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Three books on global theology
2009-02-18 03:59:00
William A. Dyrness and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, eds. Global Dictionary of Theology (IVP 2008), 996 pp.Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping Our World (IVP 2008), 296 pp.Douglas A. Hicks and Mark Valeri, eds. Global Neighbors: Christian Faith and Moral Obligation in Today’s Economy (Eerdmans 2008), 276 pp.For several years now, IVP has been raising the bar for theological and biblical reference works – most notably with their remarkable series of black dictionaries. Their latest offering, the Global Dictionary of Theology, is another exemplary reference work and a first-rate resource for students and teachers of theology. The book provides an up-to-date picture of how theology is being practised today on every continent and in numerous different national and ethnic contexts.Generally speaking, the editors have avoided smaller entries, and have devoted the volume to extended, substantive articles on major themes. In many cases, there a...
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The bus caption winner
2009-02-17 06:03:00
The people have spoken! And Andrew is the winner of our bus sign contest. His caption won a decisive victory, with 29% of the votes. Here’s the winning bus sign:And I think Dan deserves a runner-up prize for his wonderful sign (which came in second, with 15% of the votes):The prizes come courtesy of the kind folks at IVP Academic – so Andrew and Dan can each email me to choose one of the following books:Larry R. Helyer, The Witness of Jesus, Paul and John: An Exploration in Biblical Theology (IVP 2008) – an introduction to NT theologySandra L. Richter, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (IVP 2008) – an introduction to OT theologyDavis Young and Ralph Stearley, The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth (IVP 2008) – a massive evidence-based response to young-earth creationismGordon Smith, ed., The Lord's Supper: Five Views (IVP 2008) – a dialogue between five theologians: Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Baptist and Pente...
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Worshipping onscreen: a megachurch meditation
2009-02-15 07:45:00
Sorry for the long silence – we’ve been in transit to Sydney all week, and I haven’t had much internet access. This morning, out of curiosity, I went along to a service at a famous Sydney megachurch. It was quite an experience. They had it all: the hustle and bustle of important people; the man with a torch and walkie-talkie who met us at the door and briskly ushered us to our seats; the dimly lit auditorium with its brightly coloured stage; the use of words like “vision” and “awesome”; the advertising segments (last week’s sermon was available on DVD for only $14.95); the slick businessmen with their Rolexes and their glamorous wives; the exuberant music performed by handsome musicians and voluptuous singers (I confessed to my wife that I had committed adultery in my heart all the way through “All I Need Is You”); the give-your-life-to-Jesus altar call; and throughout all this, the ubiquity of what Peter Berger has called “the Protestant smile.” There were n...
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The best bus sign: cast your vote
2009-02-11 13:03:00
Well, it’s hard to pick a winner – there were so many great entries in the bus sign caption contest. So I’ve chosen seven finalists, and you can now vote for your favourite in the poll at the top of the sidebar. Meanwhile, here’s one that didn’t quite make it into the list of finalists – but it did give me a great laugh:
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Atheist bus signs: a caption contest
2009-02-06 05:00:00
Over in the UK, the atheist bus campaign has been attracting a lot of media interest. Some Christian groups have chimed in with their own (predictably humourless) rival ads, and there have been various theological responses as well.So anyway, I reckon it’s time to settle this dispute once and for all – and what better way to resolve age-old metaphysical questions than with a caption contest? I’ll send a free book to the person who invents the best bus sign. (You get bonus points if your sign persuades someone to change their deepest beliefs.)
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Leonard Cohen in Brisbane 2009
2009-02-03 17:16:00
It’s 1.30 in the morning, and I’ve just arrived home from Leonard Cohen ’s concert here in Brisbane – a breathtaking four-hour extravaganza (with a wonderful opening set by the Aussie singer-songwriter Paul Kelly). Cohen was accompanied by some extraordinary singers and musicians – it would have been worth going just to see Javier Mas play his heart out on that bandurria.The concert was a revelation. I laughed and I cried; I roared and thundered; I leapt to my feet; I sat wrapped in silence. It was the greatest show I’ve ever seen. Filled with heartbreak and humour, desolation and hope, sex and seduction and light and darkness and prayer. Cohen is often described as a depressing singer; but the real core of his poetic vision is a fragile yet all-pervasive hope, a hope that springs – unexpectedly, miraculously – from the ruins of a shattered world. “There is a crack, a crack in everything: that’s how the light gets in.”There may not be many prophets left in our c...
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Ten virtues for theological students
2009-02-02 10:48:00
The ancients understood education as inculturation (παιδεια) into a life of virtue (αρετη). The main point of my recent satirical post was to suggest that theological education should similarly be understood as formation in virtue, rather than (as is too often the case) an inculturation into the vices of academia. In that post, I highlighted ten vices of theological education. And due to the number of emails I’ve received in response (partly from students who felt a little chastened or disillusioned, or that I was being too cynical), I’ve tried here to sketch out a contrasting list of ten virtues. Obviously this isn’t meant as a complete list (much less an autobiographical list!) – it’s just a parallel which makes explicit what was implicit in the earlier post:1. Patience: In theological education, the process of learning is more important than the specific opinions you might acquire as a result. You can’t learn everything at once; just relax and enjoy the ri...
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Two conferences and a journal
2009-02-01 22:55:00
Aberdeen will be hosting another great conference this year, on Theology and the Humanities. Speakers include John Webster, Gavin D’Costa, Laurence Hemming and David Jasper. And the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology is hosting a conference on Vatican II: Its Continuing Challenge
 to All Churches. Speakers include George Lindbeck, Nicholas Healy, Michael Root and Amy Laura Hall.On another note, the latest issue of American Theological Inquiry is available now, with articles on Augustine, Lutheran orthodoxy, cinema, and much more. Their next issue will be coming out later in the year – so you might like to think about submitting a manuscript.Update: I’ve also just been reminded that Alister McGrath is presenting his Gifford Lectures in Aberdeen this week.
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Artful is God, creation is his canvas
2009-02-01 02:21:00
A hymn by Kim Fabricius(Tune: Som Stranden)Artful is God, creation is his canvas on which he paints his cosmic masterpiece:brushstrokes both broad and delicate in detail, colours and shapes composed in perfect peace. Artful is God, creation is his canvas on which he paints his cosmic masterpiece.Zillions of stars, exploding out of nothing, dance for the Lord, delightful in his eye;billions of years it takes for sketching planets, time to design an earth to occupy.Dazzling the sun, and silver-soft the moonlight, fruitful the land, and fathomless the sea;wondrous is life, from single cell to primate, awesome is death, the final mystery.What then of man, the end of evolution, image divine defaced by sin and vice?Artful is God, producing from his palette Adam restored: self-portrait Jesus Christ!
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What is systematic theology?
2009-01-30 02:25:00
The latest issues of the International Journal of Systematic Theology and Irish Theological Quarterly contain a great pile of essays exploring the nature of systematic theology from Catholic and Protestant perspectives. Interestingly, a couple of the articles refer to Lewis Ayres’ polemical call for “a wider critique of the culture of systematic theology as such, an uncovering of the conditions that make it possible, and a sketch of the sort of theological culture that would enable a deeper and more attentive engagement [with historical sources]” – but none of the articles really attempts to respond to this remarkable challenge. Anyway, here’s a list of the articles, with a few remarks about each one:Nicholas M. Healy, “What Is Systematic Theology?”This is one of the most interesting and stimulating of all the essays. Healy distinguishes between “official theology” (the production of church institutions), “ordinary theology” (the reflection of virtually all bel...

