Re-Imaging Election (Divine Election as Representing God to Others and Others to God)

In Re-Imaging Election Suzanne McDonald offers a fresh approach to the doctrine of election from a Reformed perspective, first by seeking greater acknowledgment that election is not only “in Christ” but also “by the Spirit,” and second by building on the scriptural and theological links between the doctrines of election and the image of God. McDonald here combines an analysis of John Owen and Karl Barth with those links to develop a constructive proposal that posits representation (representing God to others and others to God) as a fruitful category for understanding the nature and purpose of election. In doing so, she seeks to restore the robust pneumatology characteristic of the earlier Reformed tradition without losing some of the central insights from Barth’s christological re-orientation of the doctrine.

While Re-Imaging Election is firmly rooted in the Reformed tradition, the re-expression of the doctrine presented here opens up new possibilities for dialogue across the theological spectrum and offers suggestive directions for reclaiming an often-divisive doctrine in the life of the church.