Essential reading

"Essential Reading" for theologians must include texts that help us think theologically in the contemporary world. What follows are some books to which I turn again and again to help "faith seeking understanding" become clearer and more precise. That doesn't mean the books themselves are necessarily clear and precise, or their particular claims always helpful; some of them are not. But I find these texts endlessly stimulating for thought about particular prominent post-modern themes: diversity and "the other"; resistance and thriving; and the very possibility of theology.

1. Hall, Douglas John. Thinking the Faith: Christian Theology in a North American Context. Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1989; Professing the Faith, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993; and Confessing the Faith, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

Hall has provided an insightful analysis of North American Christianity after Christendom, and it's one with which anyone in the "mainline" churches should be familiar. He uses his analysis to reconstruct theology in a way that will help theologians and the churches move ahead with courage and conviction in a context where the fullness of Christianity seems to matter less and less to society as a whole.

2. Williams, Rowan. On Christian Theology. Oxford, U.K. and Malden, Mass.; Blackwell Publishers, 2000.

The new Archbishop of Canterbury is a skilled and thoughtful theologian. This collection of essays written for various occasions gives a fairly comprehensive view of what theology is in our time, and how it matters in various areas of ecclesial life. Some of the essays are quite strenuous reading for those not accustomed to theological discourse. Beyond this book, his plenary address on moral thinking at the 1998 Lambeth Conference is well worth reading, as is his book Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel (1982).

3. Levinas, Emmanuel. Entre Nous: Essays on Thinking-of-the-Other. Translated from the French by Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

The late French philosopher focused his work on the priority of the other over the self, in direct contradiction to much of twentieth-century philosophy (especially Husserl and Heidegger). He maintains that ethics precedes ontology; or, in slightly different terms, that it is how we are related to others that shapes the self. Anything by Levinas is difficult to read. These essays serve as an introduction to the whole of his work.

4. Johnson, Elizabeth A. She Who Is: The Mystery of God in a Feminist Theological Perspective. Tenth Anniversary Edition. New York: Crossroad, 2002.

An exciting and constructive proposal not only for "god-talk" but for other areas of theology and for ethics and pastoral practice. Johnson shows how contemporary feminism and classical theology can come together in a creative and useful way. The work has solid grounding in the practice of prayer and worship as well as in theology.

5. Tanner, Kathryn. Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.

This is Tanner's proposal for a much longer and fuller work. It is short but dense. It's also very exciting. By reiterating that humanity and divinity are fundamentally on different levels-that is, God is transcendent-Tanner is able to address a number of perennial problems in a very fruitful way, without either capitulating to certain forms of postmodernism, or resorting to fideism. Well worth the concentration required.

6. Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1996.

Volf, a Croatian theologian now teaching at Yale, brings to bear his own experience in the Serbo-Croatian conflict in discussing how we might actually and responsibly live into difficult differences and conflicts. This book forces readers to confront the discrepancies between what we profess about pluralism, and what we are actually willing to do to live with it, especially in the areas of nonviolence and forgiveness.

7. Townes, Emilie M., ed. Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1997.

Along with the earlier Troubling in My Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Evil and Suffering, this collection of essays covers a wide range of topics as approached by African-American women theologians and ministers. Each essay gives insight into what it means not only to survive marganalization, but to resist it and to thrive as well.

8. Welch, Sharon D. A Feminist Ethic of Risk. Revised edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.

Welch critiques the implicit notions of power that give the U.S. middle class an excuse for avoiding involvement in social change efforts. She draws on fiction by African-American women to provide an "ethic of risk" that focuses on how anyone may participate in creating the conditions for the possibility of change in the future. Her reframing of agency is singularly helpful in situations that tend toward paralysis.