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October 29, 2010 by Jason Hood ABOUT THE SAET BLOG

SAET INTERVIEWS IN POLITICS AND THEOLOGY #5: Welcome to the SAET blog.

OLIVER ODONOVAN
Herein you will find the
theological/pastoral ramblings
Political discernment is not a gift of the Spirit promised to an ordained of the Rev. Matthew Mason, the
minister with the laying on of hands . . . . What the preacher can do is to assist good Doctor Jason Hood, and
a Christian evaluation of such facts as are generally known. Pastor Gerald Hiestand. All three write under
We cannot be too alert to the fact that the realm of politics is inhabited by the premise that theology and the pastorate
principalities and powers that would command our worship in place of belong together, and that (at least some)
Christ. pastors must once again function as writing
theologians for the wider church, for the
Oliver ODonovan is Professor of Chrisitan Ethics and Practical Theology at New
ecclesial renewal of theology and the theological
College, University of Edinburgh. He taught at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford; Wyclife
renewal of the church.
College, Toronto; and at Oxford University from 1982-2006, serving as Regius
Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christ Church.

He has held a host of distinguished visiting positions at institutions including

Cambridge, Durham, Fuller Seminary, Gregorian University in Rome, McMaster University, and the University of CONTRIBUTORS
Hong Kong.
Gerald Hiestand
He and his wife (Joan Lockwood ODonovan) wrote two books on the history of Christian political thought, and his Gerald has served as the
Resurrection and Moral Order: an Outline for Evangelical Ethics (Eerdmans, 1985) and The Desire of the Nations: SAET board president
Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1999) are widely regarded as very since 2006. He has been in
important texts on their respective topics. pastoral ministry since
1999, and serves currently
1. For those who are not familiar with your work, can you describe your contribution to the question of how
as the Senior Associate Pastor of Calvary
the individual Christian and the Church relates to the State?
Memorial Church in Oak Park, IL.

OOD: I cannot claim to have made a personal contribution to the discussion of this question, but to Jason Hood
have tried to recall the contributions which were made in Christian tradition and suggested that they Jason is a graduate of
may shed some light on our situation. On the distinction between the individual Christian and the Rhodes College, Reformed
Church I make some remarks below, which I shall not anticipate. So what about the State? The Theological Seminary,
important thing to grasp is that this is a modern construct, and not a wholly clear one at that, since Highland Theological
there are conflicting concepts of the State in the English-speaking political tradition and that common College and the Univ. of
to continental Europe. What Christian Scripture and tradition has taught about is the significance of Aberdeen. Jason works as Scholar-in-
the activity of government, a human function serving a human need, which has taken many historical Residence and director of Christ College
forms of which our modern State structures are only one, and which assures an order of civility and Residency Program at Christ UMC. He's trying
neighbourhood. They have spoken of the preparatory character of this function in history, its to figure out the twitter thing, @jasonbhood, and
significance as a foreshadowing of the ordered and ruled community of redeemed mankind under sometimes writes for ChristianityToday.com.
God and his Christ. They have spoken of its provisional character, preserving society from violence
Matthew Mason
and self-destruction until the ultimate questions of worship and obedience to God have been brought
Matthew earned an MTh at
to the point of decision. And they have spoken of its potentially idolatrous character as a focus of
Oak Hill College, London.
human pride and rebellion. It is important to see that this idolatrous pretention is not a monopoly of
He is an Assistant Pastor
the immediate agents of government, the State as we describe them; it is a temptation which
at Church of the
pervades the whole sphere of politically ordered society.
Resurrection, Washington
D. C. (Anglican Mission in
2. Richard Mouw and Carl F. H. Henry have suggested that the Churchs role is not coterminous with the
the Americas), and edits Ecclesia Reformanda,
responsibility possessed by individual believers. Do you agree or disagree?
 a journal of Reformed theology.
OOD: Which individual believers? Those with a vocation to take part actively in political
organisations, to run for office, and so on? Certainly, the Church as a whole has no corporate
responsibility for the way they fulfil their vocations, any more than it does for the way its teachers
teach or its surgeons make incisions. This does not mean that the Church has no interest in its
members vocations, especially where moral issues arise within them. It undertakes to uphold its
members in their vocations with pastoral support, and to give such moral counsel as may be relevant
to their tasks; yet the vocation is theirs, not the Churchs. But it is not responsible directly for the way
this vocation is fulfilled. But I am wary of a suggestion (if it is intended) that all believers, as
individuals, have political responsibilities which the Church as such cannot share. There is voting, of
course, which the constitutional arrangements of a democratic polity assign uniquely to individuals
and not to corporations though a polity is perfectly imaginable in which political office-holders would
be selected by corporations, including the church, so that this distinction is not a matter of theological
principle. The Church may have political opinions, and discuss them, as individuals may; and the
Church is bound to obey the law where it is lawful law as individuals are. The Church is Christians
approaching and fulfilling their tasks together in common worship and mutual help; Christians are the
Body of Christ distributed in its members lives. Any further distinction than that would savour, I think,
of an institutional definition of the Church that is too closed off against the catholic life of the Body of
Christ and perhaps too clerical. It may be indicative that the theologians mentioned here are both
from the Reformed tradition; my response is, perhaps, a characteristically Anglican one.

