Renowned theologian Alistair McIntyre has died at the age of 96. I confess to hearing a lot about him but to never having read him - he should be on my to be read task list, especially his most famous book, After Virtue. An obituary is here. A reflection on his impact as a philosopher-theologian is here.
McIntyre's great thesis (as I understand it) is that the Western world has followed Kant and his ethical emphasis on individualism/individual rights to choose one's own best life to its peril; instead, taking a cue from Aristotle, ethics is both a communal and an historical matter, which does not begin with the Enlightenment, and includes concern for all not just for myself.
As a small anecdote (about a large demographic crisis) which - again, as I best understand things - illustrates where Kant's influence is at a kind of communal self-destructive zenith - with birthrates in many countries (not only in the West, also in Asia ... but not in Africa) well below replacement rates (NZ at 1.6 births per woman is one of a number of countries in similar situation), I was listening to a radio talkback session host trying to drum up listener engagement on this matter, and he cited a US survey of why people didn't want children and 57% said (from memory) Just because I don't.
Someone in my life who often mentioned Alistair McIntyre (along with other notable theologians such as Robert Jenson) was the Reverend Dr Bryden Black. Bryden, until a few years ago, was a regular commenter on Anglican Down Under. He was also a personal friend, a clerical colleague here in the Diocese, and a larger than life character with many luminous thoughts on a wide range of matters, not limited to theology and ecclesiology, because he owned a large sheep station in North Canterbury and thus had many things to say about the state of the economy, the weather and the quality of our political leaders.
Bryden died recently after a brief illness and his funeral will be at 1 pm Friday 6 June, 2025 at St. Christopher's church, Avonhead Road, Avonhead, Christchurch.
I will miss him!
This blog is Anglican Down Under which means a special interest in Anglican matters in the West Island. Having been earlier this year to the farewell for Philip Freier, the immediately past Archbishop of Melbourne, I have paid attention to the election of the next Archbishop. That election was held 22-23 May, this weekend past. On the slate were local candidates and one candidate from England. Since the latter was already a bishop - Ric Thorpe, Bishop of Islington in the Diocese of London, and bishop with responsibilty for supperoting church plants in the CofE - I wondered if he might do well in the election. My theory is that a bishop on an election slate has a head start since they already answer the question, Could this person be a bishop?, before getting to the question, Should this person be our bishop?
The result of the election is that Archbishop-elect Ric Thorpe will be the next Archbishop of Melbourne, with his installation being later this year.
I met Bishop Ric at Lambeth and enjoyed a brief conversation with him. Many Down Under Anglicans, as well as members of other denominations, will have had much longer conversations with him, since he has been a frequent visitor to these parts, speaking at conferences on church planting and like subjects.
For some media statements/reactions, try here, here, here and here.
5 comments:
"Bishop for church plants" sounds delightfully green
So sorry to hear about Bryden +Peter….
I didn't know Bryden but remember Bowman discussing him with great respect.
This morning I came across this link Peter, article published after you'd posted, about Alasdair MacIntyre and it was an interesting read being more personal, and also useful in conjunction with your "philosopher-theologian" link. The writer is "professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame." There's significant reference to Hauerwas too, e.g.
"Hauerwas was a Christian theologian whose work focused on theological ethics; MacIntyre was a philosopher sympathetic to theology, but he did not attempt to do theology himself. Each offered something of value to those of us working in religious ethics, or as we now say, theological ethics. And each one retains his power to shock, to open up possibilities for new ways of thinking about the moral life and our attempts to reflect seriously on what it means to be good or faithful."
Both articles are rather dense and challenging for me, at my level, to understand -but- my interest is piqued! Sometime I'd like to make an effort to learn more about MacIntyre and Hauerwas, and then perhaps understand the articles better.
https://www.christiancentury.org/features/alasdair-macintyre-retains-his-power-shock
I was sorry to learn here that Bryden has gone from us. I always enjoyed his perspectives and his lively mind (even if he was fonder of Barth than I would be), and he rightly discerned the directions that NZ Anglicanism was taking. IIRC, he studied in England and worked in Zimbabwe, so he had a good breadth of international experience of the Anglican and wider world. As he often said, the fish never thinks of the water it inhabits - until it goes bad, I imagine. Bryden understood what St Paul meant in Philippians 4.1, 'Stand firm thus in the Lord', and not to be shaken by the winds of 'doctrine' that really arise from an unbelieving culture and not from Holy Scripture.
To cite that most moving of Catullus's poems,
"in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale"
- except, as Lewis reportedly told Vanauken on that street in Oxford, Christians don't say goodbye.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
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