The End of the Church?: Conversations with the Work of David Jasper

​In the course of a career that combined scholarship with ordained ministry, David Jasper has influenced, inspired, challenged and encouraged many students and colleagues. In The End of the Church?, fourteen scholars capture some of David Jasper’s energy in contributions that signal continuing development and exploration.

The End of the Church? seeks to indicate the ambiguity and creative tension in Jasper’s relationship with the institution he has served as a priest and as a theologian. On the one hand, he has lamented its institutional myopia; on the other he has loved its capacity to express something of the beauty, truth and mystery of God.

While resolutely honest about their challenges, David Jasper has been indefatigable in making the desert places of modernity spiritually fertile. He does so by drawing deep interconnections between theology, the arts, worship, politics, and the earth. He also connects people. The legacy of his capacity to make such connections is everywhere evident in this inspiring book—not least in the people who have written it, and their shared link to David. The depth of the interconnections he explores is what will ensure the enduring value of his work; his bold theology is as much about new beginnings as about ends.

— Ben Quash, King’s College London

It is hard to think of a modern thinker who has done more than David Jasper to help us explore the relationship between theology, the arts, and the Church. David’s contributions, through his writing, supervision, academic community building, and work as a priest, range powerfully across the critical, the creative, and the constructive. His tireless efforts to probe the limits of theological language and invite others into that rich conversation are captured beautifully by the contributors to this thoughtful and stimulating collection of essays.

— Mark Knight, Lancaster University

David Jasper has forged a path in the study of theology and literature marked in true complementarity by responsive theological acuity and wide-ranging literary sensibility.  He has been and remains a major voice in a longstanding, hallmark endeavor in interdisciplinary scholarship on religion.  His work merits the rich care and consideration afforded by this exemplary collection of essays.

— Richard A. Rosengarten, The University of Chicago Divinity School