Category Archives: Articles & Books

Oxford Handbook of 19th-Century Christian Thought

OUP has just announced the Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought, to be published in June 2017, on which Joel Rasmussen, Johannes Zachhuber and I have been working for the last four years. Visit the catalogue or see the Table of Contents below.

List of contributors
Introduction, Joel D. S. Rasmussen, Judith Wolfe, and Johannes Zachhuber
Part I: Changing Paradigms
1: The Transformation of Metaphysics, Joel D. S. Rasmussen
2: Political Transformations, Mark Chapman
3: The History Turn, Johannes Zachhuber
4: Criticism and Authority, David Lincicum
5: The Science of Life, Donovan O. Schaefer
Part II: Human Nature and the Nature of Religion
6: Immanence and Transcendence, Merold Westphal
7: Selfhood and Relationality, Jacqueline Mariña
8: Gender, Lori Pearson
9: Faith and Reason, Russell Re Manning
10: Experience, Simeon Zahl
11: Myth, George S. Williamson
12: Virtue and Character, Paul Martens
Part III: Culture and Society
13: State and Church, Ian Tregenza
14: The Nation and Nationalism, Halvor Moxnes
15: Capitalism and Socialism, Philip Lockley
16: Mission and Colonialism, Michael Gladwin
17: Education and Its Institutions, Zachary Purvis
18: Recreation and Leisure, Paul Heintzman
19: Other Religions, Bernhard Maier
20: Race and Emancipation, Martin Halliwell
21: The Natural World, Malcolm Clemens Young
22: War, James Turner Johnson
Part IV: Christianity and the Arts
23: The Novel, Andrew Tate
24: Poetry, Rosalind Powell
25: Theatre, Linzy Brady and Jolyon Mitchell
26: Painting, George Pattison
27: Music, Bennett Zon
28: Architecture, William Whyte
Part V: Christianity and Christianities
29: Roman Catholicism, Daniel Menozzi
30: Protestantism, Annette G. Aubert
31: Anglicanism, Frances Knight
32: Orthodoxy, Norman Russell
33: Christian Minorities, Peter Lineham
Part VI: Doctrinal Themes
34: God, Richard H. Roberts
35: Christ, Robert Morgan
36: Church, Shao Kai Tseng
37: Scripture, William J. Abraham
38: Sin and Reconciliation, Paul T Nimmo
39: Life in the Spirit, Peter C. Hodgson
40: Eschatology, Judith Wolfe

Tolkien’s Jonah Text

The October 2014 issue of the Journal of Inklings Studies will be a special issue on the Inklings and the Bible.

It will include research articles on C.S. Lewis’s “Liar, Lord or Lunatic” paradox, Lewis’s use of the Bible in his RAF talks, Lewis and Jerome, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s philosophy of creation. It will also include original texts by two Inklings: Charles Williams’s review of the Bible in Basic English, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s original translation of the Book of Jonah for the Jerusalem Bible.

Many will know that Tolkien translated the Book of Jonah for the Jerusalem Bible, a 1960’s Roman Catholic translation of the Holy Scriptures. But the version of Tolkien’s translation that was eventually published in the Jerusalem Bible was not the author’s original submission, but a collaborative effort, heavily edited by a style editor who had been employed to standardize the grammar and vocabulary of the various translators who had contributed to the Jerusalem Bible.

With kind permission of Tolkien’s Estate, the Journal of Inklings Studies is now able to make available Tolkien’s original translation from Bodleian Manuscript. A research article by Brendan Wolfe on the history and features of the translation will accompany the text.

The special issue is being published in a strictly limited edition.

To order or subscribe, go to the Journal of Inklings Studies website.

Author Interview on Heidegger & Theology

T&T Clark: What particular areas or themes of Theology interest you and why?

JW: I’m particularly interested in the ways theology opens for thinking about what the world is like, and what it is to be human. ‘If we claim this or that about God, what does that mean for our understanding of a good life, or free will, or our relationship to nature?’ And conversely, ‘if we pay close attention to human experience, what can it teach us about the possibility of knowing God?’ Theology in this sense cannot be strictly separated from what philosophers or literary scholars do; rather, it’s a way of pursuing the same questions with the freedom and the scholarly tools to take seriously the role that the question of God plays in those pursuits.

T&T: How would you describe your book in one sentence?

JW: What it says on the package: it aims to give readers a thorough understanding, based on the latest research, of Heidegger’s relationship to theology – in his life, in his thought & writings, and in the theological reception of his work.

T&T: When did you start researching for this book?

JW: I’ve been reading Heidegger and his theological friends and enemies for a long time, but began research for this book in earnest during a two-year visiting fellowship in Berlin from 2009 to 2011. The libraries of Humboldt University and the state collections, as well as the archives of Freiburg University, have wonderful resources which have never been used by English-speaking scholars, including Heidegger’s various correspondences and the Minutes of his faculty board meetings during the 1930’s and 40’s.

T&T: Which part of writing this book have you enjoyed most?

JW: One of the great things about working on Heidegger is that it involves both serious philosophical and theological questions and real biographical problems (such as the details of his ‘conversion’ from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism, or his relationship to Nazism). I love both detective work in archives and very abstract thought, so perhaps the most fun thing about writing this book was the chance to see what light they throw on each other.

T&T: Any tips for people reading the book?

