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A conference on providence
2007-05-01 23:43:00
The University of Aberdeen is hosting an exciting dogmatics conference in January, entitled ??Deus Habet Consilium?: An International Conference on the Career and Prospects of Providence in Modern Theology.? The list of speakers and papers looks superb.And, speaking of conferences, LeRon Shults alerts us to a conference on Schleiermacher and the future of the church.
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Benedict XVI: Jesus of Nazareth
2007-04-30 22:37:00
Here?s something to look forward to: Bene dict X VI?s first book written as pope, Jesu s of Nazareth, will be published in English soon. It looks as though it will be an excellent book, blending historical scholarship with pastoral and theological reflection. Chris and Zadok have been reading the German and Italian editions ? and they?re both pretty impressed with it.
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Princeton Theological Review
2007-04-30 22:03:00
Thanks to the hard work of David and Chris, the new issue of the Prince ton Theological Review is now available online. This issue is devoted to theology and the arts ? and, as Chris points out, most of the authors are hard-working theology-bloggers.
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What's wrong with biblical inerrancy?
2007-04-29 12:16:00
With biblical inerrancy leading the current poll on ?the worst theological invention,? a few people have emailed me to ask if I could explain my own view of biblical authority. I wrote a lot of posts on this topic back in September 2005 ? so I thought I?d reproduce two of those posts here, on the Bible?s ?authority? and ?trustworthiness?: 1. The authority of Scripture For Christian faith, the Bible is authoritative. But where does this authority come from? What sets this particular book apart from other sources of authority?In earlier times, theologians often said that the Bible is authoritative because it is ?inspired,? or because it has been authored (directly or indirectly) by the Holy Spirit. Thus the Bible qua text was believed to be qualitatively different from all other texts. According to this theory, the authority of the Bible is purely formal. What the Bible actually says is authoritative only because it is written in this particular book?and this book would still be author...
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The worst theological invention: egalitarian sub-poll
2007-04-27 09:08:00
Some folks have been disappointed that certain theological inventions didn?t make it on to the main poll. So just to show how egalitarian we are here at Faith & Theology, you can now vote in this sub-poll for the most eligible runner-up! Which of these things do you think should have made it on to the main poll?<a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/poll-1063 1.html">Take the poll</a>&lt ;br /><br /><a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/"&amp ;gt;Free Poll by Blog Flux</a>
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Understanding postliberal theology
2007-04-27 09:02:00
Over at Disruptive Grace, Chris asks us to suggest books ?relevant for understanding postliberal theology today.? My top two recommendations are Paul DeHart?s Trial of the Witnesses and Kathryn Tanner?s Theories of Culture. If you want to make any other suggestions, head over to Disruptive Grace.
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Voting: the worst theological invention
2007-04-26 12:29:00
Thanks for all your nominations for the worst theological invention. There were plenty of thought-provoking and entertaining suggestions, and it has been hard to decide on the finalists. I vetoed some suggestions (e.g. historical criticism, ?all forms of Protestantism?) because of my own personal biases; and I vetoed others (e.g. theology blogs, technical terminology) because they hurt my feelings. There were some other good candidates like the prosperity gospel and ?the purpose-driven anything? ? but these are so embarrassing that I thought it best to pass over them in silence.There were plenty of close runners-up as well: male headship, Augustine?s doctrine of original sin, Christian Zionism, the norm of ?sola cultura,? timeless eternity, God as a male, the German language, etc. But alas, we can?t include them all! So here are our seven finalists:Biblical inerrancyDouble predestinationThe rapturePapal infallibilityArianismChristendom (not to be confused with Chrisendom, which is a...
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Karl Barth and American evangelicalism
2007-04-25 23:36:00
In an insightful post, Chris Rice takes up Karl Bart h ?s critique of 19th-century theology as a guide for critiquing contemporary American evangelicalism.