John Updike, 1932-2009: a glance at his theology
2009-01-28 00:53:00
I was very sad to hear that one of my favourite contemporary novelists, John Updike, has died. Updike was deeply influenced by Kierkegaard and Karl Barth; he is the most theological novelist you’ll ever come across. In an early essay, he remarks that, at one time, Barth’s theology was the only thing supporting his life; he used to keep Barth’s Romans commentary beside his bed, to read a few pages at a time. Much of his fiction could be read as an extended reflection on Barth’s dictum: “There is no way from us to God…. The god who stood at the end of some human way would not be God.”Pastors and theologians today could still learn a great deal from Updike’s fiction. Just think of the Lutheran pastor Fritz Kruppenbach in Rabbit, Run (1960), a deeply Barthian minister who utters this thunderous denouncement of pastoral work – in conversation with another minister, he asks: “Do you think this is your job, to meddle in these people’s lives? I know what they teach you...
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God does not magnify himself: on Thomas Schreiner and Jonathan Edwards
2009-01-26 03:40:00
Michael Jensen mentions Thomas Schreiner’s recent New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ (Baker, 2008). Michael is right to be troubled by this interpretation of the New Testament: “Schreiner wants to argue that the anchoring theme of NT Theology is something like: God magnifying himself through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit. That is, God’s concern for God’s own glory is the driving heartbeat of the NT witness and mission. God’s self-referencing self-regard is what perpetuates his plans and his interaction with his creatures.”I had a similar complaint when I recently read a friend’s essay on Calvin’s doctrine of God: Calvin was not an Edwards ean! This whole business of “God magnifying himself” or of God redeeming the world “for the sake of God’s own glory” is really pretty perverse.Personally, I’ve read Jonathan Edwards’ The End for Which God Created the World a number of times, and I think it’s an amazing achievement of speculati...

