Speak Thus

In its various forms, speech is absolutely integral to the Christian mission. The gospel is a message, news that must be passed on if it is to be known by others. Nevertheless, the reality of God cannot be exhausted by Christian knowledge and Christian knowledge cannot be exhausted by our words. All the while, the philosophy of modernity has left Christianity an impoverished inheritance within which to think these things.

In Speak Thus, Craig Hovey explores the possibilities and limits of Christian speaking. At times ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical, these essays go to the heart of what it means to be the church today. In practice, the Christian life often has a linguistic shape that surprisingly implicates and reveals the commitments of people like those who care for the sick or those who respond as peacemakers in the face of violence. Because learning to speak one way as opposed to another is a skill that must be learned, Christian speakers are also guides who bear witness to the importance of churches for passing on a felicity with Christian ways of speaking.

Through constructive engagements with interlocutors like Ludwig Wittgenstein, George Lindbeck, Jeffrey Stout, Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, Thomas Aquinas, and the theology of Radical Orthodoxy, Hovey offers a challenging vision of the church--able to speak with a confidence that only comes from a deep attentiveness to its own limitations, while also able to speak prophetically in a world weary of words.

""Craig Hovey offers us a book of Christian manners. Just as manners are the skills and practices we require to be equally at home in many social contexts, so Hovey shows how the gospel equips us to be equally at home wherever the mission of God takes us, because we are always at home with the Lord. Hovey maintains Christians have not been told what to say, but have instead been shown how to speak. In this book he continues his emergence as one of the most profound and penetrating scrutinizersof what it means to speak, witness, and confess to the Christian faith. To read this book is a masterclass in learning to speak simple truth amid a cacophony of contemporary cleverness.""
--Reverend Canon Dr. Sam Wells
Dean of the Chapel, Duke University; Research Professor of Christian Ethics

""Hovey's finely crafted collection of essays --both persuasive and contentious--manages to combine great clarity with nuance. Apparently opposed positions are exposed as sharing common presuppositions, with Hovey frequently being able to provide an alternative positive conception or perspective. In an un-showy but impressive way, Hovey's writing is richly informed by the tradition and practices to which he is committed. The voice that emerges is passionate, urgent and wry.""
--Christopher Insole, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University


CRAIG R. HOVEY (PhD, University of Cambridge) teaches religion and ethics at the University of Redlands and Fuller Theological Seminary Extension in Southern California. He is the author of To Share in the Body (2008).