Arthur C McGill

Arthur McGill did not write very much, but what he did write is as theologically suggestive and startling today as it was when it was written in the 1960s and 1970s. He was not well known during his lifetime, but those who cared about the work of theology knew Arthur McGill. Writing during the ascendency of the ""Death of God"" theologies, McGill's words have a freshness that the more widely known theological writing of that time has lost. McGill wrote only two short books during his life, and just a handful of scattered essays, often published in obscure places. We are fortunate that Kent Dunnington has collected and introduced those essays here. The essays reveal a theologian with an uncanny and intrepid resolve to make theological claims illumine and unsettle our lives. As Stanley Hauerwas writes in his afterword to the collection, ""To read McGill is to discover a way to do theology without fear. God knows from where he came, but McGill, as the chapters in this welcome and important book demonstrate, had the ability to make theology do work so that we might better negotiate the imponderable reality we call 'our life.'"" ""Latent beneath the topical occasions of these engaging texts lies a disposition that is not so revolutionary as it is a welcome return to patristic wisdom, a recovery of the life-giving conversation of which we are but a part, if an essential part. If ever we are to know who we are, and who we are called to become, it would be because we also know those whose lives of prayer preceded ours."" --Scott Cairns, author of The End of Suffering and Slow Pilgrim ""From Descartes forward, the West has equated truth with the acquisition of certainty. Scientists and fundamentalists alike assert it. Laypeople look to experts to convert their uncertainties into certainty, whether in the boardroom or the hospital bedroom. McGill brilliantly breaks the thrall of certainty and fixes attention on the Christ who shoulders uncertainty on our behalf. A gifted writer, McGill lets readers venture out beyond their decentering securities and attend to the center that holds."" --Bill May, Retired Cary M. Maguire Professor of Ethics, Southern Methodist University Kent Dunnington is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Greenville College in Illinois. He is the author of Addiction and Virtue (2011).

Arthur McGill did not write very much, but what he did write is as theologically suggestive and startling today as it was when it was written in the 1960s and 1970s. He was not well known during his lifetime, but those who cared about the work of theology knew Arthur McGill. Writing during the ascendency of the ""Death of God"" theologies, McGill's words have a freshness that the more widely known theological writing of that time has lost. McGill wrote only two short books during his life, and just a handful of scattered essays, often published in obscure places. We are fortunate that Kent Dunnington has collected and introduced those essays here. The essays reveal a theologian with an uncanny and intrepid resolve to make theological claims illumine and unsettle our lives. As Stanley Hauerwas writes in his afterword to the collection, ""To read McGill is to discover a way to do theology without fear. God knows from where he came, but McGill, as the chapters in this welcome and important book demonstrate, had the ability to make theology do work so that we might better negotiate the imponderable reality we call 'our life.'"" ""Latent beneath the topical occasions of these engaging texts lies a disposition that is not so revolutionary as it is a welcome return to patristic wisdom, a recovery of the life-giving conversation of which we are but a part, if an essential part. If ever we are to know who we are, and who we are called to become, it would be because we also know those whose lives of prayer preceded ours."" --Scott Cairns, author of The End of Suffering and Slow Pilgrim ""From Descartes forward, the West has equated truth with the acquisition of certainty. Scientists and fundamentalists alike assert it. Laypeople look to experts to convert their uncertainties into certainty, whether in the boardroom or the hospital bedroom. McGill brilliantly breaks the thrall of certainty and fixes attention on the Christ who shoulders uncertainty on our behalf. A gifted writer, McGill lets readers venture out beyond their decentering securities and attend to the center that holds."" --Bill May, Retired Cary M. Maguire Professor of Ethics, Southern Methodist University Kent Dunnington is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Greenville College in Illinois. He is the author of Addiction and Virtue (2011).

An enjoyment of the poet's art, as seen in the words of T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens. ""As a Protestant theologian,"" writes McGill in his preface, ""I have always been puzzled that within the Christian community, poetry is often used for its insight into our modern miseries, but that it is rarely enjoyed as poetry. This book seeks to redress the balance."" McGill focuses on three American poets--Eliot, Frost and Stevens--all of whom belong to the same poetic generation and thus provide a microcosm of poetry from this era. Influenced by Owen Barfield, John Crowe Ransom, and Cleanth Brooks, he identifies poetry with the fleshly aspect of experience, yet never as distinct from a spiritual aspect. ""In the kingdom of God, people are created with flesh, reconciled through flesh, and glorified as flesh. To hide from the flesh for the sake of the spirit is to miss the Christian life. It is this danger which gives special meaning to the enjoyment of poetry."" This experience of poetry, according to McGill, ""is always a healthy antidote to spiritual pride."" ""In The Celebration of Flesh, Arthur McGill contends that only in reading poetry as poetry--and he makes artful, provocative observations about what this means and what poetry is--can poetry yield true fruitfulness for the life of faith."" David Cain University of Mary Washington Arthur C. McGill (1926 -1980) was the Bussey Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School. A distinguished philosopher and theologian, he also taught at Amherst College, Wesleyan University, and Princeton University.

How can an omnipotent God allow suffering and violence to pervade the world? The author approaches this disturbing question by examining the concept of power. At opposing ends of a spectrum lie two powers--demonic power that is violent, destructive, and dominative, and the power of God that is creative, totally open, self-giving, and expansive. Through consideration of power, McGill provides reflections on the nature of God's inner life in the Trinity and concludes that ""service"" characterizes God's relationship to the world, not ""domination."" Combining the scholarship and clarity that characterizes the greatest theological writing of our time, Suffering addresses the need for renewed faith in the almighty powerfulness of God's self-communication and self-giving until the time ""when the pretenses of demonic power are swept away."" Arthur C. McGill was the Bussey Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School. A distinguished philosopher and theologian, he also taught at Amherst College, Wesleyan University, and Princeton University.

Of course, death will happen to all of us someday, but until then, it's not something to think about or grapple with. But we do think about it. Arthur C. McGill maintains that our preoccupation with health, good looks, and material success is in fact a retreat from death--which we secretly fear is the final lord of our lives. Charting the Christian pilgrimage toward a life freed from the dominating power of death, McGill uses three scriptural images of Jesus to show us the possibility of walking continually into death, being ourselves, loving our neighbors, and worshiping God.

How can an omnipotent God allow suffering and violence to pervade the world? Arthur McGill approaches this disturbing question by examining the concept of power that is violent, destructive, and dominative, and the power of God that is creative, totally open, self-giving, and expansive. Through consideration of power, McGill provides reflections on the nature of God's inner life in the Trinity and concludes that "service" characterizes God's relationship to the world, not "domination."