Do our lives have purpose? Despite the rise of secularism, we are still confronted by a sense of meaning and direction in the events of history and our own lives - something which is beyond us and not our own creation/imagination. Using the novels of Thomas Hardy and Julian Barnes, Vernon White tracks this belief in intellectual history and tests its resilience in modern literature. Both novelists portray modern and late-modern scenarios where, although the idea of an objective purpose has been deconstructed, it still haunts the protagonists. Using literature as the starting point, the discussion moves on to an exploration of this belief in its theological form, through the doctrine of providence. White critically reviews the classic canon of providence and its pressure points - the problems in divine causality, the metaphysical assumptions required in its acceptance, and the contradictions to be found between God's purpose and the metanarratives of history. Using Barth and Frei, White suggests new ways of re-imagining divine providence to take account of these issues. The credibility of this re-defined providence is then tested against scripture, experience and praxis, with the result being an understanding of providence that does not rely on empirical progress.

Taking seriously the practice and not just the theory of music, this ground-breaking collection of essays establishes a new standard for the interdisciplinary conversation between theology, musicology, and liturgical studies. The public making of music in our society happens more often in the context of chapels, churches, and cathedrals than anywhere else. The command to sing and make music to God makes music an essential part of the DNA of Christian worship. The book's three main parts address questions about the history, the performative contexts, and the nature of music. Its opening four chapters traces how accounts of music and its relation to God, the cosmos, and the human person have changed dramatically through Western history, from the patristic period through medieval, Reformation and modern times. A second section examines the role of music in worship, and asks what-if anything-makes a piece of music suitable for religious use. The final part of the book shows how the serious discussion of music opens onto considerations of time, tradition, ontology, anthropology, providence, and the nature of God. A pioneering set of explorations by a distinguished group of international scholars, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in Christianity's long relationship with music, including those working in the fields of theology, musicology, and liturgical studies.

Truth in Public Life explores the difficulty in defining truth, its critical importance in civilised society and the challenges and threats to telling the truth in different public service settings. Three leading experts reflect on subjects related to truth in public life. Vernon White, in his essay 'Truth Pursued, or Being Pursued by Truth', shows that absolute truth exists and explains why and how it matters morally. In 'Truth Sustained', Stephen Lamport describes why truth is important to sustaining civilised society and argues that truth is central to other essential qualities, such as objectivity, honesty, openness, leadership, selflessness, integrity and accountability. In her essay 'Truth Told', Claire Foster-Gilbert explores the challenge of truth-telling for public servants: for politicians, who are routinely not believed; for civil servants, whose ministers may only want to hear those facts that support their policy ideas; for journalists, tempted to tell the story that is 'too good to check'; for judges, who may suffer from unconscious bias; for police officers, who must win the trust of the public by believing accusers, without jeopardising justice for the alleged perpetrators. This short book is a potent reminder of how important truth is, even as it is threatened afresh.

In this book Vernon White sets out to address the crisis of credibility that increasingly has affected traditional claims made for the Atonement, and attempts to explain how the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ can have a universal saving significance. The present work stands as something of a sequel to the author's earlier book The Fall of a Sparrow, which attempted to show how God might be conceived as being universally and specially active in the world. In this study, White concentrates on the saving nature of that activity, and the coherence which he feels emerges if this is grounded in the particularity of the Christ-event. In defending the constitutive nature of Christ's role in the salvation of the world, without relying on Anselmian or penal substitutionary models of atonement, White proposes an atonement model which could rehabilitate such a belief without offending moral and conceptual sensibilities. A supporting chapter is provided outlining the kind of christology required to sustain this model, while the final chapters of the book discuss the ethical implications of the position adopted.

Good governance is one of the UK's fundamental values, and citizens are entitled to expect that public officials, both elected and non-elected, behave according to the highest standards of ethical behaviour. However, such lofty aspirations are not enough to root out corruption. If integrity in public life is to be maintained, the core principles behind it must be constantly sustained and strengthened. This new Haus Curiosities volume, published in collaboration with Westminster Abbey Institute, looks at the place and meaning of integrity in the individual public servant, in public service institutions, and in the wider public they purport to serve. It tries to answer the fundamental questions of what integrity means in public life, what lasting value it has, and why it has such a critical part to play in the constitution of Britain. The book also explores how people in public service institutions can cease to behave with humanity when those institutions deny the individual human spirit. On the other hand, the authors argue for the critical importance of institutions in upholding values when fallible humans forget them, as we have witnessed in the Civil Service's steadfast and stabilising response to the Brexit referendum and its uncertain aftermath. Integrity in Public Life provides a critique of and an essential guide to integrity, leaving the reader with some hope for its continued place in public life.

