Contemporary Christian theology through Literature: An interview with David Jasper

David Jasper is Professor of Literature and Theology and Associate Dean for Postgraduates at the University of Glasgow. He was founder of the Conference on Literature and Religion at Durham University in 1980. Since then a series of international meetings have been organized every other year by the conference, which becomes the cradle for the inter-disciplined study of literature and theology in contemporary Europe. David Jasper himself is, therefore, one of the most distinguished scholars of this field from Europe. His publications are abundant and among his masterpieces are The Sacred Desert Religion, Literature, Art and Culture (2004) and A Short Introduction to Hermeneutics (2004). His recent research focuses on such topics as "From Modemism to Postmodernism " ( 2003), From Inter-discipline to Multidiscipline" ( 2003), " Literature: Critical Theory and Religious Studies" ( 2004), and "The Study of Literature and Theology" (2007). David Jasper is also editor of a series of books and journals, such as Studies in Literature and Religion, of which thirty volumes have been published by Macmillan, and the journal, Literature and, Theology. This interview took place after the summer institute on "Theology, Sinology and Cultural Studies" in Wenzhou, China, at which Jasper delivered a lecture entitled " Contemporary Christian Theology through the Arts and Culture. " The interview is an extension of that lecture focusing more on the relationship between theology and postmodernist literature. According to Jasper, the meta-narrative of the Bible as a legitimating and unifying force is disintegrated on the one hand, so new ways should be adopted to "do theology. " On the other hand there exist some similarities between Christian theology and postmodernism. Therefore, postmodernism is not a turn away from religion, but a return to certain very ancient religious ways. In either case, literature provides modem people with "a space" to revise their thinking and perception.