Abstract
Helen Oppenheimer, Christian Faith for Handing On, Cascade Books: Eugene, Oreg., 2013; 172 pp.: 9781625642349, £12.00/$16.00 (pbk)
Lady Helen Oppenheimer has been ‘handing on’ through most of her life. As an exemplary teacher of Christian faith, she well understands what it means to learn from the Lord and to hand on what she has received to others who would follow. Evident in her many books, articles and talks is her ability to bend low so that people may see what she sees and hear what she hears, and in that way be drawn into the presence of the One beyond themselves who beckons. There is no edge to her writing. She does not intrude on the reader but allows the gentle flow of words to speak for themselves and to lead her readers into deeper contemplation of the mysteries of human life and of what it is that awaits us. In reading this book, I was struck by the many proverbs of which its pages are comprised, one after another, each an individual gem that bears rolling around in the mind to let it ramify in one's own understanding, each one then to be savoured. O taste and see. Overall, her rhetoric is confessional, laying bare the things essential to a living faith, or in a figure of speech continuously found in her own thinking – letting what matters come to matter, in herself as in the one who would be taught.
Three sections of this book stand out. The first, all the more striking for the humility of its delivery, is the ‘summary version of Christian teaching’ begun on page 62. Here is a pocket catechism worthy of serious attention by any who would preach or teach. Memorize it, so that its many insights are ready to hand. Then there is Oppenheimer's scholarly account of Christian ethics in chapters 15 and 16. Again these sections bear their erudition so lightly it might easily be missed how carefully she weaves her way through hugely contentious and thought-provoking questions with a gracious confidence that awakens trust. Her own love for things human is manifest on every page as she hands on the breadth of God's love for all humanity and God's own desire for human flourishing both now and in time to come in a kingdom of peace. For she witnesses to a God who stoops low to be born as one of us, so that we might come to know God and thereby discover our own most true humanity. The final chapters are an extended reflection on the significance of God's Fatherhood that is almost unparalleled in contemporary theological writing. In a world awash with sordid, brutal and unedifying accounts of men's behaviour, her words are uplifting, bringing to mind the most tender forbearance and profound dignity that God has bestowed on earthly fathers, and calling forth an exalted understanding of divine mercy.
A book then itself to be handed on – to those you love, to teachers and preachers, to any who long for the truth that will set them free.