One of Professor Lash's great gifts is that of asking awkward questions and not allowing solutions of theological problems to pass as accepted answers simply because they sound plausible and are passed on without rigorous examination. This collection of recent studies, some previously unpublished, is eloquent testimony to that gift, but without ever losing sight of the fact that theology is not only on the way, but on the way to the consummation of the experience of Easter. Of the book Professor Lash writes: The story of the disciples on the way to Emmaus can serve as a parable for the task of Christian interpretation. Those disciples, like the rest of us, had some difficulty in 'reading' their history and the context of 'recognition', the occasion on which things began to make sense, was not some 'religious' event in a sacred space, but an act of human hospitality. The first two essays treat problems which confront all current theology: the tension between the constructive and critical responsibilities of the theologian, and the relationship between the theological diversity and the unity of faith. There then follows a group of four essays dealing with aspects of the relationship between scripture, theology, and the problems of Christian living, that is to say, of 'hermeneutics' or 'fundamental theology'. The next pair, which complement each other, are rather more philosophical or theoretical in character, and the final group considers more directly doctrinal questions concerning (respectively) religious experience and the doctrine of God, christology, resurrection, ecclesiology, and Christian hope. Nicholas Lash, born in 1934, is Norris-Hulse Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, where he occupied that chair from 1978 until his retirement in 1999. He is the author of some fourteen books and four hundred essays and papers. He was, for eighteen years, a member of the central directorate of the international Roman Catholic journal, 'Concilium', and is a founding member and past president of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain. A volume of his sermons is due to be published in London in 2005, by Darton Longman and Todd, who will also publish a volume of his essays in 2006. He is married, with one son, and continues to live in Cambridge.