Hans Urs von Balthasar on writing and living
2009-01-22 09:04:00
The other day, a friend gave me a very charming little book by Hans Urs von Balthasar, My Work: In Retrospect (Ignatius, 1993). It includes some remarkable reflections on the processes of writing – including the following, on the gap between one’s life and one’s writing:“It is not possible to make a clean separation between [writing and living]; a book must reflect much of the meaning that the writer seeks to give his own existence, even if this meaning is rather often stamped on the book against the direct will and supposition of the author…. Whoever has truly experienced this gives up the attempt to bring his literary work into harmony with his life; when he writes, he is ahead of himself in a dream of the totality in which he would like to give his fragments a sure home; then once more he limps along behind his own self, or even creeps backward and looks around, like Lot’s wife, into a beloved image of the past, an image that entices all the more magically since it is...
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Postcards of the hanging
2009-01-20 03:38:00
Stanley Fish on the corporate universityKim with 9.5 theses on Christian unityPlus a new hymn from Kim: Praise to Jesus in the kitchenMike provides the Hans Frei papersDave on Schleiermacher and the distinction between Catholicism and ProtestantismEric has been MyeredCynthia with three posts on Jeremy Begbie and music: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3Halden discusses Jacques Ellul on faith and the visualDan warns against the bookcase backdropJosh on Heidegger and theologyDavid critiques the label “pacifist”Kyle discusses an excellent book by Mark McIntoshSufjan Stevens offers a bit of theologyBrian on Yoder’s Žižekian moveA new article on a Bulgakovian theology of poetryAnd an online symposium around Nate Kerr’s book: there are two posts so far. If you don’t yet have a copy of Nate's book, it is still available at a 40% discount from the publisher, using the coupon code KERR40.Finally, I leave you with images of an extraordinary book which my kids received for Christmas: a po...

