Ten Theology Books to Watch For – November 2022

Forgiveness: An Alternative Account Matthew Ichihashi Potts

(Yale UP)

A deeply researched and poignant reflection on the practice of forgiveness in an unforgiving world
 
Matthew Ichihashi Potts explores the complex moral terrain of forgiveness, which he claims has too often served as a salve to the conscience of power rather than as an instrument of healing or justice. Though forgiveness is often linked with reconciliation or the abatement of anger, Potts resists these associations, asserting instead that forgiveness is simply the refusal of retaliatory violence through practices of penitence and grief. It is an act of mourning irrevocable wrong, of refusing the false promises of violent redemption, and of living in and with the losses we cannot recover.
 
Drawing on novels by Kazuo Ishiguro, Marilynne Robinson, Louise Erdrich, and Toni Morrison, and on texts from the early Christian to the postmodern, Potts diagnoses the real dangers of forgiveness yet insists upon its enduring promise. Sensitive to the twenty-first-century realities of economic inequality, colonial devastation, and racial strife, and considering the role of forgiveness in the New Testament, the Christian tradition, philosophy, and contemporary literature, this book heralds the arrival of a new and creative theological voice.

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Patience—A Theological Exploration: Part One, from Creation to Christ 

Paul Dafydd Jones

(T&T Clark)

What does it mean to exercise patience? What does it mean to endure, to wait, and to persevere-and, on other occasions, to reject patience in favor of resistance, haste, and disruptive action? And what might it mean to describe God as patient? Might patience play a leading role in a Christian account of God’s creative work, God’s relationship to ancient Israel, God’s governance of history, and God’s saving activity?

The first instalment of Patience-A Theological Exploration engages these questions in searching, imaginative, and sometimes surprising ways. Following reflections on the biblical witness and the nature of constructive theological inquiry, its interpretative chapters engage landmark works by a number of ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary authors, disclosing both the promise and peril of talk about patience. Patience stands at the center of this innovative account of God’s creative work, God’s relationship with ancient Israel, creaturely sin, scripture, and God’s broader providential and salvific purposes.

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