J. C. Fenton (1921–2008)

This is the book that some Perth Anglicans have been waiting for. It was completed while Canon Fenton was visiting scholar at St George’s Cathedral in 1995. It’s worth the wait.

Finding the Way through Mark is a fresh and engaging way to become better acquainted with the Gospel of St Mark. However, its simple style is deceptive, because Fenton helps the reader realise the radical nature of the gospel as Mark understands it. The book is easy to read, but its message is not always easy to swallow.

Canon Fenton describes the disciples as complete failures at being disciples. They simply don’t get it: The comment on Chapter 8 is typical:
The disciples are as blind and deaf and dumb and forgetful as the Pharisees. They do not use their minds. They have been given fourteen miracles. .... But still they worry about bread. (page 46).
Even at the end of the story, they still get it wrong. The women shouldn’t have come to the tomb; they shouldn’t have expected to anoint his body: they had been told that he would rise again. The young man tells them to go and re-tell this message to Peter and the others. The women disobey. They run away, trembling with amazement.

The implication of this is clear: a disciple needs to learn how to be a disciple not by following the attempts of other disciples, but by keeping our eyes firmly on the actions of God.

Discipleship is the opposite of the expected. Keeping your eyes on Jesus in order to follow him means going the same way of “humiliation, shame and contempt” (page 62). The gospel is a hand-book on how to destroy yourself ... in order to find life.

John Fenton continues to press the paradoxes and question the way we have received the Gospel. The effect of this is to impel the reader back into the Gospel text itself. The Gospel must be a surprise to us, or it has lost its force. “The good news,” he declares, “must be more than we can accept.” (page 121).

Fenton’s commentary on the Transfiguration underlines these themes, and illustrates the clarity of his writing. The disciples, especially Peter, make the mistake of trying to honour all three figures on the mountain by wanting to build shelters for each of them. They could not have been more wrong, because “[t]he story ends with the disappearance of Elijah and Moses, and the continuing presence of Jesus only; that is how it is to be from now on.” (page 56) Indeed!

I found it refreshing to be dragged back by such enthusiasm to the text of the Gospel, and to be challenged again by the question of what it is to really be a disciple of Jesus.

I enjoyed the crisp British humour of Canon Fenton, and his uncluttered style. I appreciated something of the skill involved in the way he takes account of the tradition of commentaries and the intricacies of modern Biblical scholarship, and yet explains vividly and simply the heart of the Gospel.

The blurb on the back cover is somewhat patronising, suggesting that the readership of this book will have “no previous knowledge of biblical criticism”. I think it certainly would be accessible to the non-technical reader, but is of equal value to those who have studied scriptural scholarship. It models a way in which preachers can communicate the depth of challenge and insight in the Gospel with integrity and humanity without compromising the tools of scholarship.

I won’t be giving back my review copy for a while. I want to savour this book further.

Review first published in The Anglican Messenger (Perth, Australia) 1996

(c) Ted Witham… (meer)