Abstract
Nigel Biggar has drawn together the contents of his Didsbury Lectures in Manchester into four explorations of topics concerning the nation-state and its rivals, a theme which, as he rightly observes, has bounced back into prominence after being written off a generation ago. A chapter on nationalism and its limitations, in which, as may be expected, he has something to say about the current situation in his native Scotland, is followed by a reflection on the constitution of English nationality, which lays a surprising emphasis on the role of a national church. The question of international order and the conditions of going to war in an age of the United Nations occupies the third chapter, while the fourth seeks to disembarrass the historical reality of empire of the automatic charge of ‘imperialism’.
The manner in which these topics are addressed is relaxed, prepared to roam, full of good sense, and the book has the flavour of a serious after-dinner conversation. Biggar is a theologian who reads the newspapers closely, and then reads some more, and can usually remind us of a detail we had forgotten or a document we had missed. He is interested in history, and slips comfortably between the liberation of Kosovo and the American revolution, touching down en route on Gladstone’s Sudan disaster and Dublin in 1916. His opinions are often forceful, and glory in their unfashionability, but the purpose is not so much to make a case as to demolish one or two. His ruling aim is to leave open questions open; his targets are ideological simplifications.
We may sometimes be puzzled, however, as to what distinguishes his contribution to these themes as a theological one. The use of theological sources is only occasional, and rather at arm’s length. Christian love does not rule out proximate loyalties, including loyalties to national entities, we are told. Scholars who represent Jesus as an anti-imperialist have allowed their regnant United States ideology to get the better of them. Which may indeed be so, but is it not curious for a theologian to discuss empire without once touching on the reflections on that topic which the author of the Apocalypse drew from the book of Daniel?
The opening section on the theoretical status of the nation is the weakest part of the book. To spare his Manchester audience the abstractions of politico-theological theory and get as quickly as possible into the excitement of arguing hard cases, the whole account of what a nation is has been left underdeveloped, and it is here that theology could really have made a difference. May we hope for a more developed statement before long?