Books in the Traces of Liberality: The George Newlands Reprint series

Based on the 1995 Henson Lectures, delivered in the University of Oxford, this study takes as its theme the Christian future, and the development of a theology of generosity in response to the challenges likely to face Christian faith in the twenty-first century. In particular, Professor Newlands wishes to explore the suggestion that Christ represents the ultimate generosity of God for humankind. This leads him to concentrate on the contribution made by Christian doctrine to public issues, and especially the relationship between Christology and human rights. The author is centrally concerned that faith should remain in the public square, and that the circle of faith should always be outward facing. The result is a liberal, pluralistic theology, which regards the generous love of God, in incarnation and reconciliation, as a powerful stimulus to imaginative Christian thought and action. In its robust portrayal of what Christianity ought properly to look like, this book--which emerges from the pen of the leading Scottish liberal theologian of his generation--will be sure to stimulate and engage a wide variety of readers.'As in his other published works, George Newlands shows here an astonishing command of the theological and other related literature, and sustained good judgment in applying his key criterion of the self-giving costly love of God revealed in Christ and his cross. Newlands is the best sort of liberal--radical and positive, yet balanced and open to dialogue on all sides, with conservatives as well as with humanists and people of other faiths. Pluralism is embraced without surrender of the mainstream tradition. I read this stimulating and wide-ranging book with interest and admiration, and recommend it strongly.'- Brian Hebblethwaite, University of Cambridge'This is a powerful book characterized by humor, subtlety, and moral passion. While very learned, it wears its erudition lightly. There are passages of great theological insight, and one chapter of sustained fantasy and humor where an American Baptist minister becomes Pope--except that she is also a woman called Flora and the setting is a space-age Vatican X in Oxford one thousand years after the Reformation.'-- Peter Sedgwick, Board for Social Responsibility, General Synod of the Church of EnglandGeorge M. Newlands, PhD, DLitt, FRSE, FRSA, is Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Glasgow and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow.

How can we make theology more constructive? Twentieth-Century British discussion about the Christian 'image' of God and 'myth' of the Incarnation has been widely admired for its honesty but criticized as being too insular and too negative. Neither criticism applies to this book, the first major publication to come from the author, who is now Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. He offers a systematic exposition of the most characteristic Christian doctrine in dialogue with other thinkers around the world and across the centuries. His aspiration is to do for 'love' what eminent German theologians have recently done for 'faith' and 'hope.' He knows well that the idea of the love of God, although so prominent in the Bible, has been under fire in the modern world -- for many serious reasons, here taken seriously. 'Talk to God is notoriously complex,' he writes, 'and talk of love notoriously sentimental.' But he carefully demonstrates that the tradition that begins in the Bible is still vital enough to help crucially in the new urgent reconstruction of Christian belief. From a more profound theology of the love of God at work in the creation and redemption of man, a renewal of faith and hope would follow. ""This book brings theology to focus in terms of its central truth. It is a book written lucidly and with a refreshing unwillingness to be satisfied with conventional rhetoric. The readership will consist not only of professional theologians and their students but also of reading clergymen of all denominations and lay people who recognize the importance of the subject.""-- Professor John Hick University of BirminghamGeorge Newlands is Professor Emeritus of Divinity in the University of Glasgow and an Honorary Fellow in the University of Edinburgh. A Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh, he is a former Dean of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Recent publications include Christ and Human Rights (2006) and Hospitable God (2010).

The life of faith in God constantly involves thinking for others, acting in concern for other people. Reflection upon such action involves Christian ethics. As individuals we are concerned with personal ethics in our relationships with other individuals. As persons in society and members of the Christian community, we are concerned with social ethics, with relationships in society as a whole and in Christian responsibility towards all human beings. The purpose of this thought-provoking book is to provide an account of the implications of God's love for our response to a number of highly particular and urgent ethical issues in the modern world. In it, George Newlands examines the major issues of the Church and the social order, peace and war in a nuclear age, personal relationships -- sex and moral values, legal and medical ethical issues -- respect for life and respect for persons, and the meaning of justice within the conflicting interests of society. What Dr. Newlands offers are not authoritative pronouncements on these issues, but considered suggestions, and he shows how no area of life is excluded from the reality, and the opportunity, of making Christian decisions. George M. Newlands, PhD, D.Litt, FRSE, FRSA, is Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Glasgow and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow.

The Church of God is a compact yet comprehensive account of the nature and activity of the Christian Church. George Newlands provides a most reliable guide to the main features of doctrinal development, considering the development of the Church, ministry, and sacraments up to the present day, and beyond this to consider requirements for effective ministry of the Church in the future.George M. Newlands, PhD, DLitt, FRSE, FRSA, is Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Glasgow and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow.

Hilary of Poitiers is perhaps the most neglected of the great Patristic theologians. In particular, there has been little detailed analysis of the biblical interpretation that provides the central strand of his theological mind. His work on St. Matthew is almost the first extant commentary in the Latin West. It is analyzed here, with a survey, for the first time, of the growth of the commentary as a literary from. The relation between exegesis and theological method in his later work on the Trinity and the Psalms shows the development of his techniques and their theological consequences. The concluding sections provide a critical evaluation of the role of Patristic material in contemporary theology, with reference to the still intractable problem of the precise uses of the Bible in theology.