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Old Testament theology
2007-04-25 22:50:00
?[M]y image for the Scripture s is to think of them as a photograph album. What the New Test ament does is provide us with a new set of pictures. Their subject is the same as that of the preceding set, but they are not identical; they are taken from some new angles in some different light with some different lenses. They therefore tell us more and fill out the picture. But they do not offer a revolutionary new revelation. And thus we can study the theology of the First Testament separately from that of the New Testament without losing too much ? and certainly without losing as much as we do if we follow the church?s practice of studying the New Testament separately from the First Testament, which it allegedly regards as Scripture.??John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology , Vol. 2: Israel?s Faith (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006), pp. 19-20.
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Nominations: the worst theological invention
2007-04-24 09:07:00
Last year, we voted for the worst liturgical invention (see here and here). Now, it?s time to nominate ?the worst theological invention.? What do you think is the worst (or silliest, or most absurd, or most destructive) theological invention? Which theological idea causes you the most grief or embarrassment or hilarity? Leave a comment with your nomination. I?ll choose five finalists from the list of nominations, and we?ll run a poll to find out which theological invention is really the worst of all. So don?t get ?left behind? ? get your nominations in now!
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The gospel according to Star Wars
2007-04-23 09:16:00
The Barth scholar John McDowell has just released a new book, entitled The Gospel according to Star Wars ? and he talks about the book in a guest-post for LeRon Shults.I?ve always loved the original Star Wars trilogy, and I?ve watched the films numerous times over the years (as a little boy, I always wanted to be like Darth Vader). But in spite of my admiration for Star Wars, it seems I have an important and fundamental disagreement with John McDowell. Apparently, he likes the new trilogy as well ? whereas I think these films were mournfully, disgracefully, irredeemably bad in every way (okay, except for the martial arts choreography).But I?ll try not to hold this against McDowell; and I?ll certainly look forward to reading the book.
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Some new journals
2007-04-23 09:08:00
The good people at Brill have launched two new theological journals this year: the International Journal of Public Theology, and the Journal of Reformed Theology. The latter is also connected to a new monograph series, Studies in Reformed Theology. One of the forthcoming volumes in the series is entitled The Doctrine of God in African Christian Thought: The Holy Trinity, Theological Hermeneutics and the African Intellectual Culture, which sounds very interesting indeed.
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A lecture by Rowan Williams
2007-04-22 11:13:00
A few days ago, Rowan Will iams was in Toronto, and he gave a lecture on ?The Bible: Reading and Hearing.? The full text is available online ? it?s a profound and brilliant theological meditation on the place of biblical interpretation within the eucharistic life of the church. Here?s an excerpt:?[T]he ?time? in which we hear Scripture is not like ordinary time. We are contemporary with events remote in history; we are caught up in the time of recitation, when we are to reimagine ourselves. For this moment, we exist simply as listeners, suspending our questions while the question is put to us of how we are to speak afresh about ourselves.?
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Paul Helm: John Calvin's Ideas
2007-04-20 09:06:00
Paul Helm , John Calvin ?s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 438 pp. (review copy courtesy of Oxford UP)Paul Helm is a leading authority in the philosophy of religion, as well as a historian of early Protestant thought. In John Calvin?s Ideas, Helm brings these two fields together in an engaging philosophical account of Calvin?s thought.Throughout the 20th century, Calvin scholars tended to exaggerate the distance between Calvin and his medieval background. Thus Calvin was often portrayed as an anti-scholastic thinker, or as an anti-philosophical biblicist, or even as a proto-Barthian ?theologian of the Word.? Recent Calvin scholarship has gone a long way towards dismantling such interpretations, and the best scholarship (e.g. that of Richard Muller) has foregrounded Calvin?s complex relationships to medieval thought on the one hand, and to later Protestant scholasticism on the other. Paul Helm builds on this recent approach to Calvin, and, focusing especially on the cont...
