Faith and Theology

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Acting responsibly in an entangled world
2007-07-24 16:03:00
?Perhaps the responsibility of individual humans may reside most significantly in one?s response to the assemblages in which one finds oneself participating ? do I attempt to extricate myself from assemblages whose trajectory is likely to do harm?.... In a world where agency is distributed, a hesitant attitude towards assigning blame becomes a virtue?. Outrage will not and should not disappear completely, but a politics devoted too exclusively to moral condemnation and not enough to a cultivated discernment of the web of agentic capacities can do no good. A moralized politics of good and evil, of singular agents who must be made to pay for their sins ? be they Osama bin Laden or George W. Bush ? becomes immoral to the degree that it legitimates vengeance and elevates violence to the tool of first resort. A distributive understanding of agency, then, reinvokes the need to detach ethics from moralism, and to produce guides to action appropriate to a world of vital, cross-cutting force...
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A friendly appeal: books for Joey Dela Paz
2007-07-23 09:21:00
I?m sure many of you will be familiar with Missions and Theology, the excellent blog of Joey Dela Paz. Joey is a Filipino missionary living with his wife and three children in Mae Sai, northern Thailand. He pastors a growing church, as well as running a primary school and kindergarten. Together with some other local pastors, he recently opened a new Missions Training Center to equip Thai and Myanmar church planters and leaders in the region. As you?ll know if you read his blog, Joey is a gifted and capable theological thinker, and the intercultural dimension of his ministry provides a rich context for theological reflection.But Joey?s geographical location and ministry commitments mean that his access to theological books is very limited. So I thought it might be fun if we joined together to buy some books for Joey. This is not, of course, about ?charity? ? it?s just a friendly way of sharing our resources. If several of us were to contribute just a couple of dollars each, I?m sure ...
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Mark R. Lindsay: Barth, Israel, and Jesus
2007-07-21 14:25:00
Mark R. Lindsay , Barth, Isra el , and Jesus : Karl Barth?s Theology of Israel (Barth Studies Series; Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), xx + 124 pp. (review copy courtesy of Ashgate)In his remarkable History of the Jews (1978), the American writer Chaim Potok stated: ?The Jew sees all his contemporary history refracted through the ocean of blood that is the Holocaust.? The central argument of Mark Lindsay?s new book is that Christian theology must likewise be ?refracted? through the horrors of the Holocaust ? and so he interrogates Karl Barth?s theology to find out whether it meets this fundamental requirement.For Lindsay, the Holocaust is a theological criterion in the strict sense. Christian theology as a whole has been ?decisively ruptured? by this historical event (p. 2), so that it is impossible to carry on doing theology in the same way as before the Holocaust. The book thus locates Barth within the context of post-Holocaust theological discussion and recent Jewish?Christian dialogue.Int...
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Another late night at Hogwarts
2007-07-21 02:23:00
The great day has finally arrived. I doubt I?ll be getting much sleep tonight?.
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Encounters with tradition (7): Why I am still a Wesleyan
2007-07-20 01:00:00
A guest-post by John Mark PolingI was born in 1950, and grew up in an environment that was something of a mix between suburbia and Appalachia. My parents were both former Methodists who became Nazarenes in the late 1940s. So I am a product of the American Holiness Movement, Phoebe Palmer, 19th-century revivalism, the Camp-meeting movement, and to a lesser degree the teachings of John Wesley and other pietist movements. You must add to that mix a father who had an emotional breakdown in 1952, a rather frustrated and sometimes angry mother (adult child of an alcoholic), and the 1960s ? which began for me with the Beatles and the assassination of JFK on my 13th birthday. C. S. Lewis died on that day as well, but it was another 13 years before I ever heard of him. I struggled with legalism (the original sin of our movement), and perfectionism (both real and perceived ? our Achilles heel) for many years.I have to confess, however, that I tended to be very self-righteous, and I assumed, a...
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Speaking of angels
2007-07-19 09:45:00
?We don?t get to the end of being baffled and amazed [by the universe]. I sometimes think that this is the importance of talking about angels in Christian teaching. Odd as it may sound, thinking about these mysterious agents of God?s purpose, who belong to a different order of being, can be at least a powerful symbol for all those dimensions of the universe about which we have no real idea?. We?re so used to trivializing angels ? they are often reduced to Christmas decorations, fairy godmothers almost?. But in the Bible angels are often rather terrifying beings occasionally sweeping across the field of our vision?. Now whether or not you feel inclined to believe literally in angels ? and a lot of modern Christians have a few problems with them ? it?s worth thinking of them as at the very least a sort of shorthand description of everything that?s ?round the corner? of our perception and understanding in the universe ? including the universal song of praise that surrounds us always.??...
