Nature and Grace: The Spirituality of Existence

Nicholas Ansell, Nature and Grace: The Spirituality of Existence" (Chapter 22), in T&T Clark Handbook of the Doctrine of Creation. Jason Goroncy, ed. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.

Available at: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc.


Publisher's Overview:

The T&T Clark Handbook of the Doctrine of Creation provides an expansive range of resources introducing the doctrine of creation as understood in Christian traditions. It offers an examination of: how the Bible and various Christian traditions have imagined creation; how the doctrine of creation informs and is informed by various dogmatic commitments; and how the doctrine of creation relates to a range of human concerns and activities.

The Handbook represents a celebration of, fascination with, bewilderment at, lament about, and hope for all that is, and serves as a scholarly, innovative, and constructive reference for those interested in attending to what Christian belief has to contribute to thinking about and living with the mysterious existence named 'creation'.

The Annihilation Of Hell: Universal Salvation and the Redemption of Time in the Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann

The Annihilation Of Hell: Universal Salvation and the Redemption of Time in the Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann. Nik Ansell. Paternoster Press, 2013.

Find it at: Wipf and Stock

For Jürgen Moltmann, Hell is the nemesis of Hope. The “Annihilation of Hell” thus refers both to Hell’s annihilative power in history and to the overcoming of that power as envisioned by Moltmann’s distinctive theology of the cross in which God becomes “all in all” through Christ’s descent into Godforsakenness. The negation of Hell and the fulfillment of history are inseparable. Attentive to the overall contours and dynamics of Moltmann’s thinking — especially his zimzum doctrine of creation, his eschatologically oriented philosophy of time, and his expanded understanding of the nature-grace relationship — this study asks whether the universal salvation that he proposes can honor human freedom, promise vindication for those who suffer, and do justice to biblical revelation. As well as providing an in-depth exposition of Moltmann’s ideas, The Annihilation of Hell also explores how a “covenantal universalism” might revitalize our web of beliefs in a way that is attuned to the authorizing of Scripture and the spirituality of existence. If divine and human freedom are to be reconciled, as Moltmann believes, the confrontation between Hell and Hope will entail rethinking issues that are not only at the center of theology but at the heart of life itself.

On (Not) Obeying the Sabbath: Reading Jesus Reading Scripture

Nik Ansell. “On (Not) Obeying the Sabbath: Reading Jesus Reading Scripture,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 33/2 (Fall 2011): 97–120

This essay examines the sabbath controversy of Mark 2:23-28 to see how Jesus faces the challenge of biblical interpretation as he models what it means for his disciples to image God in freedom. In dominant approaches to the Gospels, the interpretive process set in motion by this passage, which I characterize as ‘reading Scripture reading Jesus reading Scripture,’ is confined to its earlier stages—a reductionism that calls for hermeneutical reflection. If a narrative has a ‘life of its own’ beyond authorial intention (indispensable though the author may be), can we say the same about a character who is central to a narrative? If so, is ‘the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel’ ‘more than’ the ‘Markan Jesus’ of much scholarly concern? This essay seeks to develop an intertextual, Christocentric hermeneutic by attending to the implicit as well as explicit ways in which Jesus’ reading of Scripture takes place ‘within’ the Gospel narrative.

This Is Her Body: Judges 19 as Call to Discernment

Nik Ansell. “This Is Her Body . . . : Judges 19 as Call to Discernment” in Tamar’s Tears: Evangelical Engagements with Feminist Old Testament Hermeneutics, ed. Andrew Sloane (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011), chapter 5, 112–70

This study responds to Phyllis Trible’s claim that Judges 19 is a “Text of Terror” in a double sense because it not only portrays events that are truly horrifying, but does so in a way that adds to the betrayal of the unnamed woman. Consequently, in her view, God’s call to compassion comes to us by means of a text that is itself in need of redemption. Building on one of Trible’s underdeveloped insights, this essay explores the intra-textual relationship between Judg 19 and the Achsah-Caleb-Othniel paradigm of Judg 1 to see how Old Testament “wisdom thinking”––in which patriarchal gender symbolism is subtly yet powerfully undermined––can help us discern the redemptive-historical potential of this unnerving narrative.

The Woman Will Overcome The Warrior: A Dialogue with the Christian/ Feminist Theology of Rosemary Radford Ruether

The Woman Will Overcome The Warrior: A Dialogue with the Christian/ Feminist Theology of Rosemary Radford Ruether. Nik Ansell. Lanham MD/London: University Press of America, 1994.

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A sympathetic critique of Ruether's views which finds a number of significant points of contact but also major disagreements on some topics.