David Brown - Intellectual Profile

My appointment as Wardlaw Professor of Theology, Aesthetics and Culture in the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews dates from 2007. Before this appointment I held for seventeen years (from 1990) the Van Mildert chair of Divinity, the oldest professorship at Durham University. Prior to that (from 1976 to 1990) I was Tutorial Fellow in Theology and Philosophy at Oriel College Oxford and University Lecturer in Ethics and Philosophical Theology.

During that earlier period my two principal publications were The Divine Trinity (1985), a defence of the doctrine of the Trinity from the perspective of the analytic tradition in English philosophy of religion, and Continental Philosophy and Modern Theology (1987), which, as the name implies, sought to explore the actual and potential impact of the European continental tradition in philosophy on the exposition and development of various Christian doctrines. More popular publications included an introduction to Christian ethics, Choices: Ethics and the Christian (1983) and an edited volume of lectures on Newman by distinguished public figures, including the then President of Italy: Newman: A Man for our Time (1990).

Moving to Durham after fourteen years at Oxford did not result in any loss of that earlier interest in relating philosophy and theology. I continued, for instance, to teach philosophy of religion, including a course on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy and its Influence on Christian Doctrine. But it is true that my interests widened to include the more general issue of relations between theology and the wider culture in which it is set. 

This resulted in two sets of publications. The earlier Tradition and Imagination (1999) and Discipleship and Imagination (2000) were concerned to explore the various ways in which understanding of biblical stories (and their underlying theology) changed both within the canon of Scripture and in Christianity's subsequent history, and the implications of this for an adequate doctrine of Christian revelation. Topics include treatment of the patriarchs and the infancy narratives, and attitudes to suffering, to hell and to the Virgin Mary. Sometimes artistic illustrations were used as a means of exploring theological change (e.g. on the infancy narratives) and sometimes literary (as in the various retellings of the story of Job and his sufferings).

 

The two images above, both from c 1500, indicate the kind of issues with which I was concerned. Why do the Wise men of Matthew's Gospel become kings of different ages and with one of them almost invariably black? Why does the Descent into Hell remain for Orthodoxy the principal image for the Resurrection?

More recently, the theme of religious experience through culture has been examined in three volumes: God and Enchantment of Place (2004), God and Grace of Body (2007) and God and Mystery in Words (2008). In this case I have been concerned to argue that theology needs to take much more seriously the great range of human experience that was once seen as mediating the divine. So, as well as the traditional arts (painting, architecture, poetry and classical music) some attention is also given to topics such as food, sport, gardening, fashion and pop music.

All five are currently available from Oxford University Press or from Oxford Online.

2010, however, saw a return to my earlier interest in doctrine and philosophy with the publication of La tradition kénotique dans la théologie britannique, a study of the modern history of the idea of kenosis or divine self-limitation that also offers a defence of the notion. An English version followed in 2011, SCM being the publisher in Britain and Baylor University Press in the United States. While the subtitle differs, they share the same main title: Divine Humanity.

 

A Wider Context

I was also ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1977. While at Oxford as well as being a University Lecturer I acted as Chaplain of the College at which I was a Tutorial Fellow (Oriel). At Durham I was a Residentiary Canon of the city's magnificent Romanesque cathedral, in 2005 voted England's best-loved building. Although at St Andrews I no longer have any such major role, I continue to be involved in the life of the Church, especially the Scottish Episcopal Church.

I have always sought to integrate the priestly and academic aspects of my life. So to that end I served for over a decade as a member of the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England (for half of which time I was its Vice-Chair), and on various other church bodies, among them the Research Committee of the Church's Board's of Ministry, of which I was Chairman until 2007. I have always taken preaching seriously. Two books that were loosely based on that concern were The Word To Set You Free (1997) and, more recently, Through the Eyes of the Saints: A Pilgrimage through History (2005). I have also enjoyed advising on the details of aesthetic projects within Church life. While at Durham , for example, I was principal Canon responsible for the installation of three new stained glass windows, the re-ordering of Cuthbert's shrine, and two new altars with accompanying altar frontals and paintings, one in honour of St Hild and the other of St Margaret of Scotland.

An especially exciting but controversial commission was to ask the distinguished artist, Paula Rego (pictured), to provide a painting of St Margaret (1046-93). Although her work is widely known, this was her first religious commission in England. The asceticism of Margaret is frankly portrayed but also the inner strength that came with that asceticism and enabled her to direct her young son away from exclusive focus on the weapons of war (David I is famed as the founder of numerous Scottish abbeys).

 

Current Research

I am currently working on several articles on the relation between theology and the arts. As a result of the conference on my five OUP volumes in September 2010 I hope to embark on one last concluding volume that will include more formal consideration of the type of criteria I envisage being employed in this area. I am also general editor of a large volume entitled Durham Cathedral 993-2000: Community, Fabric and Culture. It is intended to be the definitive volume on the cathedral of which I was a Residentiary Canon for seventeen years.

I was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2002 (Britain's most prestigious body in the humanities and arts) and served on its Council (Governing Body) from 2008 to 2011. I am also a member of the Society for the Study of Theology, the British Society of the Philosophy of Religion, the Classical Association and the Association of Art Historians.