John V. Taylor

John Taylor’s most famous book is a reminder that the Holy Spirit urges us toward a communal humanity. Taylor’s is a message especially pertinent in an age of crushing multinational capitalism and a rising tide of individual greed and fear of the Other. Based on his Cadbury lectures delivered in 1967, The Go-Between God is now considered one of the most important works ever written on the Holy Spirit and mission. This edition contains a new foreword by Jonny Baker.

In 1967 John V Taylor was invited to give the Cadbury Lectures in Theology at the University of Birmingham. The experience stimulated him to the extent he felt compelled to rewrite the original series of eight lectures, which now make up the chapters of The Go-Between God. This new edition contains a new Foreword by David Wood, John V. Taylor's great admirer. The Reverend Dr David Wood is Rector of Joondalup, Western Australia and the Anglican Chaplain to Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia.

Christians must come alive to the realities of the gospel, through the awareness which is the Holy Spirit's gift. They must reject everything that is dead and life destroying, and in mutual interchange and joyful response awaken to the life whose source is the dynamic, living God. This is the message of the five addresses given by Bishop John Taylor during the Mission to the University of Oxford early in 1986. In his incomparably graceful and poetic style, the author of The Go-Between God presents a vision of Christian living which will speak to this and future generations. John V. Taylor was Bishop of Winchester.

John Taylor writes: 'According to the separate traditions, Moses, Confucius and the Buddha all had a period of some forty years in which to establish a way of life among their followers. The Prophet Muhammad had twenty-two years for passing on the revelation that was bestowed through him. Yet within little more than thirty months Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed something and did something and was something that immediately fired the imagination of the common people. Though we may not understand what he meant by it, we know what the Gospel of Jesus Christ was: "The time has come; the Kingdom of God is almost here; turn your minds round and believe the good news." Here is the keynote of the faith of Jesus of Nazareth. Here is the word which, on his lips, moved people with such extraordinary power. If we could resuscitate that declaration so that it conveyed in the terms and in the experience of our world the essence of what it meant to his, might it not stir the pulse and quicken the imagination of a new generation in our own day and restore a clarity of purpose to the churches?'

The central thesis of The Christ-like God is that Jesus is the reflection in human life of the being of God. John Taylor begins by pointing out how few religious people-or non-religious people- ever stop and think about God, but tend to live with an unconscious stereotype. He discusses throughout the text how we acquire our idea of God, the nature of revelation experience, and the range of reflection on God both within and out-with the Christian tradition. Bishop John Taylor was one of the twentieth century's leading Anglican missionary statesmen. An ecumenist, Africanist and theologian of international repute, he served as a General Secretary of the Church MIssionary Society at a crucial stage in its development and later became Bishop of Windsor.

One constant theme runs through the writing of John V. Taylor that of passing through darkness to light, from winter to spring, from death to life. The moving force is the spirit of the God who raised Jesus from the dead and who even now animates and renews his people.Following broadly the rhythm of the Christian year, from Advent to Pentecost, The Easter God draws on John V. Taylor's unpublished sermons from his time as Bishop of Winchester and beyond, to demonstrate in his incomparably graceful and poetic style, what God has done for us and what it means to live in the light of this as God's Easter people.

The Primal Vision is widely regarded as one of the most important books ever published on the subject of African Christianity. In a sympathetic and warmly empathetic style, John Taylor tellsof his encountrs with many different African people, and reflects theologically on the conversations he has shared with men, women and children in a wide variety of circumstances. By suggesting that the missionary should listen and learn from indigenous culture, and appreciate his status as a guest, the book points towards a revisionist understanding of Christian mission. John V. Taylor was Bishop of Winchester from 1975-85 and General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society from 1963 to 74. He died in 2001.

Under the sponsorship of the Missionary Studies Department of the International Missionary Council and the World Council of Churches, the author of this study presents an in depth appraisal of the development of the Christian church in the Buganda area of Uganda.