Advice for theological students: ten steps to a brilliant career
2009-01-16 23:48:00
1. As a theological student, your aim is to accumulate opinions – as many as you can, and as fast as possible. (Exceptional students may acquire all their opinions within the first few weeks; others require an entire semester.) One of the best ways to collect opinions is to choose your theological group (“I shall be progressive,” or “I will be evangelical,” or “I am a Barthian”), then sign up to all the opinions usually associated with that social group. If at first you don’t feel much conviction for these new opinions, just be patient: within twelve months you will be a staunch advocate, and you’ll even be able to help new students acquire the same opinions.2. At the earliest possible opportunity you should also form an opinion about your favourite theological discipline: that is, you should choose your specialisation. To communicate this choice to others, you should dismiss as trivial or irrelevant all other disciplines: the systematic theologian should teach her...
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Paul Nimmo: Being in Action
2009-01-13 00:29:00
I was delighted to hear that Paul Nimmo has received the Templeton Award for Theological Promise – a prize that comes with $10,000, plus an additional $10,000 to fund a series of international lectures. Paul received the award for his excellent book on Barth, Being in Action : The Theological Shape of Barth’s Ethical Vision (T&T Clark, 2007).Drawing deeply on the work of Bruce McCormack and Eberhard Jüngel, Nimmo shows that Barth’s ethical thought is structured by an actualistic ontology. “The action of God in electing to be God for humanity in Jesus Christ is not the act of an already existing agent. Rather it is an act in the course of which God determines the very being of God.” God’s being is an act, and the human agent is likewise constituted as a being-in-action through its ethical correspondence to God’s act in Christ. Indeed, Jesus’ history is the occurrence of human being. As Eberhard Jüngel puts it, “Between the being of the man Jesus and the being o...

The most expensive books
2009-01-09 22:58:00
Are you a bibliophile? Does your spouse harass you for your immodest spending on books? Do you have to resort to strategies like this? Well, now you can prove your great frugality by pointing your spouse to Abebooks’ list of the most expensive sales of 2008.
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A painting of Karl Barth
2009-01-05 02:56:00
Speaking of Oliver Crisp, here’s a photo of the painting he made for me in Princeton. It will soon be hanging proudly on my study wall:
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2009: the year of the Calvin
2009-01-02 04:50:00
Jean Calvin was born in July 1509 – so all around the world this year, there will be celebrations of his 500th anniversary. Princeton Seminary has organised “A Year with the Institutes”, a wonderful programme in which people can join together reading through Calvin’s Institutes this year. The seminary will provide a daily text (just a few pages), together with an audio reading of the text. So you can subscribe to the audio version through iTunes (it’s all free), and by the end of the year you’ll have gone through the entire Institutes. All the details are here.So why don’t you join in the fun, and read Calvin’s Institutes this year! No matter what you might think about Calvinist theology, the Institutes is one of the most remarkable theological works ever written. And don’t be taken in by those rumours about Calvin’s gloomy austerity – as far as works of dogmatics go, the Institutes is almost unrivalled for its sensitivity to scripture and its pervasive pastora...

The best of 2008
2008-12-31 05:50:00
Well, the year is drawing to a close: we left Princeton yesterday, and we’re spending the week in snow-white Vancouver before heading back to red-hot Australia. So if you’ll allow me another moment of nostalgia, here are some of my highlights from 2008 :Best novel: Marilynne Robinson, HomeBest book of poetry: Rowan Williams, HeadwatersBest film: The VisitorBest Australian film: The Black BalloonBest TV show: John Adams (HBO)Best online superhero musical tragicomedy: Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along BlogBest theology book (in English): Nate Kerr, Christ, History and ApocalypticBest theology book (in German): Günter Thomas, Neue SchöpfungBest work of literary criticism: Rowan Williams, Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and FictionBest book on politics: Ian Hunter, The Secularisation of the Confessional State: The Political Thought of Christian ThomasiusBest book on history: Quentin Skinner, Hobbes and Republican LibertyBest journalistic piece: Chris Hedges, “The Best and the Brightest Have...

