. . .  Jenson is an American (to be exact, a Minnesota Lutheran of Norwegian extraction, and of the “high church” variety). It is a prejudice widely held—but by no people more fervently than by Americans themselves—that it is not our calling as a nation to indulge in “primary discourse.” It is all well and good for an American theologian to write at length about (for instance) what German theologians might have to say about the Trinity, but it is something altogether different for him to write too boldly about the Trinity as such. We would not usually—as a rule—presume. Another reason, perhaps, is Jenson’s inveterate and perverse refusal to be dull. His books are not buttressed (as we know such things should be) by long, ponderous, Teutonic prolegomena on method or on critical history or on the status quaestionis; his scholarly apparatus rarely exceed what is necessary to support his assertions and are almost ascetically devoid of needless displays of exhaustive erudition; his method and peculiar concerns are typically disclosed in the act of theology itself, on the wing, and he tends to say what he wishes to say once only, and as concisely as he can.

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 9/24/2006 7:58:23 PM (GMT-5)