Theology in the Democracy of the Dead: A Dialogue with the Living Tradition

by Matt Jenson

Publisher:

Baker Academic

, 2019

Overview

G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” This book pays homage to major theologians of the Christian tradition that tell the history of theology. Matt Jenson engages in charitable yet critical exposition and dialogue with eleven select thinkers, offering a lucid, synthetic account of their theology with a view to ongoing systematic theological issues. He engages directly with core primary texts and treats individual theologians in greater depth and nuance than most overview textbooks.

Key Features

• Invites readers to learn from eleven significant theologians
• Surveys the theologians work and influence and introduces significant secondary literature
• Explores the intersection of democracy and tradition

Contents

• A King or a Fox? Irenaeus of Lyons and the Theology of Scripture
• The Word Who Became Flesh: The Center and Circumference of Athanasius’s Theology
• “The Lovely Things Kept Me Far from You”: The Wayward Loves of Augustine
• “That Most Biblical of Theologians”: Denys the Areopagite and the Brilliant Darkness of God
• Faith Seeking Understanding—or Understanding Seeking Faith? Anselm of Canterbury and the Logic of God
• “St. Thomas of the Creator”: Aquinas and the Beginning and End of All Things in God
• “One Little Word Shall Fell Him”: The Word of God and the Faith of Martin Luther
• “What Do You Have That You Did Not Receive?”: John Calvin on Having God as Father
• The Beauty of Holiness: Jonathan Edwards’s Religion of the Heart
• A Pietist of a Higher Order: Schleiermacher, Jesus, and the Heart of Religion
• “The Happiest Theologian of Our Age”: Karl Barth on the One Word of God That We Have to Hear

Praise for the Print Edition

Theology in the Democracy of the Dead is a lively and accessible—and yet also deeply considered—set of conversations with some of the Christian tradition’s most vivid and powerful voices. Again and again these voices from the past come to life in response to Jenson’s queries and exclamations. A first-rate example of truly dialogical theology.

—Alan Jacobs, Honors College, Baylor University

Matt Jenson deserves our deepest thanks for extending this superb invitation to apprenticeship with some of the finest thinkers ever to walk the face of the earth. I hope and pray that many readers will respond with close attention, advancing in Christian discipleship in communion with the saints.

—Douglas A. Sweeney, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

This book has been years in the making. It is a serious engagement with some of the most formative minds in the Christian tradition, written by one of the most thoughtful and careful theologians working today. Those who read it will be challenged to think deeply about fundamental matters of the Christian faith. Matt Jenson has given us a rich and rewarding work full of conversations with those who, though dead, yet speak.

—Oliver D. Crisp, professor of analytic theology, University of St. Andrews

Product Details

• Title : Theology in the Democracy of the Dead: A Dialogue with the Living Tradition
• Author: Matt Jenson
• Publisher: Baker
• Publication Date: 2019
• Pages: 304
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Topic: Theology

About Matt Jenson

Matt Jenson (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is associate professor of theology in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University in La Mirada, California. He has written The Gravity of Sin: Augustine, Luther, and Barth on ‘homo incurvatus in se’ and (with David Wilhite) The Church: A Guide for the Perplexed. Jenson is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church.