Austin Farrer was part of the extraordinary mid-20th century group of 'Oxford Christians', which also included C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien, Charles Williams and Dorothy Sayers. Described as 'the one genius that the Church of England produced' in the last century and 'author of incomparably the most interesting theological books ever to come out of Oxford', his great legacy is that his considerable learning expressed itself as practical spiritual direction. He believed that after all the argument, analysis and sifting of evidence, the purpose of theology was to show how to live and how to love. He died in 1968 and his many books are now out of print. Here is a thematically arranged anthology of his most influential writings with an extended introduction that assesses his contribution to Anglican life and through today.
Eminently quotable, Austin Farrer brings one 'round to the plain sense of things. He doesn't get caught up in himself or in language for the sake of language, not even in his sermons. Writing about St. Mark he says, 'Happy is the man who learns from his own failures. He certainly won't learn from anyone else's.' Farrer's three line reduction of Mark's Gospel is at once candid and astute: 'God gives you everything. Give everything to God. You can't.' Though he ends with a negative declaration, he clarifies by focusing on the power of failure to empty us--'It is not in us to follow Christ, it is Christ's gift.' A close friend of C.S. Lewis, Austin Farrer (1904-68) was a priest and college chaplain at Oxford, as well as an original thinker in the fields of biblical studies, theology and philosophy. He became an Anglican as an undergraduate and was ordained not long after. Described by the editors as 'a man with an unequalled intellectual and imaginative range,' Farrer famously described the arc of his work in creative terms: 'Scripture and metaphysics are equally my study, and poetry is my pleasure. These three things rubbing against one another in my mind, seem to kindle one another, and so I am moved to ask how this happens.' This reader is a collection of selections from his books, sermons, meditations and essays--the majority of which are out-of-print. Farrer's belief that reason was deeper than logic but also limited in the face of divine mystery put him at odds with his contemporaries but set him up as a prophetic figure in terms of his literary approach, his attention to Trinitarian theology, the engagement of contemporary philosophy with ancient and medieval thought, and his interest in the intersections of theology and spirituality.
Eminently quotable, Austin Farrer brings one 'round to the plain sense of things. He doesn't get caught up in himself or in language for the sake of language, not even in his sermons. Writing about St. Mark he says, 'Happy is the man who learns from his own failures. He certainly won't learn from anyone else's.' Farrer's three line reduction of Mark's Gospel is at once candid and astute: 'God gives you everything. Give everything to God. You can't.' Though he ends with a negative declaration, he clarifies by focusing on the power of failure to empty us--'It is not in us to follow Christ, it is Christ's gift.' A close friend of C.S. Lewis, Austin Farrer (1904-68) was a priest and college chaplain at Oxford, as well as an original thinker in the fields of biblical studies, theology and philosophy. He became an Anglican as an undergraduate and was ordained not long after. Described by the editors as 'a man with an unequalled intellectual and imaginative range,' Farrer famously described the arc of his work in creative terms: 'Scripture and metaphysics are equally my study, and poetry is my pleasure. These three things rubbing against one another in my mind, seem to kindle one another, and so I am moved to ask how this happens.' This reader is a collection of selections from his books, sermons, meditations and essays--the majority of which are out-of-print. Farrer's belief that reason was deeper than logic but also limited in the face of divine mystery put him at odds with his contemporaries but set him up as a prophetic figure in terms of his literary approach, his attention to Trinitarian theology, the engagement of contemporary philosophy with ancient and medieval thought, and his interest in the intersections of theology and spirituality.
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