Theology in Scotland

02/12/2024

Hot off the press! The new issue of Theology in Scotland is here!
https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/issue/view/233

Exploring the shifting theological landscapes in contemporary Scotland, it’s a bumper issue taking in:

• analysis of the state of the nation by a distinguished sociologist
• insights from the 2022 Scottish Census on religion
• challenges and opportunities for diaspora congregations
• reimagining church and society in present-day Scotland
• rehabilitating the concept of mission in the Scottish church.

Plus:
• shorter pieces offering cause for hope and insightful reflection
• reviews of recent books – everything from James Clerk Maxwell to posthumans
• and the latest in our DWD Shaw lecture series: David Fergusson on the changing relationship between the church and universities in Scotland.

Don't miss out on these thought-provoking reads!

11/10/2024

Dear Friends of Theology in Scotland,
This is an invitation to write for us.
For our Spring 2025 issue of the journal we will be exploring the vital role and limitations of language in faith and the church. From Scripture to worship, theological discourse to private devotion – how does language shape, challenge, and sometimes limit Christian faith in Scotland?
We’re still open to proposals for articles and creative contributions for the issue. The deadline to contact us by is 1 November 2024.
Contribute your insights, whether in articles, interviews, reflections, or creative compositions. Share your experiences and learnings on topics such as Bible translations, evolving church language, and the linguistic challenges faced by diverse communities.
Full details:
https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/announcement/view/74
We’ll look forward to hearing from you!

12/09/2024

Dear Friends of Theology in Scotland,

We hope you enjoyed your summer. As a new academic year is upon us, and we are preparing our Autumn Edition of the journal, we are also looking ahead to our first 2025 issue, with this...

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS:

Vol 32 No 1 (2025) of Theology in Scotland will be devoted to the theme of faith and language.

We are looking for contributions (articles, academic interviews, theological reflections, creative compositions) on the role and limitations of language in the life of faith and the church.

Words play a key role in Christian faith: from Scripture, to public worship, to various levels of theological articulation, whether in academic discourse or in private devotional life. This issue of Theology in Scotland will seek to explore how language shapes, challenges, and perhaps sometimes limits, Christian faith, particularly in the context of historical or contemporary Scotland. What can be learned from different Bible translations, or in ways language evolves in the life of the church or in missional endeavours? What challenges are faced by those whose linguistic abilities are limited, or those who are non-verbal, when it comes to their belonging to a community of faith? What should be learned from their experience, or that of minority linguistic groups in Scotland? Contributions are welcome on these, and other, related questions.

If you are interested in submitting a contribution for this themed issue, please send your proposal /abstract to the Editor at [email protected]. The deadline for proposal/abstract submissions is 1 November 2024. If accepted, the deadline for the final version of the article/contribution will be 10 March 2025. Further instructions on submitting to Theology in Scotland can be found here: https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/information/authors

Thanks for following and for sharing.

Kind regards,

Jonathan and the editorial team

Interested in submitting to this journal? We recommend that you     – check the call for contributions for forthcoming issues and the themes they will be focussed on    – review the About the Journal page for the journal's section policies    – and read through the author guidelines. Aut...

08/07/2024

Dear Friends of Theology in Scotland,

We hope you're enjoying your summer. With election 'fever' over and a new UK government in place, a pause in the Euros before the semi-finals, and Sir. Andy Murray's final Wimbledon appearance prematurely behind us - you may be in the mood for something different...

So, for those who have not yet exhausted the riches of our latest - unthemed - edition, here are a few highlights for your consideration:

John Carswell, minister of Cadzow Parish Church in Hamilton, considers the comprehensibility and plausibility of the Christian faith inside and outside the contemporary Church, in 'Gospel plausibility and Community Organising: A missionary endeavour': https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/article/view/2751

Mary Cullen, editor of the Roman Catholic periodical Open House, considers the importance of lay engagement within the Church since, in 'Vatican II: Keeping the conversation open
Open House and Vatican II': https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/article/view/2755

And Prof. David Jasper, for many years the Gifford Lectures supremo at the University of Glasgow, writes about some of the contributors he helped appoint and who made an impact on this famous lecture series in natural theology: 'Reflections of a Gifford Committee convenor': https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/article/view/2757

Enjoy the articles. More posts coming.

With best wishes,

Jonathan and the editorial team

Reflections of a Gifford Committee convenor Article Sidebar PDF Published: May 21, 2024 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15664/tis.v31i1.2757 Keywords: Gifford lectures, Simon Blackburn, David Fergusson, Charles Taylor, Gianni Vattimo, Jean-Luc Marion Main Article Content David Jasper Emeritus Professor at t...

21/05/2024

Dear friends of Theology in Scotland,

Our latest issue of the journal is available now, PLUS we've got news about a special event taking place next week.

The Spring 2024 issue has just been published online:
https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/issue/view/258

For this issue of the journal we've taken a short break from our usual practice of focussing on particular themes. This time we've got a very diverse selection of contributions, with articles on:

- Mission through community engagement
- Christians engaged in non-violent protest
- The place of the offering, past and present
- Vatican II's vision of lay participation

plus poetry, the latest in our series on the Gifford lectures, and a selection of book reviews.

The print version of the journal will be out in a couple of weeks.

ALSO:

On Wednesday 29 May the latest in our series of D. W. D. Shaw lectures is being given by Prof David Fergusson in Kings College, Aberdeen. His topic is "Church and University in Scotland: Challenges and Prospects".

