God’s Advocates , Rupert Shortt’s 2005 collection of interviews with prominent Christian thinkers, is one of the best introductions to contemporary theology available. Premised on the claims that theology is recovering its nerve and that this recovery is especially noticeable in the UK and America, the book includes interviews with Rowan Williams, Alvin Plantinga, John Milbank, Jean-Luc Marion, Stanley Hauerwas, Miroslav Volf, and Oliver and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan and covers the range of topics you’d expect from those theologians and philosophers.
Shortt, religion editor for the TLS is the ideal theological journalist. He is well-informed, and pushes his interviewees when they get sloppy. But he doesn’t call attention to himself, and lets the subjects talk, at great length, in their own voices.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
More from Theology
Continue reading related articles
In Praise of Thomas
Gotta love ol’ Tommaso d’Aquino, a.k.a. Thomas Aquinas. The margins of my various copies of his works are full of notes of disagreement and question marks, but still: His toss-off arguments are usually deeper than the sustained arguments of lesser theologians. Here’s a pot pourri from the early part of…
Hoping For Love
In his 2007 encyclical on hope, Spe Salvi , Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI observes that the experience of loving and being loved is a moment of “redemption.” Love gives new meaning, new joy, new energy. Every love is a new birth. We long and hope for love. We want it…
Is All That's In God God?
Divine simplicity is often summarized in the axiom, "All that's in God is God." If this is taken at face value, though, it conflicts with Trinitarian orthodoxy. 1) By this axiom, the Persons are identical with the essence of God. 2) But the Persons have (or are) identifying particularities or…
In Medias Res
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.