- Title
- Donald Mackinnon: extraordinary theologian of the ordinary
- Creator
- McDowell, John C.
- Relation
- Philosophy and the Burden of Theological Honesty: A Donald McKinnon Reader p. 7-14
- Relation
- http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/philosophy-and-the-burden-of-theological-honesty-9780567604286/
- Publisher
- T & T Clark International
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2011
- Description
- It has been often remarked that Donald MacKenzie MacKinnon (1913-94) has been one of the most influential twentieth-century theologians in the United Kingdom - in England in particular. In fact, in his tribute to MacKinnon, Fergus Kerr regards him as having been 'by far the most influential British theologian of the twentieth century'. Yet while it is the case that a list of those who have learned directly from him reads like a veritable theological 'Who's Who' of British theologians, he remains both relatively little read and little studied. Given his unsystematic approach and his preference for the essay, the occasional paper and the book review, this lack of study of MacKinnon may well be an appropriate testimony to what George Steiner terms 'Donald's genius'. These papers are themselves stylistic expressions of MacKinnon's refusal to engage in providing simplistic systems. On the other hand, the dearth of critical attention is equally misplaced. When his name is mentioned it is frequently in order to amuse with the legion of weird and wonderful stories of eccentricity of a larger-than-life character. Nonetheless, paying attention to his writing might still yield discovery of a method of inquiry that sharpens one's own intellectual investigation and encourages the kind of intellectual reasoning and conversation that many find all too rarely occur in the contemporary West, with the increasing particularization and professionalization of discourses, and the reduction of public discourse to the banal, trivial and shallow. The testimonies to his genius endorse MacKinnon's deep erudition, his penetrating engagement with the particular, his concern with matters of social and political justice, and his almost tortured sense of honesty and examination. This is MacKinnon's extraordinariness.
- Subject
- Donald Mackinnon; modern theology; British theology; ecclesiastical discourse
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1045952
- Identifier
- uon:14551
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780567022165
- Language
- eng
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