Much in tune with my current explorations of modern theology, the Church Times recently ran a series of articles on where this branch of knowledge now is. I found its coverage and detail enlightening but disheartening. I had not realised how much there is out there, and how much I still have to read in the subject. One particular assertion, set out in more than a few of the contributors’ pieces, brought me up short.
According to these, much of twentieth century theology is now little regarded and ‘is to be left on the shelf.’ This includes the ‘God is dead’ trope particularly associated with the Divinity School at Cambridge in the mid-1960s. That is when I was reading theology there (I graduated in 1968) and attending lectures given by most of the following: great names in their day who in 1967 were younger than I am now, which becomes clear when their dates of birth are also listed:
J S Bezzant (1897-1967)
Alec Vidler (1899-1991)
C F D Moule (1908-2007)
Geoffrey Lampe (1912-1980)
Donald MacKinnon (1913-1994)
John A T Robinson (1919-1983)
Harry Williams (1919-2006)
Dennis Nineham (1921-2016)
John Hick (1922-2012)
Maurice Wiles (1923-2005)
Richard Holloway (1933- )
Don Cupitt (1934- )
Books or papers by at least eight of these eminences (and others) are within arms’s reach as I write this. Not only these, too, as my director of studies was Stephen Sykes, who could not conceal his disappointment when I told him, all of 48 years ago, that I would not, after all, be putting myself forward for ordination.
I have never regretted that decision but, keeping in touch, I have found insights in the writings of all these thinkers, which is why I am puzzled about the notion that they have all supposedly been superseded. By what? Whom should I be reading now?
