Fiddes has been described as "one of the leading contemporary Baptist theologians",[2] "one of the leading scholars of theology and literature writing today",[3] "one of Christianity's most distinguished scholars",[4] and "one of the foremost theological thinkers of the modern age".[5] His book The Creative Suffering of God is "considered to be one of the major contributions to theology in the last decades of the 20th century".[6][7][8][9]
He has taught at Regent's since 1972,primarily as Research Fellow in Old Testament and Hebrew (1972–75),Fellow in Christian Doctrine (1975–89),Principal (1989–2007),Professorial Research Fellow and Director of Research (2007–2018) and Senior Research Fellow (2018 to the present).[11][12] While undergoing his doctorate Fiddes also taught Middle English at St. Peter's College,Oxford and was later a Lecturer in Theology at St Peter's (1979–85).
Career
Fiddes was ordained as a minister in the Baptist Union of Great Britain in 1972,and has extensive ecumenical concerns,including being a Canon Emeritus of Christ Church Cathedral,Oxford and Prebendary of St Endellion in North Cornwall.
In 2004 Fiddes was elected an Honorary Fellow of St Peter's,on which occasion he was described as being "recognised internationally as one of the leading scholars in the fields of theology and literature".[13] Later in that year,he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity,the highest that the University confers. In 2002 he was chosen to preach the university Sermon on the Grace of Humility,and in 2005 he was appointed to deliver the OxfordBampton Lectures,choosing as his topic Seeing the world and knowing God:ancient wisdom and modern doctrine. In 2004 he became an Honorary Doctor of Divinity of the University of Bucharest.[10] He is also a Trustee Fellow of Georgetown College.[14] He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2020.[15]
Fiddes is currently Director of the Project for Love and Religion,[16] editing and contributing to the "Studies of Love in Religion" series. He is also involved in a project alongside Prof. Christopher Southgate,Dr. Bethany Sollereder,Revd. Dr. Michael Lloyd,Prof. Neil Messer and Prof. Mark Wynn focussing on evolutionary theodicy.[17] Regarding publications,Fiddes is working on a commentary on Romans entitled Romans Through the Ages. and editing an Oxford handbook edition on Baptist Studies.
Professional activities
Fiddes is a member of the editorial board of Ecclesiology:The Journal for Ministry,Mission and Unity and Ecclesial Practices. He is a consultant editor for Studies in Baptist History and Thought,published by Paternoster Press,and a series editor of New Critical Thinking in Religion,Theology and Biblical Studies (Ashgate). He is General Editor of the Regent's Study Guides series,published jointly by the college and the American publisher Smyth &Helwys.[18]
In 2009,Fides delivered the Holley-Hull Lectures at Samford University on the subject Telling the Christian Story in Our World Today.[28] In 2009 he delivered the Nordenhaug Lectures at the International Baptist Theological Seminary of the European Baptist Federation in Prague on the subject "Post Modernity and Wisdom". These lectures will be prepared for future publication.[29] (Previous Nordenhaug Lecturers include Miroslav Volf,Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School,I. Howard Marshall,Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the University of Aberdeen,Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza,Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School,Jürgen Moltmann,Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Tübingen.)[30]
In 2010 (7–9 July) Fiddes was Main Speaker at the conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools/Australian and New Zealand Society for Theological Studies,on "The Future of God",at Trinity College (University of Melbourne). At the same time he also spoke,as a keynote speaker,at the Melbourne College of Divinity Centenary Conference (5–7 July).[23][31] Fiddes was a keynote speaker at "The Power of the Word:Poetry,Theology and Life",a conference held jointly between Heythrop College and the Institute of English Studies.[32] Fiddes was also a keynote speaker at the 2010 Biennial Conference of the International Society for Religion,Literature and Culture,St Catherine's College,Oxford (23–26 September 2010) on the topic "Attending to the Other:Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice".[33]
Studies of Fiddes's theology
Past Event and Present Salvation:the Christian Idea of Atonement (London:Darton,Longman,&Todd,1989),one of Fiddes's most important works,was studied by the Reverend Father Eamonn Mulcahy,C.S.Sp.,in his doctoral thesis at the Pontifical Gregorian University under the supervision of the distinguished AustralianJesuit scholar Gerald O'Collins. His thesis,which was entitled The Cause of Our Salvation:Soteriological Causality According to Some Modern British Theologians,1988-98,also considered works by Colin Gunton,Vernon White,and John McIntyre. The thesis is now published as Eamonn Mulcahy,The Cause of Our Salvation:Soteriological Causality according to some Modern British Theologians,1988-98 (Tesi Gregoriana Serie Teologia 140,Roma:Editrice Pontificia UniversitàGregoriana,2007).
Fiddes is also the subject of Daniel John Sutcliffe-Pratt,Covenant and church for rough sleepers:a Baptist ecclesiology in conversation with the trinitarian pastoral theology of Paul S. Fiddes (Centre for Baptist History and Heritage studies,Occasional papers,vol. 14;Oxford:Regent's Park College,2017).
Alistair Cuthbert,currently minister of Falkirk Baptist Church,has written his doctoral thesis on the theology of Paul Fiddes at the University of St Andrews,[34] entitled Participating in Divine Conflict:Constructing a Baptist-Charismatic Theology of Spiritual Warfare in Dialogue with Paul S. Fiddes
Martin Hobgen,minister at Swaything Baptist Church,has used Fiddes' work in his PhD at Manchester University developing Fiddes' concepts of covenant and perichoresis to argue for a type of friendship between disabled and non-disabled congregants.