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Barth poetry finalists
2007-07-19 09:21:00
The finalist poll is now open over at The Fire and the Rose, so head over and vote for your favourite poem.
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Ten propositions on faith and laughter
2007-07-18 00:08:00
by Kim Fabricius1. Let?s face it: the Bible is not exactly a barrel of laughs. In the Old Testament the Lord laughs a few times in the Psalms ? at the nations? rulers in Psalm 2:4, at the wicked and godless in Psalms 37:13 and 59:8 ? but it is a disdainful, derisive laughter. As for human laughter, the preacher in Ecclesiastes 2:2 calls it ?foolish? (GNB), ?mad? (NRSV), even if it does have its ?time? (cf. 3:4); while Job?s so-called comforters Eliphaz and Bildad console their friend with the promise of laughter if he repents (5:22, 8:21) ? but we know what God thinks of them (42:7).2. Is Sarah an exception? She laughs when God promises her a child in her dotage, but beneath her breath (Genesis 18:12). But the Lord hears her giggling ? ?Yeah, right!? she is thinking ? and he is not amused at her doubt, so in fear she denies that she laughed (18:15a). ?Oh yes you did!? the Lord replies (18:15b). We should remember that Abraham laughed too when told that Sarah will bear him a child (1...
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Gerd Lüdemann on Benedict XVI
2007-07-16 13:21:00
Jim West alerts us to Gerd Lüdemann?s forthcoming book, Das Jesusbild des Papstes (July 2007), which offers a detailed critique of Benedict X VI?s recent Jesus of Nazareth. Jim also provides us with a sneak preview of Lüdemann?s epilogue (in English translation), entitled ?Ten Objections to Joseph Ratzinger?s Book on Jesus.? These ?ten objections? make it clear that Lüdemann?s critique is concerned not only with historical method, but also with church doctrine. Anyway, the publishers are sending me a copy of Lüdemann?s book, and I?ll be posting a review when it arrives. I?ll try both to evaluate his criticisms of Benedict, and to offer some general remarks about the strengths and weaknesses of the pope?s book. If you haven?t yet read Benedict?s Jesus of Nazareth, I?d encourage you to check it out.

More chocolate theology
2007-07-16 13:08:00
Aaron has now greatly enriched our understanding of the theology of chocolate by producing a brilliant Willy Wonka Version (WWV) of Galatians 5:13-26. Here?s my favourite part: ?if you are like Charlie, the scrumdidlyumptious Spirit will produce these lollies in you??
More About: Theology , Chocolate , Chocolat , Ology , Choco

A theology of chocolate
2007-07-15 14:42:00
Now here?s something worth chewing on: David offers a theology of chocolate. Choco lat e , he says, ?carries on its own ?ministry of reconciliation? (2 Cor. 5:18) by resurrecting dead taste faculties and offering nougat-filled glimpses into the grace of God.? Ain?t that the truth.To enter a little French or Swiss chocolaterie ? the sight! the smells! mon Dieu, the taste! ? is one of life?s most sublime experiences. The development of existentialist philosophy in France and of neo-orthodox theology in Switzerland can, in my view, be traced directly to the quality of the chocolates of those regions. (On the other hand, the dour humourlessness of the Religious Right in America can perhaps best be explained by unwrapping a Hershey bar.)As for all those cheap supermarket chocolates: their theological significance is very limited. They are for puritans and ascetics and fundamentalists, for those who want nothing more out of a chocolate bar than a little ?mortification of the flesh.? And I wi...
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Let us listen for the Word
2007-07-15 14:35:00
A hymn by Kim Fabricius(Tune: Buckland or Vienna)Let us listen for the Word ,as we hear it read and preached,sharper than the sharpest sword,sweeter than the sweetest peach.Scripture sings in different keys ? hymns of praise and mournful cries,letters, legends, histories,guidance from the worldly-wise.Written with imperfect scores,pitched for people culture-bound,scarred by old barbaric laws ? scripture makes discordant sounds.Yet a love-song, with refrain,resonates from all around;sunshine breaks through cloud and rain,flowers bloom from barren ground.God whose Word is cruciform,as we hear it preached and read,may our hearts be strangely warmed,and our souls raised from the dead.