3. Please identify for our readers two influential thinkers or political concepts to which you often respond
(perhaps one positive, one negative)?

SAET BLOGS
OOD: Serious thinkers can very rarely be dismissed in toto, for even when misguided they have
something worthwhile to teach us, while superficial thinkers are not worth drawing attention to. So I Chris Bruno

excuse myself the task of adducing a negative example! On positive influences I could go on a long David Rudolph
time. I had my first introduction to Christian political thought through the teaching of the American Eric Bargerhuff
ethicist Paul Ramsey, whose work on the morality of war remains for me a landmark. From him I Gerald Hiestand
found my way back to the thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, which was a high period Jason Hood
of Christian political thought, and among these I treasure especially the Dutch lawyer Hugo Grotius. A Jay Thomas
millennium earlier, Augustine, of course, on this as on so much else, posed the questions in ways that Joel Willitts
the Western tradition has sometimes forgotten but never been able to escape. My wife and I spent Matthew Mason
five years collecting Christian texts on politics from the beginning to the middle of the seventeenth Mickey Klink
century, and published them in a book called From Irenaeus to Grotius. Our interest was not Owen Strachan
antiquarian. Their authors, we believed, could refresh contemporary Christian political service. Preston Sprinkle
I am also reluctant to name a political concept which I respond positively or negatively. It is too easy Stephen Witmer
to reduce the concept to the word, and putting buzz-words and boo-words into common currency is Todd Wilson
not something any thinker can contemplate with satisfaction. The essence of the concept always lies
in the reasoning that it generates. I have written a great deal, however, about judgment, and
engaged in some controversy as to whether the Christian content of this notion is adequately
captured and expressed in contemporary language about rights.
BLOG CATEGORIES
4. How would you summarize the political responsibilities of the average American in the pewthat is, 1 Samuel (3)
someone with voting rights, but little political capital, and little or no economic capital for political action? Academic Theology (14)
Advent (1)
OOD: The essential political duties we owe to our neighbours are those of living together with them
Anglican (2)
peacefully under the law, and of giving proper support to the institutions of government that uphold
Apocalyptic (2)
the law. It is very unglamorous, and very necessary. To this essential basis a democratic polity has
Apologetics (6)
added the specific responsibility of voting in elections. To perform that democratic task well is quite
art (1)
difficult. It means listening carefully to political debates and sifting the true from the false in a self-
Articles (2)
questioning way, aware of the subtle influences of prejudice upon ourselves as well as upon others. It
Ascension (1)
means to be open to persuasion, ready to change ones mind. It means achieving a clear sense of
Athanasius (2)
the difference between what we can and must decide and what we cannot and should not try to
decide. I should mention, perhaps, that the medieval political theologian, John Wyclif, stated at the Augustine (9)

beginning of his massive work On Lordship that any discussion of political relations must begin from authority (1)
1 Corinthians 13, where everything essential was to be found. Bernard (2)
biblical studies (37)
Biblical Theology (27)
The average American in the pew seems not uncommonly to be told (or so it appears to us as we
Bonhoeffer (3)
listen in across the Atlantic Ocean) that she or he has much larger political responsibilities than this:
to make the Gospel heard in public life, to bring in the Kingdom of God and to make a better world, Book Review (17)