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Amazon Unspun, and other spin-offs
2007-04-18 23:57:00
This week Amazon .com released Unspun, a new site for generating lists. A number of theology lists have already been created: if you sign into your Amazon account, you can rank your favourite theology blogs, or biblical studies blogs, or theologians, or systematic theologies. If you?ve got far too much spare time on your hands, then head over and check it out. As Patrik says, the internet is for making lists.Elsewhere, the Aussie blogger Craig Harper has created a list of the most popular 100 Australian blogs (listed on his sidebar) ? and, to my surprise, Faith & Theology is ranked #22 (just behind the ABC, but ahead of the Herald Sun).Meanwhile, this guy really needs some more visitors (even though he misunderstands lightweight theologians like Barth and Paul). And if you want a good laugh today, be sure to check out Chris Tilling?s diabolically funny catalogue of popular evangelical prayers. Lord, we just want to thank you, Lord, for posts like this....
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Theology with Tom Waits
2007-04-17 23:57:00
Lately I?ve been spending a lot of time listening to Tom Wait s ? extraordinary three-disc album, Orphans (2006). It?s a magnificent album, and there are some startling theological insights as well. Here are the lyrics to Waits? gentle but gritty gospel song, ?Down There by the Train? (the song was also covered by Johnny Cash in 2002):There?s a place I know where the train goes slowWhere sinners can be washed in the blood of the lambThere?s a river by the trestle down by Sinner?s GroveDown where the willow and the dogwood growDown there by the trainDown there where the train goes slowYou can hear the whistle, you can hear the bellFrom the halls of heaven to the gates of hellAnd there?s room for the forsaken if you?re there on timeYou?ll be washed of all your sins and all of your crimesIf you?re down there by the trainDown there where the train goes slowThere?s a golden moon that shines up through the mistAnd I know that your name will be on that listThere?s no eye for an eye, there?s ...
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Failed humanity
2007-04-16 22:53:00
?If salvation is for any, it is for all?. The ?return? to the lost, the excluded, the failed or destroyed, is not an option for the saint, but the very heart of saintliness. And we might think not only of Jesus?s parable of the shepherd, but of the great theological myth of the Descent into Hell, in which God?s presence in the world in Jesus is seen as his journey into the furthest deserts of despair and alienation. It is the supreme image of his freedom, to go where he is denied and forgotten?. He comes to his new and risen life, his universal kingship, by searching out all the forgotten and failed members of the human family.??Rowan Williams , The Truce of God (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), p. 30.
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A two-year-old's doctrine of creation
2007-04-16 00:12:00
A recent conversation between my two daughters (aged 4 and 2):Older sister: Do you know where animals come from?Younger sister: From the Ark.Older sister: (Laughter) No, God made the animals.Younger sister: No he didn?t. Noah made them.
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Lord Jesus Christ, your mighty resurrection
2007-04-15 02:46:00
A hymn by Kim Fabricius(Tune: Charterhouse)Lord Jesus Chris t , your mighty resurrection     fills us with overwhelming joy and fear,as you begin your world-wide insurrection,    and lead the way as faith?s great pioneer.Your cross proclaims the depths of our corruption,     your empty tomb the heights of grace sublime,your risen power causes an eruption     of love exploding out through space and time.You lived a life of challenge, trust and service,     you suffered death in doubt and agony,you live again and stride ahead with purpose,     and bring your friends along for company.As risen Lord, you call us all to mission,     embracing people, creatures, earth and stars,you give to each a personal commission     to share your healing as we bear your scars.Exalted Christ, the victim?s vindication, ...