It's a Boy! A Christmas eve homily
2008-12-24 06:56:00
A sermon by Kim FabriciusIt’s a boy! A tiny mite of a creature with slick black hair, swarthy face, dark brown eyes, squinting, adjusting to the light in the shock and wonder at suddenly being thrown into the back of beyond, and – what always gets you the most – those perfectly formed little fingers and toes. He’s crying. But what’s the matter? Cold? Hunger? Wind? Wet? You hug him and, by trial and error, you try to find out. He is certainly helpless but he is hardly passive, and he demands your attention, shamelessly.Does this little one care about who you are, about your sex, sexuality, politics, or even whether you believe in God, or what God you believe in? No, he reaches out, unquestioningly, to you in your elemental humanity. He wants only your tenderness, moist like cattle breath, warm like straw.This baby happens to be Jewish, but he is not bothered if you are Roman or Samaritan, would not be bothered if you are Palestinian, Welsh, or even American, and he will soo...
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Best albums of 2008
2008-12-22 23:44:00
Here’s my list of the top 15 albums of 2008 :15. Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs14. Female Tribute to Tom Waits (bootleg compilation)13. She & Him, Volume One12. Nine Inch Nails, Ghosts I-IV11. Blind Pilot, 3 Rounds and a Sound10. Welcome Wagon, Welcome to the Welcome Wagon9. Sigur Rós, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust8. Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes7. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend6. Cat Power, Jukebox5. Sun Kil Moon, April4. TV on the Radio, Dear Science,3. Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago2. Bob Dylan, Tell Tale Signs(Drumroll...) and the best album of the year is...1. Juno: Music from the Motion Picture – a perfect album in every way; the true apotheosis of the soundtrack genre.
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Rowan Williams: Christmas with Karl Barth
2008-12-21 23:51:00
Today’s Telegraph features a Christmas meditation by Rowan Williams , focusing on Karl Barth ’s critique of “principle”:“What [Barth] was warning against was the temptation of unconditional loyalty to a system, a programme, a ‘cause’ which was essentially about ‘me and people like me’…. Christmas is supremely the story of a God who is not interested in telling us about principles…. Christmas doesn’t offer an alternative set of economic theories or even a social programme. It’s a story – the record of an event that began to change the entire framework in which we think about human life, so that the unique value of every life came to be affirmed and assumed…. That’s one reason why we tell this story repeatedly, the story of the ‘unprincipled’ God who values what others don’t notice, who relates to people we’d all rather forget, whose appeal is to everyone because he has made everyone capable of loving response.”

George Hunsinger: why T. F. Torrance was a Barthian
2008-12-20 05:32:00
A guest-post by George Hunsinger (responding to the recent exchange between me, Travis and David – you can find all the links here)Without attempting to address all the points raised in the recent discussion, I would like to offer the following reflections.1. There is a difference between theological journalism and theological scholarship. The latter makes measured judgments and works closely with texts. The former traffics in sweeping generalizations and big fuzzy ideas like “substance metaphysics” and “actualistic ontology.” Such notions are of little use for understanding either Torrance or Barth.2. No theologian in recent times has made a clearer connection than Torrance between the Incarnation and the Cross, and between Christ’s bodily Resurrection and his Ascension. Torrance states repeatedly that the Incarnation is the precondition of the Atonement as completed in the Cross, and that the Cross is the inner fulfillment of the Incarnation. Neither can be had without...

Paradise Lost: parallel prose edition
2008-12-18 06:13:00
Continuing our celebratory Milton theme, let me tell you about this very unusual – and quite remarkable – new book. Dennis Danielson, one of the world’s most distinguished interpreters of Milton (and a brilliant interpreter of Milton’s theology), has translated the whole of Paradise Lost into prose!Paradise Lost : Parallel Prose Edition (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2008), 559 pp. (thanks to Regent College for a copy)Milton’s poetry is notoriously difficult. T. S. Eliot famously remarked that Milton “invent[s] his own poetic language.” Every linguistic idiosyncrasy, Eliot said, “is a particular act of violence which Milton has been the first to commit”; his poetic style is “a perpetual sequence of original acts of lawlessness.” Milton’s verse is therefore “poetry at the farthest possible remove from prose” – thus explaining both its sheer difficulty and the extraordinary capacity of the language to captivate and beguile.I must admit, I was at fi...

