Reading John B. Webster (1955-2016)

Series Introduction

By now most readers of this blog will be aware of the sudden passing of Prof. John Webster on May 25, 2016.  John was a mentor and a friend to all four of us who contribute to Out of Bounds (all of us having been supervised by him during our doctoral studies in Aberdeen), and so far we have chosen to deal with our grief privately.

What we would like to do here on the blog in the weeks and months to come, though, is to share John’s work and his theological insights with you.  Some readers may be intimately familiar with his oeuvre; others may have come across his work from time to time; and still others may be brand new to his theological project – one that unfortunately must remain unfinished.  John had a dozen or so books published (including three brand new essay collections on God and God’s Word) and countless essays, stretching from Eberhard Jüngel and Karl Barth to the doctrine of Scripture, ecclesiology, the idea of sanctification, and most especially the doctrine of the Triune God as the fountainhead of all theological thought.

Watch for an on-going series of posts in this blog’s future, and please share in the comments about how John’s work has impacted you.  One idea for the future is for us to host an online reading group through one of John’s books.  If that is of interest to you please post below.  (In the meantime the folks at Mere Orthodoxy are currently talking about a group read-through of Holiness [Eerdmans, 2003].)

Together we continue to engage John’s ideas, to give them a wide hearing, to give thanks for his decades of ministering the gospel, and to remember together that it is only by the grace of God that each of us has the privilege of being a working theologian on the earth for still one more day.

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