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These thoroughly engaged and engaging essays invite reflection on Bishop Wright's practice and principles as an interpreter of Scripture and of the Christian faith in today's context. Wright wants to reground theology in a biblical narrative and considers that systematic theology has been impoverished by forgetfulness of its roots in the story of God's Covenant with humanity. This story contains in concrete form all the truths that later theology painfully spelled out in categories that were not always appropriate. Systematic theologians might reply that doctrine, whether of the Fathers or of the Reformers, has allowed a penetrating interpretation of Scripture, which otherwise could lack its full existential and spiritual impact. Wright's over‐arching biblical story tends to become drab and to generate biblicism rather than a repristinated biblical theology. His recommendation that we solve problems of modern life by recalling our roots in the biblical story may be a simplistic nostrum. Wright's theology is thoroughly incarnational. Salvation is the emergence of God's Kingdom on this earth. He claims to be a creational monotheist, not a Platonic dualist. He stresses the collective dimensions of salvation, sometimes sounding like a liberation theologian. While his sense for sacred times and sacred places is an incarnational emphasis, his focus on the sacral theme of the Temple in John and throughout the New Testament might be an idealizing construction that takes away from his effort to understand Jesus in his historical world. His hermeneutics could be more flexible and effective if he opened up more to the pluralistic open‐endedness of the biblical texts (not just the eschatological openness at the end of the story), or if he were more ready to delight in the literary qualities of Scripture for their own sake. While he skillfully skewers some trendy movements in Jesus research and Pauline studies, his skepticism about Q and ascription of the hymns in Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians to the pen of the Apostle exemplify a literary conservatism that may generate a monochrome reading. In Christology, his repeated declaration that Jesus 'embodied Israel's God' hovers between a 'high' and a 'low' interpretation, indicating that his 'early High Christology' is not a stable and monolithic formation. Wright, an outstanding pastor and apologist, finally may lay claim to the watchword of 'missional hermeneutics' such as Paul practiced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problematic assumption that biblical purity thematically represents life and death is commonly held within modern biblical studies. Building upon this assumption, many scholars have attempted to explain the treatment of the ṣāraʿat patient in Leviticus 13:1‐46 as a symbolic banishment of death. However, the current paper attempts to move beyond this reading towards a method of reconstructing the evolution of biblical rituals and practices. Through the utilisation of René Girard's four scapegoat stereotypes, the current paper identifies the scapegoat mechanism in Leviticus 13:1‐46, and reconstructs a proposed evolution of this ritual. This paper suggests that the ritual presented in Leviticus 13:1‐46 may have evolved from an earlier tradition, in which ṣāraʿat patients were executed to halt a mimetic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers the work of G.K. Chesterton, and in particular The Everlasting Man, in relation to narrative theology. It discusses the apparent contradiction between Aidan Nichols' judgement that this book develops a 'Christocentric theology of history' and Chesterton's own assertion that its approach is 'historical rather than theological'. It argues that Chesterton employs both natural and narrative theology in The Everlasting Man, and these two forms of theology frame a reading of the book which resolves the seeming contradiction between Nichols' and Chesterton's views, while also challenging the conventional chronology used in discussions of narrative theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The television series Man in the High Castle is set in an alternate United States of America reality where Nazi Germany and Japan won World War II. This paper explores the saga's themes narratively, scripturally, and missionally, engaging with various cultural, religious, and mission studies. The resistance theme of The Man in the High Castle in particular provides a useful parallel to Christian mission that is surprisingly resonant both with scripture and with Benjamin Simon's three pillars of mission. The oppressive values of the conquering empires lead to an awareness that there is a problem with the world, which encourages Christians toward mission and the series' Americans toward resistance. Finally, the success in The Man in the High Castle of sharing stories of "another world" as a scheme of resistance provides a useful strategy for Christians today. Mission, with a Man in the High Castle flavour, becomes an act of resistance to oppressive evil through the sharing of stories of the coming kingdom of God. Simon's three pillars of mission can all be seen in the approaches to mission seen from the series. Because the world is filled with oppressive values and needs Christian resistance, the pillar of transformation is required. The idea of sharing stories of an alternate world, the kingdom of God, is also an example of both gospel transmission and gospel translation into a fresh context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses some of the confusion regarding the role of metaphysical claims in narrative theology. Proponents and critics of narrative theology alike wonder at the ambiguous place of metaphysical speech about God as an objective reality. This essay enters the conversation through the side door of soteriology. Rather than focusing on the relationship between narrative and metaphysics or narrative and analogy or narrative and first-order theological claims, I examine what sort of metaphysical statements are required to make the Christian claim that human beings are 'in Christ' intelligible as a soteriological reality. I argue that the Christian grammar itself assumes a Christology with a certain kind of metaphysical ambition without which Christianity lapses into incoherence. To make this case, I show that David Kelsey's 'narrative identity' Christology in Eccentric Existence lacks the metaphysical statements necessary to uphold his conviction that human beings are 'in Christ.' A comparison with T. F. Torrance and the Book of Hebrews reveals that when narrative circumvents metaphysical statements about the incarnate Son, soteriological claims lack coherence and the biblical narrative itself is distorted by a false metaphysic. Thus, metaphysical claims internal to the narrative of Jesus are necessary to tell the story of God faithfully. In this way, narrative is the expression of a theological metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade there has been a pragmatic turn in the work of those doing Christian ethics, especially as represented by the work of Jeffrey Stout and Franklin Gamwell. The pragmatic turn represents a critique of the highly influential work of Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair MacIntyre, which argues for a strongly intra-church ethics. The pragmatists are correct in arguing that Christian ethics must engage the public sphere. However, I argue that they are deeply mistaken in their claim that this engagement must rest on a weak or non-existent theology. I show that the claim that robust theology adds nothing to ethics, and that we can get along without it, is unsustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article enquires about the place of ‘aesthetic theology’ within the conceptual enterprise of systematic theology. If narrative theology is to be of any help in answering the question, it will have to include an appeal to extra-biblical images and stories in its method, and will also need to relate metaphor to some kind of analogy and metaphysics (carefully defined). Working from a theological basis in doctrines of revelation and canon, poems and novels outside the Bible may thus be seen to contribute to systematic theology in at least three ways: in deciding between concepts, in enabling connections to be made between concepts, and in developing the Christian story for the present age. Finally, the concept of God as ‘relational being’ is explored as an example of aesthetic forms of theological discourse, connecting everyday religious speech to systematic theology with an ‘analogy of relations’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]