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Philip Clayton and Paul Davies: the re-emergence of emergence
2007-07-14 06:40:00
Philip Clay ton and Paul Davi es , ed., The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 344 pp. (review copy courtesy of OUP)A guest-review by Ross McKenzieThe concept of emergence in science has been attracting considerable attention recently. In particular, several books have appeared that are oriented towards a popular audience, including:J. Holland, Emergence: From Chaos to Order (2000)S. Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software (2002)H. Morowitz, The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex (2002)R. B. Laughlin, A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (2005).The current book arose out of papers delivered at a multi-disciplinary conference on the topic held in Spain in 2002. The book offers an excellent introduction to the diverse perspectives on this subject. The 13 authors represent the specialist fields of quantum physics, astrophys...
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Theological interpretation of scripture
2007-07-14 05:22:00
The other night, I enjoyed sharing a bottle of wine with Mike Bird, and we chatted a little about the theological interpretation of scripture (I tried ? unsuccessfully ? to defend form criticism as a valid way of interpreting scripture theologically). Anyway, Mike has now posted an excellent piece summarising the nature of theological interpretation: ?I understand theological interpretation to be the model of interpretation that focuses on the ecclesial context in which Scripture was written and on its utility for answering the theological questions confronted by its ecclesial readers, ancient and modern, when reading these texts. That means that one consciously approaches the NT not simply as a historical artefact as any other, nor as a source book for creating religious dogma, but as a document created by Christians and for Christians that speaks fundamentally a word from God and about God.? Well said!And speaking of Mike, if you want to feel very lazy and undisciplined, just take...
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How to read Karl Barth: advice from Bonhoeffer
2007-07-13 00:56:00
In 1931, when Bonhoeffer was leading a seminar at Union Theological Seminary in New York, he told his students: ?I do not see any other possible way for you to get into real contact with Barth ?s thinking than by forgetting everything you have learnt before.? ?Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften, 3:111; cited in Mark R. Lindsay?s excellent new book, Barth, Israel, and Jesus: Karl Barth ?s Theology of Israel (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), p. 20.
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A tip for athletes
2007-07-12 12:39:00
Kim and I have been discussing Samuel Beckett?s novel, Molloy (1951), which I think is one of the funniest novels ever written (I admit it: I love everything by Beckett). Here?s one passage to ponder ? it?s nothing to do with theology, but I couldn?t help myself from posting it:?Perhaps he was afraid I would run after him. And indeed, I think there is something terrifying about the way I run, with my head flung back, my teeth clenched, my elbows bent to the full and my knees nearly hitting me in the face. And I have often caught faster runners than myself thanks to this way of running. They stop and wait for me, rather than prolong such a horrible outburst at their heels.??Samuel Beckett, Molloy, in Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable (New York: Everyman?s Library, 1997), pp. 162-63.
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The witness of chaplaincy
2007-07-12 12:07:00
I posted a link recently to Scott?s critique of military chaplaincy. My friend Cam has now responded with a post defending the legitimate witness of chaplaincy. He writes:?Whether or not one believes that the exercise of violence is ever legitimate, ? the presence of violence in any culture does not preclude the possibility of legitimate Christian witness?. The vocation of chaplains is integral to the formation of witnessing communities in the military which legitimately use its particular language and culture to demonstrate and proclaim the shalom of God?s kingdom.?
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Who's afraid of the social Trinity?
2007-07-11 11:07:00
Halden offers a brilliant critical reflection on social trinitarianism ? and he?s right on the money:?Our personhood is ultimately not realized in bearing the image of the Trinity , abstractly conceived as a circle of pure relational bliss (the social trinity) or perfect self-contemplation (the psychological trinity). Our end as persons is to bear the image of Christ through union with him by the Spirit of the Father and Son. Our personhood is not so much an echo of the Trinity as a non-necessary and gratuitous intonation of the Trinitarian discourse?. In Christ, the One God speaks to us, and in so doing brings us into the circle of speech and response that is the Triune discourse of infinite koinonia.... [T]his is the gospel, not that we inherently resemble God?s personhood, but rather that in our very difference from God, even in the wicked difference of sin, we are rapt in Christ, our humanity enfolded into God. And as such we live in Triune communion, which is to say that we are ...
