Todd Speidell (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is Instructor of Theology at Montreat College, Editor of Participatio: The Journal of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, and General Editor of the Ray S. Anderson Collection (Wipf and Stock). His recent publications include his edited book Trinity and Transformation: J. B. Torrance's Vision of Worship, Mission, and Society (Wipf & Stock, 2016) and his coedited book T. F. Torrance and Eastern Orthodoxy: Theology in Reconciliation (Wipf & Stock, 2015)
Todd Speidell's book, Fully Human in Christ, is a wise and winsome
account of how Thomas F. Torrance's Trinitarian and Christocentric
theology is inextricably connected to a profound Christian ethic,
including a social ethic as well. His work is a cathartic antidote
to the many criticisms that Torrance's theology lacks a robust
ethical dimension. Speidell's clever subtitle, The Incarnation as
the End of Ethics, encapsulates his central thesis that Christ's
vicarious humanity ends all ours attempts to 'do good or be good'
apart from who Christ is and what Christ has done on our behalf and
in our place. In place of every autonomous ethic is a radically new
and different gracious ethical participation in Christ's vicarious
humanity. This participation does in no way negate or replace our
humanity, but rather frees, personalizes, humanizes, and reconciles
us in all our relations with God and others, overcoming all
bigotry, hatred, and every other barrier we create and maintain to
secure and justify ourselves and people like us in alienation from
God and others. Having grown up amidst the violence, injustice, and
urban unrest in Paterson, NJ, during the 1960s and '70s, Speidell's
penetrating, sustained, and captivating thinking of ethics in
dialogue with Torrance is a profound, joyous, and hopeful account
of what a Christian ethic really is. Scholars, pastors, students,
and others interested in Christian theology and ethics will be
challenged and encouraged by Speidell's contributions in this
book.
--Elmer M. Colyer, Professor of Systematic Theology, Stanley
Professor of Wesley Studies, University of Dubuque Theological
Seminary Todd Speidell has written a wonderful book, not simply
about T. F. Torrance's overlooked contributions to thinking
theologically about ethics, but more broadly about the reality of
reconciliation and the triune God's unwavering commitment to redeem
creation. Speaking with great insight and candor, Speidell sets the
record on Torrance straight, helping us to see that Christ is the
end of ethics, thereby abolishing our attempts at
self-justification and autonomous ethics in favor of His vicarious
humanity in our place and on our behalf. Students and teachers of
Christian doctrine and ethics are very well-served by this clear,
judicious, and compelling account and appropriation of one of the
most important English-speaking theologians of the twentieth
century.
--Christopher R. J. Holmes, Senior Lecturer in Theology, University
of Otago Relying on the thinking of Karl Barth, Thomas F. Torrance,
James B. Torrance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ray S. Anderson, and
others, Todd Speidell thoughtfully and skillfully challenges
readers to focus on who Jesus was and is as the incarnate revealer
and reconciler to understand the true meaning of Christian ethics
and liberation in a way that upholds rather than negates a properly
functioning social ethic. Along the way he offers helpful analysis
and critique of various views that tend toward a Pelagian vision of
grace or some version of conditional salvation and thus obscure
what it means to participate in Christ's vicarious humanity and
therefore in the new creation. His discussion of Torrance's
theological ethics offers a particularly convincing and compelling
defense of Torrance against allegations that his emphasis on Christ
supplants rather than establishes true human freedom and action.
This is a book that is refreshingly Christological, Trinitarian,
and soteriological in the best sense. Readers will find here a
serious and informative discussion of exactly how dogmatics informs
ethics when the living Christ, rather than dogmatics, is, and
remains, the criterion.
--Paul D. Molnar, Professor of Systematic Theology, St. John's
University, Queens, NY
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