B. A. Gerrish – författare

Modern Christian religious thought, B. A. Gerrish argues, has constantly revised the inherited faith. In these twelve essays, written or published in the 1980s, a historical theologian examines the changes that occurred as the Catholic tradition gave way to the Reformation and an interest in the phenomenon of believing replaced adherence to unchanging dogma. Gerrish devotes three essays to each of four topics: Martin Luther and the Reformation; religious belief and the Age of Reason; Friedrich Schleiermacher and the renewal of Protestant theology; and Schleiermacher's disciple Ernst Troeltsch, for whom the theological task was to give a rigorous account of the faith prevailing in a particular religious community at a particular time. Gerrish shows how faith itself has become a primary object of inquiry, not only in the newly emerging philosophy of religion but also in a new style of church theology which no longer assumes that faith rests on immutable dogmas. For Gerrish, the new theology of Protestant liberalism takes for its primary object of inquiry the changing forms of the religious life.

Modern Christian religious thought, B. A. Gerrish argues, has constantly revised the inherited faith. In these twelve essays, written or published in the 1980s, a historical theologian examines the changes that occurred as the Catholic tradition gave way to the Reformation and an interest in the phenomenon of believing replaced adherence to unchanging dogma. Gerrish devotes three essays to each of four topics: Martin Luther and the Reformation; religious belief and the Age of Reason; Friedrich Schleiermacher and the renewal of Protestant theology; and Schleiermacher's disciple Ernst Troeltsch, for whom the theological task was to give a rigorous account of the faith prevailing in a particular religious community at a particular time. Gerrish shows how faith itself has become a primary object of inquiry, not only in the newly emerging philosophy of religion but also in a new style of church theology which no longer assumes that faith rests on immutable dogmas. For Gerrish, the new theology of Protestant liberalism takes for its primary object of inquiry the changing forms of the religious life.

This book is comprised of the 2001 Sprunt Lectures at Union Theological Seminary and the Presbyterian School of Christian Education. The pieces address differing aspects of Reformed theology from a variety of views, each focusing on an important issue that engages Reformed thought at the beginning of the third Christian millennium. Perspectives and contexts for the essays are provided in the Introduction by B. A. Gerrish, one of the most distinguished contemporary Reformed theologians.

Preeminent theologian B. A. Gerrish uses the motif of the journey of Christian life to present themes such as God, faith, sin, evil, and forgiveness, as well as to address important related contemporary questions. In these theologically astute and psychologically insightful sermons, he conveys the process of faith development in the face of issues that challenge simple belief.

At the beginning of Christian Faith, B. A. Gerrish reminds us that dogmatics involves critical transmission of the Christian heritage. The dogmatic theologian must interpret and assess the traditional beliefs of the church while also considering the new and changing conditions in which that tradition is being embodied. With that, Gerrish goes on to outline the various presuppositions and affirmations of the Christian faith before ultimately offering a powerful and compelling restatement of Christian faith for the twenty-first century. As part of his framework, Gerrish includes a critical comparison of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and Schleiermacher's Christian Faith while still paying close attention to the great cloud of theological witnesses from across the spectrum of Christian traditions. Gerrish’s book provides a robust and penetrating revisioning of Christian theology, one that is thoroughly grounded in the classical traditions of the church.

Together with the sixteenth century, the nineteenth century is universally recognized as one of the two most creative periods in Protestant thought. It is also widely regarded as a period that marked a break with the heritage of the Reformation. In five elegantly written essays, B. A. Gerrish challenges this assumption by showing that some of the foremost leaders of nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism found loyalty to their tradition compatible with change and desired a development, rather than either rejection or repetition, of traditional doctrines. Gerrish considers five basic theological issues and shows how each is developed in the thinking of a nineteenth-century theologian of the Reformed tradition. The formal question of continuity and change in theological reflection is viewed through the work of Schleiermacher. Four other Reformed leaders are then studied to exemplify the material transformation of particular doctrines: Nevin (the church), John McLeod Campbell (the atonement), Alexander Schweizer (providence and predestination), and Biedermann (life eternal). Gerrish permits each of the five theologians to speak for himself about what he was doing and how it constituted a continuation of old doctrines. In so doing Gerrish invites the provocative question whether there was not something characteristically Protestant about their thinking precisely because they understood continuity as a kind of change. The essays offer a reassessment of nineteenth-century theological history, fresh interpretations of some classical answers to enduring theological questions, and a contribution to the wider problem of tradition in the modern world.

Pittsburgh Theological Monograph SeriesGeneral Editor - Dikran Y. Hadidian