Cuttlefish, Clones and Clusterbombs

Michael S. Northcott, Darton, Longman &Todd

This collection of sermons, 32 in all, preached over the years 1999-2008, cover the whole of the Lectionary year, although no one particular lectionary year is featured. The majority of sermons carry a gospel text.

As the book’s sub-title suggests, the sermons touch on Christianity, politics and ecology.

For those interested, the theology which shapes the sermons is neo-orthodox — which is somewhat typical of those primarily shaped by European theology and the works of Karl Barth and others.

Northcott, when he is not preaching, is professor of ethics within the Divinity School of the University of Edinburgh and a priest of the Anglican (Episcopal) Church.

Allowing for the fact that a sermon is an oral/aural form of communication, these full text versions are published (both on the internet and in book form) to be read, not heard. And that’s a different setting altogether.

While the sermon topics are current, his language is very traditional, the juxtaposition of which jars somewhat.

It was the Introduction, which expounds his “theology of preaching”, that I found to be more interesting.

The Rev. Rex A. E. Hunt