Book: Christ and the Other: In Dialogue with Hick and Newbigin

Just published: Graham Adams, "Christ and the Other: In Dialogue with Hick and Newbigin" (Ashgate, October 2010):

www.ashgatepublishing.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=9967&edition_id=12703

Publisher's description: "How should we relate to 'others' – those within a particular tradition, those of different traditions, and those who are oppressed? In the light of these anxieties, and building on the work of Andrew Shanks, this book offers a vision of Christ as 'the Shaken One', rooted in community with others. Shaped through dialogue with the theologies of John Hick and Lesslie Newbigin, Adams urges Christian communities to attend more deeply to the demands of ecumenical, dialogical and political theologies, to embody an ever greater 'solidarity of others' – a quality of community better demonstrating Christlike 'other-regard'."

Endorsement: "Adams reviews the Christological thinking of two well-known figureheads of the debate on theological pluralism (John Hick) and Christian exclusivism (Lesslie Newbigin) with empathy, but not without criticism. In their ambition to universalize their particular visions of Jesus/Christ, both show in fact some sectarian tendencies. Very different, however, from the partisanship that characterizes both camps of the discussion, Adams enters into a theological conversation with both of them – a conversation, interestingly, that Hick and Newbigin themselves, though being active at the same time and in the same city, never had. The outcome is a Christology which is serious about decolonizing universalist concepts such as 'truth' and 'humanity', having open membranes towards the otherness around it and, inevitably, is resistant to the temptation of closure. Like all good theology, Adams' theological proposal does not lead us to God but to ourselves and to those around us." (Werner Ustorf, University of Birmingham)

Graham Adams is a minister with Lees Street Congregational Church, Manchester, and Training Development and Advocacy Enabler with the Congregational Federation. He holds a PhD from the University of Leeds.