David Jensen: The Lord and Giver of Life

David H. Jensen, ed., The Lord and Giver of Life: Perspectives on Constructive Pneumatology (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2008), xvii + 189 pages, ISBN 9780664231675.

In the published world of often confusing or even misleading titles and subtitles, this collection offers clearly what its title promises: perspectives on constructive pneumatology. The authors of the ten chapters are well-known theologians from a variety of Christian perspectives and speak from these traditions to a common concern for a more complete understanding of the Holy Spirit. The editor provides both a general introduction to the book and a historical introduction to the range of existing theologies of the Holy Spirit that opens up the space for various themes of constructive pneumatology, touching on the relationship between Spirit and Scripture, the Spirit and world religions, and the Spirit’s presence in the world.

Essays by Amy Plantiga Pauw and Moly T. Marshall address the relationship of the Spirit and the biblical texts. Pauw connects with the editor’s theme of discernment and shows that a reading of Scripture without the Spirit can lead to a manipulation of the Word, and she suggests that Scripture itself needs to be exorcised from any false spirits. Marshall focuses on how the reading of Scripture can be understood as the Spirit’s activity that makes possible understanding and consensus, not only in our use of the Bible but also in our relationship with one another.

Essays by Roger Haight and Amos Yong speak to the question of the Spirit’s relationship to other religions and faith traditions. Haight explores how the “symbol of the Spirit of God” extends the important relationship between Christ and other religions and proposes that Christians must conclude that the Spirit is operative in other religions. His essay examines different strategies for using traditional theological language and shows how understanding the Spirit as symbol can inform a (cosmic) Christian understanding of God at work in the world. Yong’s essay investigates a pneumatological understanding of hospitality as a root metaphor for the Christian engagement of other religions. Engaging in dialogue the basic Christian attitudes of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism, Yong proposes that a hermeneutic of hospitality – from a pneumatological perspective – can offer clarity and invigorate Christian relations with the worlds of other faiths.

The remaining essays by Eugene F. Rogers Jr., Barbara A. Holmes, Sallie McFague, Joerg Rieger, and John B. Cobb Jr. address the Spirit’s presence in and to the world. Rogers insists that the Spirit rests on the Son paraphysically, “because the Spirit transcends and surpasses the physical for the Son’s sake,” (p. 87) and for the sake of redemption of the diversity and totality of the physical world. Holmes investigates the pneumatological dimension of folk piety that appears divest of all “churchy” pretentiousness and thus able to encounter God’s presence in an often improvised, anti-establishment mode that is more in touch with reality. McFague offers reflections on the pneumatological dimension of climate change and proposes that care and hope, an understanding of who we are, is found in a more intimate, Spirit-oriented God-world relationship.

The concluding essays by Rieger and Cobb venture more closely into the world of political theology. Rieger analyzes the relationship of Spirit and empire and the possibility of resistance. The embodied Spirit, Rieger argues, overcomes the fragmentation of the postcolonial empire and bring a new sense of personhood and relationship. Cobb concludes the collection with a sweeping investigation of the Holy Spirit and the present age. Engaging economic and political tensions in today’s world, Cobb sees the Spirit as the power of balance, resistance, and transformation.

These necessarily brief descriptions reveal the variety of approaches and themes contained in the collection. While the common theme among these essays is certainly the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, not all of the texts offer “perspectives on constructive pneumatology,” as the subtitle suggests; some are rather “pneumatological perspectives” on particular (sometimes non-theological) themes. This variety, apparent also in other, similar collections on pneumatology, is a visible hallmark of the landscape of contemporary pneumatology. There is a danger involved in this approach that can quickly cloud the pneumatological lens if it is applied indiscriminately. At the present, applying this lens is still necessary in order to revive a theological agenda that has often neglected explicit considerations of the Holy Spirit. This collection is one of those “idea-givers.” The authors offer food for thought, often stimulating, albeit underdeveloped, and many of the essays beg for further explanation and expansion. In some cases, these texts have been expanded elsewhere into book-length format, as in Eugene Rogers’ After the Spirit and Amos Yong’s Hospitality and the Other. In other cases, a more thorough application to pneumatology is necessary in order to tease out just how exactly a theology of “the lord and giver of life” is able to transform traditional theological and non-theological dimensions of life. Answering the question how these beliefs and proposals impact the practices of the Christian life remains one of the foremost tasks of pneumatology, not only among Pentecostals.

For Pentecostals, the collection of essays offers a single entry to a variety of constructive pneumatological proposals that should be of interest not only to graduate students or scholars of religion but anyone interested in a Spirit-driven approach to the questions of life. While Yong is the only Pentecostal author in this collection, his essay reveals the creative and challenging nature pneumatology has assumed not only among Pentecostals. This book could be well-paired with similar collections, such as Veli-Matti Karkkainen’s The Spirit in the World, Michael Welker’s The Work of the Spirit, or Bradford Hinze’s and D. Lyle Dabney’s more academic Advents of the Spirit [Editor’s note: see Amos Yong’s review]. The result is an encouraging diversity in the recent revival of pneumatology that still has far to go before we can speak of a comprehensive doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Reviewed by Wolfgang Vondey

Editor’s note: A Review in Brief from this essay appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of Pneuma Review.

Publisher’s page: https://www.wjkbooks.com/Products/0664231675/the-lord-and-giver-of-life.aspx