Formerly Professor of Theology at the University of Leeds, and before that Director of the William Temple Foundation, whose work involves the application of Christian ideas to social and economic life, David Jenkins became Bishop of Durham in 1984.
In the Guide to the Debate about God the Bishop of Durham describes the background to his highly controversial views within the framework of the theological debates of the 1960s. He shows that the basic issues can only be understood through a better grasp of the way that doctrine and theology have developed since the eighteenth century. Bishop Jenkins guides the reader through the arguments of some of the greatest theologians of the last two centuries - Schleiermacher, Tillich, Barth and Bonhoeffer, for example-concluding that 'either God does not exist or else He must establish His own existence'. In his clear and fascinating survey of the debate about God the Bishop casts light on the development of his own ideas.