This has just been published by Wipf and Stock! (June, 2019)
In the companion volume to this, Resurrection in Retrospect, the focus was on the inadequacies for faith in Jesus Christ of an approach to his Resurrection purely as an event of past historical time. This book attempts to articulate an alternative understanding of resurrection faith essentially as a response of trust based upon a knowledge by acquaintance with the living presence of Christ today. After all, we do not have to prove that the Sydney Opera House was built and opened on 20 October 1973 in order actively to participate in and enjoy the form of life that currently goes on in it.
As a work of Systematic Theology, by contrast with New Testament Studies, The Reconstruction of Resurrection Belief seeks therefore to articulate an understanding of the nature of resurrection faith in the language of today, with as much logical coherence as possible, in the hope that it may have some traction in the increasingly secular world of contemporary scientific materialism. It faces the key challenge of seeking to explain how the claim that the animating Spirit of the Christian community that St Paul spoke of as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8.2) may be justifiably identified in faith today as “the living presence of Jesus of Nazareth.”