and so on. Some of these tasks are indeed tasks of the Church, which all Christians share, but not Book Reviews (11)
distinctively political. Some are political, but not tasks of the Church so much as promises of the work C. S. Lewis (1)
of the Spirit of God, for which we must pray and wait while fulfilling our mission and doing the work Calvin (8)
that comes to our hand humbly and without pompous pretensions. We cannot be too alert to the Calvinism (2)
 fact that the realm of politics is inhabited by principalities and powers that would command our Carl Trueman (2)
worship in place of Christ. Chris Bruno (1)
Chris Wright (3)
There is, of course, such a thing as a specific vocation to serve in politics. But the question did not Christology (15)
ask about. Indeed, none of the questions have asked about that. And that, perhaps, is one of the Christopher Bechtel (1)
things that most strike the European onlooker about the way American Christians think about politics: Church (3)
the professional politician, though always present in the background, is never a topic of discussion. Church History (10)
Is there, we sometimes wonder, a condition of general denial in the USA about the professionalisation Commentaries (2)
of modern politics? Conference (3)
Creation (7)
5. How does Romans 13 help us understand the limits placed on the church and/or the individual believer in creeds (1)
our engagement with political matters? Cross (6)
Culture (5)
OOD: I am always struck by the spareness and sharpness of focus of the description of the
D. A. Carson (2)
authority in Romans 13, in which the role of government is made to focus wholly upon judgment.
David Rudolph (2)
Nothing is said about political identity, nothing about territory and nothing about political community,
discipleship (3)
great and dominant themes in ancient political discourse as well as in our own. Even the concept of
Doctrine of God (5)
power is only indirectly present behind the notion of authority. There are plenty of commentators, of
Doctrine of Scripture (7)
course, who are quick to pull aside the veil of Pauls reticence and supply what they suppose he must
Doug Sweeney (1)
have meant to say, or suggest, about all these topics. But I tend not to get round to them! I am too
fascinated by the words themselves, and by what they say and do not say. So the first limit I detect in Ecclesial Theologian (12)

