centres of Christianity and scholarship alike.

The editors note that it was difficult to find a publisher for this volume (2), and I can see why. It is difficult to imagine the intended audience. The essays are excellent but too brief to develop...