I am pleased to be able to bring to your attention the publication of a new book by T&T Clark, entitled The Bible: Culture, Community, and Society.  Edited by Angus Paddison and Neil Messer, the volume offers perspectives from leading contemporary theologians on the how to understand Scriptural authority in modernity—in relation to community, to science, and to politics.  Contributors include such distinguished theologians as David Fergusson, Ellen Davis, Ben Quash, Gavin D’Costa, Andrew Bradstock, and last and almost certainly least, myself.

This is, I confess, a rather striking example of the problems of modern academic publishing. My paper that appears here, “Sola Scriptura and the Public Square: Richard Hooker and a Protestant Paradigm for Political Engagement,” was written nearly two years ago, and comprised a sort of condensed prospectus of what I hoped to accomplish in my Ph.D research, on which I had just set out.  As such, it seems amusingly naïve and over simplistic now, largely on-track in substance, to be sure, but lacking a good deal in precision.  Nonetheless, I’d be an idiot not to tell you that you ought to buy the book (or at least encourage your librarian to buy it)—even if not for my contribution, then certainly for the other fine thoughts on offer here (particularly Andrew Bradstock’s essay, “The Bible and Public Theology”), and for the lovely cover image.