D.H. Williams – författare

In Early Christian Apologetics, D.H. Williams offers a comprehensive presentation of Christian apologetic literature from the second to the fifth century, considering each writer within the intellectual context of the day. Williams argues that most apologies were not directed at a pagan readership. In most cases, he says, ancient apologetics had a double object: to instruct the Christian and to persuade weak Christians or non-Christians who were sympathetic to Christian claims. Traditionally, scholars of apologetics have focused on the context of persecution in the pre-Constantinian period. By following the links in the intellectual trajectory up though the early fifth century, Williams prompts deeper reflection on the process of Christian self-definition in late antiquity. Taken cumulatively, he finds, apologetic literature was in fact integral to the formation of the Christian identity in the Roman world.

In Early Christian Apologetics, D.H. Williams offers a comprehensive presentation of Christian apologetic literature from the second to the fifth century, considering each writer within the intellectual context of the day. Williams argues that most apologies were not directed at a pagan readership. In most cases, he says, ancient apologetics had a double object: to instruct the Christian and to persuade weak Christians or non-Christians who were sympathetic to Christian claims. Traditionally, scholars of apologetics have focused on the context of persecution in the pre-Constantinian period. By following the links in the intellectual trajectory up though the early fifth century, Williams prompts deeper reflection on the process of Christian self-definition in late antiquity. Taken cumulatively, he finds, apologetic literature was in fact integral to the formation of the Christian identity in the Roman world.

For more than four decades, David Lyle Jeffrey has enriched the world of Christian scholarship. Throughout his work, Jeffrey has drawn attention to the ways in which imaginative engagements with biblical texts have been central to major shifts in Christian and post-Christian hermeneutics, ethics, and aesthetics. The purpose of this volume is to challenge and deepen that growing discourse by showing how English literature across varied traditions unfolds a central Christian interaction between divine Incarnation, invented narrative, and ethical praxis. In their essays, the authors demonstrate how an imaginative engagement with biblical narratives, in historical or contemporary writing, continues to provide a fruitful means to address the intellectual and ethical antinomies of the postmodern scene. The articles in this collection form two groups: the first set of essays focuses on specific episodes or moments of historical change within European biblical literary traditions; the second group focuses on the dissemination of biblical literary engagements in areas outside of European contexts, ranging from North America to South Africa to China. Unique in the wide range of topics it covers—itself a reflection of Jeffrey's own broad scope of scholarship—the collection functions as a working example of Jeffrey's thesis that the biblical tradition has a far-reaching influence on the development of Western literature, even by those who are reluctant to acknowledge its present influence.

Essays exploring the challenge for modern churches, especially in the Anglican tradition, of living authentically within the historic legacy of Christianity.Christianity’s Great Tradition, as editor D.H. Williams describes it, is ‘the foundational legacy of apostolic and patristic faith, most accurately enshrined in Scripture and secondarily in the great confessions and creeds of the early church.’ Anglicanism offers a test case of how the modern Church has developed in relation to this legacy. Of particular interest is the highly dynamic process by which a recognizable ‘Anglican Way’ has been preserved and transmitted over the centuries, a process has been enlivened through constant negotiation and exchange with surprising convergences that have brought new life and direction.Inspired by a conference entitled ‘Ancient-Wisdom-Anglican Features’, the essayists in this volume discuss the issue of what it means to inhabit the Great Tradition ‘authentically’. This dialogue inspires reflection on how one participates in a Church rooted in the canonicity and catholicity of Christian faith, and brings Anglicans into a resurgent ressourcement of the Great Tradition, alongside an increased interest in early Christian worship.The Great Tradition – A Great Labour further expands upon these ideas by considering what it means to receive and pass on the inheritance of historic Christianity for the sake of transformative worship and community in a post-modern world. Representing different perspectives and denominations, they show how ‘profitable and commodious’ (as Richard Hooker has said) the Great Tradition can be in nurturing the worship, communal life, and mission of the Church. But at the same time they demonstrate how hard it can be to uphold the varied integrities of historic faith in the contemporary marketplace of religion, and especially among evangelicals who continue to follow the Canterbury Trail.