Books by George M. Newlands

This collection of essays studies Christianity in Scotland from the 18th century to the present. Topics include varieties of unbelief, challenges to the Westminster confession, John Baillie, Queen Victoria and the Church of Scotland and the Scottish ecumenical movement.

In this book George Newlands seeks to work out a modern restatement of a Christian understanding of God, Father, Son and Spirit. Evil on the scale experience in modern wars, and the awareness of the variety of transcendent values in the pluralism of the contemporary world, have tended to reinforce intellectual objections to traditional doctrines. If the whole picture must remain partly obscure to us, nevertheless we must continue to reflect on the character and activity of the God of the Christian faith and renew our attempts to describe and state beliefs. In the first part of his study Professor Newlands considers the sources of a Christian understanding of God and analyses the substantive content of the doctrine of God as creator and reconciler of the cosmos, as personal, self-differentiated, transcendent being. The second part reflects on christology and examines the social and ethical dimensions of the cost of discipleship. Throughout, Professor Newlands demonstrates the importance of thinking about God, not in unreflecting slogans but with all our intellectual resources.