Bloomsbury Rowan Williams Collection (6 vols.)

by Rowan Williams

Publishers:

Bloomsbury; Morehouse Publishing

, 2005–2020

Overview

This collection of works by Rowan Williams covers a variety of theological issues including holiness, creation, grace, and language. Interacting with past theologians including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jacques Maritain, Augustine, and St Benedict, Williams highlights the practical influence of theology on Christian life and the world.

Key Features

• Addresses fundamental issues for Christian belief
• Explores a new understanding of how human beings open themselves to transcendence
• Examines the marks of holiness

Product Details

• Title: Bloomsbury Rowan Williams Collection (6 vols.)
• Author: Rowan Williams
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Volumes: 6
• Pages: 1,312

Christ the Heart of Creation

• Author: Rowan Williams
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication Date: 2018
• Pages: 304

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

In this wide-ranging book, Rowan Williams argues that what we say about Jesus Christ is key to understanding what Christian belief says about creator and creation overall. Through detailed discussion of texts from the earliest centuries to the present day, we are shown some of the various and subtle ways in which Christians have discovered in their reflections on Christ the possibility of a deeply affirmative approach to creation, and a set of radical insights in ethics and politics as well.

Throughout his life, Rowan Williams has been deeply influenced by thinkers of the Eastern Christian tradition as well as Catholic and Anglican writers. This book draws on insights from Eastern Christianity, from the Western Middle Ages and from Reformed thinkers, from Calvin to Bonhoeffer–as well as considering theological insights sparked by philosophers like Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. Christ the Heart of Creation concerns fundamental issues for Christian belief and Williams tackles them head-on: he writes with pellucid clarity and shows his gift for putting across what are inevitably complex ideas to a wide audience.

I have not caught anything like the full complexity or density of William’s book ... [It is] a display of daunting wide erudition, of a powerful and well-stocked mind at work making connections and offering insights, judgements and suggestions in many directions across a whole range of scholarly debates ... Readers who tackle it will find much that is rich and illuminating.

—Times Literary Supplement

Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love

• Author: Rowan Williams
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication Date: 2006
• Pages: 144

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

In this original book Rowan Williams sketches out a new understanding of how human beings open themselves to transcendence. Drawing on the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, the Welsh poet and painter David Jones, and the American novelist Mary Flannery O`Connor, Rowan Williams fulfils his ambition for Christianity to engage with contemporary culture, and that a man who holds highest office in the Church has the time and intellectual energy to write such original theology is encouraging for us all.

Unabashedly erudite in tone, this book may appeal to scholars and readers interested in grappling with a debate that has probably been engaged as long as there have been artists and theologians.

—Publishers Weekly

Holy Living: The Christian Tradition for Today

• Author: Rowan Williams
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication Date: 2017
• Pages: 240

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams writes frankly on belief, Christianity and the place of religion today.

Apart from being a scholar and theologian, Rowan Williams has also demonstrated a rare gift for writing plainly and clearly about essentials of the Christian faith. In Holy Living, he writes with profound perception about the life of holiness to which we are called. The range of Williams’ frame of reference is astonishing—he brings poets and theologians to his aid, he writes about the Rule of St Benedict, the Bible, Icons, contemplation, St Teresa of Avila and even R. D. Laing. He concludes with two chapters on the injunction “Know Thyself” in a Christian context. Throughout, Williams points out that holiness is a state of being—it is he writes “completely undemonstrative and lacking any system of expertise. It can never be dissected and analysed.”

Those who study [...] Rowan Williams’ theology and those who collect his many books will be delighted with this new work. It comprises a series of discrete but thematic essays or lecture texts originally written between 1977 and 2016, though most are recent. This book will deepen each reader’s spiritual awareness and promote Christian maturity. It is an ideal companion for a retreat or a quiet day.

—The Reader

On Augustine

• Author: Rowan Williams
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication Date: 2016
• Pages: 240

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Since his retirement as Archbishop of Canterbury and his return to academic life (Master of Magdalene College Cambridge) Rowan Williams has demonstrated a massive new surge of intellectual energy. In this new book he turns his attention to St Augustine.

St Augustine not only shaped the development of Western theology, he also made a major contribution to political theory (City of God) and through his Confessions to the understanding of human psychology. Rowan Williams has an entirely fresh perspective on these matters and the chapter titles in this new book demonstrate this at a glance - ‘Language Reality and Desire’, ‘Politics and the Soul’, ‘Paradoxes of Self Knowledge’, ‘Insubstantial Evil’. As with his previous titles, Dostoevsky, The Edge of Words and Faith in the Public Square this new study is sure to be a major contribution on a compelling subject.

Rowan Williams is a superb and sophisticated advocate for Augustine against his critics … His On Augustine is a brilliant example of how classical Christian theology thinks for the present by close re-reading of great thinkers of the past.

—Professor Frances Young, University of Birmingham

The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language

• Author: Rowan Williams
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication Date: 2014
• Pages: 224

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

The Edge of Words is Rowan Williams’ first book since standing down as Archbishop of Canterbury. Invited to give the prestigious 2014 Gifford Lectures, Dr Williams has produced a scholarly but eminently accessible account of the possibilities of speaking about God–taking as his point of departure the project of natural theology. Dr Williams enters into dialogue with thinkers as diverse as Augustine and Simone Weil and authors such as Joyce, Hardy, Burgess and Hoban in what is a compelling essay about the possibility of language about God.

This is not a long book but it is a profound one. Many readers will find it worthwhile reading each chapter at least twice. The Edge of Words is a book that will influence both the way theologians understand language and their approach to theology

—Paul Richardson, Church of England Newspaper

The Way of St Benedict

• Author: Rowan Williams
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication Date: 2020
• Pages: 160

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

With typical eloquence and wisdom, in The Way of St Benedict Rowan Williams explores the appeal of St Benedict’s sixth-century Rule, showing it to be a document of great relevance to present day Christians and non-believers at our particular moment in history.

For over a millennium the Rule–a set of guidelines for monastic conduct–has been influential on the life of Benedictine monks, but has also served in some sense as a ‘background note’ to almost all areas of civic experience: artistic, intellectual and institutional. The effects of this on society have been far-reaching and Benedictine communities and houses still attract countless visitors, testifying to the appeal and continuing relevance of Benedict’s principles.

As the author writes, the chapters of his book, which range from a discussion of Abbot Cuthbert Butler’s mysticism to ‘Benedict and the Future of Europe’, are ‘simply an invitation to look at various current questions through the lens of the Rule and to reflect on aspects of Benedictine history that might have something to say to us’. With Williams as our guide, The Way of St Benedict speaks to the Rule’s ability to help anyone live more fully in harmony with others whilst orientating themselves fully to the will of God.

About Rowan Williams

Rowan Williams was educated in Swansea (Wales) and Cambridge. He studied for his theology doctorate in Oxford, after which he taught theology in a seminary near Leeds. From 1977 until 1986, he was engaged in academic and parish work in Cambridge, before returning to Oxford as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. In 1990, he became a fellow of the British Academy.

In 1992, Professor Williams became Bishop of Monmouth, and in 1999 he was elected as Archbishop of Wales. He became Archbishop of Canterbury in late 2002 with 10 years’ experience as a diocesan bishop and three as a primate in the Anglican Communion. As archbishop, his main responsibilities were pastoral—whether leading his own diocese of Canterbury and the Church of England, or guiding the Anglican Communion worldwide. At the end of 2012, after 10 years as archbishop, he stepped down and moved to a new role as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Professor Williams is acknowledged internationally as an outstanding theological writer and teacher as well as an accomplished poet and translator. His interests include music, fiction, and languages.