Apr232023
Book excerpt

Years ago, we produced a small brochure to introduce the work of MARS HILL AUDIO. On the front panel were the words: “CREATION is a gift of God. CULTURE is the way we receive and honor that gift.”

The celebration of Easter is an occasion to rejoice in the life and hope effected by Christ’s resurrection. But it is not a life or a hope that turns its back on creation or culture. In Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics (Eerdmans, 1986), Oliver O’Donovan argued that the fact of the resurrection is the foundation for Christian ethical deliberation (and, I would add, for Christian thinking about culture):

“ . . . [B]ecause it is a reversal of Adam’s decision to die, the resurrection of Christ is a new affirmation of God’s first decision that Adam should live, an affirmation that goes beyond and transforms the initial gift of life: ‘The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit’ (I Cor. 15:45). The work of the Creator who made Adam, who brought into being an order of things in which humanity has a place, is affirmed once and for all by this conclusion. It might have been possible, we could say, before Christ rose from the dead, for someone to wonder whether creation was a lost cause. If the creature consistently acted to uncreate itself, and with itself to uncreate the rest of creation, did this not mean that God’s handiwork was flawed beyond hope of repair? It might have been possible before Christ rose from the dead to answer in good faith, Yes. Before God raised Jesus from the dead, the hope that we call ‘gnostic’, the hope for redemption from creation rather than for the redemption of creation, might have appeared to be the only possible hope. ‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead . . .’ (I Cor. 15:20). That fact rules out those other possibilities, for in the second Adam the first is rescued. The deviance of his will, its fateful leaning towards death, has not been allowed to uncreate what God created.”

Later, O’Donovan insists: “Man’s life on earth is important to God; he has given it its order; it matters that it should conform to the order he has given it. Once we have grasped that, we can understand too how this order requires of us both a denial of all that threatens to become disordered and a progress towards a life which goes beyond this order without negating it. But when the gospel is preached without a resurrection (as it was preached by the romantic idealists more or less throughout the nineteenth century), then, of course, the cross and the ascension, collapsed together without their centre, become symbols for a gnostic other-worldliness.”

Having quoted 1 Corinthians 15:23, O’Donovan comments: “The sign that God has stood by his created order implies that this order, with mankind in its proper place in it, is to be totally restored at the last.”

Happy Easter!