JW: Having a big glass of gin and tonic to hand?
Other than that, it’s worth saying… Continue reading

Just published: Heidegger and Theology (T&T Clark)

“a superb tour d’horizon of the terrain – biographical, philosophical, and theological – on which future work on the vexed topic of Heidegger and theology may be carried out“

— Tom Sheehan

My new book, Heidegger and Theology (T&T Clark) has just been published.
More information is available here. Copies can be ordered on Amazon.

The Introduction is available as a free reading sample on my academia.edu page.

Heidegger’s Black Notebooks: Caught between Hitler and Romanticism

“…Bultmann’s sympathetic response may seem shocking; but in reality, it merely shows how unspecific the National Socialist programme still was in the early Thirties. To Heidegger, as to many other intellectuals at the time, it seemed less an innovation than a return to the great nationalist tradition of the 19th century…“

Read the full article on Heidegger’s Black Notebooks in Standpoint Magazine.

C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield: The Great War

barfieldandlewis

Between 1925-1930, C.S. Lewis and his best friend, Owen Barfield, conducted a lengthy philosophical exchange they affectionately called their “Great War.” Its topic was the question whether imagination or reason was the better organ for discovering truth — Barfield passionately arguing that the imagination could reach truths inaccessible to reason, Lewis that the imagination was an unreliable organ in need of guidance and regulation by reason and authority.

Most of this exchange has remained unpublished until now.

With the kind permission of the literary estates of C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, the Journal of Inklings Studies is now publishing the missing texts of the Great War as a special supplementary issue of the journal. The issue includes full texts of all unpublished writings within the ‘Great War’, including Lewis’s ‘Summae Metaphysices contra Anthroposophos‘ and Barfield’s ‘De Toto et Parte‘. The collection is edited with notes by Arend Smilde and an introduction by Norbert Feinendegen.

You can now order your copy here.

To subscribe to the Journal of Inklings Studies, go to the journal website.

OUP Contract for Inklings Book

Oxford University Press USA have just contracted a book of essays & memoirs from 30 years at the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society.

The book will be entitled C.S. Lewis and His Circle: Essays & Memoirs from the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society. It has been more than five years in the making: going through the Society’s tape archives, digitizing and transcribing selected talks, collaborating with authors and Literary Estates to produce authorized versions, and now working with OUP on the final format.

But we editors — Roger White of Azusa Pacific University, Brendan Wolfe, and I — are very pleased with the result:

I. ESSAYS

Philosophy & Theology

C.S. Lewis’ Rewrite of Chapter III of ‘Miracles’
Elizabeth Anscombe: Philosopher; debated Lewis at the Oxford Socratic Club

C.S. Lewis and the Limits of Reason
Stephen Logan: Musician, poet; Principal Supervisor in English, Clare College, Cambridge

C.S. Lewis, Defender of the Faith
Alister McGrath: Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion, University of Oxford

Sacramentalism in C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams
Kallistos Ware: Metropolitan Bishop of Diocleia

Charles Williams and the Problem of Evil
Paul Fiddes: Professor of Systematic Theology, Oxford University

Literature

‘That Hideous Strength’, A Reassessment
Rowan Williams: Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Master of Magdalene College Cambridge

Yearning for a Far Off Country
Malcolm Guite: Poet, singer-songwriter; Chaplain, Girton College, Cambridge

W.H. Auden and the Inklings
Michael Piret: Dean of Divinity, Magdalen College, Oxford

The Lewis Diaries: Lewis and the English Faculty in the 1920’s
Thomas Shippey: Walter J. Ong Chair of Humanities (Emeritus), Saint Louis University

It All Began with a Picture: The Making of C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia
Walter Hooper: Editor & Biographer of C. S. Lewis; Literary Advisor to the C. S. Lewis Estate; Senior Advisor to the CSL Society

II. MEMOIRS

Memories of C. S. Lewis by his Family and Friends

The Lewis Family
Joan Murphy: Second cousin of C. S. Lewis

Recollections of Lewis
George Sayer: Former student, friend, and biographer of C. S. Lewis

Lewis as a Parishioner
Ronald Head: Former vicar, Holy Trinity Church Headington Quarry, where C. S. Lewis attended

Marrying C.S. Lewis
Peter Bide: Friend and priest of C. S. Lewis, officiated Lewis’ marriage to Joy Davidman

Memories of the Socratic Club
Stella Aldwinckle: Founder of the Oxford Socratic Club

Memories of the Inklings

The Inklings
Walter Hooper: Editor & Biographer of C. S. Lewis; Literary Advisor to the C. S. Lewis Estate; Senior Advisor to the CSL Society

Lewis and/or Barfield
Owen Barfield: Friend of C. S. Lewis, Inklings member, solicitor, philosopher, poet

Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of W.H. Lewis
John Wain: Friend of C. S. Lewis, member of Inklings, poet, novelist

Nevill Coghill and Lewis: Two Irishmen at Oxford
John Wain: Friend of C. S. Lewis, member of Inklings, poet, novelist

See the OUP Catalogue Entry for more information.

C.S. Lewis in Standpoint Magazine

“When Lewis accepted theism and later Christianity, it was not so much because God was a foolproof answer to the problem of evil, as because He alone made it possible for us to experience evil as evil: to ask the sort of questions and feel the sorts of desire and indignation that define our human experience.“

Table of Contents

My new book, Heidegger and Theology (T&T Clark) has just been published. More information is available here. Copies can be ordered on Amazon.

Read the full article on Heidegger’s Black Notebooks in Standpoint Magazine.

Click here to read the full article on C.S. Lewis in Standpoint magazine.

My new book, Heidegger and Theology (T&T Clark) has just been published.
More information is available here. Copies can be ordered on Amazon.