Novelist
Fiddes published a novel,A Unicorn Dies:A Novel of Mystery and Ideas in 2018 (Oxford:Firedint Publishing). It was reviewed in the online newspaper The Baptist Times by Hugh Whittaker,who wrote "A Unicorn Dies operates on several levels. It is both gripping and complex. I very much enjoyed this quest with Giles [the protagonist],and look forward to the next novel. It won't be an easy act to follow."[35]
Fiddes has also been honoured with two Festschriften:
Anthony Clarke,ed.,For the Sake of the Church:Essays in Honour of Paul S. Fiddes,with a foreword by Rex Mason (Centre for Baptist History and Heritage studies,3;Oxford:Centre for Baptist History and Heritage,Regent's Park College:2014)
Anthony Clarke and Andrew Moore,eds.,Within the Love of God:Essays on the Doctrine of God in Honour of Paul S. Fiddes (Oxford:Oxford University Press,2014)
List of sole-authored books
Novel
A Unicorn Dies: A Novel of Mystery and Ideas. Oxford: Firedint Publishing. 2018.
Monographs
The Creative Suffering of God. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1988.
Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement. London: Darton, Longman, & Todd. 1989.
Freedom and Limit: A Dialogue between Literature and Christian Doctrine. Basingstoke Macon: Macmillan. 1991. (Also published by Mercer University Press, 1999)
The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature. Oxford: Blackwell. 2000.
Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity. London: Darton, Longman, & Todd. 2000.
Tracks and Traces: Baptist Identity in Church and Theology. Carlisle: Paternoster. 2003.
Seeing the World and Knowing God: Hebrew Wisdom and Christian Doctrine in a Late-Modern Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2013.
Charles Williams and C.S. Lewis: Friends in Co-Inherence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2021.
Iris Murdoch and the Others: A Writer in Dialogue with Theology. London: T.&T. Clark. 2021.
More Things in Heaven and Earth: Shakespeare, Theology, and the Interplay of Texts. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press. 2022. (Originally given as the 2018 Richard E. Myers Lectures at University Baptist Church, Charlottesville, VA, under the title The Play's the Thing: Shakespeare and Religion)
Edited volumes
Reflection on the Water: Understanding God and the World through the Baptism of Believers. Macon: Mercer University Press. 1996.
E. Brandt; J. Molthagen, eds. (1996). Gemeinschaft am Evangelium. Festschrift fur Wiard Popkes. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt.
W. H. Brackney; John H. Y. Briggs, eds. (1999). Pilgrim Pathways: Essays in Baptist History in Honour of B. R. White. Macon: Mercer University Press.
Doing Theology in a Baptist Way. Oxford: Whitley Publications. 2000.
The Novel, Spirituality and Modern Culture: Eight Novelists Write about their Craft and their Context. Cardiff: Cardiff University Press. 2000.
Faith in the Centre: Christianity and Culture. Regent's Study Guides 9. Macon: Smyth & Helwys. 2001.
Anthony J. Clarke, ed. (2005). Flickering Images: Theology and Film in Dialogue. Regent's Study Guides 12. Macon: Smyth & Helwys.
Under the Rule of Christ: Dimensions in Baptist Spirituality. Regent's Study Guides 14. Macon: Smyth & Helwys. 2008.
Gunther Bader, ed. (2013). The Spirit and the Letter: A Tradition and a Reversal. London: T & T Clark.
Jochen Schmidt, ed. (2013). Rhetorik des Bosen/The Rhetoric of Evil: Studien des Bonner Zentrums fur Religion und Gesellschaft. Wurzburg: Ergon Verlag.
Sharing Faith at the Boundaries of Unity: Further Conversations between Anglians and Baptists. Centre for Baptist History and Heritage Studies vol. 12. Oxford: Regent's Park College. 2015.
"A World-Order of Love": Baptists and the Peace Movements of 1914". Centre for Baptist History and Heritage Studies vol. 15. Oxford: Regent's Park College. 2017.
Co-authored volumes
Stephen Holmes; Paul Molnar; Thomas McCall; Jason Sexton (2014). Two Views on the Doctrine of the Trinity. Counterpoints: Bible and Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
Brian Haymes; Richard Kidd (2014). Baptists and the Communion of Saints: A Theology of Covenanted Disciples. Waco: Baylor University Press/Gazelle.
Anthony Clarke (2017). Dissenting Spirit: A History of Regent's Park College 1752-2017. Centre for Baptist History and Heritage Studies. Oxford: Regent's Park College.
Booklets/pamphlets
The Escape and the City: Old Testament Study. Baptist Union Training Programme. London: Baptist Union. 1974.
Charismatic Renewal: A Baptist View. London: Baptist Publications. 1980.
A Leading Question: The Structure and Authority of Leadership in the Local Church. London: Baptist Publications. 1980.
Brian Haymes; Richard Kidd; Michael Quicke (1997). On the Way of Trust. Oxford: Whitley Publications.
Further reading
Reviews of The Creative Suffering of God
Warren McWilliams, review in Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58.4 (1990), 705–7
Jeff B. Pool, review in The Journal of Religion 70.3 (1990), 471–472
Roger E. Olson, review in Scottish Journal of Theology 43 (1990), 114–115
↑ "Birthday's today". The Telegraph. 30 April 2012. Archived from the original on 30 April 2012. Retrieved 23 April 2014. the Rev Prof Paul Fiddes, Professorial Research Fellow, Regent's Park College, Oxford, 65
↑ Eamonn Mulcahy, The Cause of Our Salvation: Soteriological Causality according to some Modern British Theologians, 1988-98 (Tesi Gregoriana Serie Teologia 140, Roma: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2007), p. 117.
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