The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology (Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Religion) [Paperback]

Graham Ward (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 29, 2004 | Series: Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Religion

This Companion provides a definitive collection of essays on postmodern theology, drawing on the work of those individuals who have made a distinctive contribution to the field, and whose work will be significant for the theologies written in the new millennium.

• The definitive collection of essays on postmodern theology, drawing on the work of those individuals who have made a distinctive contribution to the field.
  
• Each essay is introduced with a short account of the writer's previous work, enabling the reader to view it in context.
  
• Discusses the following desciplines: Aesthetics, Ethics, Gender, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Heideggerians, and Derrideans.
  
• Edited by Graham Ward, one of the most outstanding and original theologians working in the field today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If you think you know what postmodern theology is, or think you don't know, either way these remarkable essays will change your mind: written by Jews, Christians and atheists; indebted to Plato, the Bible and Augustine; haunted by Heidegger, Levinas, Foucault and Derrida; dealing with jazz, the Shoah, the ecological crisis, the American prison system and many other topics; some long and patient, others short and cryptic, all asking to be read more than once. You may still not know at the end but you will certainly have seen the variety and vitality of what theologians are doing, in these postmodern times, and the zest with which they do it." Fergus Kerr, Blackfriars

"Connecting theology to a variety of disciplines and intellectual traditions, this companion provides an exciting sample of the current work of postmodern theologians. Many of the essays are ground-breaking, as the fields of theology and religious thought move forward into the next century. The polyphony of the volume provides surprising moments of harmony (and discord). This is a valuable sequel to Ward's THEPOSTMODERN GOD, and will be useful in the classroom." Robert Gibbs, University of Toronto

"The essays provide a lofty introduction to contemporary theology. The introductory essay by Ward is as good as it gets on this topic." Choice

"Among the delights of this collection are the essays that dare to reconsider some of the 'bad guys' in the official postmodern story: thus Catherine Pickstock endeavours to rescue Plato from his Nietzschean decriers, by re-reading the Republic through the Laws to offer an account of Plato's politics as liturgical rather than totalitarian; while Jean-Luc Marion even seeks to learn from the much-despised Descartes." Literature & Theology

"a...useful and exciting volume, bringing together the work of religious scholars and theologians across a wide spectrum, creating space for their current work independently from a given theme, showing them sometimes in agreement, sometimes in heated argument with each other." Anglican Theological Review

"A book good libraries should have." Theological Studies

Book Description

This Companion provides a definitive collection of essays on postmodern theology, drawing on the work of those individuals who have made a distinctive contribution to the field, and whose work will be significant for the theologies written in the new millennium. Each essay is introduced with a short account of the writer's previous work, enabling the reader to view it in context. Graham Ward is one of the most outstanding and original theologians working in the field today. This lively collection will have an international appeal, providing readers with the definitive guide to theology and postmodernism.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (November 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1405127198
• ISBN-13: 978-1405127196
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,651,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A LARGE AND VERY HELPFUL COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, November 12, 2010

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology (Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Religion) (Paperback)

This 2001 collection is an exceptionally helpful way to begin to get acquainted with an area that is quite difficult to get a "handle" on. With contributors such as Thomas J.J. Altizer, Graham Ward, John Milbank, John Caputo, Catherine Pickstock, Stanley Hauerwas, Edith Wyschogrod, and Don Cupitt, writing essays in categories such as "Aesthetics," "Ethics," "Gender," "Hermeneutics," "Phenomenology," "Heideggerians," and "Derrideans," the volume provides a very broad overview of what is going on in contemporary theology.

Here are some quotations from the book:

"I call this 'hole' the implosion of secularism and it is the many consequences of that implosion that postmodernism explores and postmodernity expresses. The implosion of the secular has also facilitated a new return to the theological and a new emphasis upon reenchantment..." (Pg. xv)
"Present-day culture in the West, therefore, cannot be understood without theology. Post-modern theology is the study of this presence of the past within the present." (Pg. 4)
"Here, therefore, in the eucharist, we see the only possible paradigm for gift and therefore for ethics, not as one-way sacrifice but as total surrender for rereception." (Pg. 128)
"Postmodernism, in short, is the outworking of mistakes in Christian theology correlative to the attempt to make Christianity 'true' apart from faithful witness." (Pg. 147)
"In a word, God is CARNAL: through the Spirit, God incarnates Godself within the natural order in order to nurture and protect every form of life." (Pg. 211)
"A religious revelation is an encounter with ultimate reality. But it always occurs at a given time and place, within the frameworks of understanding built up by previous tradition." (Pg. 419)
"In our view, Jesus did NOT come to earth 'to found the church.' He was a prophet of the kingdom of God, in the hope of which he lived and died. But the kingdom was delayed, and after his death the church came into being as a stopgap." (Pg. 487)
"The Postmodern project, like the American experience itself, is administered by the sign of freedom. But it is a TENSIVE freedom."