andygoodliff

Alan Torrance's Didsbury Lectures - another theological response to new atheists

Alan Torrance is currently giving the 2009 Didsbury Lectures under the title: ‘Religion, Naturalism and the Triune God: Confronting Scylla and Charibdis'. The blog beyond knowing has been giving some good summaries. Lecture 1  Lecture 2  Lecture 3  Lecture 4  They will be published at some point by Paternoster.

What is interesting is he is the fourth theologian in recent times to respond to the challenge of the new atheists. David Fergusson used his 2008 Gifford Lectures - now published as Faith and Its Critics (Oxford, 2009). Alister McGrath used his 2009 Gifford Lectures - now published as A Fine-Tuned Universe (WJK, 2009) and his 2009 Huslean Lectures (given next month) - Darwinism and the Divine. Keith Ward used his 2008 Sarum Lectures - now published as The God Conclusion (DLT, 2009).

Witness, Watchman and Weaver

I spent some of the day with John Rackley back at Manvers Street in Bath talking about church and ministry. He mentioned one understanding of ministry that I hadn't come across and which has been articulated by Rowan Williams - the minister [priest] as witness, watchman and weaver. You can read the Archbishop's lecture given in 2004 here where he explais what he means. The words have been picked up and expanded on by Justin Lewis-Anthony in his book, with an excellent title, If you meet George Herbert on the road, kill him: Radically: Re-Thinking Priestly Ministry and which I now want to read.

Baptists and Anabaptists Reassessed

This was the title of the first lecture in the latest Centre for Christianity & Culture series on baptists origins given by Keith Jones (Rector, IBTS). The lecture was shaped by the story of a Lithuania Baptist pastor, Jonas Inkenas, whose grand-daughter is now teaching at IBTS. Keith focused his comments on how baptist life and thought are being reassesed on interdependency, ministry (especially trans-local), spirituality, and the role of women. The lecture will be downloadable at some point in the future through the oxford itunes site and I believe the series will also be published. 

Keith made two asides, which may not appear in the final published version of the lecture.  Firstly was a sideswipe at how he believed the BUGB had accomodated itself to the government's demands and created trustees of the union. This had altered our ecclesiology and our allowed the state to set the agenda for the church. Keith wondered why there had not been more voices of protest at the government's demands. We are still in the early days of having trustees and there is a definite tension around the decisions made to have trustees. The introduction of trustees happened just before I became a part of Council and so I am not able to comment on the making of decision and whether it was right. I think some theological and historical reflection would be helpful at some point. 

The second aside was how whether Regent's should have a portrait of Violet Hedger in Helwys Hall amongst all the men! Violet Hedger was the first woman to train for ministry at Regent's (1919-. This was part of his comments on the reassessment of the role of women in baptist history. Part of this reassessment is currently being done by a group within BU council and the fruit of their work will be coming to Council in March 2010.

Next week is Anthony R. Cross on baptism and baptist origins.

(On another baptist note, it seems the papers from baptist hermeneutics colloquium in January this year are not far off being published. I caught a brief exchange between Sean Winter and John Lyons on facebook.)

Christianity and Contemporary Politics

This is looking an important and fascinating book from Luke Bretherton due out in March 2010 (Just look at the comment from Stanley Hauerwas on the front cover - although Stanley does seem to say this about a fair few books these days!)

Relations between religious and political spheres continue to stir passionate debates on both sides of the Atlantic. Through a combination of theological reflection and empirical case studies, Bretherton succeeds in offering timely and invaluable insights into these crucial issues facing 21st century societies.
Explores the relationship between Christianity and contemporary politics through case studies of faith-based organizations, Christian political activism and welfare provision in the West; these case studies assess initiatives including community organizing, fair trade, and the sanctuary movement
Offers an insightful, informative account of how Christians can engage politically in a multi-faith, liberal democracy
Integrates debates in political theology with inter-disciplinary analysis of policy and practice regarding religious social, political and economic engagement in the USA, UK, and continental Europe
Reveals how Christians can help prevent the subversion of the church – and even of politics itself – by legal, bureaucratic, and market mechanisms, rather than advocating withdrawal or assimilation
Engages with the intricacies of contemporary politics whilst integrating systematic and historical theological reflection on political and economic life

Contents

The Terms and Conditions of Political Life.

