Christ the Heart of Creation

(Hardback)

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Description

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.

Reviews

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 *
[A] magisterial new survey of Christology. * Church Times *
Rewarding ... An intellectually challenging book ... I can think of no more stimulating companion to have in trying to negotiate the thickets of christology. * Augustinianum *
A major work of modern theology ... with impressive scholarship. * Theology Journal *
Christ the Heart of Creation is an insightful, masterful and thoroughly impressive work. * International Journal of Systematic Theology *

Author Bio

Rowan Williams is the former Archbishop of Canterbury and currently Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. The author of many important books from The Wound of Knowledge to On Augustine and The Tragic Imagination, he is also a published poet and contributor to the New Statesman.