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R. Dale Dawson: The Resurrection in Karl Barth
2007-04-13 09:46:00
R. Dale Dawson , The Resurrection in Karl Bart h (Barth Studies Series; Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 246 pp. (review copy courtesy of Ashgate)In this latest addition to the Barth Studies Series, Dale Dawson offers the first full account of Karl Barth?s theology of resurrection. Dawson views the resurrection as ?the theological a priori? of Barth?s theology (p. 3), and he argues that the resurrection has ?radical systematic significance? for the whole structure of Barth?s thought (p. 12). Dawson thus traces Barth?s work on the resurrection from early Göttingen lectures through to the later volumes of the Church Dogmatics.One of the strongest parts of the study is the chapter on Barth?s 1924 exegetical lectures on The Resurrection of the Dead. In these early lectures, Barth engages in polemic against historicising approaches to the resurrection ? he insists, for instance, that the ?empty tomb? is irrelevant, and that there is no historical basis for belief in the resurrection. But Dawson ...

Political side-effects?
2007-04-12 23:54:00
Over at the Boar?s Head Tavern, an extended discussion developed in response to Kim?s recent propositions on political theology. The discussion is summarised, with all the related links, at Confessing Evangelical.There were lots of other detailed discussions of this post as well, including one at Imaginations in Unity, another at Ponderings on a Faith Journey, another (in French) at TheoHead, and another at Spaceman Spiff.In the last few days, there have also been some very interesting engagements with Kim?s propositions on freedom: see the discussion at Pseudo-Polymath, and the critical response at Positive Liberty.
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Theology in the second person
2007-04-11 23:36:00
Over at Disruptive Grace, Chris gives some autobiographical insight into the potential pitfalls of theological study: ?My theological language has changed subtly from the second person to the third person over the years. As my love for theology has grown, my conversation with God has ceased.? And a recent post at Subversive Christianity (an excellent new blog) makes the same point: ?Theology becomes theory. Theology becomes systematic?. Theology becomes comprehensive. Theology, if one isn?t real careful, becomes God-in-a-Box.?As Schleiermacher tirelessly emphasised, the faith of the theologian is simply ordinary, everyday faith: and it?s this everyday faith that makes theology possible (and interesting) at all. To turn theology into a substitute for faith would be like buying a set of these sheets: it might look like the real thing, but in the morning you?ll still wake up alone.Although it?s necessary to practise theology in the third person ? theology as academic reflection ? we sh...
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Ten propositions on freedom
2007-04-10 11:33:00
by Kim Fabricius1. An intellectual history Europe since the Enlightenment could be written with the title ?The Decline and Fall of the Concept of Freedom ?. The nadir has now been reached with the banality of freedom as ?choice?. From life-style and shopping, to schools and hospitals, to our bodies and death itself, the mantra is ?choice?. Such an understanding of freedom ?presupposes a blank will looking out at a bundle of options like goods on a supermarket shelf? (Rowan Williams). A more vulgar anthropology is hard to imagine.2. Nor a more dangerous one: for ?freedom of choice? read ?will-to-power? and social nihilism. And all the more dangerous for the rhetorical force of the word ?freedom?, with its claim to ideological innocence and, indeed, quasi- religious righteousness. Here a hermeneutics of secular suspicion is de rigueur ? but so too is a hermeneutics of theological retrieval and reconstruction.3. Writing at the beginning of the Cold War, Isaiah Berlin famously plotted a ...
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A metaphysics of beauty
2007-04-10 05:19:00
?[I]f beauty eternally generates being, and if beauty impregnates being, then being is the eternal image or reflection of beauty. In this case, the relation between beauty and being might be called a mediated immediacy. In other words, the divine beauty might be understood as mediating itself through being. In being, beauty sees itself.??Stephen Fields, ?The Beau ty of the Ugly: Balthasar, the Crucifixion, Analogy and God,? International Journal of Systematic Theology 9:2 (2007), p. 183.
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International Journal of Systematic Theology
2007-04-09 03:26:00
The new issue of the International Journal of Systematic Theology is out now, with a range of excellent articles on Catholic and Protestant theology. Suzanne McDonald writes about Barth?s early doctrine of election; Paul Dafydd Jones discusses Barth on Gethsemane; Stephen Fields and Edward Oakes explore Balthasar?s theology of crucifixion and Holy Saturday; and Francis Caponi discusses Rahner?s view of religious language. This issue also includes my review of Paul DeHart ?s brilliant work, The Trial of the Witnesses (adapted from the online review). If you haven?t read DeHart?s book, I really recommend it ? it was my pick for the best theology book of 2006.