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Encounters with tradition (6): from Restoration to Orthodoxy
2007-07-10 00:35:00
A guest-post by Daniel GreesonI grew up in a small sect (non-institutional churches of Christ) within the Stone-Campbell Movement, known otherwise as the ?Restoration Movement.? My grandfather and father are both ministers within this movement and at the age of 16 or so I began the process of preparing for a life of preaching. I was that kid who sat in high school with a commentary on Isaiah and an open Bible, fiercely scribbling notes for my next sermon. I was shown a lot of grace those first few years at my home congregation and other congregations throughout the state of Arkansas.It was during these formational years that I ran across C. S. Lewis and quickly devoured The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity. This was the first time I had seriously engaged with someone from outside of my tradition, and I came away having learned a lot and questioning a lot. In the group I grew up in, we were the only ones who had the Truth, and all other denominations were wrong about pretty mu...
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Larry Hurtado in Brisbane
2007-07-10 00:30:00
Good news for those of us Down Under ? Larry Hurtado will be visiting Brisbane later this month to speak on devotion to Jesus in early Christianity. Aaron has the details.

Translating Barth into German
2007-07-09 00:44:00
Several months ago, Bruce McCormack?s book on Bart h ?s development became the first English-language work on Barth to be translated into Germ an : Theologische Dialektik und kritischer Realismus: Entstehung und Entwicklung von Karl Barth s Theologie, 1909-1936 (TVZ, 2006).Now, George Hunsinger?s book on how to read Barth has also been translated into German: Karl Barth lessen: Eine Einführung in sein theologisches Denken (Neukirchener, 2007).So, which Barth scholar should be translated into German next? Cast your vote in the poll below:Take the pollFree Poll by Blog Flux

Two years
2007-07-08 03:35:00
Faith & Theology is now two years old! In the past two years, this blog has had:1,211 postsover 100 guest-posts37 book reviews261.5 propositions by Kim Fabricius322,480 visitors (574,029 hits)296 current feed-subscribers (in Google Reader/Bloglines)52 direct email subscribers4,090 links from other blogs (according to Technorati)and, best of all, hundreds of lively theological conversations It?s especially the readers and commenters who make this blog so enjoyable ? so thanks to all of you!
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Matthias Gockel: Barth and Schleiermacher on the doctrine of election
2007-07-06 10:30:00
Matthias Gockel, Bart h and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election : A Systematic-Theological Comparison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 229 pp. (review copy courtesy of Oxford UP ? and there is also an online edition)The exact nature of Barth?s relationship to Schleiermacher is one of the most complex and far-reaching problems for historians of modern theology. Barth himself took pains to distance himself from Schleiermacher, and he insisted that his own theology represented a fundamental break with Schleiermacher?s thought. But Barth was often an unreliable interpreter of his own theology. And, misled by Barth?s own representation of his relationship to Schleiermacher, subsequent generations of interpreters have often presupposed an unbridgeable gulf between these two Reformed theologians.In this new book, Matthias Gockel offers a groundbreaking new evaluation of Barth?s relationship to Schleiermacher. Instead of painting with a broad brush, Gockel restricts his study t...
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An apologetics of imagination
2007-07-06 00:40:00
The new issue of the Sydney magazine Case (published by the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education) features articles by Richard Bauckham, Michael Jensen, Greg Clarke, and others. It also includes my essay on ?An Apologetics of Imagination ,? where I argue that ?what Christian apologetics has often lacked is an ethics of apologetic discourse, a probing ethical investigation into the modes of speech that are best suited to apologetic dialogue.? Against certain forms of apologetics, I suggest that ?the task of apologetics is not one of rational coercion, but of imaginative invitation. It is the invitation to envision ? or rather, to re-envision ? the world through the lens of the gospel of Jesus Christ?. The fundamental mode of such apologetic discourse, therefore, is one of peace and freedom. It is, in the words of David Bentley Hart, a ?rhetoric of peace,? grounded on an awareness that the gospel itself has already crossed the closed circle of an ?economy of violence? and a ...
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Go and vote!
