The Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Christian Theology

The Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Christian Theology considers the ways in which theologians have responded to their intellectual predecessors in handing on the Christian tradition. With over 60 chapters, the volume teases out the conceptual and methodological paradigms that have governed these processes throughout the centuries, in both East and West. The first section reflects on the presuppositions and practices of theological reception in contemporary postmodernity, a period of hermeneutical novelty and critical diversity. Disputes about what constitutes the authentic locus of Christian tradition have been a notable feature of theological debate in this period, evincing novel investigations of post-colonial Christianity worldwide, and critical and liberationist paradigms of reception from vying theoretical perspectives. Subsequent chapters explore parallel issues of reception history as they emerged in Christian theologies of modernity, early modernity, the middle ages, and late antiquity. The chapters' reverse-chronological structure reveals how interpretations of the past are contextually shaped, and simultaneously both old and new in their pursuit of authentic Christian witness. The volume provides a unique conspectus on the very notions and practices of 'reception' as manifested in theological debate across the Christian centuries. Moving beyond a history of doctrine, this Handbook offers a history of reception, illuminating the ways in which notions of reception have themselves been contested and altered.