The Vision of God Paperback Edition By Kenneth E. Kirk Concentrating on the development of the ascetic tradition in Christianity, this book aims to provide a reasoned justification for the centrality of worship in Christian life, within the context of moral theology and ecclesiastical history. ISBN-13: 9780227679180 Specifications: 216x135mm, 224pp, Paperback Price: £15.00 • US$32.50 Publication: December 1990 Order this Title Now

About this Book

These, Bishop Kirk's Bampton Lectures of 1928, have been recognised as amongst the most important and readable works of moral theology published in the twentieth century. They provide a reasoned justification for the centrality of worship in Christian life, within the context of moral theology and ecclesiastical history. Concentrating on the development of ascetical theology in the early church, Kirk asks, "Are rigorism, self-abnegation and world-flight no more than obsolete ideals of other days, or have they too an underlying principle of which the Church and the Christian are still in need?"

Despite the massive learning on which it is based, Kirk's study of the Christian doctrine of the summum bonum never loses its way in a labyrinth of detail.

Reviews and Comments

"We have never read any theological work which has a more direct bearing on practical problems of ecclesiastical statesmanship and religious policy."
Times Literary Supplement

"A great book."
Expository Times

About the Author

Kenneth E. Kirk was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Sheffield, and St. John’s College, Oxford. After serving as a chaplain in France and Flanders during World War I, he returned to Oxford to become Tutor at Keble College, Fellow at Magdalen College, Fellow and Chaplain of Trinity, and in 1933 Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology. He was Bishop of Oxford from 1937 until his death in 1954.

Other titles available by Kenneth E. Kirk:
Conscience and its Problems: An Introduction to Casuistry