Reviewed Book: Mascall, Eric Lionel. Saraband: The Memoirs of E L Mascall. Leominster, England: Gracewing, 1992

Erb, Peter C.

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 21Issue 2 Aspects of Ecumenity Article 1411-1-1995Saraband: The Memoirs of E L MascallPeter C. ErbFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationErb, Peter C. (1995) "Saraband: The Memoirs of E L Mascall," Consensus: Vol. 21 : Iss. 2 , Article 14.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol21/iss2/14Book Reviews 123of African religious values and Christianity to both survive and revolt inthe midst of gruelling oppression. Against their owners the slaves learnedto read so that they could use the Bible in radical ways. Their preachersheld services illegally in the quiet of the night where the slaves prayed andsang and called for freedom now and not just in the “sweet by and by”.The Exodus and Moses were central, and many of their own liberators, suchas Harriet Tubman, were called Moses. It was the slaves’ faith, in sharpcontrast to the faith of the elite, which encouraged hope for freedom andaction as well.Cut Loose Your Stammering Tongue is a pioneering work. It is part ofthe continuing resurrection of black theology which serves as a challenge tothe mainline approach of comfortable intellectualized and safe theology. Ihave no doubt that it will serve its community of choice very well. AlsoI hopfe'That white middle class Christians will read it and take up thechallenge to leave “the fleshpots of Egypt” and join the oppressed on theirrocky road to liberation.Oscar Cole ArnalWaterloo Lutheran SeminarySaraband: The Memoirs of E.L. MascallLeominster, Herfordshire: Gracewing, 1992 (Reprinted, 1995)X + 392 pp. $53.95When E.L. Mascall died at 87 on February 14, 1993, the Times’ grudg-ing obituary, in all likelihood, accurately reflected his status in the Churchof England, the philosophical establishment, and Great Britain generally;the obituary filled two full columns and included a photograph, but foundlittle to say of him other than that he was a “leading Anglo-Catholic. ..[an]Anglican to the fingertips [who] had an abiding loyalty to the Church inwhich he was brought up”. He “had resolved”, the Times insisted, not togo over to Rome, women priests or no women priests. “An academic ratherthan an administrator”, the Times continued, Mascall never achieved the“distinction his early academic attainments had seemed to promise”.Newspapers, of course, seldom provide useful reading for anyone otherthan those desperate to gain insights into whatever discourse is fashionableat the moment, and certainly the Times ’ obituary continued the best of thisFleet Street tradition. But the need for a reprint of a 400-page ramblingmemoir of an octogenarian semi-eccentric Thomist only three years after itsfirst printing demonstrates that not everyone is so certain that the dominantview of Mascall is the only one possible.Anglo-Catholic and Thomist, Mascall certainly was, but one must takecare not to read these adjectives as marks of inevitable desiccation. Con-cern for the maintenance of the Christian tradition carries with it a firm124 Consensuscommitment to faith as continuously seeking understanding, and Mascall’sThomism moved through his lifetime from the thoughtful Neo-Thomisticpositions of his He Who Is (London: Longmans, 1945) into positive reflec-tions on the work of Rahner and Lonergan in his Gifford lectures. The Open-ness of Being (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), as well as on ChristianTheology and Natural Science: Some Questions in their Relations (Ham-den, Conn.: Archon Books, 1965); Mascall, we must always remember, wastrained as a mathematician. Among his other works which still bear carefulscrutiny, although occasional pieces from the late 1970s, are his Theologyand the Gospel of Christ: An Essay in Reorientation (London: SPCK,1977) and the companion piece. Whatever happened to the Human Mind?Essays in Christian Orthodoxy (London: SPCK, 1980).One does not go to Mascall’s Memoirs to find in them the same depthone finds in the works already noted; one goes to them rather after havingread the earlier works for dinner conversation with a friend. They are notwell-integrated and although autobiographical are not an autobiography.They are memoirs, no more and no less. One might have wished thatMascall had said more about some issues, and although his obsession withBritish eccentrics is often humorous, the book might have done well withfewer such tales. One is not always certain that the length of a biography inthe piece is necessarily a mark of a character’s value or that all commentsare worth the stating, until one recognizes that every word guides the readerto become better acquainted with the character of the Memoirs himself—his laughter, his catholic tastes, and his final deep concern for the unityof Christendom. [Note on this topic his The Triune God: an EcumenicalStudy (Worthing: Churchman, 1986) and the earlier The Recovery of Unity:A Theological Approach (London: Longmans, 1958).]Not every press would have risked a book of this size and most wouldhave administered a much heavier editorial hand—I among others ampleased that Gracewing (Fowler Wright Books, distributed in Canada byMeakin and Associates, Nepean, Ont.) chose to allow the last words,whether they always be necessary or not, to this author.Peter C. ErbWilfrid Laurier UniversityThe Genesis of God: A Theological GenealogyThomas J.J. AltizerLouisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993200 pp.In this highly original work, the chief exponent of “death of God” the-ology reconstructs the Deity’s origin. Perhaps best known for The Gospel

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Saraband: The Memoirs of E L Mascall

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