Presbyterian spirituality in southern Africa has often been treated as non-existent, yet it is a vibrant reality which is at one and the same time catholic, evangelical and contextual. Founded in Christ alone, it holds the authority of scripture as normative and as the source of the unity of God's people, as can be seen in the way it derives from the marks of the church – the Word preached, the sacraments celebrated and discipline rightly exercised. It is relational and involves communing with God, others, oneself and the environment. While conscious of the early church tradition out of which it arises, it is continuous with that tradition and is open to the spiritual insights of other traditions. It demonstrates both catholic and evangelical emphases and is adaptable within the context of African spirituality. As a result, it has a broad church ethos marked by fluidity, tolerance and appreciation of those sources that enrich it.

This paper offers a reflection upon the current preaching crisis in those parts of the United States church where old assumptions about preaching authority have collapsed. While preachers may have models of great confrontational authority available, in fact such authority for confrontation through preaching has largely evaporated. This paper explores new developments in OT studies that are related to canonical formulation, namely, that the biblical text as we have it is an outcome of belated editorial work whereby the text was reshaped with theological intentionality by scribes, a generative force in Judaism that transposed powerful memories into texts. Consequently, the great texts of confrontation between prophet and king, between truth and power, no longer offer dramatic confrontations but rather offer textual reflections upon remembered and perhaps constructed confrontations. The practical implication for preaching from this insight is that the preacher is not and need not be a player in confrontation as a prophet, but rather may be a scribe who keeps old texts available whereby the baptismal community may imagine its life differently. Four texts are considered wherein remembered dramatic confrontations have become textual resources.

The attempt to bring radical orthodoxy (and in particular, the work of John Milbank) into conversation with Barth is hampered by the movement's dismissal of him as ‘neo-orthodox’, a thinker who rejected liberalism only to embrace revelatory positivism. If Barth were a positivist, he might be guilty of alienating human history, language, and culture from their divine source: ‘the secular’ would then be autonomous. But he does nothing of the kind – certainly not in his mature theology, probably not even in his earlier work. Radical orthodoxy's reading of Barth may reflect the influence of D. M. MacKinnon, who tended to highlight the prophetic and crisis elements in Barth's thought. The radically orthodox are more accurate when they cite ecclesial mediation as the real source of contention. While the stress on mediation can have disastrous results, dissolving Christ's identity into that of the church, this need not happen; indeed, one can argue that Barth's Christology demands a stronger account of church and sacraments than he himself supplied. The deeper issue may be what radical orthodoxy means by its stress on human poesis. Is the movement really an ecclesial theology, taking its stand within the historic church? Or is it just another form of liberalism, seeking to re-invent the church in default of authentic performance? If the latter, then theology has indeed become ‘tragically too important’, occluding sheer celebration of the divine gift.

The current debate about the nature and parameters of pastoral theology emphasises practice as both the source and the end of theological reflection: pastoral theology as reflection on practice with a view to transforming practice. This raises issues for pastoral theologians from the Reformed tradition, which prioritises word and prizes scripture and preaching as fundamental ways in which the word is mediated to us. Current philosophical, cultural and ecclesiological developments emphasise the constructed nature of our worlds, the crucial place of language in world construction, and the ‘textured’ nature of the community of faith. Thus theologians associated with the term ‘post-liberal’ emphasise that in a time of displacement, marginalisation and identity crisis the church, like the Jewish community in exile, returns to its texts as its home and the source of its identity and its practice. Taking the theology of Walter Brueggemann as a starting point, this paper explores the relationship between proclamation and practice in the church's life, and seeks, through a Reformed paradigm of word and sacrament, a ‘post-liberal’ redefinition of pastoral theology that gives a higher profile to the church's ‘peculiar speech’.

The view that the divine substance is some item common to the three persons is frequently rejected in modern trinitarian thought in favour of the view that the divine substance is properly identical with the Father in a way that it is not identical with the Son or Spirit. I argue that these views cannot safeguard the monarchy of the Father, and that in order to safeguard this latter doctrine, it is necessary to hold that the divine substance is some item common to the three persons. I show how this view does not require that there is any sense in which the divine substance is prior to the divine persons.

Recent scholarly attention to Calvin's commentaries on scripture still limits our attention to the works Calvin produced for future pastors, and neglects his efforts to teach and train ordinary Christians. The commentaries have as their audience future pastors, with the goal of revealing the mind of the author with lucid brevity. The sermons have as their audience ordinary Christians, with the goal of expounding the intention of the author, and of applying it to their use, so that they might retain it in their minds and hearts, and put it into practice in their lives. There are three steps Calvin consistently followed in each of his sermons on Ephesians. First, he sought to show the meaning and intention of Paul contained in the words of the epistle. Next, he pointed out that the meaning revealed in his exposition should be kept in mind, retained in memory, and imprinted on the hearts of the congregation. Third, Calvin sought to apply the doctrine of Paul to the use, edification, and instruction of the congregation, so that they might profit from the doctrine by putting it in practice in their lives.

I. The origins of Deuteronomy: what are the clues?

II. Theological interpretation of an OT book: a response to Gordon McConville's Deuteronomy

III. A response from Gordon McConville