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Word and Church: Essays in Christian Dogmatics
These essays in constructive Christian dogmatics treat a cluster of the nature of Holy Scripture and its interprtetation; the place of Jesus in modern intellectual culture, and in theological depiction of the nature of the church; and the inseparability of theological and moral reflection. An important series of esays from one of the world's leading contemporary theologians.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 2001
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About the author
John B. Webster
47 books39 followersProfessor John B. Webster, MA, PhD, DD, FRSE was a notable contemporary British theologian of the Anglican communion writing in the area of systematic, historical and moral theology. He was educated at the independent co-educational Bradford Grammar School and at the University of Cambridge.
See also: John Webster
Image: Drawn by Rachel Nigh
See also: John Webster
Image: Drawn by Rachel Nigh
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 29, 2019
I think Webster is (as of May 25, 2016, was) the best dogmatic theologian alive today. And his middle name is Bainbridge, which is awesome. Contents of this particular volume are as follows:
Scripture
"The Dogmatic Location of the Canon"
"Hermeneutics in Modern Theology: Some Doctrinal Reflections"
"Reading the Bible: The Example of Barth and Bonhoeffer"
Christ and the Church
"Incarnation"
"Jesus in Modernity: Reflections on Jungel's Christology"
"The Self-organizing Power of the Gospel of Christ: Episcopacy and Community Formation"
"Christ, Church and Reconciliation"
Ethics
"God and Conscience"
"Eschatology and Anthropology"
You can't go wrong with any of these: each essay is a sublime example of holy, faithful reason doing robustly theological theology. The three essays on Scripture won't surprise anyone who has read or is otherwise familiar with Webster's later monograph, Holy Scripture. He rightly emphasizes that any consideration of our role as readers of Scripture must follow and be subject to the identity of Scripture itself as human speech "annexed and sanctified by God" (10), as a "field of divine activity" (32), as record of and ingredient in the economy of salvation. In short, Scripture is the means by which the triune God addresses us, which renders the church a hearing people before it is a speaking people. "Christian reading," he says, "is ... not within the range of human competence, for the reader's capacities are distorted by sin.... Reading Scripture is therefore a microcosm of the history of judgment and salvation, a point at which that history is realized in the process of God's communication" (79). Even and especially in discussing exegesis and the skills necessary for faithful interpretation, we must remember that "exegesis is an aspect of sanctification" (95). A fruitful line of inquiry in connection with these essays might compare Bonhoeffer and Webster on the "listening self" to James K. A. Smith on the human being as homo adorans.
In the section on Christ and the Church, he says up front and often that Jesus Christ "is the incomparably comprehensive context of all creaturely being, knowing, and acting" (113). Webster uses the Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds to describe his Christology, which he identifies as a "conceptual gloss" on the name of Jesus Christ. One of the recurring themes is his emphasis on the continuing lordship of Jesus, specifically on the prophetic office of our risen Lord. He notes that Jungel tends to present a rather slender Jesus, one shorn of much of his historical concreteness and specificity. But we need not only a Jesus who inaugurates the kingdom in his first advent but also a living and active Lord whose role relative to his body, the Church, is dogmatically clear and robust so that other doctrines (e.g., ecclesiology) remain in their proper dogmatic location. "Jesus Christ," Webster says, "is himself the minister of the church," and "an adequate doctrine of the church will maximize Christology and pneumatology and relativize ecclesial action and its ordered forms" (198). This grounds his further claim--which I find pastorally quite useful--that the primary task of the overseer is not to dispense grace but "to envisage, safeguard, and unify the church's fulfilment of its gospel mandate" (203). In a helpful comparison, he says, "What orthodoxy is in the realm of reflection, episcope is in the realm of practice and order: an instrument through which the church is recalled to Christianness" (ibid.). This is related, of course, to Webster's regular affirmation, here and elsewhere, that the function of the Church is indicative; we point, in other words, persistently and gladly to God and the works of God and to that as the ground of our own freedom to act.