Here, there and everywhere
2008-12-17 17:40:00
A further exchange on whether Torrance is a BarthianAn entertaining Brueggemann video (with remarks about weekly visits to his shrink)Hear Flannery O’Connor reading one of her storiesSome good (painfully accurate) Aussie comedy about giving to charityOn reading quality dogmatics (including a hilarious comment by Francesca: “The first few times someone quoted Wayne Grudem in an essay for me, I wrote, please do not quote someone called Wayne in an essay.”Nate Kerr responds to some criticismsA perfect three-sentence summary of AgambenA new book on Augustinian political theologyA new collection of essays on Rowan Williams (including one by me) – the book is searchable hereOn the new Rowan Williams biography: “Shortt views Williams’s career as a crucifixion.”A debate between Žižek and Cornel WestMilbank’s extended review of Charles TaylorA conference on Genesis and theologyA sweet folksy-gospel CD produced by Sufjan StevensA new blog on mental illness and the churchAn...

Alternative theses on art
2008-12-16 17:20:00
Thanks for all the very interesting comments on my theses on art – the discussion gave me lots to think about, and certainly caused me to rethink some of the theses. (I don’t think anyone agreed with my remarks about “didactic” art, which may be a pretty good indication that I’m wrong…)Anyway, a couple of people have also posted alternative sets of theses, with some fundamental criticisms of my post: Ten Alternative Theses on Art, and Parsing Ten Theological Thesis on Art.Update: In addition, see Theses on Art and Ten (Theological) Theses on Art.

Ten theological theses on art
2008-12-13 19:05:00
I was talking the other day about art with the delightful and incomparable Oliver Crisp (who went to art school before he studied theology). So here’s my attempt at ten brief theses on art (with a picture below of one of my favourite paintings in New York – Picasso’s 1936 Girl Asleep at a Table):Art is not a representation of the world or an expression of feeling, but a construction of formNature is flawed; art is more perfect than natureArt is therefore a parable of the redemption of the worldArt is tradition; it opens the future by renewing the pastArt is the occurrence of the new; metaphysics trails in art’s wakeArt may be true or good to the extent that it seeks only the beautifulDidacticism is therefore the enemy of art. Bad art is not harmless; it is a betrayal of the world, violence against beautyBeauty in art can take form as grotesqueness, fragmentation and dissonanceThe beauty of grotesqueness, fragmentation and dissonance has a special proximity to a Christian the...
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Avery Cardinal Dulles, 1918-2008
2008-12-13 15:10:00
One of the world’s leading Catholic theologians, Avery Cardinal Dulles, died yesterday in New York, aged 90. There’s a good obituary in the New York Times, and a nice piece at First Things.
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On Satan, cigarettes, and Leonard Cohen
2008-12-12 08:32:00
They’ve let Leonard Cohen out of his tower for a while, so he’ll be touring Australia in February – and I’ll be going to see him at his Brisbane show! As far as I can tell, he’s someone who only gets better the older and bleaker he gets. He might complain: “Well my friends are gone, my hair is grey, I ache in the places where I used to play” – but our response is to hope that he just keeps on aching: pain this beautiful ought to go on and on. (Kurt Cobain was right to notice this: “Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally.”)Anyway, the prospect of seeing Leonard Cohen reminds me of something I was reading recently: Glen Duncan’s deliciously funny and perverse novel, I, Lucifer (Grove Press, 2002). In the novel, Satan is given the chance to re-enter heaven if he can live a well-behaved life in a human body for one month. He enjoys the experience of fleshiness, and he promptly gives himself up to all manner of debauchery. At one point, he also ...
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