Identity: Society and Church

"Vernon White can be relied on to bring illumination to most topics. In this book he addresses the neglected notion of faithfulness. (...) There is a particularly good account of the relationship of roles to identity, which notes that faithfulness can accomodate roles that are not fixed, through their integration into 'creative continuities' and an overarching narrative tradition. We are warned against a flase faithfulness that fossilizes relationships and oppresses its victims. (...) I was particularly taken by his chapter on 'practices of work'. He faces down much of the spurious rhetoric of corporate loyalty as short term, insecure and driven by economics, and thus providing merely 'a semblance of solidarity to replace the real solidarities of occupational, career or class belonging'." Jeff Astley, Durham, THEOLOGY, November-December 2003. "White rehearses just enough background to let you know how he is building his case. He is both biblically and philosophically well read and his style remains fluid and free of unnecessary details or repetition. (...) This book is a remarkable and largely successful plea for our society to return to the meta-narrative; to reject the individualism that tends to fragment identity into a series of separate desires and experiences unconnected to each other except perhaps by 'personal goal or ambition.' White speaks of the 'largely unprovable' and 'often hidden' joys that can be the reward of faithfulness but he is no optimist that present society has eyes to see them or ears to listen to them." Sturat Penny, Keswick, ANVIL Volume 21 No 2 2004.

Vernon White is visiting professor in the department of Theology & Religious Studies at King's College, London, and Senior Fellow of the Westminster Abbey Institute. He is the author of a number of books of moral and philosophical theology, most recently Purpose and Providence (2015/2018).