Related reading and listening

  • The fatal polytheism of late liberalism — Oliver O’Donovan on the failure that leads to social collapse, marked by conflict, suspicion, and violence
  • Insisting that political leaders are incapable of obeying Christ — Oliver O’Donovan on the unintended consequences of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
  • The gift of objective reality — Moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan makes an argument for the consistency of the idea of law when it is conceived in a theological context. (40 minutes)
  • Freedom as conformity to reality — W. Bradford Littlejohn summarizes the definitions of liberty offered by Richard Bauckham and Oliver O’Donovan
  • The sovereignty of love — In this 2022 lecture, Oliver O’Donovan explains the historical background — and present consequences — of the assertion by Jesus of two great commands. (67 minutes)
  • O’Donovan, Oliver — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Oliver O’Donovan held teaching posts at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and Wycliffe College Toronto before becoming Regius Professor of Moral & Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christ Church at the University of Oxford in 1982.
  • Why kings are compelling — Historian Francis Oakley describes how the modern idea of “secular” politics is a striking departure in human history. (32 minutes)
  • Conscience seared with a red-hot iron — Oliver O’Donovan on the convicting role of a good conscience
  • Religion within the bounds of citizenship — In a 2006 lecture, Oliver O’Donovan argues that the conventional way of describing Western civil society creates obstacles to the participation of believers (Muslim, Christian, and other). (68 minutes)
  • The purpose of government and God’s eternal purpose — Philip Turner on understanding the state in light of the eschatological reality of the Church
  • Politics in light of the Ascension — Oliver O’Donovan on the necessity of situating all political authority within redemptive history
  • A foretaste of the kingdom of God — Oliver O’Donovan on the sovereignty of love
  • Loving relationships in community — In conversation with moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan, and with readings from his book, Entering into Rest, Ken Myers explores a central theme in O’Donovan’s work: that we are created to enjoy loving relationships in community. (27 minutes)
  • The first virtue of citizenship: Taking the law seriously — Oliver O’Donovan reflects on how the reality of the Kingship of Christ must be affirmed as a present reality
  • Reasoning about values — Revisiting a 1974 text that examined the mutual animosities of the 1960s
  • “Whose kingdom shall have no end” — Oliver O’Donovan and his mentor, George B. Caird, offer lessons from the book of Revelation for thinking about politics
  • The social context of freedom — Brad Littlejohn talks about the necessity of a more expansive understanding of freedom, one which recognizes that we are really only free within the social experience of shared meaning and mutual recognition. (17 minutes)
  • Impact of “infotainment” on community — From 1999 Journal interviews, Neal Gabler and C. John Summerville discuss how the mentalities conveyed by our experience with communications media work against the nurturing of community. Ken Myers also reads related excerpts from George Steiner and Oliver O’Donovan. (33 minutes)
  • The Kingdom of God and the kings of the earth — In a 90-minute conversation with Matthew Lee Anderson and Ken Myers, Oliver O’Donovan explains some of the central themes of his work in political theology. (91 minutes)
  • Learning about the meaning of government — In a telephone conversation during COVID-19 lockdowns, Oliver O’Donovan talks about lessons we can learn about the proper role of government from our experience of pandemics and quarantine. (51 minutes)
  • Ethics as Theology, Volume 2 — Drawing from St. Augustine and figures such as Aelred of Rievaulx, Oliver O’Donovan describes how the Church, communication, community, and friendship all significantly contribute to how we understand the role of love in both ethical and political reflection. (52 minutes)
  • Ethics as Theology, Volume 1 — Moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan discusses the first two volumes of his three-volume set, Ethics as Theology. Among other topics, he reflects on the significance of the thinking moral subject as well as what form of moral inadequacy the “life of the flesh” suggests. (58 minutes)
  • The inevitability of escalating public animosity — With excerpts from books and lectures by Alasdair MacIntyre, Oliver O’Donovan, and Wendell Berry, Ken Myers argues that modern political theory has guaranteed increasing levels of public conflict. (19 minutes)
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 138 — FEATURED GUESTS: John Milbank, Adrian Pabst, Glenn W. Olsen, Rupert Shortt, Oliver O’Donovan, David Bentley Hart
  • Oliver O’Donovan on ethics as theology — Oliver O’Donovan explains how moral deliberation always occurs in anticipation of the eschatological fulfillment of redemption. (9 minutes)
  • The leaning tower of gabble — Oliver O’Donovan on how authority and language connect us with reality and thus sustain community
  • Discerning the spirit of the age — Oliver O’Donovan on the difficult but essential task of reading our times
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 133 — FEATURED GUESTS: Darío Fernández-Morera, Francis Oakley, Oliver O’Donovan, Thomas Storck, John Safranek, Brian Brock, and George Marsden
  • The body’s goodness (and beyond) — Oliver O’Donovan on what the erotic body is for
  • Command and liberation — Oliver O’Donovan on the freedom of living under authority
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 127 — FEATURED GUESTS: Christopher Shannon, Kevin Vanhoozer, Oliver O’Donovan, Rebecca DeYoung, Thomas Forrest Kelly, and Calvin Stapert
  • The rulers of the world bowed before Christ’s throne — Oliver O’Donovan on Christendom and the Church’s mission
  • How communities remember who they are — Oliver O’Donovan on the necessity of tradition in sustaining communal identity
  • How the Church promotes the cause of freedom — Oliver O’Donovan: “We discover we are free when we are commanded by that authority which commands us according to the law of our being, disclosing the secrets of the heart.”
  • Civil religion and other forms of cultural captivity — Oliver O’Donovan on the danger of accommodating the demands of the Gospel to the expectations of society
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