Overview

What might a notion of ‘sainthood’ look like, radically purged of any spirit of propagandist church ideology? In Sublime Virtue, theologian Andrew Shanks demonstrates a vibrant new approach to investigating this question by analysing representations of sainthood in the work of twelve novelists – a ‘secular canon’, divested of the unhelpful trappings of institutional religious culture and tradition. The book explores virtues of sainthood as presented in the works of George Eliot, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikos Kazantzakis, Yiyun Li, Colson Whitehead, André Schwarz-Bart, Georges Bernanos, Marilynne Robinson, Morris West, Graham Greene, Shusaku Endo and Ford Madox Ford.

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9781915412287

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'Andrew Shanks is one of the most radically original theologians I know: his writing is invariably a summons to greater integrity and bolder imagination. This book examines what the idea of holiness does and doesn't mean, and is a model of depth, engagement and insight. A wonderful book.' -- Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury ‘All too often the Church has used sainthood as a propaganda device to market its wares. What if saints – rather like the God they reveal – are simply too strange and too unruly to be used as marketing tools for “authorised” holiness? That’s just one of the questions Andrew Shanks addresses in this wonderfully troubling and original study of literature’s genius for exposing the inner workings of grace, of human failure, and our capacity for the sublime. These bracing, witty and perceptive readings of what Shanks calls “sacramental novels” will lead you not only to see them with fresh eyes, but to reconsider your conception of sainthood.’ -- Rachel Mann, Archdeacon of Salford and Bolton ‘Andrew Shanks is as bracing and prophetic as always in this deft and original analysis of the nature of sainthood as exemplified in the modern novel from George Eliot’s Middlemarch to the horrors of Yiyum Li’s The Vagrants. We are called to recognise a sublime virtue combining the disruptive energy of Amos, with the accepting compassion of Isaiah’s suffering servant. Those of us within institutions need to listen to his uncompromising voice.’ -- Alison Milbank, Professor of Theology and Literature, University of Nottingham

Author Information

is Canon Emeritus of Manchester Cathedral, retired, having been the residentiary Canon Theologian between 2004 and 2014. He was ordained priest in 1981 and has since served various roles in the Church of England and academic teaching roles including spells at the universities of Lancaster, Leeds and Manchester. He has written a number of specific theological works, most recently Theodicy Beyond the Death of ‘God’ (Routledge, 2018).

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