Abstract
The nature and quality of the relationship of the individual or group to God in Christ is a perennial concern in the Christian tradition. How we relate to Christ and, in turn, how Christ regards each of us are dialogical concerns and reflective of some of the core questions of faith: Who is God? What is God like? Who am I to God? While propositional belief is implied in these questions, they are also deeply relational questions. This is the starting place for Teresa Morgan’s theological investigation in The New Testament and the Theology of Trust: This Rich Trust.
From the outset of this work, Morgan presents that the core argument of this study is “the recovery of trust as a central theme in Christian theology” (1), which builds on her 2015 study of pistis language in Roman Trust and Christian Trust (Oxford University Press). Through a serious exploration of the New Testament writings and dialogue with contemporary philosophical and psychological theories of trust, she seeks to “draw out the theological implications of ‘trust’” (3) as a vital strand of early Christian theological development and as historically and theologically foundational to Christian faith. Pistis language is more relational than our interpretive traditions might suppose, trust is more central to our theology than it is perhaps given credit, and this relational trust has deeply penetrating implications for Christian spiritual formation.
After setting up conversation partners in contemporary philosophy, psychology, and theology, Morgan moves masterfully through the New Testament writings to develop a cohesive argument for the importance of relational trust by developing a line of reasoning that (a) God is trustworthy, (b) the faithful are called to trust Jesus and trust in Jesus as they trust God and trust in God (just as Jesus himself trusted God), (c) God’s work in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was a uniquely powerful trust-(re)building action, and (d) the faithful are, in Christ, entrusted by God with the outworking of the gospel. This argument has much relevance not just for the theological study of the New Testament but also for the practical work of formation and discipleship of faithful Christians in the Church.
Among the unique contributions Morgan makes in this book is her resounding emphasis on the relational nature of trust, and particularly how this lens reimagines the mechanics of trust. She presents two working models of trust early on in the book while developing a working definition of trust (22). Two-place trust is, in a sense, one trusting someone to be who they are or to act in alignment with their character, while the three-place trust model is concerned with one trusting someone to deliver or follow-through on something. Throughout the book these working models of trust are revisited, but she clearly articulates in the second chapter that “Trusting in God has always involved accepting that God enacts God’s will, not necessarily that of human beings” (92).
The practice of trusting God to be Godself even when we experience loss, setback, failure, or pain is a vital concern in pastoral ministry and in the formation of resilient faith. The loss of a child, a terminal diagnosis, or the instability of job loss all create a sense of disorientation because a reliance on care from God highlights unexplored expectations of provision, protection, and safety. Her emphasis on the relational nature of pistis language could be read as implicitly prioritizing a two-place model (e.g., trusting God to be who God will be and to enact God’s will), which presents an avenue for exploration in discipleship and formation that can gently work on the often highly specific, deeply personal, and profoundly hidden expectations that people bring to bear on the divine-human relationship.
Perhaps the most significant contribution from a systematics perspective is Morgan’s proposal for an atonement theory rooted in relational trust. In her construction, “Christ allows himself to be taken and crucified because he cannot be other than he is: wholly trusting of God to make possible what God plans, in any circumstance” and that, in this, Christ trusts God even in his death and “trusts humanity to be able to come to trust even after death” (192). This conception of atonement is markedly different because of what it enables naturally when interacting with those who either have been victimized or are powerless. As an extension of therapeutic trust, God in Christ reaches out to each person with a hand up which in-and-of itself “makes possible release from the power of sin and suffering, and enables people to seek and accept further help and to change” (193). This proposal is deeply attractive as a spiritual director, a coach, and one who teaches current and future pastors because it empowers and grants agency to the recipient, not just the one issuing trust. One possible trajectory of further work might be to unpack some of the pastoral and practical implications of this model of atonement within a local church context.
This act of therapeutic trust (12) leads Morgan to explore how, in what ways, and to what extent humanity (and individual persons) are entrusted by God, concluding that humans are in fact entrusting themselves to a God who takes them on a journey out of submission to sin and death and are entrusted “with imitating Christ and acting as a model for others” (321) to show those who might trust God where that journey leads them. This entrustedness, she contends, is itself grounds of optimism. That each of us are worthy of being entrusted - despite our imperfect and sometimes desperately lacking trust in God and trust in ourselves - means that perhaps God may believe in us more than we believe in ourselves. The ethic of entrustedness Morgan proposes stresses how we are implicated in God’s eschatological renewal of all creation and thus trusted to remain responsible for and involved in the ongoing outworking of the gospel.
I found The New Testament and the Theology of Trust: This Rich Trust to be a deeply helpful and impactful contribution. As I sit with students, pastors, and missionaries throughout the year struggling with the implications of the biggest questions approaching how God regards us (personally), I am struck by the beautiful vision of the gospel that Morgan puts forward here. A universe wherein we are trusted and entrusted by a God who is profoundly trustworthy is a powerful universe in which to reside. Each and every follower of Jesus can (and does) have potential to grow into the potential that God sees in them. While dense both in word count and conceptual ground covered, her work offers gifts to both the academy and the Church. For the academy this book proposes a novel set of related theories rooted in a robust treatment of pistis language in the New Testament that opens up new lanes for research; for the Church this book gives a hopeful vision for the pastoral task that can empower, equip, and entrust followers of Jesus to lean into their God-given potential.