If you can't make it to Aberdeen, the lecture is being streamed online. Full details at
https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/announcement/view/73

17/04/2024

Dear Friends of Theology in Scotland,

We hope this finds you well. So sooner had we dried the old faithful printer out, ready for the Spring edition.... the good old Spring weather has set us back.

In the old days, of course, we'd have the hairdryers on the job, but we're more environmentally conscious these days. so in the meantime, we offer you another piece from our previous edition on Ecumenism in Scotland:

Here's Victoria Turner (Oxford) and William Gibson (Glasgow) on

'The Iona Community and the ecumenical movement: External influences and internal change': https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/article/view/2667

Enjoy.

Jonathan and the editorial team.

PS. If you thought we were joking about our environment credentials, check out this blast from the (not too distant) past:

https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/issue/view/215

The Iona Community and the ecumenical movement: External influences and internal changes Article Sidebar PDF Published: Nov 11, 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15664/tis.v30i2.2667 Keywords: Ecumenism, ecumenical, Iona Community, Iona Abbey, George MacLeod, Third International Missionary Conference, Te...

04/04/2024

Dear Friends of Theology in Scotland,

We hope you had a restful Easter weekend. As we creep further into Spring, our new edition is at an advanced stage of editorial preparation. To help you contain your wholly justified excitement, while preventing it from morphing into understandable impatience, we are posting some highlights from our most recent edition - on Ecumenism.

We begin with a three-way conversation between ministers and theologians, all with associations with St. Andrews, and representing different Christian traditions: Paulus de Jong, Jared Michelson, and Trevor Hart on 'Ecumenism in St Andrews: A fact and a mandate': https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/article/view/2666

Enjoy the conversation. Thanks for following and for sharing.

More soon.

Jonathan and the editorial team

Ecumenism in St Andrews: A fact and a mandate Article Sidebar PDF Published: Nov 10, 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15664/tis.v30i2.2666 Keywords: Ecumenism, ecumenical, St Andrews, unity Main Article Content Paulus de Jong Worship and Family Pastor at St Andrews Baptist Church; Lecturer at the Scotti...

17/02/2024

Dear Friends of Theology in Scotland,

We hope this finds you well in this first week of the Lenten season. And looking ahead to events within the season, we'd like to share with you the following notice.

After a successful event with David McCrone held at New College, Edinburgh, last November, reflecting on the issues raised by his sociological analysis of a changing Scotland, there will be a follow up conference: Future with Hope: Resurrection Not Restoration.

The event will be on Saturday 09 March 2024. Speakers will include Will Storrar, Fiona Tweedie, Sheila Akomiah-Conteh, and Sandy Forsyth. There will be Case Studies and Ecumenical Panel discussions featuring, among many others, TiS's editor-in-chief: Rev. Dr. Lina Toth. What's not to like?!

Full details, including how to book, can be found here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/divinity/news-events/events/a-future-with-hope-resurrection-not-restoration

Thanks for following and for sharing. Have a great weekend.

Regards,

Jonathan and the editorial team

A day conference to explore the future of the Kirk and the Churches in Scotland.

09/02/2024

Dear Friends of Theology in Scotland,

Last month we posted our reviews of theology books for your consideration in 2024.

This week, it's a longer review of a philosophy book first published during the pandemic, when many of us were probably spending more time with our companion animals than ever before. I certainly was.

The theme of our most recent issue is ecumenism. And there is, I hope, a little ecumenical breadth to 'Cats, Christendom, and the Undivided Self: The Feline Philosophy of John Gray', which can be accessed here: https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/article/view/2671

The review considers John Gray's Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life (Penguin 2021) - featuring Moses, along with other great cats from history.

Have a great weekend.

Jonathan, all the editorial team, and Moses.

12/01/2024

Dear Friends of Theology in Scotland,

We hope you had a peaceful, happy, and healthy Christmas, and we wish you all well for the New Year.

If you are thinking about some new reading material for 2024, you might want to consider the following books - all discussed in our most recent edition by our excellent team of reviewers:

You can read Dr. Ruth M Dunster's comprehensive review of the T&T Clark Handbook of Sacraments and Sacramentality (2022), edited by Martha Moore-Keish and James W. Farwell: https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/article/view/2672

We have two for the price of one with Benjamin Keogh's review of Oliver D. Crisp, Participation and Atonement: An Analytic and Constructive Account (Baker, 2022); & W. Ross Hastings, Atonement: Trinitarian Participation in the Reconciliation of Humanity and Creation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022): https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/article/view/2674

Staying in the area of heavyweight Reformed theology, we have Rev. Dr. Thomas Davis on Cory C Brock and N. Gray Sutanto's Neo-Calvinism: A Theological Introduction (Lexham Press, 2022): https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS

And if you are more inclined towards biblical scholarship, check out Rev. Fiona Reynolds's review of Susan Miller, Women in John’s Gospel (T&T Clark, 2023): https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TIS/article/view/2673

We hope you enjoy the reviews. Thanks for following and for sharing.

Jonathan and the editorial team

"Women in John’s Gospel" by Susan Miller Article Sidebar PDF Published: Nov 12, 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15664/tis.v30i2.2673 Keywords: Women, Gospel of John, Messianic secret, discipleship, new creation, Johannine community, Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary of Bethany, Martha, Mary Magdalene M...