Religion and Postsecular Politics.

Theological Politics and the Ecclesial-Turn.

Summary of Aims and Methodology.

1. Faith-Based Organizations and the Emerging Shape of Church–State Relations.

"Working Together": The Shaping of Relations between the State and Religious Groups in a Multi-Faith Society.

Social Cohesion, Social Capital, and the "Salvation" of Civil Society.

Liberalism and the Continuing Requirements of Public Reason.

Theological Politics and the Question of What Constitutes Faithful Witness.

Ecclesiology and the Political Mission of the Church.

2. Local: Augustine, Alinsky, and the Politics of the Common Good.

The Alinsky Approach: The Work of Broad-Based Community Organizing.

Eschatology, Politics, and the Mutual Ground of the Saeculum.

Christian Realism Redivivus?

A Thomistic Democratic Politics?

Reweaving Civil Society.

Politics without Piety Is Pitiless; Piety without Politics Is Pitiful.

3. National: Christian Cosmopolitanism, Refugees, and the Politics of Proximity.

Introduction.

Theological Politics and the Liberal Democratic Response to Refugees.

Refugees as Bare Life.

Bare Life and the Limits of Humanitarianism.

Hallowing Bare Life: A Doxological Response.

Hallowed Be Thy Name.

Sanctuary: The Practice of Hallowing Bare Life.

4. Global: Consumerism, Fair Trade, and the Politics of Ordinary Time.

Defining Political Consumerism.

Consumerism and the Formation of Desire.

Political Consumerism as Apprenticeship in the Virtues.

Political Consumerism as Neighbor Love.

Fair Trade as Contradiction.

Fair Trade, Globalization and the Emergence of Political Consumerism.

Ordinary Politics and the Peace of Babylon.

Conclusion: Toward a Politics of Hospitality and a Theology of Politics.

Wright is Writing Volume 4 of Christian Origins and the Question of God

Tom Wright is currently residing at the Centre for Theological Inquiry where he is working on volume 4 of his new testament theology which will focus on the letters of Paul. In the last few years some big books on Paul have been published including Francis Watson's Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (2005) and Douglas Campbell's The Deliverance of God (2009), how Wright will respond to these will be interesting, as will, how much this piece of work will differ from his short work Paul: Fresh Perspectives (2005). There is also the question of whether his emphasis on 'empire' will be muted after John Barclay's deep critique at last year's SBL.

Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Volume IV of Christian Origins and the Question of God) combines history and theology (exegesis being a branch of both), using the worldview-analysis outlined earlier. I shall examine (i) Paul’s characteristic praxis, stories and symbols, and his answers to the key worldview questions; (ii) his theology in terms of the revision, by means of Christ and the Spirit, of the central Jewish topics of monotheism, election and eschatology. At each point we see Paul in implicit dialogue and/or confrontation both with other Jewish readings of scripture and with hellenistic and Roman ideologies. His central aim was to found and maintain united and holy Christ-communities as a sign of new humanity to the wider world.

Theologically, this demonstrates a deep inner coherence throughout Paul’s theology, reconciling otherwise puzzling topics (e.g. the classic stand-off between ‘justification’ and ‘being in Christ’), and reframing ‘ethics’ and ‘ecclesiology’ in a more central and positive role than usual. Historically, I shall reconstruct Paul’s worldview and mindset in terms of a complex but coherent relationship (part derivation, part confrontation, part creative engagement) with the multiple worlds of C1 Judaism, Hellenism and Roman imperialism.

The City in Scripture

Last friday was first chapel of the term and the first in a series of reflections on the theme of the city in the Old Testament. I put together the following reflection.