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Conference: Hermeneutics and the Authority of Scripture
2007-03-26 00:43:00
In November, the Australasian Theological Forum will be hosting its sixth ?Task of Theology Today Colloquium.? This year?s conference is entitled ?Herm eneutics and the Authority of Scripture ,? and it will be held in Canberra from 23 to 26 November 2007.The keynote speakers are Francis Watson (who will present two papers: ?Hermeneutics and the Doctrine of Scripture? and ?Towards a Theological Evaluation of Non-Canonical Gospels?), Terence Fretheim (who will speak on ?Biblical Authority and Problematic Old Testament Images of God?), and William Loader (who will speak on ?Approaching the New Testament as Source of Faith and Witness to Faith?).There will also be a series of workshop-style electives organised around the three themes of ?Practising Exegesis,? ?The Creed and the Bible,? and ?Current Research.? And there will be a public forum discussing the use of authoritative scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.The conference website isn?t up yet, but you can download a brochur...
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William Willimon
2006-12-19 22:38:01
The celebrated preacher Will iam Willimon now has his own blog: A Peculiar Prophet. There?s some good stuff there, including this post on consumerism:?For me, one of the most moving moments is when people come forward to receive the Lord?s Supper. They shuffle forward and hold out their hands to receive the elements of communion. I look into their outstretched empty hands. I say, ?I notice that your hands are empty, as if you were empty, needing some gift?. In this moment, you look touchingly dependent, as if your life would be nothing if you did not receive a gift.? The good news of the gospel is that such bad news about us is the great good news about God.?
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Ten thoughts on the literal and the literary
2006-12-19 04:36:17
by Kim Fabricius1. The more literal, the less literary a person is likely to be ? and vice versa. A survey of the reading habits of fundamentalists would be an interesting exercise. I suspect that they would score low on reading classical and Booker/Pulitzer prize fiction ? and even lower on poetry. I wonder what they would make of William Empson?s seminal study Seven Types of Ambiguity. To plagiarise Paul, the literal crucifies, the literary resurrects: meaning walks through closed doors. ?Tell all the Truth but tell it slant? (Emily Dickinson).2. It is an interesting fact that fundamentalism is predominantly a Protestant phenomenon, a reductio ad absurdum of the Reformers? emphasis on the literal meaning of scripture to the exclusion of the medieval ?fourfold vision? (Blake). Is there a lurking fear here of a connection between polyvalence and polytheism? How ironic that, on the contrary, an insistence on a single, solid, certain meaning ? i.e. semantic closure ? is indicative of ...
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The best education blog
2006-12-18 10:35:01
Congratulations to Michael Bérubé for thrashing the rest of us in the finals of the Best Education Blog Award. In a bizarre twist, the defunct homeschool blog, Spunky Homeschool, came close to winning thanks to a massive ?homeschoolers unite? meme. And then, in a further twist, it was found that enthusiastic supporters of both Bérubé and Spunky Homeschool had been cheating ? so about 1500 illegitimate votes were docked. In the end, though, the academics won the day, and Michael Bérubé cleaned up with 38.62% of the total 16,000 votes.As for Faith & Theology.... Well, everyone knows that we Aussies don?t like losing ? so I won?t even mention the tiny percentage of votes that this blog received.... (On the bright side, I think we can safely assume that no theologians were cheating on behalf of this blog!)Anyway, thanks to everyone who voted, and congratulations to Professor Bérubé, who even managed to defeat the formidable army of homeschooled Christian soldiers that rallied against him.
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Shut up, it's Christmas!
2006-12-17 22:34:01
Edmund has some sobering words about God?s advent and the meaning of the ?silent night.?
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