Overview

Nathan G. Jennings’s captivating study explores the ascetical logic of the various practices that Christians call theology. By establishing ascetic practice as coherent within the logic of Christian thought, Jennings argues that Christian theology itself, as an embodied Christian practice, is a type of and participant in Christian asceticism. Jennings establishes that the implications of such an understanding of Christian theology can be brought to bear on modern Christian scholarship in profound and transformative ways. With engagements and references that span a vast terrain from Patristic authors to modern systematic theologians, Theology as Ascetic Act: Disciplining Christian Discourse is a significant contribution to both modern Christian thought and the study of asceticism.

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9781433109904

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This is an important book that should be read by theologians, historians and philosophers of religion concerned with the practice and conceptualization of Christian theology. It retrieves a primary sense of theology as embodied practice which is closer to the idea of spiritual exercises than to a merely academic, disembodied theorizing. Through understanding theology as Christian ascesis, the book challenges some abstract understandings of theology and shows how theology is integral to Christian life. Through privileging ascetic practice and therefore the body, the book recontextualises an ancient understanding of theology in contemporary terms. This book articulates a fresh theological vision that points in a new direction, true to Christian roots yet open to contemporary intellectual developments. Anyone concerned with these issues should read this book. (Gavin Flood, Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion, University of Oxford) At a time when Christian theology is increasingly becoming a part of the public domain, when the broken fragments of this once-whole art appear to be popping up in the strangest of places, Nathan G. Jennings does theology an invaluable service by recalling it to the ancient source of its unity, intelligibility, and power to free souls: practices of self-denial. Whilst the latter have not enjoyed great publicity in recent centuries, except among the denizens of a vague 'spirituality,' Jennings reinhabits the treasuries of Christian wisdom to enrich and enflesh the great gift that such ascesis is, in orienting us to the true source of ourselves in Christ. Drawing upon the native resources of the Christian dogmatic tradition (as well as a vast array of non-Christian literature) this rich and provocative book shows that good theology cannot be done rightly, if at all, apart from the right kind of life, and that the right kind of life cannot be lived without good theology. (Peter M. Candler, Jr., Associate Professor of Theology, Baylor University)

This is an important book that should be read by theologians, historians and philosophers of religion concerned with the practice and conceptualization of Christian theology. It retrieves a primary sense of theology as embodied practice which is closer to the idea of spiritual exercises than to a merely academic, disembodied theorizing. Through understanding theology as Christian ascesis, the book challenges some abstract understandings of theology and shows how theology is integral to Christian life. Through privileging ascetic practice and therefore the body, the book recontextualises an ancient understanding of theology in contemporary terms. This book articulates a fresh theological vision that points in a new direction, true to Christian roots yet open to contemporary intellectual developments. Anyone concerned with these issues should read this book. (Gavin Flood, Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion, University of Oxford) At a time when Christian theology is increasingly becoming a part of the public domain, when the broken fragments of this once-whole art appear to be popping up in the strangest of places, Nathan G. Jennings does theology an invaluable service by recalling it to the ancient source of its unity, intelligibility, and power to free souls: practices of self-denial. Whilst the latter have not enjoyed great publicity in recent centuries, except among the denizens of a vague `spirituality,' Jennings reinhabits the treasuries of Christian wisdom to enrich and enflesh the great gift that such ascesis is, in orienting us to the true source of ourselves in Christ. Drawing upon the native resources of the Christian dogmatic tradition (as well as a vast array of non-Christian literature) this rich and provocative book shows that good theology cannot be done rightly, if at all, apart from the right kind of life, and that the right kind of life cannot be lived without good theology. (Peter M. Candler, Jr., Associate Professor of Theology, Baylor University)

Author Information

Nathan G. Jennings is the J. Milton Richardson Associate Professor of Liturgics and Anglican Studies at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas. He received his BA from the University of Texas, his M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, and his MA and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

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