Resources – Living Stones

Resources from Living Stones

A Living Stone – Selected Essays and Addresses of Michael Prior CM

Please email the editor for details on acquiring this book for £20 plus postage, and other titles, including printed copies of the annual Living Stones Yearbook.

“The Bible, in its land tradition, is part of the problem, but the Bible also, in its Gospel message, is part of the solution—provided that people such as Macpherson and ourselves, take up Michael Prior’s challenge.” Professor Gregory Heille OP.

“…a very challenging and necessary book. Duncan Macpherson deserves enormous praise and credit for the way he has painstakingly edited this book, bringing together a lifetime of work by Michael Prior. It is indeed a lasting memory to Michaela and should be a constant challenge to all biblical scholars and students.” Martin O’Kane.

A Review by Professor Mary Grey

“Duncan Macpherson’s biographical introduction charts the fascinating evolution of this Cork-born, humorous Scripture scholar, lover of story and song alike, from academic to Palestinian activist and advocate. Not that Michael ever lacked causes: I remember him – in the early eighties–bringing the entire gypsy community from Ealing into the splendid drawing room of St Mary’s College to plead their cause. But the book takes off when he begins to argue the Palestinian case and engage in a Biblical critique. The first section on ‘New Testament Scholar’ is interesting more with hindsight, when we realise what he would make of his biblical scholarship. For example, ‘Perspectives on Luke’ (1976) would be developed into his ‘Jesus the Liberator’ (1995) when he interprets Luke as challenging us to subvert all oppressive patterns in society, a perspective also discussed in ‘Jesus and the Evangelization of the Poor’. Prior is humble as to the length of time needed for him to experience a conversion as to what the real situation of Israel-Palestine meant in terms of injustice. (I sympathise with this, as my own moment of conversion was not until 1997, when I was asked to write a document for the theology commission of the International Council of Christians and Jews on their justice policy, but not allowed to mention Palestine!).”

Read the full review here

Books by, or about, Michael Prior

KENNETH CRAGG:

CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY

AND MUSLIM MYSTICISM

An Encounter of Souls

DAVID DERRICK

Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust is delighted to announce the publication of the first in its series of monographs: David Derrick’s Kenneth Cragg: Christian Spirituality and Muslim Mysticism. An Encounter of Souls. The extensive study is an exploration of the life and theological thought of Bishop Kenneth Cragg (1913–2012). This work seeks to retrieve the foundations of Cragg’s theological thought which allow us to review the religious character of Islam as he understood it. Cragg was a significant figure for the Christian encounter with Islam in the modern world. Cragg’s distinctive account of Christian mysticism and spirituality can only be understood from the perspective of deep attachment to the Church of England, its history and ecclesial tradition. Cragg’s thought is Protestant in doctrine and Evangelical of instinct. This work offers an original interpretation and account of Kenneth Cragg based upon his extensive writings, his interreligious encounters, scholarly endeavour over a long working life in the Anglican Church.

‘David Derrick has done both church and academy a great service in providing this insightful analysis of the spirituality of Kenneth Cragg. This “Encounter of for theology and spiritual wisdom in a world grappling with questions of Souls” has mined a rich seam of Christian reflection that continues to be a resource religious difference and transcendence even more so than when Kenneth Cragg was alive.’

The Revd Dr Richard Sudworth OBE
Secretary for Inter Religious Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury and National Inter Religious Affairs Adviser for the Church
of England, author of Encountering Islam Christian-Muslim Relations in the Public Square (2017).

‘Kenneth Cragg was among the most sensitive and influential Christian interpreters of Islam in the twentieth century. By “sifting” (to use a favourite Craggian metaphor) the passages on Sufism from Cragg’s prolific writings on Islam, comparing Cragg’s approach to that of the Catholic Islamicist Louis Massignon, and highlighting UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s status as Cragg’s spiritual exemplar, David Derrick has brought out the hitherto neglected note of mysticism in Cragg’s thought. In so doing, he has demonstrated the theological value of biography and produced a work that will be of interest to anyone interested in the modern Christian-Muslim encounter.’

Dr Fitzroy Morrissey, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Law, University of Oxford,
author of A Short History of Islamic Thought (2021), Sufism and the Scriptures (2021), Sufism and the Perfect Human (2020).

‘Kenneth Cragg was one of the most influential Christian scholars of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations In the twentieth century. In this volume, Derrick
offers new insights into the theological foundations of Cragg’s extensive writings, with a previously understudied focus on Cragg’s use of wide-ranging sources to
consider how different approaches to mystical traditions within Christianity and Islam, and particularly in Sufism, contribute to Christian-Muslim theological
encounter. This work is an invaluable and original contribution to an understanding of Cragg’s contribution to Christian-Muslim relations and positions him in
a much broader theological landscape than the “evangelical prism” in which he was sometimes been placed.’

Revd Dr Andrew Ashdown, author of Christian-Muslim Relation in Syria: Historic and Contemporary Religious Dynamics in a Changing Context (2020) and Coordinator for Africa for the Methodist Church in Britain.

To obtain your copy, please email: admin@livingstones.ngo

Specifications
138 × 216mm, 364 pages, paperback
ISBN 978 1 9168979 6 0 Published November 2024 Price £20.00 plus postage and packing

Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust
(registered charity no. 1081204)
Registered Address:
c/o 114 Mount Street,
London W1K 3AH www.livingstones.ngo

FELLOW SEEKERS OF THE TRUTH
BENEDICT XVI’S ECCLESIOLOGY
OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Rocco Viviano

Benedict XVI exemplifies the fruitful synergy of theological thinking, Church Tradition and magisterium, and the true challenges of the contemporary context. By pointing to deep, theological, and ecclesiological foundations of interreligious dialogue, Benedict XVI confirmed it authoritatively as a legitimate, necessary, and integral aspect of the Church’s identity and mission. Without such grounding, interreligious dialogue is destined to remain, de facto for most Catholics, ultimately dispensable. This will not change unless interreligious dialogue is firmly rooted in the faith and the identity of the Church. Benedict XVI provided such grounding.

Rocco Viviano, a missionary priest of the Society of St Francis Xavier for Foreign Missions (also known as Xaverian Missionaries), has dedicated over twenty-five years to interreligious dialogue ministry and study. He gained his master’s degree and a doctorate (2013) from the University of London. He has worked the Philippines for many years and has been stationed in Japan since 2014. Currently, he serves as the Interreligious Dialogue Coordinator for the Xaverian Missionaries in Japan, chairs the Catholic Archdiocese of Osaka-Takamatsu Commission for Interreligious Dialogue, directs the Xaverian Missionaries Asia Study Centre (CSA), and is a Research Associate at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture at the Nanzan University.