The city is not a modern invention
but can be found at the start of the story of humanity
And Cain built a city (Gen 4.17)
and it was not long after the earth was flooded
when humanity gathered again and said
‘Come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves …' (Gen 11.4)
The city is not a modern invention
But a human creation
From the earliest days
An attempt at the transcendent
A permanent symbol of our godlike desires

For David and Israel
The city became God’s home
The mountain where he dwelled
The city of Zion, the joy of the whole earth (Ps 46)
For the kings that followed
The city they believed was everlasting
Established forever
But faithless hearts
Led to destruction and exile
And Israel wept in
By the rivers of Babylon (Ps 137)
The city’s fall from splendour to rubble

The city is a place where
Life can flourish, culture is cultivated
Beauty is nourished, and goodness can grow
For the psalmist says that
God is in the midst of the city (Ps 46.5)
And one day its gates will never be shut (Rev 22)

The city is also the place where
Demons can dwell, and foul spirits can haunt (Rev 18.2)
Injustice can reign, and blood is shed
Where the psalmist says that
I see violence and strife in the city … ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace (Ps 55)

Jeremiah says ‘seek the city’s welfare’ (Jer 29.7)
The psalmist says ‘pray for peace' (Ps 122)
Micah says The voice of the Lord cries to the city … (Micah 6.6)
angry at its unjust scales and its dishonest words,
at its violent hearts, and its wicked ways
John of Patmos says Come out of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins (Revelation 18.4)
Jesus saw and wept for the city (Lk 19.41)
and then a week later was crucified on a hill outside it’s walls

The city is not a modern invention
its design is in God
what is yet fragile and unformed
will come to be
transfigured and transformed
I saw a new heaven and new earth
For the first heaven and first earth had passed away
and God showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem
descending out of heaven from God (Rev 21.1-2)
The city to come is not
Quartered, partitioned, and zoned
People are not divided by post-code and prejudice
But says the prophet
Its gate shall not be shut at all by day
(there shall be no night there) (Rev 21.25)
Blessed are those who do his commandments
That they may have the right to enter through the gates
Through the city (Rev 22.14)

New article on Colin Gunton's Theology

The failure of a laudable project: Gunton, the Trinity and human self-understanding - Bernhard Nausnera (Scottish Journal of Theology 62.4 [2009])

This article seeks to summarise and critically analyse Colin Gunton's trinitarian theology in regard to the claim that the doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine with radical consequences for human life. To this end it engages, first, in an examination of Gunton's trinitarian project following his thought from a cultural critical starting point finally leading to the establishment of three open transcendentals and, second, in a critical analysis of this approach, highlighting some essential inconsistencies in regard to Cappadocian theology, the concepts of relationality and personhood and practical consequences for human life. In conclusion, the article suggests that Gunton's strong emphasis on relationality and his search for open transcendentals could be understood as the result of his passionate aspiration to heal the wounds of an egocentric, individualistic and alienating modern culture through an ontology of communion.

Bossey, the WCC and the Decade to Overcome Violence

I spent the last week in Geneva on a visit organised by the Friends of Bossey Network for theological students. There were 14 of us from different denominations and colleges. The visit was an opportunity to learn about and engage with what is happening at the level of global ecumenics. We had the opportunity to meet and audit lectures of those on the graduate programme at Bossey studying ecumenical theology. We visited the headquarters of the World Council of Churches and heard about the WCC is and their current programs (and also the Council of European Churches). Steve Harmon is blogging about his involvement in Faith and Oder One of the most interesting WCC programs is the Decade to Overcome Violence, now drawing to a close in 2010 and a peace convocation in Jamica 2011. This needs some more engagement from the UK and I would like to see (or hear) more from British Baptists. Some work was done in the early part of the decade, including a collection of essays Expecting justice but seeing bloodshed: Some Baptist contributions to following Jesus in a violent world, edited by Anthony Clarke (Whitley, 2004).

It was a fantastic week of ecumenical involvement - at the national level (getting to know other students training for ordination from Anglican, URC and Methodist churches) and a international level - including some great weather.