SCM Core Text Christian Doctrine (Sccmcore Text)
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Product Description
The SCM Core Text: Christian Doctrine offers an up-to-date, accessible introduction to one of the core subjects of theology. Written for second and third-year university students, it shows that Christian Doctrine is not a series of impossible claims to be clung to with blind faith. Mike Higton argues that it is, rather, a set of claims that emerge in the midst of Christian life, as Christian communities try to make enough sense of their lives and of their world to allow them to carry on.Christian communities have made sense of their own life, and the life of the wider world in which they are set, as life created by God to share in God's own life. They have seen themselves and their world as laid hold of God's life in Jesus of Nazareth, and as having the Spirit of God's own life actively at work within them.This book explores these and other central Christian doctrines, and in each case, shows how the doctrine makes sense, and how it is woven into Christian life. It will help readers to see what sense it might make to say the things that Christian doctrine says, and how that doctrine might affect the way that one looks at everything: the natural world, gossip, culture, speaking in tongues, politics, dieting, human freedom, love, High Noon, justice, computers, racism, the novels of Jane Austin, parenthood, death and fashion.
About the Author
Mike Higton is an Anglican theologian who has been a research fellow in the University of Cambridge and a consultant at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, and now lectures in theology at the University of Exeter. He is also author of Difficult Gospel, and forthcoming Wrestling with Angels both published by SCM Press.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A remarkable book,
By
This review is from: Christian Doctrine (SCM Core Text) (Paperback)
The volume is one of the SCM `Core Text' series, aimed at 2nd and 3rd year undergraduates, and as such would not be a particularly easy read for any without some theological training. Nevertheless, its qualities mean that anyone who is a Christian would benefit from having a go and, having done so, will be richly rewarded by the experience. While Higton deals with some of the most obvious traditional topics: the Trinity, Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, Creation, Death, Suffering etc., he does so in a way that is soaked in Christian devotion and driven by the imperative not simply to `make sense' of (what we mean by) `God', but particularly what all that means for living a Christian life. So `theological proficiency' lies not particularly in the ability to write an essay on the Chalcedonian Definition but in becoming "critically attentive to the world.......to start taking critical notice of the ideas and patterns of thought that make the world go round....to learn what happens when you start examining and questioning all those ways of making sense in the light of the gospel, asking what difference might be made to those ways of making sense by the belief that God has addressed the world in Jesus Christ". Another appealing feature is the intellectual humility of the author. Many books on Christian Doctrine manage to give the impression that the writer has had some kind of privileged `viewing' of the Godhead; that they are explaining to us - rather like being guided around a factory - how this bit works, how that bit is related to the other bit, and so on. Higton is not that kind of guide. So, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity is not primarily about understanding God at an intellectual level; it requires a more existential understanding: "the primary reality of Trinitarian Christianity is not the words or images that Christians manage to deploy in order to describe God, but the ways in which their whole lives are caught up...into God's own life of love and justice.....[and he concludes] knowing God is more like joining a party than it is like facing an individual". Making the traditional, rather technical distinctions between an `economic' and `immanent' reading of the Trinity, he reminds us that while God certainly makes his Trinitarian `Godself' known to us, we should not be so bold as to imagine that we therefore know everything there is to know about that `Godself': "the doctrine of the Trinity declares that this graspable, knowable, effable set of historical realities is the ineffable God's way of making Godself known. This is the opening up to us....of the ineffable life of God - a life that is something like a drama, something like a dance, something like a community." Higton lectures in Theology at the University of Exeter and he is clearly a born teacher. His ability to take some complex idea and then explain it using stories and analogies is also remarkable. Each chapter begins by reminding us of the ground we have already covered, and its relevance to the next part of the journey. He then, using bullet-points, tells us what he is going to do in this chapter, following that with some suggestions (many setting `homework' to be done on the internet) as to how we might prepare ourselves for the journey ahead. He then suggests some further reading for those who are particularly interested in taking some diversionary route or two and, for those who are `proper' students, there are various explanatory boxes and exercises sprinkled liberally through the text. Every now and then we re-cap key points. Each chapter ends with a section for those who, having managed to get that far, wish to go further.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another fine book in the SCM Core Texts series.,
By will1957 (Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Christian Doctrine (SCM Core Text) (Paperback)
When I studied Divinity, at the time my faculty mostly studied theologians, and so I felt a bit left out when I met others who had studied Systematic Thelogy. Since graduating, any theological study I have done has concentrated on the history of theology rather than at a purely systematic level.
Therefore, I bought this book to bring me up to date. I must say I am not disappointed. It is lucid, avoiding much of the jargon and academic language found in some theological textbooks. Although my theological outlook is somewhat conservative, I think Mike Higton's book is as good and fair an introduction to Christian Doctrine as you will get. However, some knowledge of the historical development of the subject would help place this book's treatment of Christian Doctrine in its context. Nevertheless, Christians and students of theology of whatever persuasion should consider buying this book for it will reward careful study and thought time after time.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Basic but a good starting point,
This review is from: Christian Doctrine (SCM Core Text) (Paperback)
What Higton has managed with this text is give a very good starting point within the Christian realm. It is by no where near a complete look (as very few books can ever be) at what Christian Doctrine is out there. However, what it does give is the basics on which Christian Doctrine is founded and what this means in the Christian world. It is a much better example than Christian Ethics by Neil Messer. If you wanted a basic start in this subject Higton is a good place to start before moving up to McGrath or Brown.
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