Cn. V. Austin's Clergy Theo Group (The Triumph of the Kingdom in Christ)
Thursday, November 09, 2017
Dear sister and brother clergy,
This is month three of the fall theology reading program.
One of Oliver O’Donovan’s most influential books is called The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the roots of Christian political theology (published in 1996). It hit the scholarly world like a meteor, a shocking event that reawakened people to the largely ignored tradition of Christian thought about what political authority is. It is a book for the ages, giving “an outline of Christian political theology” that will continue to be a true guide for our thinking, no matter who is President, no matter what the shape of our borders, and so forth.
Our focus this fall will be on the first half of the book, which is penetrating biblical exegesis. The Bible does have much to tell us about political authority – that it is the conjunction in a single agency of power, judgment, and law (or tradition). How this is revealed to Israel, how Israel then considered the relation of the Lord’s political authority to that of an earthly person (can anyone rule Israel except the Lord), how Jesus fulfilled and changed that: these are some of the interesting matters that this study will help us grasp.
To state what may be obvious: such a study holds out a promise for us that, with persistent work on this text, we can come to understand better the deep things in our political world, and their relationship to Christ as his authority was manifest in his advent, teaching, death and resurrection and ascension. This is not a study about leadership “style” or about government spending or other particular matters that capture our curious and passing attention. This is a study about things that thinking Christians used to ponder, but we have almost entirely forgotten.
You will never again read in the same way the stories of Moses, of Samuel, of the temple tax (the coin for which Peter extracted from a fish’s mouth!). --- Here is the topic for Month three along with times and meeting locations.
The triumph of the kingdom in Christ.
Thurs, Nov 9, 10-11:30, St Andrew’s McKinney
Thurs, Nov 9, 1:30-3, Incarnation Dallas
If this interests you, please note these dates on your calendar. I’ll send out specific pages for the readings in a month or so. In the meantime, you might pick up the book. O’Donovan will be our speaker at diocesan convention on Saturday, November 4.
Peace,