Romans 13 is not a limit on the church and/or the individual believer, but a limit on the authority itself, Ecclesial Theology (46)
which is better conceived as a focus that defines its task. Ecclesiology (6)
Ecumenism (1)
And the limit that that imposes on the rest of us not only the church and the Christian but all
Eric Bargerhuff (1)
members of society, is to be subject (yes, notice Pauls term! Americans, I find, are prone to be
Eschatology (7)
distressed by it!) to the operations of this ordered and lawful maintenance of justice, and to maintain it
Ethics (4)
cheerfully with our taxes. Order is no kind of slavery. It is a way of being free, but one which requires
ETS (3)
us to adapt ourselves consciously to it.
Eucharist (1)
Within a Western Christian tradition this subjection has become largely depersonalised and a matter Evangelicalism (4)
of obeying laws. There are enormous benefits in that, the chief of which is that the reasons for laws
Evangelism (1)
can be understood, and obedience can be intelligent and thoughtful, not unthinking and slavish. But
First Fellowship (5)
there are also problems, not least with what has become of the institution of law in later modernity,
Gender (1)
the ease with which laws are made and unmade, challenged and set aside. I expect Christians who
General (304)
have meditated on the implications of Romans 13 to be supportive of the rule of law, but also to
George Marsden (1)
understand the difference between deep lawfulness and shallow legality. Subjection to the law must
Gerald Hiestand (87)
be subjection to the purpose and the intention of law, and conscientious refusal, should that unhappy
Global Christianity/Theology (2)
case ever arise, must be because it is the only way left to us of offering that critical support which the
principle of law demands of us. Gospel (4)
grace (5)
6. How do biblical books such as Deuteronomy and Proverbs help us to understand Gods perspective on Hell (6)
politics?Does the fact that they share political and ethical insights with other Ancient Near Eastern cultures Hermeneutics (7)
(or that they offer critiques of those cultures and their political systems) influence your view of their Historical Method (2)
relevance? History (2)
Holy Spirit (3)
OOD: Kierkegaard famously argued that St. Paul did not have authority in the church because he Idolatry (5)
was the most profound or original thinker or, he added, the best upholsterer of tents! but because Image of God (3)
he was Christs apostle. Deuteronomy and Proverbs, similarly, demand our attention not because Incarnation (2)
they are highly original and distinctive in their Near-Eastern context, but because they are the voice of Inerrancy (1)
ancient Israel, the elect people through whom the Holy Spirit spoke to the world.
Interviews on Politics and Theology (13)
Let me concentrate on Deuteronomy. This book, too, is law and to understand what the Holy Spirit Irenaeus (1)
is saying to us through it, we must understand what law is, how it is made, how it relates to the Isaiah (2)
society which it serves, and so on. Law is a political artefact, and we dont have to search for politics James Jordan (1)
in it because law is politics in itself. But further, Deuteronomy is an act of legislative consolidation Jason Hood (160)
and publication; its own self-commentary, which is very elaborate, tells us of its ambitions in making Jay Thomas (1)
Israel a society that lives under law. To learn from it, we have to grasp what it can reveal to us of the Jeff Hubing (2)
society it addressed, its problems and needs. Only if we use our historical imaginations in this way Jew/Gentile Relations (1)
can we see what much of it hopes to attain. Joel Lawrence (1)
Can we understand Gods perspectives on politics from it? Gods perspective on ancient Israels John (1)
politics, certainly. But to understand that is to be willing to stand back from our urgent demand for John Frame (5)
something political in the modern sense. Deuteronomy is from first to last political, yet its historical John Piper (4)
setting doesnt fit in with our ideas of what the political should be like. Nonsensical traditions of John Stott (2)
commentary about the ideal character of the debt law in Dt. 15 or the anti-monarchical character of John Webster (7)
the law of the king in Dt. 17, for example, illustrate how difficult it is for readers to take the text as they John's Gospel (1)
 find it rather than try to squeeze modern lessons out of it. So the question we are left with is: are we Jonathan Edwards (2)
capable of being instructed by God out of a political project which belongs essentially to the ancient justice (2)
world and its conditions? Karl Barth (3)
Kevin Vanhoozer (6)
7. Some political theologians note that Daniel simultaneously models service, critique, and a message of kingdom (7)
divine judgment. Are all three of these to be implemented by believers? Are they postures we should always Kingdom of God (3)
exhibit, or are they more appropriate at some times than others?
Literature (7)
Love (5)
OOD: I am uncomfortable at the distinctions that this observation implies suggesting that service,
Luke's Gospel (4)
critique and a sense of divine judgment are all rather different postures, which may perhaps be
Lying (1)
combined or perhaps represented separately.
Mainline Protestantism (3)
Mark Noll (2)
I am uncomfortable, in the first place, at the idea of a Christian political critique that is something
Mark's Gospel (3)
other than the message of divine judgment. Do we have either the authority or ability to frame political
Marriage (2)
critique on a purely immanent, secular basis? May I approach a tyrant and tell him that killing his
Martin Hengel (1)
opponents is ultimately an inefficient way of making his writ run, or tell big business that care for the
Martin Luther (3)
welfare of employees is profitable? And then add something about Gods judgment as an
Matt Kim (1)
afterthought? Any warning I can take on my lips I must have learned by listening to the word of God
Matthew Mason (38)
pronounced against sinners. There is no other place to stand.
Messianism (4)
Michael LeFebvre (2)
I am uncomfortable, in the second place, at the idea of a service that did not have a critical
mission (6)
perspective within it. Criticism means careful evaluation, not simple opposition. Opposition is an
Music (1)
accident that may befall criticism, but not the heart of the matter. To serve at all one must be able to
noetic effects of sin (3)
assess how one may be of service; one must know the difference between true service and mere
off-topic (8)
acquiescence.
Oliver O'Donovan (2)
Owen Strachan (4)
Let me try to rephrase what I think these theologians may discern in the narratives of Daniels role in
Pastor Ministry (1)
Babylon. The path of political action has to be discovered at the point where recognition and
Pastor-theologian (32)
affirmation of the political good that God will do through government is thoroughly tempered by a
patristics (2)
recognition of the moral dangers that befall every exercise of human power. The path of political
Paul (3)
action is always a narrow one, always liable in a moment to be cut off by human stupidity and cruelty,
Poetry (3)
always to be received afresh, and on new terms, from God.
Political Theology (16)

8. If a young church planter says to you, In my social and cultural context, I need to avoid political topics. Popular Theology (3)

