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