Do our lives have purpose? Despite the rise of secularism, we are still confronted by a sense of meaning and direction in the events of history and our own lives - something which is beyond us and not our own creation/imagination. Using the novels of Thomas Hardy and Julian Barnes, Vernon White tracks this belief in intellectual history and tests its resilience in modern literature. Both novelists portray modern and late-modern scenarios where, although the idea of an objective purpose has been deconstructed, it still haunts the protagonists. Using literature as the starting point, the discussion moves on to an exploration of this belief in its theological form, through the doctrine of providence. White critically reviews the classic canon of providence and its pressure points - the problems in divine causality, the metaphysical assumptions required in its acceptance, and the contradictions to be found between God's purpose and the metanarratives of history. Using Barth and Frei, White suggests new ways of re-imagining divine providence to take account of these issues. The credibility of this re-defined providence is then tested against scripture, experience and praxis, with the result being an understanding of providence that does not rely on empirical progress.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger PublishingAcentsa -a centss Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for e

As a theme for serious and sustained treatment, church and society tends to be regarded as a subject from a bygone age. This reflects the way in which our cultural, social and political situation has changed over the last fifty years, during which it has become increasingly difficult (and has increasingly appeared to be redundant) to relate church and God-talk to society.

One of the most marked shifts during this period has been the virtually complete secularisation of culture, at least in its public spheres, and the consequent marginalization of the church, of God and of God-talk. Hence it is not now clear whether the church can legitimately and effectively claim public space and communicate in a radically secular society.

However, instead of a sense of crisis, there is complacency within the churches about the present and future status and contribution of the church to national life (evident in both sides of the debate concerning Establishment). In addition, there is no clear understanding among the churches either of what their relationship to society might properly be or even of what society is or might be.

Put theologically, this crisis is about whether it is possible any longer to have a public theology: one which is socially and confessionally responsible, which has theological integrity in responding to and addressing society. Put in more ecclesiastical terms, it concerns the possibility of being church in and for society.

This series is envisaged as an opportunity for contributors to discuss concrete issues, attending seriously to specific historical, cultural, political and ecclesiastical dynamics. It is hoped that discussion of the particular will be framed in such away as to invite comparisons which will illuminate other situations too.

The series invites authors to write against the background of this crisis and to ask what the church might have to say to the next generation. We are not seeking extensive monographs concerning the abstract question of how theology and faith may be mediated after fifty years of liberalism. Short books will throw fresh light on conventional topics by treating them in unconventional ways, and we have also commissioned works which discuss society and church through surprising themes not conventionally associated with the field.

Vernon White's refreshing and philosophically nuanced treatment of identity focuses on the notion of change as being fundamental to human life. On the one hand, change resonates with hope, creativity and new life; on the other hand, it reminds us of risk, loss and mortality. Change eventually brings physical death, and even prior to that delivers another kind of death by the question it puts to our very self. For the 'we' who will change seems insecure. If we are someone yet to be, will we be so radically changed that it makes little sense to talk of the same person? Our contemporary context forces this issue on us with a particular intensity. Change is rampant. There are major, rapid and interconnected changes in information technology, globalization, work and employment practices, consumerism, and family, all of which affect human beings deeply, ambivalently, and at every level. How best can we live through this process of change, which often seems to have no sense of direction?

In trying to answer this question, White asks two others: does Christian faith propose a way of living withchange, and if so, can it have beneficial effects on personal identity? In responding affirmatively to these questions, the author develops the notion of faithfulness, which -- while itself embracing change -- equally encapsulates an enduring insight that will always, and in every situation, have fresh light to shed. For the author, faithfulness, in its various forms, has been neglected along with theology itself, and needs to be re-formed and rediscovered as a means of sustaining true identity. The discussion ranges widely and in fascinating ways through social philosophy and recent theology; and in skilfully negotiating his way between past and present, local and general, and abstract and concrete, the author enables theology to speak to issues of contemporary life with considerable power and persuasiveness.