This enables me to address the gospel without any baggage and has helped our church create a community porn (1)
of diverse perspectives centered on Christ and his work. But am I doing the right thing? Should I be prayer (1)
bolder? How would you respond? Which passages would you use as a resource for guiding his or her Preaching (5)
thinking? Predestination (2)
Preston Sprinkle (4)
OOD: Preachers ought not, I think, constantly to be preaching on political topics. As a student at an prophecy (1)
American University during the troubled Presidency of Richard Nixon, I recall a University chaplain Psalms (3)
who repeatedly made use of the pulpit for personal attacks upon the President. I dont know what Redemption (8)
effect this had on the congregation in general; on me it merely created a disposition (unjustified, as it repentance (1)
turned out) to give the President the benefit of the doubt. It also instilled in me a strong distrust of Resurrection (4)
political preaching as such, and for the first ten years of my ministry I never once undertook it. When, Revelation (6)
however, I found myself in a position responsible for teaching Christian political thought, I judged that Richard Hays (3)
it was not possible to make the kind of separation between the classroom and the pulpit that this
Robert Jenson (2)
entailed, and must be prepared sometimes to venture further. Looking back over the last quarter-
Romans (2)
century now, I am astonished how often I have made political references, sometimes merely glancing
sacraments (2)
and allusive, more rarely at the centre of a sermon. I have sometimes done it well, sometimes badly. I
SAET Fellow Publications (18)
think I have learned the dos and donts. To start with, here are three donts:
SAET Fellowship (9)
(i) Political discernment is not a gift of the Spirit promised to an ordained minister with the laying on of sanctification (8)
hands. It is more than probable that a congregation will contain some who are better informed and SBL (4)
have better judgment than their clergy. It is ridiculous for a minister to assume the role of pundit, Scripture (2)
making pronouncements on what is really going on like a journalist with an inside source. What the
Second Fellowship (11)
preacher can do is to assist a Christian evaluation of such facts as are generally known.
sexuality (8)
(ii) Not every wave of political enthusiasm deserves the attention of the church in its liturgy. Judging sin (6)
when political questions merit prophetic commentary requires a cool head and a theological sense of sonship (2)
priorities. The worship that the principalities and powers seek to exact from mankind is a kind of Soteriology (11)
feverish excitement. The first business of the church is to refuse them that worship. There are many sovereignty (2)
times and surely a major Election is one of them when the most pointed political criticism Spirituality (3)
imaginable is to talk about something else. Stephen Witmer (1)
(iii) The preacher who expects to say something in Christs name about politics had better master a suffering (1)
few basic concepts of Christian political thought. Few Christian interventions into political debate Symposium (6)
display any kind of conceptual sophistication. They sound nave not in the sense of being too Systematic Theology (9)
idealistic, but simply by using words without appreciating their meaning. Every political term carries a The Bible (1)
complex freight: rights, democracy, freedom, equality, the state, law, and so on. Such an The SAET (9)
elementary blunder as using democratic to mean fair betrays a level of incompetence that Theodicy (1)
disqualifies the speaker as a guide to others. No preacher can introduce such ideas effectively Theological Education (11)
without a basic sense of their relation to each other and to the Gospel: how does civil freedom relate
Theological Method (7)
to evangelical freedom? how do human rights relate to the righteousness of God? Nothing is
Theology (7)
contributed if the church merely echoes the current buzz-words.
Thomas Aquinas (3)
With these warnings in mind, how may we preach on politics? The pulpit may only rightly be used for Tolkien (1)
addressing the churchs own concerns. Those concerns are the truth of the Gospel and all that Tom Wright (11)
follows from it for Christian action. The justification for preaching on politics is exactly the same as Trinity (4)
that for preaching on the family or on money or on any secular concern: it assists Christians to bring Truth (1)
an evangelical mind to bear on their responsibilities. Political deliberation is a responsibility of the Uncategorized (8)
members of the church inasmuch as they participate in a political society. But how one speaks will be
via moderna (1)
determined by what is in view, which is to assist authentic Christian deliberation. One should not go
ways to scare your children (2)
on as though one were a statesman oneself, trying to get a certain decision taken, using every
Wider Theologians (3)
argument in its favour, good or bad, that might appeal to somebody: the measure the government
wisdom (5)
has brought forward is required by simple justice, is highly advantageous economically, and anyone
Worship (2)
who opposes it is hand in glove with right-wing extremism etc. etc. The whole point is that the
writing (2)
argument should be a Christian one that commends itself to any Christian conscience.
Zacharius Ursinus (1)
It is less important that those who hear you should concur in your conclusions than that they should
respond positively to the principles from which you reason. When I address political questions I
almost always adopt an exegetical form of sermon-structure, follow my text and the argument that
arises from it, until it points irresistibly to some theologico-political principle. Then, in the lightest way
possible, I give concreteness to the principle by showing how it bears on the public issue in question.
Usually I do not bother to indicate my own view; it will be evident enough from the argument. If
anyone disagrees with me, I hope that person will have been helped to articulate a more authentically
Christian response, one which will take seriously the issues of principle I have raised. Everyone
needs to come out with a clearer sense of what is unnegotiable for Christian conscience, and what,
by contrst, is merely a matter of differing emphasis or differing interpretation of a given situation.

