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On Eagles Wings: an exploration of strength in the midst of weakness

Author:	Michael Parsons and David J Cohen (eds)
Published By:	Lutterworth (Cambridge)
Price:	£17.50
ISBN:	978 0 7188 9195 4

Reviewed by Philip Clements-Jewery.

This thought-provoking and stimulating collection of 14 essays, with a foreword by Derek Tidball of the London School of Theology, deals with a vital topic that touches on both styles of leadership within the church and the mode of the church's presence and activity in the world. That God's power should be made perfect in human weakness is central both to the theology and to the mission of St Paul. It is remarkable how much the contemporary church has forgotten this, especially in some of its North American expressions, but not excepting others.

Like any collection of essays, the contributions vary in quality. The arrangement here is to start with the biblical, to move through the historical, and to end with the contemporary. The reader would be advised not to begin with the first essay and read them all in sequence, for that would be like starting a meal with an heavy and indigestible main course without the benefit of an aperitif or a starter! Fortunately, with a collection such as this it is possible to dip in and out at will, and I would suggest sampling where the fancy takes.

Interestingly enough, 9 of the 14 contributors are Australian, the rest coming from the UK or North America. Some of the contributions are outstanding, and I would particularly single out Brian Holliday's David and Foucault: extreme violence and innocent suffering in a post-September 11 world. The whole book is worth just this one sentence, “The church in the West needs to engage with suffering, not just as a weakness to be overcome and alleviated, but as a strength to be absorbed and understood as a true expression of the incarnation.” Michael Quicke writes movingly of the lessons learned in his illness; Clark Pinnock provokes with his open theism; and Stephen McAlpine's Turning Teflon into Velcro: making words stick in an image-based culture also impresses.

However, in the end I can't help thinking that this book is an opportunity missed. Of the 14 essayists, only three are women. I would have thought that the feminist perspective on finding strength in weakness would have been an obvious contribution, but one looks in vain for it here. And although one cannot tell simply from a list of names, I wonder if there is a representative of the black-minority churches included. Again, it is not obvious. Third world voices are also missing, although I do wonder if the vibrancy of the African churches, for instance, is a product of their poverty and weakness in worldly terms. Instead, what we are offered is, I presume, predominantly white, male, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Western academic theology that is sometimes remote from the real world and, apart from one or two instances, mostly fails to connect with either the culture or the times in which we live. There is a good book waiting to be written on this important theme, but this is not it - although it would make a good starting point for such a volume.

There is a full bibliography, but no index. Footnotes, commendably, are placed at the bottom of the page to which they relate.