The final section on ethics rightly locates conscience within the moral field established by creation and by the economy of salvation that encompasses all creaturely being and acting. Webster pushes back against what he calls the "anthropological captivity of the church" (233), and he co-opts Kant's well-known phrase to communicate that theological theology can wake us from our "anthropological slumbers" (262). In the end, he defines conscience as "my hearing the call of my perfected self" (259). I thought at several points that his understanding of conscience is underdeveloped, e.g., when he follows Calvin in saying that "to have a conscience is no more and no less than to have the Holy Spirit" (254). There doesn't seem to be a lot of space in Webster's account to affirm that the wicked person also has a conscience, which Rom. 2:15 clearly indicates. He's wary, and rightly so, of making conscience out to denote "the inviolability of my ethical ego" (259), and he's profoundly and incisively accurate in identifying conscience as "indicative moral reason before it is legislative" (254-255); but he nevertheless does overlook what role, if any, conscience has in the life of the non-Christian. In a footnote, Webster quotes G.B. Hammond as saying that conscience is "the voice of the ideal self in the ideal community," and this is helpful, but what does this mean for the person who acknowledges no telos in his/her own life and can't imagine what an ideal community might look like, much less an ideal self? These are questions that Webster might not consider within the purview of his dogmatic exposition of conscience, but they are nonetheless questions that need to be addressed. These issues dovetail nicely with the content of Webster's final essay. Regarding eschatology and anthropology, he makes four basic dogmatic affirmations: (1) at its core, Christian eschatology "is not the elaboration of a scheme of historical purposes but the coming of Jesus Christ" (274); (2) Christian eschatological talk is "promissory"; (3) Christian eschatology is "practical rather than speculative" in that "one of its functions is to inform and evaluate the church's practice rather than offer a theory of universal history" (284); (4) Christian eschatology, "far from being the leaden metaphysics of historical sameness, is in part concerned with the manner in which God's action evokes and sustains human action" (285).
The only essay in the volume that moved me to push back against Webster was the one on "Christ, Church, and Reconciliation." The essay was provocative and helpful, especially in noting how identification of divine and human action (e.g., in Volf's Exclusion and Embrace and in David Ford's Self and Salvation) can introduce an incipient moralism into theology. What we need, he suggests, is "a theology of mediation which is more apophatic in character" (226). This "draws attention not so much to creaturely incapacity as to the utter capacity of God's self-communicative presence in Christ and Spirit ...; apophatic mediation is at heart indicative" (ibid.). I understand, of course, that Webster is attempting apophatically to erect boundaries within which theology can operate freely and kataphatically, but I think he doesn't give sufficient weight to the notion that justification recreates our agency (cf. O'Donovan's Self, World, and Time). Out of a praiseworthy desire to safeguard the "utter capacity" of our Lord, he so separates God's work from ours that there doesn't seem to be any room for Christian action. He talks in a different essay about the Christian life as one of "active passivity" and "passive activity," which is thought-provoking and faithful to Scripture, but I wonder if he doesn't fail to do justice to God's gracious and recreative work in so thoroughly distinguishing God's work from our "work." Ironically, it seems almost as though Webster has ignored the doctrine of creation in evaluating the idea of human, or more specifically Christian, action. We were created to be priests, vice-regents, and prophets of God, were we not? Why wouldn't we expect that our salvation would restore us, if only partially, to that original purpose?
Anyway.
In tracing Webster's development, one notes in this collection of essays the prominence of Barth, Bonhoeffer, Calvin, Jungel, T.F. Torrance, and Rowan Williams as interlocutors. Interestingly, Aquinas isn't mentioned once in these essays. In contrast, his most recent collection of essays, God Without Measure (vol. 1), cites Aquinas more than it does anyone else (even Barth!).