I do not trouble you with the useless advice that you should not be partisan. That says too much and
too little. The notion that political deliberation is basically about the rival claims of competing parties is
one which the church must do everything it can to challenge. Political deliberation is about
understanding our situation truthfully. The whole emphasis has to fall on articulating the truths at
issue. If there are no issues of truth, if it all comes down to which party will (let us say) manage the
economy more skilfully, then there is no call for the churchs ministers to address the question in the
first place. But if there is an issue of truth, it must be faced squarely. Truth demands partisanship;
there is no impartiality between the claims of truth and error. Our success will depend on isolating the
question of truth that demands our partisanship, and not confusing it with matters on which differing
opinions are possible. To do this, we must avoid prejudging who is a friend of error, who a friend of
truth. We must not assume that the truth is the privileged possession of one party. Truth is liberation
for all, and demands repentance of all. It must be commended as available at once to the poor and to
the tax collector. Its demand must not be addressed in one direction only as though one party
needed to do all the repenting, while the other could watch and decide when they had done
enough!
The authority of the prophet derives from a discernment of the concern which the Spirit lays upon the
church at that moment. There is no reason to suppose that this concern will often be political, in the
narrower sense of that word. (More broadly, it will always be political, since the churchs own life is
the founding political reality.) But there is no reason to be alarmed if, on any occasion, the concern of
the church opens into a critical perspective on secular political events. To convince of sin,
righteousness and judgment is the work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8), which must sometimes,
surely, take the form of defining a position in relation to such evils as abortion, nuclear deterrence,
unemployment, North-South inequities and so on. We would be less than faithful preachers of the
Gospel if we made our minds never to venture onto such terrain. But to do it usefully we have to risk
controversy. We will be of little use to the Holy Spirit if we save our denunciations for those evils on
which we can be sure there will be little difference of opinion among our hearers. Controversy may be
healthy or unhealthy. It will be unhealthy if we announce our conclusions and declare, Take them or
leave them! It will be healthy if we lead the church through the task of Christian deliberation from first
principles, so helping those who differ to find the Christian ground on which they stand and building
up the churchs unity in the Gospel. In that way the judgment of the Spirit proves itself authentic,
drawing the line between the Gospel and despair, between belief and unbelief, obedience and
rebellion, and lighting the way for the confession of Christ in the centre of each new situation.
9. What is the best article or essay a young pastor could read on politics, political interpretation of Scripture,
or political theology? The best book?

OOD: Anyone who thinks of getting away with a single article or a single book, had better think
again. Politics is a discussion. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring! As for where to start, that
depends on where one happens to be. Nobody starts from nowhere. But, at the risk of being too
insistent on the past, let me suggest: wherever you are, wherever you have come from, the next
piece of reading could very profitably be the nineteenth book of Augustines City of God.

Categories: Augustine | Interviews on Politics and Theology | Jason

Hood | Political Theology

RECENT COMMENTS
Al Shaw said...

What a wonderful interview.

Thank you.
10/29/10 5:41 PM | Comment Link

Gerald Hiestand said...

Matthew, I think ODonovan more than makes up for Rector Malloy. Order in the Anglican world has
been restored!
10/30/10 9:57 AM | Comment Link

Oliver ODonovan on the American Political Environment | Mere Orthodoxy said...

[...] you all might be interested in an interview with Oliver ODonovan by the folks over at the Society for the
Advancement of Ecclesial Theology (may their tribe [...]
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[...] (5) Oliver ODonovan, British political theologian. [...]

11/1/10 1:37 PM | Comment Link

Matthew Mason said...

Sadly, I fear the Anglican world remains as disordered as it was before this interview was published,
Gerald. But this is a wonderful interview, with a real theological thinker.
11/1/10 2:47 PM | Comment Link

Tweets that mention SAET SAET Interviews in Politics and Theology #5: Oliver ODonovan The
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Theology said...

[...] who left evangelicalism because they found a theology of the body in Catholicism); interacts with Oliver
O'Donovan, one of SAET's favorite theologians; and steers into important related debates. Check out the [...]
06/30/11 8:52 AM | Comment Link
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