Geoffrey Wainwright

Faith, hope, and love: these words recall one of the most familiar passages in the entirety of the Christian Scriptures and represent three uniquely Christian virtues given by God to the Church. Geoffrey Wainwright explores the contemporary ecumenical potential of these historic Christian virtues. Faith, hope, and love are given to each Christian and are intended to be incorporated in the nature and life of every gathered Christian body. Wainwright pairs each virtue with a practice instituted by Christ himself. Holy baptism teaches faith as an enacted confession. The Lord's Prayer invites petition as an address of hope. The Lord's Supper offers bread and wine as an embodiment of love. These historic practices orient all Christians backward in faith to the formative events of the cross and resurrection, forward in hope of the final consummation, and toward all others gathered around the shared meal. Wainwright insists that faith, hope, and love pave a path to unity for a historically divided Church.

In this selection of recent essays, Geoffrey Wainwright continues to probe some perennial questions posed by existence amid the world and before God. Firmly rooted in the classical Christian tradition, he finds illumination in the Scriptures, the history of doctrine, and the liturgical practices of the Church. The recurrent theme is the comprehensive purpose of God for creation, embodied in the Word made flesh, and looking in turn to be grasped by human beings. The focal image is that of Jesus suspended on the cross, reflected in the lines of Charles Wesley: The arms of love that compass me Would all mankind embrace.

Seeks to identify and describe the continuing Christian vision, to trace its modes of transmission, and to permit it to illuminate the human context. The result is a systematic theology in the perspective of worship.

Lesslie Newbigin was a figure of patristic proportions in the twentieth-century history of the Church. In this intellectual and spiritual biography Geoffrey Wainwright displays the theological character of his subject's multifarious engagement in the search for Christian unity, the practice of evangelism and the strategy of mission, the compassionate service of society, and the responsible statement of the scriptural and traditional faith amid the complexities of late modern culture. Himself a distinguished ecumenist and theologian, Geoffrey Wainwright draws on thirty-five years of personal and literary acquaintance with his subject and on a thorough examination of the Newbigin archives in crafting this rich and varied portrait of an outstanding figure in the ecumenical movement.

The historical course of Christianity in the twentieth century has been strongly marked by the Ecumenical Movement and the Liturgical Movement, and often these currents for the recovery of the Church's unity and the renewal of its worship have flowed together. In this book Geoffrey Wainwright draws on his three decades of active participation in both movements to offer a theologically informed account of what has been at stake in them, what their achievements have been, and what tasks remain for them to accomplish.

A companion volume to The Study of Liturgy, this collection examines the nature and form of individual devotion, discussing the various patterns of Christian discipleship that have evolved through the centuries. Written by contributors representing the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Free Church, and Orthodox traditions, it is the definitive study of spirituality.