Scripture
"The Dogmatic Location of the Canon"
"Hermeneutics in Modern Theology: Some Doctrinal Reflections"
"Reading the Bible: The Example of Barth and Bonhoeffer"
Christ and the Church
"Incarnation"
"Jesus in Modernity: Reflections on Jungel's Christology"
"The Self-organizing Power of the Gospel of Christ: Episcopacy and Community Formation"
"Christ, Church and Reconciliation"
Ethics
"God and Conscience"
"Eschatology and Anthropology"
You can't go wrong with any of these: each essay is a sublime example of holy, faithful reason doing robustly theological theology. The three essays on Scripture won't surprise anyone who has read or is otherwise familiar with Webster's later monograph, Holy Scripture. He rightly emphasizes that any consideration of our role as readers of Scripture must follow and be subject to the identity of Scripture itself as human speech "annexed and sanctified by God" (10), as a "field of divine activity" (32), as record of and ingredient in the economy of salvation. In short, Scripture is the means by which the triune God addresses us, which renders the church a hearing people before it is a speaking people. "Christian reading," he says, "is ... not within the range of human competence, for the reader's capacities are distorted by sin.... Reading Scripture is therefore a microcosm of the history of judgment and salvation, a point at which that history is realized in the process of God's communication" (79). Even and especially in discussing exegesis and the skills necessary for faithful interpretation, we must remember that "exegesis is an aspect of sanctification" (95). A fruitful line of inquiry in connection with these essays might compare Bonhoeffer and Webster on the "listening self" to James K. A. Smith on the human being as homo adorans.
In the section on Christ and the Church, he says up front and often that Jesus Christ "is the incomparably comprehensive context of all creaturely being, knowing, and acting" (113). Webster uses the Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds to describe his Christology, which he identifies as a "conceptual gloss" on the name of Jesus Christ. One of the recurring themes is his emphasis on the continuing lordship of Jesus, specifically on the prophetic office of our risen Lord. He notes that Jungel tends to present a rather slender Jesus, one shorn of much of his historical concreteness and specificity. But we need not only a Jesus who inaugurates the kingdom in his first advent but also a living and active Lord whose role relative to his body, the Church, is dogmatically clear and robust so that other doctrines (e.g., ecclesiology) remain in their proper dogmatic location. "Jesus Christ," Webster says, "is himself the minister of the church," and "an adequate doctrine of the church will maximize Christology and pneumatology and relativize ecclesial action and its ordered forms" (198). This grounds his further claim--which I find pastorally quite useful--that the primary task of the overseer is not to dispense grace but "to envisage, safeguard, and unify the church's fulfilment of its gospel mandate" (203). In a helpful comparison, he says, "What orthodoxy is in the realm of reflection, episcope is in the realm of practice and order: an instrument through which the church is recalled to Christianness" (ibid.). This is related, of course, to Webster's regular affirmation, here and elsewhere, that the function of the Church is indicative; we point, in other words, persistently and gladly to God and the works of God and to that as the ground of our own freedom to act.
The final section on ethics rightly locates conscience within the moral field established by creation and by the economy of salvation that encompasses all creaturely being and acting. Webster pushes back against what he calls the "anthropological captivity of the church" (233), and he co-opts Kant's well-known phrase to communicate that theological theology can wake us from our "anthropological slumbers" (262). In the end, he defines conscience as "my hearing the call of my perfected self" (259). I thought at several points that his understanding of conscience is underdeveloped, e.g., when he follows Calvin in saying that "to have a conscience is no more and no less than to have the Holy Spirit" (254). There doesn't seem to be a lot of space in Webster's account to affirm that the wicked person also has a conscience, which Rom. 2:15 clearly indicates. He's wary, and rightly so, of making conscience out to denote "the inviolability of my ethical ego" (259), and he's profoundly and incisively accurate in identifying conscience as "indicative moral reason before it is legislative" (254-255); but he nevertheless does overlook what role, if any, conscience has in the life of the non-Christian. In a footnote, Webster quotes G.B. Hammond as saying that conscience is "the voice of the ideal self in the ideal community," and this is helpful, but what does this mean for the person who acknowledges no telos in his/her own life and can't imagine what an ideal community might look like, much less an ideal self? These are questions that Webster might not consider within the purview of his dogmatic exposition of conscience, but they are nonetheless questions that need to be addressed. These issues dovetail nicely with the content of Webster's final essay. Regarding eschatology and anthropology, he makes four basic dogmatic affirmations: (1) at its core, Christian eschatology "is not the elaboration of a scheme of historical purposes but the coming of Jesus Christ" (274); (2) Christian eschatological talk is "promissory"; (3) Christian eschatology is "practical rather than speculative" in that "one of its functions is to inform and evaluate the church's practice rather than offer a theory of universal history" (284); (4) Christian eschatology, "far from being the leaden metaphysics of historical sameness, is in part concerned with the manner in which God's action evokes and sustains human action" (285).