2007-07-05 00:37:00
David?s ?as Barth? poetry contest is now open for voting. You can vote in three separate polls in the sidebar. You might like to vote for Kim and me (see the full list of entries) ? but first, make sure you read the latest entry in the contest, which is magnificent (and written by a real poet!).
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Ten propositions on spirituality
2007-07-04 00:54:00
by Kim Fabricius1. ?Spirituality ? is a word suffering from runaway inflation. Let?s try to stabilise the currency. Historical amnesia, false dichotomies, and fashionable therapies bedevil the subject.2. Philip Sheldrake observes that the noun spiritualitas ?only became established in reference to ?the spiritual life? in 17th century France ? and not always in a positive sense,? principally due to its clerical associations (in the Middles Ages the clergy were ?the spirituality?). ?It then disappeared from theological circles until the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century when it again appeared in French in reference to the ?spiritual life??. [B]ut it was only by the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s that it began to dominate and replace older terms such as ascetical theology or mystical theology.? Then in the 1970s the term took off, and now, set to the key of the so-called New Age, spirituality has become the mood-muzak of postmodernity.3. I?ve got nothing again...
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Describing trinitarian theologians
2007-07-04 00:39:00
Halden has posted an entertaining list describing trinitarian theologians. He has come up with so many clever descriptions that I can hardly think of anything to add. But here are a few possible additions:Bruce McCormack: the most actualistic trinitarianEdward Schillebeeckx: the most sacramental trinitarianRowan Williams: the most grammatical trinitarianHendrikus Berkhof: the most modalistic trinitarianBernard Lonergan: the most scholastic trinitarianGerhard Ebeling: the most Schleiermacherian trinitarianE. L. Mascall: the most analogical trinitarianKim Fabricius: the most concise trinitarianWolfhart Pannenberg: the best trinitarian
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2007 Karl Barth Conference
2007-07-03 11:30:00
If, like me, you were at home last week feeling miserable when you should have been at the Karl Bart h Conference, you?ll be glad to read David?s overview of some of the highlights. The conference theme was the relationship between Barth?s theology and American evangelicalism ? a fascinating and complex theme! Barth himself had little good to say about the more conservative side of American evangelicalism. When in 1961 he was asked to respond to criticisms by Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark and Fred Klooster (to be published in Christianity Today), he replied: ?The ? presupposition of a fruitful discussion between them and me would have to be that we are able to talk on a common plane. But these people have already had their so-called orthodoxy for a long time. They are closed to anything else, they will cling to it at all costs, and they can adopt toward me only the role of prosecuting attorneys, trying to establish whether what I represent agrees or disagrees with their orthodoxy, ...
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Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
2007-07-02 00:40:00
Prompted by recommendations from both Kim Fabricius and Stanley Hauerwas, I finally got around to reading Mari lynne Robin son?s Gilead (New York: Farrar, 2004), an exquisite portrayal of three (or four) generations of preachers in a decrepit little town in Iowa. (In a lecture, Hauerwas describes this as ?the first Barthian novel? ? a fine description, except that John Updike has been writing ?Barthian novels? for decades!)The novel is extraordinary in every way. It?s a narrative of fragile beauties, luminous insights, mysterious silences ? all related in a prose as sparse and understated as the dustbowl town itself. And there is plenty here for theologians to think about as well. You wouldn?t be far wrong if you said that the whole novel is an account of the power and beauty of blessing.Our narrator, John Ames, tells us that he became a minister not for any of the usual reasons, but because it gave him the opportunity to confer blessing. When he baptised a family of kittens as a youn...
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God, in many ways you meet us
2007-07-01 08:36:00
A hymn by Kim Fabricius(Tune: Servant Song)God, in many ways you meet us, speak to us in world and church,in the quake and in the quiet, when we flee and as we search.In the splendour of the sunlight, in the sparkle of a star,we see something of your glory, catch a glimpse of who you are.On the canvas of an artist, in composer?s sacred song,through the verse and voice of poet, we sense worlds for which we long. In the otherness of stranger and familiar face of friend,we are entertaining angels whom your holy love commends.When our lives are running smoothly, when our hopes have turned to dust,through our joys and through our sorrows, in your providence we trust.God, in word and wine we meet you in this sacramental space;from the pulpit, on the table, close encounters with your grace.
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