Jesus and the Quest for Meaning: Entering Theology - Softcover

West, Thomas H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0800632974 ISBN 13: 9780800632977

Publisher: Fortress Press, 2001

Synopsis

A new approach to introducing theology As God's self-communication to humans, Jesus is the key to the human search for meaning, argues Thomas West. He therefore introduces the practice of theology through Christology. From the question of personal meaning and self-constitution and their relationship to transcendent meaning and value, he proceeds to discuss the figure and import of Jesus and then the ethical imperative engendered through encounter with him. Fresh and clear, West's book is an invitation to grapple with one's religious commitments, especially in light of recent insights in biblical studies and Continental, feminist, and liberation theologies. This new text will prove an engaging and effective introduction to theological thinking for both undergraduates and Christian adults.

About this title

From the Publisher

From the Preface (pre-publication version):

I wrote this book with four groups of readers in mind. First, I had in mind the students who register for one of my theology classes at the College of St. Catherine, a Catholic liberal arts college for women in St. Paul, Minnesota. Most of them are taking the class in order to fulfill the theology requirement. About forty percent of them have Catholicism as their religious upbringing, though relatively few have gone to Catholic elementary or secondary school. Another thirty percent were raised in one of the mainline Protestant churches, with Lutherans the largest group. Fifteen percent have little or no background in any religion, and this percentage is on the increase. The remaining ten to fifteen percent are divided among evangelical Christians and recent immigrants from largely nonChristian cultures. I have to teach the course as if no one had any formal theological background. I can assume that many in the class will distrust organized religion but feel a deep spiritual longing. If I am to write a book that a class like this can use, I had better make it readable, nontechnical, ecumenical, and personal.

Second, I had in mind the students who register for our graduate courses. We offer a M. A. in Theology with the option of a concentration in Spirituality. The great majority of our eighty or so graduate students choose to do the concentration. Most are between thirty and fifty-five years of age, and although we admit men to the graduate program, over eighty-five percent are women. Very few come into the program having majored in theology or religion as undergraduates. Their formal theological learning is minimal. They come from a variety of denominational backgrounds. A book for them must be readable, ecumenical, and personal. Yet because they are graduate students, they will want to go deeper, and for them I have provided a quite formidable set of endnotes in which I add nuances to the main ideas of the body text, delve into more technical issues, offer suggestions for further reading, list primary and secondary sources, and give a sense of my intellectual pedigree. Since many of these graduate students will leave the College and work in some form of church ministry, I also include all those working in professional ministry as potential readers of this book. Indeed, I should think that this book would work quite well in a general theology course for first-year seminary students.

Third, I had in mind those laypersons in the pew who have a hunger for theology that goes beyond what they can learn from sermons. I am thinking, for example, of the kind of people who attended a talk on the Nicene Creed that I gave a while back at Episcopal Parish of St. David in Minnetonka, a suburb to the west of Minneapolis. I should want people like them to be able to read this book with profit, without requiring my presence as the professor to take them through it. Such a book has to be readable, nontechnical, ecumenical, and personal.

And fourth, I had in mind all those people who are searching for meaning. They are not sure what they believe in, but they know they have a hunger for something larger and deeper. Probably they have had at least some education past high school and in their search they want to use their head, not just their heart. Books on spirituality that speak to the heart are flooding the market. I too want to speak to the heart, and this book is personal, with many examples from real life, but I also want to speak to the mind searching for meaning.

This book is not an introduction to theology in the conventional sense. It does not offer a textbook survey of theological sources, methods, doctrines, and creeds. It is not even a textbook, though t could be used as one of several books for a theology class. This book offers an entrance into theology, not the entrance. I make no claim to have the best approach, or to say the final word. I am simply adding my voice.

Though the book is not directed towards professional theologians, I hope they will read it, like it, and have their students buy it. They know of course that only a lunatic attempts to write a book that in two hundred pages tries to cover meaning, power, God, Christ, Spirit, Church, sacraments, faith, love, and hope. About any one topic hundreds, maybe thousands, of theologians know more than I do. Yet I should like to think that my take on theology might be of interest to the professionals. The book does show a way of organizing theology that although not radically new, is fresh and clear. I have been teaching for twenty-six years and know that my approach works with a wide variety of students who are just entering theology.

Some readers will want to know a little about by my religious and theological location. I am a Catholic with a strong ecumenical bent. As far as I know, I belong to no theological school or movement, but I count among my strongest influences Reinhold Niebuhr, Bernard Cooke, and Karl Rahner. Two close friends in the field, Larry Goodwin and Nancy Frankenberry, have brought me to an appreciation of process theology, though I would not classify myself as a process theologian. I wrote a book on the neo-Marxist Ernst Bloch and learned Spanish in order to read the liberation theologians: I emphasize social justice throughout this book, but I would not say that I do theology from a predominantly “liberationist” perspective.

About the Author

Thomas H. West is Professor of Theology and departmental chair at the College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minn. He also is author of a volume on Ernst Bloch: Ultimate Hope without God.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0800632974
• ISBN 13: 9780800632977
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 314