The only essay in the volume that moved me to push back against Webster was the one on "Christ, Church, and Reconciliation." The essay was provocative and helpful, especially in noting how identification of divine and human action (e.g., in Volf's Exclusion and Embrace and in David Ford's Self and Salvation) can introduce an incipient moralism into theology. What we need, he suggests, is "a theology of mediation which is more apophatic in character" (226). This "draws attention not so much to creaturely incapacity as to the utter capacity of God's self-communicative presence in Christ and Spirit ...; apophatic mediation is at heart indicative" (ibid.). I understand, of course, that Webster is attempting apophatically to erect boundaries within which theology can operate freely and kataphatically, but I think he doesn't give sufficient weight to the notion that justification recreates our agency (cf. O'Donovan's Self, World, and Time). Out of a praiseworthy desire to safeguard the "utter capacity" of our Lord, he so separates God's work from ours that there doesn't seem to be any room for Christian action. He talks in a different essay about the Christian life as one of "active passivity" and "passive activity," which is thought-provoking and faithful to Scripture, but I wonder if he doesn't fail to do justice to God's gracious and recreative work in so thoroughly distinguishing God's work from our "work." Ironically, it seems almost as though Webster has ignored the doctrine of creation in evaluating the idea of human, or more specifically Christian, action. We were created to be priests, vice-regents, and prophets of God, were we not? Why wouldn't we expect that our salvation would restore us, if only partially, to that original purpose?
Anyway.
In tracing Webster's development, one notes in this collection of essays the prominence of Barth, Bonhoeffer, Calvin, Jungel, T.F. Torrance, and Rowan Williams as interlocutors. Interestingly, Aquinas isn't mentioned once in these essays. In contrast, his most recent collection of essays, God Without Measure (vol. 1), cites Aquinas more than it does anyone else (even Barth!).
August 4, 2010
Seminal stuff here. Reading this you will be witnessing a significant theologian probing and preparing for his attempt at a major multi volume systematic theology. The bits and pieces stand so nicely alone, and are so subtly suggestive of much more along side one another. Webster shows here, that he has learned from Barth (and others) and found his own theological voice, and that we should be listening carefully.
September 28, 2020
Webster is a mental workout -- lots of heavy lifting, difficult in the process, helpful in the long run.
This is a collection of essays. I found the essays on scripture and interpretation most helpful (thinking through how the theological reality of what scripture is defines how we ought to approach and interpret it). The essays on Christology, conscience, and eschatology are helpful in showing the intellectual shortcomings of modern liberal/neo-orthodox theology. Webster grounds his critiques in the reality of what Christianity affirms: that Christ not only was, but is a real, living person; that God's word governs the conscience, thus defusing 'true for me' sentiments; the end of the world really is coming, which shapes our understanding of our purpose. So the latter essays I'd mainly recommend if someone was struggling with historic orthodox teaching in those particular categories. The essays on Scripture I'd commend as important but difficult reading for anyone seeking to regularly interpret and teach the Bible.
Recommend for pastors, regular teachers of the Bible.
This is a collection of essays. I found the essays on scripture and interpretation most helpful (thinking through how the theological reality of what scripture is defines how we ought to approach and interpret it). The essays on Christology, conscience, and eschatology are helpful in showing the intellectual shortcomings of modern liberal/neo-orthodox theology. Webster grounds his critiques in the reality of what Christianity affirms: that Christ not only was, but is a real, living person; that God's word governs the conscience, thus defusing 'true for me' sentiments; the end of the world really is coming, which shapes our understanding of our purpose. So the latter essays I'd mainly recommend if someone was struggling with historic orthodox teaching in those particular categories. The essays on Scripture I'd commend as important but difficult reading for anyone seeking to regularly interpret and teach the Bible.
Recommend for pastors, regular teachers of the Bible.
January 26, 2011
This is a series of essays on dogmatic theology. Webster is a Barthian theologian, and in it comes through strongly in these essays. That said, he is an amazing writer and thinker. His essay on the incarnation is a must-read in this volume. I have never read theological essays that are as probing and convicting as these. His doxological approach helped me get on my knees!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews