bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How Christian is Kierkegaard's God?
Authors: Law David R.
Published: January 2009

From time to time controversy breaks out within Kierkegaardian scholarship as to the nature of Kierkegaard's concept of God. This controversy is invariably centred on Kierkegaard's claim that there exists ‘an infinite qualitative difference’ between God and humankind. The utter transcendence of God that this phrase expresses and the fact that Kierkegaard employs categories drawn from Greek philosophy to express the nature of God's transcendence have led such scholars as E. L. Allen, Richard Kroner, and Malcolm L. Diamond, to contend that Kierkegaard's understanding of God is not motivated by Christian principles but is merely a Christianization of an Aristotelian concept of God, a contention which would seem to be supported by Kierkegaard's frequent descriptions of God in terms of Aristotle's Unmoved Mover. On the other hand, such scholars as T. H. Croxall, Paul Sponheim, Niels Thulstrup, and Mark Taylor have rejected this argument and claim that Kierkegaard's concept of God is motivated by Christian principles. Unfortunately, none of these latter scholars has put forward a comprehensive defence of this position. In this article it is my intention to rectify this omission and to show that, far from being Aristotelian, Kierkegaard's concept of God is firmly based upon Christian principles.
Gender, Personhood and Theology
Authors: Graham Elaine L.
Published: January 2009

One of the most significant phenomena within the Western Church over the past twenty-five years has been the emergence of feminist theology. Fuelled by the second wave of the modern women's movement, drawing upon the theoretical and critical stances of academic feminism, and inspired by Latin American Liberation Theology, feminist theologians have achieved a remarkable body of work in a relatively short time. They have sought to establish the opportunities and validate the methods by which women, long silenced as theological subjects, may articulate their perspectives and contribute towards the reconstruction of a more ‘inclusive’ theological discipline.
What Happens in the Eucharist?
Authors: Ford David F.
Published: January 2009

The eucharist or holy communion or mass or Lord's supper is probably the ritual most participated in and most discussed in human history. It is the principal act of worship of the majority of the billion and a half or so Christians in the world today and has some importance for most of the minority. Simply as an inquiry about what happens around the world at present my title would clearly be an impossible question to answer with anything approaching thoroughness. But that might seem an odd way to take it. In theology the question usually leads in to discussing real presence, eucharistic sacrifice, valid ministry and so on. Those are of course important, but I am reluctant to forget about inquiry into actual practice. I will not be able to contribute much on the subject, but it is a significant part of the imaginative context of this paper. So I will start by trying to begin to do justice to it. That will be the springboard for an attempt in Part 2 to redescribe the Eucharist in relation to some New Testament statements, without pretending that the intervening thousands of years that have generated all that diversity have not occurred. The main concerns there will be imperatives, especially the imperative of death, and Jesus as an agent of incorporation, a critical concept being that of non-identical repetition. Part 3 will take up some of the suggestions of Part 2 in order to develop one aspect of the Eucharist and transformation: what might some characteristics of a ‘eucharistic self’ be? The conclusion will then try to summarise the answer that has emerged to the title question.
Ian Markham's Plurality and Christian Ethics
Authors: Sedgwick Peter
Published: January 2009

Ian Markham's contribution to the Cambridge New Studies in Christian Ethics considers plurality rather than pluralism. The distinction is important for Markham. The latter concept is identified with the relationship of Christianity to world religions and with the thought of john Hick. The former is concerned with the fragmentation of culture, both intellectually and morally. Can there be a distinctive, if not exclusive, Christian position in such a world? Plurality is therefore defined phenonemologically: “the reality of differing and conflicting traditions (or world views) arising in differing communities with different histories”. The definition appeals to the divergence of communities, each with distinctive worldviews and identities. Propositional beliefs form only a part of such an identity. Nor does it carry any theological judgment on its desirability.
Divine Compassion and the Meaning of Life
Authors: Sarot Marcel
Published: January 2009

When people meet each other for the first time, they often ask questions about each other's profession. In my case, it requires some courage to reply frankly to such questions. Those who are not put off by my admission that I am a philosopher of religion and ask me for my special field of interest, almost invariably betray horror at my answer that I concentrate on the suffering of God. Divine passibility may be theologically en vogue, it is simply not done to be concerned with such a topic day in, day out for several years. It is not only that for many people some kind of taboo seems to be imposed upon abstract thinking; people's aversion is too strong to be based on this alone. The heart of the matter seems to be that to many people prolonged reflection upon the suffering of God seems to be positively morbid; they would not trust their children with a man engaged in it! It is not my intention entirely to remove these misgivings here, but I do hope that my reflections at least will not reinforce them. I will focus on three issues: (1) the alleged importance of divine passibility for the project of theodicy; (2) the importance of divine passibility for our coping with suffering and (3) the relevance of the assertion of divine passibility in the light of the general sense of purposelessness that is characteristic for Western society in our time. This means that I will approach divine passibility from the backgrounds that motivate my interest in it, thus hoping to be able to convey something of the inspiration that prompted me to carry on with this seemingly morbid topic during the past few years.
Bread and Wine
Authors: O'Neill J. C.
Published: January 2009

The Christian practice of meeting for worship and receiving token pieces of bread and token sips of wine seems unlikely to have had Jewish precedents. You don't eat in a synagogue; you eat at home. To be sure, specific acts of eating bread and drinking wine are given religious significance in the setting of the Passover meal, but that is not quite the same, although perhaps we might suppose the Christian practice to have evolved from the Jewish meal.
Sinlessness and Moral Responsibility: A Problem in Christology
Authors: Hart T. A.
Published: January 2009

Our concern in this paper will be with the traditional Christian claim that Jesus of Nazareth was ‘tempted in all respects as we are, yet without sin.’ (Heb.4:15) In its dogmatic, as opposed to its biblical, version, this claim can be identified in two distinct forms. First there is what we may denote the weaker form, in which it is claimed simply that in actual fact Jesus committed no sin: and second there is the stronger form according to which he was actually and in principle quite incapable of committing sin. Put differently, in terms of the distinctions of scholastic theology, we may either confess of the Incarnate posse non peccare or non posse peccare.
Calvin' Baptismal Theology and the Making of the Strasbourg and Genevan Baptismal Liturgies 1540 and 1542
Authors: Spinks Bryan D.
Published: January 2009

Baptism is a subject which finds considerable attention in the writings of John Calvin. It features more generally in chapter 14 of the 1559Institute, on Sacraments, and specifically in chapters 15 and 16. It features in theInstruction in Faithand the laterGenevan Catechism, and throughout his commentaries both with reference to passages where baptism is explicit, as well as where Calvin believed it to be implicit. Other references occur in sermons and his occasional writings. Yet in contrast with his eucharistic teaching, there have been far fewer studies on his theology of baptism. Amongst the contributions of English speaking scholars, the studies of R. S. Wallace,Calvin's Doctrine of the Word and Sacraments, 1953 and T. F. Torrance's discussion in the 1957 Church of Scotland report on baptism remain invaluable. Both Wallace and Torrance present a systematic survey of the Reformer's baptismal theology as it is found in the 1559Institute, the commentaries and sermons, pinpointing his important emphases. In an article in 1962 E. Grislis gave a comprehensive summary of the teaching on baptism in the 1559Institute, drawing attention to a tension between election and instrumentality. More recently still Jill Rait examined the teaching on infant baptism in the 1559Institute, suggesting that it needs to be understood in the light of three inter-related principles, viz:
Forgiveness and Atonement
Authors: Jensen Paul
Published: January 2009

Christians frequently request God's forgiveness and have their Lord's assurance that if they refuse to forgive they will not be forgiven (Matt. 6:15). Forgiveness is thus integral to Christian moral existence even if life presents few opportunities to forgive those who have genuinely wronged us. This infrequency of opportunity is neither regrettable nor surprising. Sane persons after all do not wish to be routinely wronged so as to be able to forgive regularly. But perhaps the infrequency with which we forgive others helps to explain why we are mystified by the nature of forgiveness.
Spirituality without Inwardness
Authors: Thatcher Adrian
Published: January 2009

Theologians are not generally aware of the influence of the concept of spirituality in education. Is it not remarkable, not to say amazing, for example, that the secular Parliament of Great Britain should pass a bill listing ‘spiritual development’ as the first aim of the school curriculum?1 But educationists are not generally aware of the rich heritage of thought about spirituality in Christian faith and practice. And one is also tempted to say that theologians and educationists do not read much material from philosophy about ‘spirit’ and ‘spirituality’. Yet spirituality is too important to be confined to narrow treatments in separate academic disciplines.
The Epistemological Significance of ‘Ομοοσον in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance
Authors: Seng Kang Phee
Published: January 2009

Central to the whole of Thomas Forsyth Torrance's theology is the μοοΣιον between the incarnate Logos and the eternal God, or the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. The immense significance of this Nicene μοοΣιον is best understood against the background of the axiomatic χωριΣμΣ which lies at the heart of Hellenism, Gnosticism and Arianism. Once such a radical separation between τ νοητ and τ αἰΣθητ is posited, there arise the inevitable questions: (a) How do we regard the biblical statements of the eternal God within the history of the Jewish people in the realm of τ αἰΣθητ (b) On which side of the demarcation does the Logos of the eternal God belong? For the dualist thinkers, the dilemma is — How can the eternal God who is impassible and changeless be thought of as actually entering the spatiotemporal history of this changing and decaying world, and alas, even living within our creaturely and contingent order? To be sure, the biblical notion of a Creator who actively and creatively interacts with his creation is incompatible with the prevailing Hellenic thought-form and secular culture of the early Church. It was as unthinkable and unintelligible to them as it is to Bultmann and the myth-of-God-incarnate theologians of our day.
Janet Martin Soskice, Metaphor and a Theology of Grace
Authors: Patterson Sue
Published: January 2009

Janet Martin Soskice's bookMetaphor and Religious Languagemay reasonably be described as ‘state of the art’ in respect of studies on metaphor and theology. Dr Soskice recognises the need for metaphor to retain its traditional designation as a figure of speech, but at the same time wants to establish its use as credible in a Christian realist perspective. To this end, she undertakes a rigorous examination of the nature and function of metaphor in order to build a solid base from which to establish its pertinence to theology. It is metaphor's ability to achieve an increment of meaning in language in general (and science in particular) which is able to provide the springboard for its role in religious language. Dr Soskice thus sees language as the framework within which to conduct her argument. The first part of this paper analyses her argument.
Karl Barth on St. Anselm: The Influence of Anselm's: ‘Theological Scheme’ on T.F. Torrance and Eberhard Jüngel
Authors: Wigley Stephen D.
Published: January 2009

In recent articles on Karl Barth and St. Anselm, Gordon Watson has drawn attention to what he regards as a ‘characteristic systematic weakness’ or ‘systemic problem in Barth's methodology’. This has its origins in Barth's failure to ‘take into account St. Anselm's assumption of the importance of a common rational structure in thought and language existent between believer and unbeliever as the basis for speech about God’ and has consequences not only for Barth's exposition of Anselm's ‘theological scheme’ but also for the subsequent development of Barth's soteriology in that he ‘undervalues the importance of the historical humanity of Jesus in the action of the atonement’.
A Theology of Chaos. An Experiment in Postmodern Theological Science
Authors: Shults F. LeRon
Published: January 2009

Judeo-Christian theology has always been concerned with the order and rationality of the created universe, believing that this rational order was somehow bestowed upon it by the Creator. However, in the last two decades traditional conceptions of order have been challenged by the scientific discovery that ‘chaos’ permeates the behaviour of natural systems in our cosmos. What is the theologian to make of this ‘discovery’? If theology is to speak to the contemporary mind with its postmodern frame of reference, it must carry out its own inquiry vis-à-vis the work of natural science as it explores the intrinsic intelligibility of the created universe.
The Concept ofHebelin the Book of Ecclesiastes
Authors: McKenna John E.
Published: January 2009

Today scholars still struggle to apprehend the meaning ofhebel(vanity) in the Book of Ecclesiastes. It has become recognized that Old Testament theologians like Walter Eichrodt, Gerhard von Rad, and Ronald Clements did not essentially integrate the Wisdom Tradition of ancient Israel into the development of their theologies. In his Tyndale lecture on the Old Testament of 1965, David Hubbard argued for a new sensitivity to the relationship that must exist between covenant and wisdom in the community of faith. A. Graeme Auld has insisted that the alienation of wisdom from covenant traditions has caused such acute problems in understanding the Old Testament that we are in danger of not grasping at all the relation between the Word of God and the Word of Man. These problems may be linked not only to the question about why the Book of Ecclesiastes was allowed into the Canon of Israel, but also to the very hearing we claim to possess of the revelation of the Word of God in the world and the way the world has actually been made to be. All this should tell us that the significance of the concept ofhebelin the Book of Ecclesiastes requires a real clarification of profound consequence for our knowledge of God in the world.
Nicodemus
Authors: Goulder Michael
Published: January 2009

Nicodemus is the hero of many a Trinity Sunday sermon.2 The leader of the Jews, the master of Israel, comes humbly to Jesus, by night to the Light of the World. He does not believe much (like the preacher perhaps), but he has the heart of the matter, ‘We know that thou art a teacher come from God’. Jesus teaches him the profound truth of man's need for rebirth, and he is converted. He stands up for his faith pluckily against the hostility of his peers — ‘Does our Lawjudge a man…?’; and in the end it is he who buries Jesus, with a royal anointment of a hundred litres of myrrh.
Two Early Reformed Catechisms, The Threefold Office, and The Shape of Karl Barth's Christology
Authors: Butin Phil
Published: January 2009

Together, Calvin's Geneva Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism had an exceptional influence on Karl Barth's theology. Barth seems neither to have learned these catechisms as a child nor taught them in his own confirmation classes as a pastor. But as a theologian, he later developed a particular and persistent interest in both.1
The Pronouns of Deity: A Theolinguistic Critique of Feminist Proposals
Authors: Hook Donald D. , Kimel Alvin F.
Published: January 2009

Aremarkable effort at reform is now occurring in English-speaking Christian discourse. This effort is the ongoing proposal of feminist theologians that the exclusive use of the masculine third-person pronouns to refer to God be eliminated. The traditional usage is rejected on the ground that it identifies the Godhead as male. Several alternatives to this usage have been suggested, and some of them are now being tested in various quarters of the Church. In this paper we disclose theolinguistic implications of the use of pronouns in reference to divinity and offer critique of current reformist proposals.
Another Mathematician's Apology: Theological Reflections Upon the Role of Proof in Mathematics
Authors: Sinnett M. W.
Published: January 2009

Not that I have already obtained this or have already been made perfect (teteleiomai); but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature (teleioi) be thus minded; and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal that also to you.
‘The Undiscover'd Country’ an Exploration – ‘The Life Everlasting’
Authors: Shaw D. W. D.
Published: January 2009

In memory of Alan Lewis, student, colleague and above all friend, at whose ordination as a minister of the Church of Scotland the author was privileged to preach, Kirkliston Parish Church, Midlothian, 4th December, 1977.
Unexpected Mercy: Echoes of a Biblical Motif in Romans 9–11
Authors: Thielman Frank
Published: January 2009

Of the many problems which trouble interpreters of Romans 9–11, none rises more massively from its pages or casts a more impenetrable shadow than the relationship between Paul's argument in 9:6–13 and his argument in 11:25–31. The issue in both passages is whether God's biblical promises to save Israel have failed (9:6, 11:29), exposing the God of Paul's gospel as untruthful (15:8) and unrighteous (3:5, 10:3). In 9:6–13 Paul denies the charge by defining Israel on the basis of God's choice rather than on the basis of national affiliation. In 11:25–32, however, he denies the charge by pointing forward to a time in which God will fulfill his promises and secure the salvation of all Israel. The problem is that these two defenses of God's faithfulness seem to contradict one another, and the defense in chapter eleven seems not only to contradict the one in chapter nine but to oppose Paul's frequent and emphatic denial in several letters, and especially in Romans, that national Israel has any soteriological advantage over the Gentiles.
The Grammar of Barth's Theology of Personal Relations
Authors: Deddo Gary
Published: January 2009

In much contemporary theology, pastoral/practical theology, and much of the more popular ‘Christian’ literature there is a concern for exploring and discovering various aspects of right relationship. These relationships might be political, marital, familial, sexual, economic, those within the church, or between the church and the greater society. What seems to be lacking in many of these discussions is an adequate theological foundation upon which to carry out the exploration. There are assumptions made about the nature of human relationships which seem to have no connection to theological underpinnings or are only loosely, or thematically related.
Falling into Freedom: Searching for New Interpretations of Sin in a Secular Society
Authors: Grey Mary
Published: January 2009

‘Whatever became of sin?’ – the title of American psychiatrist Kark Menninger's book – encapsulates the problem with which I begin. That there is appalling suffering today, organized crime on a scale which almost defies analysis – and certainly detection! – moral evil in a variety of repugnant forms and so-called ‘natural’ catastrophes which threaten the very continuation of human life on our planet, is beyond dispute. But ‘sin’? Is sinfulness still an accepted category in our society for eidier religious believer or nonbeliever? It is hard to accept that when Professor Kerkhofs (from the University of Leuven, Belgium), surveyed the attitudes on sin and guilt of European Christians in 1985, 40% of those interviewed admitted that they had never experienced any feelings of regret about their actions! There is a double tendency prevailing with regard to responsibility for acknowledged wrongdoing: increasing sense of diminished responsibility for crime seeks either to scapegoat a certain sector of the populace as blameworthy, or attempts are made to cope with criminal damage – for example, injuries sustained by drink-driving – by assessing it in exclusively (reductive) monetary terms.
A Trinitarian Ontology of Persons in Society
Authors: Speidell Todd H.
Published: January 2009

Orthodox Christians, Rahner declares, are ‘almost mere monotheists’, isolating the dogma of the Trinity from any personal relevance to their lives. The doctrine of the Trinity appears in the Church's creeds, prayers, rites, and hymns, but the faithful must often wait till Trinity Sunday to hear the significance of the Trinity for their identity as Christians. Likely, they will hear imperatives without indicatives, moral mandates devoid of ontological grounding in God's grace. No wonder that the laity often ignore the triune God whom they confess and praise in Church amid their life and work in society.
Jean-Alphonse Turrettini (1671–1737) on Natural Theology: The Triumph of Reason Over Revelation at the Academy of Geneva
Authors: Klauber Martin
Published: January 2009

Michael Heyd has described the late seventeenth and early eighteen centuries as an era of gradual development from Orthodoxy to the Enlightenment at the Academy of Geneva. One of the most important facets of this change was the eventual triumph of reason over revelation and the inevitable elimination by the mid-eighteenth century of many of the essential doctrines of the faith such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Deism and atheism, which were becoming more and more feared at the Academy, posed the greatest threats to Reformed thought. Those theologians who considered themselves to be orthodox Protestants and yet enlightened to the use of reason to defend Christianity, attempted to protect the faith against the unique challenges of the times. Their extensive use of reason was a marked departure from the traditional Reformed approach to Apologetics and radically transformed the very nature of Reformed Protestantism. It is the purpose of this paper to show that the specific challenges of this era provided the theological faculty at the Academy of Geneva, and especially Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, the leader of the so-called enlightened orthodox party, with the predisposition to employ a rationalistic approach to natural theology.
The Truth of Tradition: Critical Realism in the Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre and T. F. Torrance
Authors: Achtemeier P. Mark
Published: January 2009

I have found myself very much drawn to the epistemological realism which T.F. Torrance puts forward in his 1985 book, Reality and Scientific Theology. Torrance's claim, that true knowledge represents a genuine disclosure to the mind of that which is objectively real, seems to me an indispensable presupposition for the church's proclamation of the Gospel. If the knowledge, ‘That I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to myself but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ’, is to be capable of offering concrete assurance about the eternal destiny of ordinary believers, such knowledge must of necessity be grounded in a reality (Jesus Christ) which transcends the particularities of the believer's own body, soul, and historical circumstances. A realism like Torrance's would seem to be essential if the church's witness is to be taken seriously.
Maimonides on the Great Tautology Exodus 3, 14
Authors: Broadie Alexander
Published: January 2009

In Exodus 3, 14 a concept of the God of Israel is hinted at, and the hint is taken up by Moses Maimonides in his Guide of the Perplexed and developed in a way that should hold our metaphysical gaze. In particular, on the basis of the Great Tautology Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh contained in that verse, he presents an account of God in terms of a distinctive application of the categories of agent and act, and I shall follow Maimonides through the crucial moves he makes in his application of those categories to God. Yet the Maimonidean system presents us with reasons for being suspicious of the application of any categories at all to God, and my approach to Maimonides' discussion of the Great Tautology will be by way of a consideration of those reasons, all of which relate to the most famous feature of the Guide of the Perplexed, the unremitting application of the via negativa. There are large problems concerning the correct way to understand Maimonides' use of that via. But we cannot afford here to be deterred from attending to that aspect of his system, for he uses it in his discussion of the Great Tautology. Indeed he has barely started his journey along the Via Negativa when he is confronted by the concept of divine existence and has to decide on an appropriate response. Hence in our investigation of Maimonides' concept of divine existence, we must take into account the way in which his apophatic route determines his perspective.
The Cross of the Living Lord: The Theology of the Cross and Mysticism
Authors: (Vann) Neufeld Franceen
Published: January 2009

The theology of the cross, that ‘thin tradition’ stretching back through Luther and Augustine and Paul to find its origins in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves, has often been counterposed to the thicker, yet equally long, tradition of mysticism. In recent years, however, distinctions between these traditions have been expressed less categorically. It is now generally recognized that mysticism cannot be regarded as a single phenomenon. Rather, an understanding of diversity within the mystical tradition is foundational to an adequate appreciation of the richness, not only of mysticism, but of the theology of the cross as well. Ecumenical concerns have provided an incentive for discovering complexities in both traditions, and for breaking down the artificial barriers of long-held prejudices. This may make it possible to perceive ‘mystical theology in Martin Luther and evangelical theology in John of the Cross’.
Schleiermacher's Christology Revisited: A Reply to his Critics
Authors: Mariña Jacqueline
Published: January 2009

It has often been remarked by Schleiermacher's critics that his surprisingly high Christology is an awkward interlude in what may otherwise be described as a transcendental philosophy of religion. Schleiermacher's brief intoxication with Romanticism as evidenced in theSpeeches, the undeniable influence of Schelling and Spinoza upon his early intellectual development, and the fact thatThe Christian Faithbegins with a general description of the God-consciousness, all contribute to the suspicion thatThe Christian Faithis primarily an attempt to harmonize Christianity with the prevailing cultural thought forms of the day. This is, for instance, the way that Barth describes Schleiermacher's project: first and foremost, he understands it as an enterprise in apologetics.
Participatio Christi: H. R. Mackintosh's theology of the unio mystica
Authors: Redman Robert R.
Published: January 2009

The concept of unio mystica stands out of the more distinctive aspects of H.R. Mackintosh's theological work. Generally regarded as one of the leading English-speaking theologians of the first third of this century, Mackintosh and his innovative insights have since fallen into comparative neglect. Interestingly, the concept of the unio mystica seldom appeared as a theme on its own, apart from his programmatic article ‘The Unio Mystica as a Theological Conception’ (1909). Rather it served as a leitmotif which recurred at important points in his christology and soteriology. This essay will survey the meaning and importance Mackintosh gave to the unio mystica, and the various ways the concept functioned in his theology. Hence the first part will reconstruct his understanding of union with Christ, while the second part will examine three main applications of the concept: participatory christology, justification, and the Christian life. We will also explore some of the potential the concept may have for contemporary theology in a few concluding remarks.
The Integrity of Creation and the Social Nature of God
Authors: Kaiser Christopher B.
Published: January 2009

The idea of the ‘integrity of creation‘ has been widely discussed in ecumenical circles at least since 1983. In that year, the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches (Vancouver) defined its agenda for service in the world in terms of the three rubrics, ‘justice, peace, and the integrity of creation’. A World Convocation on Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation was held in Seoul, Korea, in February 1990.
Docetism, Käsemann, and Christology: Why Historical Criticism Can't Protect Christological Orthodoxy
Authors: Adam A. K. M.
Published: January 2009

The market for historical Jesuses has never been hotter. A mob of Jesus books have hit the bookstore shelves recently, whose authors star on videotapes, chat on radio talk shows, and appear on transcontinental live video programs. While interest in Jesus flourishes, however, there is no consensus about what Jesus was really like. The scholars who have landed mass-market publishers are not necessarily the most widely-respected representatives of their fields of inquiry; indeed, there is considerable scholarly resistance to the recent spate of Jesuses.
Deification: Consensual and Cogent
Authors: Norris F. W.
Published: January 2009

Many traditional Protestants are rereading their heritages through the Church catholic. That includes reading them through Eastern Orthodoxy. To bring forward the best of any particular Christian heritage for the whole Church or to enrich such a heritage by drawing from the whole Church, we need to be keen students of church history, scripture and contemporary situations. Every effort to restate the gospel for the next century must recognize that people see through their participation in communities. All Christians worship together in some kinds of congregations. We may try to get distance from what we believe and how we act, but if we move outside the circle, we take up a stance within another community. As Christians we read and understand from within the Church.
Fergus Kerr's Wittgensteinian ‘Philosophy of Theology’: An Appreciation and a Critique
Authors: Murphy Francesca
Published: January 2009

Toward the conclusion of hisTheology After Wittgenstein, Fergus Kerr states that,

The rationalistic attempt to find the deeper psychological or evolutionary significance of ceremony only distracts us from the deep significance that a description of the event already communicates…

The sacrifice of the priest-king is no different in kind from religious actions that we might ourselves perform …, confessing one's sins…, baptism…

…The phenomena of the natural world, of birth, of death, and of sexual life… none of which is especially mysterious but any of which can become so to us prompt certain human reactions. …these customs are not adopted because of views that people have; they are too primitive and unreflective for that, they arereactions, in certain situations.
Apophaticism, Postmodernism and Language: Two Similar Cases of Theological Imbalance
Authors: Bulzan Daniel
Published: January 2009

Postmodernism and apophaticism do not seem perhaps the most obvious association, even in a discussion about the nature of language. Indeed, the former is a complex phenomenon of culture, very hard to define and to a large degree still unassessed, while the latter is a specifically theological current, spread over many centuries and with relatively little impact on societies. However, as an anti-modern reaction, postmodernism seems drawn to almost any human endeavour that does not conform to the canons of modernity, thus being open for dialogue and comparison with varied movements of ideas. It is, of course, debateable whether this non-conformity is the main criterion for the postmodern interests, or whether the anti-modern rhetoric is in fact a cover-up for a larger agenda.
Gordon Kaufman: An Attempt to Understand Him
Authors: Sonderegger Katherine
Published: January 2009

Students of Karl Barth will recognize my title immediately: it is a paraphrase of Barth's own effort to understand Rudolf Bultmann. Like Barth, I seek really to understand, not to evade or repudiate; and really to seek, not to grasp insight as the better tool to punish the opponent. But like Barth again, I may find understanding an elusive goal. For I am one of those Christians Kaufman believes at odds with her own age.
Bishop Colenso and His Critics: The Strange Emergence of Biblical Criticism in Victorian Britain
Authors: Larsen Timothy
Published: January 2009

In October 1862, John William Colenso, bishop of Natal, published a book entitledThe Pentateuch and book of Joshua critically examined. Although this volume proved to be only the first of seven parts, and the bishop's life was eventful in other ways, the controversy surrounding this volume did more than any other single factor to determine Colenso's enduring reputation. To his critics, the publication of such a book was an outrageous and heretical act. When the book was discussed in the Lower House of Convocation, C. E. Kennaway was convinced that it should be labelled ‘Poison!’ and Archdeacon Denison declared that ‘No book can ever be brought under our consideration of a worse character than this’ and that ‘if a man asserts such things as are in this book —anathema esto— let him be put away’. In the end, both houses of Convocation resolved that ‘the main propositions’ of the book ‘involve errors of the gravest and most dangerous character’.
At-Onement — The Nature and Challenge of Gnostic Soteriology
Authors: Logan Alastair
Published: January 2009

In this paper I wish first to reconsider the nature of Gnostic soteriology in response to classic criticisms, ancient and modern, and then to suggest the perennial challenge that it poses to Christian theories of atonement.
Beyond the Veil of the Temple: The High Priestly Origins of the Apocalypses
Authors: Barker Margaret
Published: January 2009

The veil of the temple was woven from blue, purple, crimson and white thread, and embroidered with cherubim (2 Chron 3.14); the veil in the tabernacle had been similar, (Exod 26.31; 36.35). It was a valuable piece of fabric, and both Antiochus and Titus took a veil when they looted the temple (1 Mace 1.21–2; BJ 7.162). In the second temple it was some two hundred square metres of fabric; when it contracted uncleanness and had to be washed, three hundred priests were needed for the job (m. Shek 8.4–5). Josephus says it was a Babylonian tapestry (BJ 5.212), a curtain embroidered with a panorama of the heavens (BJ 5.213). The veil separated the holy place from the most holy (Exod 26.33), screening from view the ark and the cherubim or, in the temple, the ark and the chariot throne. We are told that only the high priest entered the holy of holies, once a year on the Day of Atonement.
Calvin as Analogical Theologian
Authors: Zachman Randall C.
Published: January 2009

In his oft-cited article, ‘God Was Accommodating Himself to Human Capacity’, Ford Lewis Battles makes the following claim:

It may be that we have succumbed to the temptation of putting the concept of accommodation too much at the center of Calvin's thought and of trying to organize everything around this notion. Yet, if this be a faithful interpretation, accommodation would seem (even when Calvin does not explicitly advert to it) his fundamental way of explaining how the secret, hidden God reveals himself to us.
Bearing the Marks of Jesus: The Church in the Economy of Salvation in Barth and Hauerwas
Authors: Mangina Joseph L.
Published: January 2009

In Book IV of Calvin'sInstitutes, the ‘external means …by which God invites us into the society of Christ and holds us therein’ consists chiefly in ‘the true church, with which as mother of all the godly we must keep unity’. Like Luther, Calvin could speak ofmater ecclesiawith an unembarrassed reference to the visible, historical community of God's people. The rhetoric of ‘mother church’ did not long remain a part of Protestant sensibility. The Reformation principle of ‘Christ alone’ has often tended to undermine strong claims for the church; conversely, the critique of institutions has played a key role in the shaping of Protestant identity, at times seeming to be the verypointof the Reformation. The distinction assumes classic form in Friedrich Schleiermacher'sThe Christian Faith. Protestant Christianity, Schleiermacher writes, ‘makes the individual's relation to the church dependent on his relation to Christ’, whereas Catholicism ‘makes the individual's relation to Christ dependent on his relation to the church’. This intuition would seem to be confirmed by recent ecumenical dialogue, which has fastened on the church's role in salvation as the most likely candidate for a ‘basic difference’ between Catholicism and Protestantism. At the same time, important voices on both sides have been asking whether such a sharp distinction can or should be sustained.
Making Theology Moral
Authors: Long D. Stephen
Published: January 2009

The relationship between theology and ethics has been largely determined in the modern era by the questions Immanuel Kant posed and the answers he gave. This contains a certain irony because in 1786 at Marburg Kant's philosophy was banned on the assumption that it threatened faith and morals. His demolition of the scholastic arguments for the existence of God were thought to be a threat to Christian faith. Many neo-kantians relished this challenge to theology and moved Kantianism in the very direction the orthodox authorities feared. By 1835 Heinrich Heine wrote an essay for French publication entitled, ‘On the history of religion in Germany'. He argued that Robespierre himself was unworthy of comparison with the revolutionary Kant. Robespierre may have lopped off a few royal heads but ‘Kant has stormed heaven, he has put the whole crew to the sword, the Supreme Lord of the world swims unproven in his own blood’. Perhaps Kant's ethics did not go as far as Heine asserted, but it did result in the marginalization of theology from ethics. Ethics was grounded in freedom alone. Theology could be consistent with ethics, but not determinative for it.
Toward a Trinitarian Theology of the Atonement
Authors: Sherman Robert J.
Published: January 2009

In my work as a theologian educating future pastors and teachers, I am concerned that too many of my students make no greater claim of Christ than that he was a ‘spirit person’, and construe his work as some variation on personal spiritual mentoring. Such reductionistic tendencies in understanding the person and work of Christ clearly owe more to certain iconoclastic voices in academia and current cultural sensibilities than they do classic Christian understandings of God and redemption. Whatever their source, such minimalist views can only weaken the Church's ministry. Fortunately, two other trends may supply helpful resources for a response. First, interest in the doctrine of the Trinity has re-emerged, across the theological spectrum. Similarly, new discussions have emerged around the doctrine of the atonement, such as the explicit feminist critiques of vicarious substitution theories or the promotion of prophetic/political models typical of members of the Jesus Seminar or responses to these and other issues. I propose to address this Christological reductionism by combining these two trends, adopting aspects of some new approaches while critiquing others. In so doing, I am motivated less by the desire to produce theological innovation than to demonstrate the theological integrity and pastoral value of several classic Christian traditions. Specifically, I will offer a constructive theological proposal connecting the Trinity with the rubrics of prophet, priest and king to explain Christ's diverse atoning work.
Why is Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics Not a ‘Theology of Hope’? Some Observations on Barth's Understanding of Eschatology.
Authors: Sauter Gerhard
Published: January 2009

Early in the year 1968 Karl Barth invited me to a discussion that touched upon, among other topics, my second [habilitation] thesis Zukunft und Verheifiung [Future and Promise], which had appeared three years earlier. In it I had attempted to trace the ground of theology eschatologically in God's word of promise, yet without putting the cart before the horse. Barth dressed his inquiry in a comment accented with self-irony. As I recall, it went as follows: ‘Even I began with eschatology and ascribed to it a decisive role for theology. I gave the future priority—but over the years I was forced to realize that I could not maintain this. The more time passed on, the more I became aware that I could not remain standing where I was. Present and past are equally important for theology if theology allows itself to be oriented by God's time. And theology must not confuse this time with one of the dimensions of the human experience of time’. Itsounded as if beginning with eschatology was something like a sin of youthfulness, possibly even like a theological childhood illness which every more or less normal theologian would grow out of in time.
Pastoral Theology: Therapy, Mission or Liberation?
Authors: Graham Elaine
Published: January 2009

In a book entitledThe Christian Pastor and the Working Church, published in 1898, Washington Gladden, a leading figure in the Social Gospel movement, attempts a definition of the field of Pastoral Theology. Gladden's characterisation of pastoral theology as the pragmatic study of the work of the minister and the management of the Church is typical of many definitions, both historical and contemporary:
Was John Wyclif's Theology of the Eucharist Donatistic?
Authors: Levy Ian Christopher
Published: January 2009

The heresy of Donatism has often been associated with the fourteenth-century theologian John Wyclif. This study focuses on whether or not Wyclif's eucharistic theology had in fact lapsed into this heresy. For if Wyclif was guilty of Donatism it is certainly no small matter. Donatism violates one of the most fundamental tenets of Catholic Christianity, viz. that the validity of the sacraments is not dependent upon the personal sanctity of the human beings who administer them. Medieval canon law dealt at some length with the issue of sacramental administration, upholding the Augustinian position that the determining factor in the proper administration of the sacraments is not the merit of the celebrant, but rather the power of God operating through him. Indeed, such a principle would have to be maintained if the foundation of the Church's sacramental system, and the ecclesiastical structure as a whole, was to be preserved from the prospect of disintegration.
A Theology of Liberation in Barth's Church Dogmatics IV/3
Authors: Barter Jane A.
Published: January 2009

In his Massey lectures, Charles Taylor offers an efficient critique of modernity's overarching concern with individual freedom: ‘In a flattened world, where the horizons of meaning become fainter, the ideal of self-determining freedom comes to exercise a more powerful attraction. It seems that significance can be conferred by choice, by making life an exercise in freedom, even when all other sources fail. Self-determining freedom is, in part, the default solution of the culture of authenticity, while at the same time it is its bane since it further intensifies anthropocentrism. But this… deeply subverts both the ideal of authenticity and the associated ethic of recognizing difference.’2 Similarly, for Karl Barth, the failure of liberalism is not simply its conceptual failure to represent God in aseity, but also its failure to provide a framework in which truly authentic human action could be imagined. As John Webster puts it: ‘Even at the furthest reaches of his protest against anthropocentric deduction of God to a function of human piety, consciousness or moral objects, Barth is attempting to safeguard not only the axiomatic divinity of God, but also the authenticity of the creature.’3 Liberal belief in the ostensive freedom of self-determining choice, unhampered by heteronomous authority, fails also to recognise the deep power of the implicit heteronomies of liberal culture. What is required, according to Barth, is a thoroughly theological exploration of human freedom: it is only within humanity's true horizon, which is the reconciling work of God through Jesus Christ, that true liberation can be experienced and pursued.
The Gospel Truth of Relativism
Authors: Kallenberg Brad
Published: January 2009

To many, Alasdair Maclntyre seems to epitomize the sort of dangerous confusion they fear from ‘postmodernity.’ Consider two separate passages from Maclntyre's recent writing.
Text, Context and Performance: Hermeneutics and the Study of Worship
Authors: Stringer Martin
Published: January 2009

There has been a growing interest in recent years in the question of meaning as it relates to liturgical performance. There is a long tradition within liturgical writing of deriving some kind of theological meaning for the liturgy from the content of the text that is used. More recently, however, this understanding of ‘meaning’ has been considered too limiting. It treats the liturgy as a literary/theological text and ignores the fact that the liturgical text is only one small part of a much wider act of worship. Bridget Nichols, for example, in her book Liturgical Hermeneutics: Interpreting Liturgical Rites in Performance suggests that the traditional theological/literary meaning is misleading. The liturgical text is designed to be performed, it comes into existence in performance, and outside of that performance, it is nothing. Kieren Flanagan also claimed to address the question of meaning and performance in his book on Sociology and Liturgy: Re-presentations of the Holy. Nichols rejected this approach, however, because of what she claims is Flanagan's particular misreading of Hans-Georg Gadamer's writing on ‘play’. This led Flanagan to suggest that there is only one single ‘unitary’ meaning in liturgy which is constantly renewed in each and every act of worship. Joyce Ann Zimmerman has written a book entitled Liturgy as Language of Faith: A Liturgical Methodology in the Mode of Paul Ricoeur's Textual Hermeneutics but this also ignores the performative aspect of liturgy and, like Flanagan, asserts a definitive meaning for the text.