In Search of Christ in Latin America

During my studies at Fuller I came to realize something: many evangelicals are unaware of some of the great resources that are being produced by theologians around the world. There are probably some sociological reasons for this (American in general tend not to be as globally aware as the citizens of other countries) but there are probably some theological reasons as well. If I had to guess one reason why this is the case it is that a lot of the resources that are translated don’t sit all that comfortably with evangelical sensibilities. My mind turns to the Latin American liberation theologians of the 20th century as an example. What has been missing is robustly “evangelical” primary sources from the global south that have been translated into English. The editors at IVP have done us a favor and have taken steps towards addressing this issue by publishing Samuel Escobar’s In Search of Christ in Latin America: From Colonial Image to Liberating Savior.

In this book Samuel Escobar—a key participant in the inaugural Lausanne Congress—presents us with a survey of Christology in Latin America. In order to offer this survey he traces the various historical trends that have marked Latin American Christology from the colonial period all the way to the more recent work of the Latin American Theological Fraternity (FTL). There are a number of illuminating analyses of significant theologians and even literary figures. But Escobar’s most important contribution comes in how he traces an underlying Docetism in Latin American Christology from Christianity’s inception all the way up to more recent times. This Docetism can be found in early catechisms, popular piety, and even in 20th century poetry. The problem with Docetism—besides the fact that it is a heresy—is how it undermines real discipleship.

The Docetism that undermined discipleship was “corrected” in a sense in the second half of the 20th century. It was during this time that a number of revolutionary movements started to get kicked off in Latin America. Many of these movement were associated with Marxism. A benefit of these movements, however, was that it exposed the fact that Docetic Christology led to a spiritualist Christianity that didn’t care much for the actual physical needs of the people. Much of Latin American Christology developed as theologians who sympathized with revolutionary Christologies interacted with those who wanted to develop their Christology in light of God’s message of the Kingdom.

This book is a treasure trove of historical anecdotes and episodes but I believe that it has promise for pastors today who are concerned (rightly or wrongly) with “liberation theology” and “social and revolutionary” movements. Theological discourse on Twitter in the last few months has homed in on issues of “social Marxism,” “Critical Theory,” and “Wokeness” often with no awareness of the academic uses of these terms. One thing that this contributes to contemporary theology, and will be of special interest to those engaged in these online conversations is that the theologians of the FTL were dealing with actual Marxists, actual social revolutionaries, and were trying to develop socially aware, socially compassionate, and social just theologians from an evangelical perspective, and most were writing an atmosphere where Marxism was the intellectual trend of the day. Some of these Latin American theologian had a huge hand in the Lausanne declaration. And thus they have done much to shape evangelicalism’s understanding of mission. Even if you aren’t interested in Latin American History, the last 200 pages of this book are worth it because of how they might aid in evangelicals in their theopraxis.

The Witness of the Jews to God

Israel was chosen by God in order to reveal himself to the world and to be a blessing to the nations. Because God chose to accomplish these tasks through Israel, God made a covenant with Israel about the land that it would dwell in. These are the uncontroversial teachings of the Hebrew Bible. What has been more controversial across the history of the church, is the claim that this God given vocation—to be a witness and blessing—as well as the promise of the land, continues into the present day. David Torrance’s edited volume, The Witness of God to the Jews attempts to reflect upon these theological claims at the behest of the Overseas Council of the Church of Scotland. In 1981 the council’s final report was published; it was then that the General Assembly declared its belief “in the continuing place of God’s people Israel within the divine purpose.” (139) The present volume was birthed out of that declaration. The editor’s hope was that this book would encourage Christian-Jewish dialogue and that it would give thoughtful Christians the opportunity to reflect upon how Judaism—both in the past and present—affects Christian belief and practice. Although each essay is written from a different perspective—the authors disagree on a number of controversial points—there is a shared conviction among all the authors, namely that, “the Jewish people have a decisive place in God’s creative and redemptive purpose for his world.” (viii) This claim is not that the Jewish people had a decisive place in God’s plans for the world, rather, it is that the Jewish people continue to have a role in that plan. In light of this shared conviction, each author—most of whom are academics or pastors—contributes an essay that will further the dialogue between Christians and Jews. Although the editor seems to have loosely organized the essays so that similar essays appear next to each other, this collection of essays can be though of as focusing upon four themes: (1)Israel and the land, (2) Israel in Christian and Jewish relations, (3) Israel’s ongoing vocation as God’s covenant people, and (4) the personal stories of Jewish Christ followers. The essays are followed by four appendices reproducing ecclesial pronouncements, four appendices containing publication information, and three tables of statistics about Jewish populations.[1]

George Knight, John Reid, and David Torrance contribute essays that deal with Israel and the land. Knight argues that Israel’s relationship to the land must be seen as bound up with Israel’s election. The land is basic to the fulfillment of all the promises made to Israel. He says that “The Land is the focus of them all, for it is on The Land that all these promises came together in Israel’s thought and experience.” (34) Thus, even the spiritual promises made to Israel cannot be realized without a “place for them to become history.” (34) Knight argues that God’s promises are still abiding, yet, that The Land is best understood of as being composed of Jesus physical body, for Jesus’ physical body is “now the place of God’s redemptive purpose.” (40) Reid’s essay, on the other hand covers issues related to Israel’s right to the land by addressing the differences between “a people” and “a nation.” He claims that “there is for the people today no discernable role that woul require, or be enhanced by, or achieve richer fulfillment in, possession of the land…”(53) David Torrance, the editor of the book, contributes two essays to the volume. “Israel today in the Light of God’s Word,” addresses how God continues to speak through Israel to the church today. Torrance explains that we can affirm that God, “who is a God of love is behind these events and Israel’s restoration to the Promised Land is a fulfillment of the Word of God.” (109)

George Anderson, C. E. B. Cranfield, Jacob Jocz, and Murdo Macleod each contribute essays related to Israel in Christian and Jewish relations. Anderson’s essay sets the stage for a number of the essays in this collection. He argues that it is in seeing Israel as the people of God—along with Israel’s political, military, social, economic, national, and racial contexts—that the “theological implications of her self-understanding as the people of God are clarified and emphasized. (13) Cranfield offers and exposition of Romans 9–11 and draws implications from this passage for Christian-Jewish relations today. Jocz considers the tragedy of the Holocaust and how these horrific events have led many Jews to reconsider their understanding of God and humanity. He also brings up the issue of guilt and rightly claims that “Auschwitz casts a dark shadow over traditional Christianity.” (67) Macleod addresses the controversial topic of mission to Jews. He rightly recognizes that the church has not taken the place of Israel, rather “it has been grafted into Israel.” (75) Thus, Israel’s priority (historical and ontological) must be a factor in how Christians understand mission to Jews who do not believe that Jesus is the messiah.

The third kind of essay addresses Israel’s ongoing vocation as God’s covenant people. David Torrance, Henry Ellison, and T. F. Torrance make contributions towards this topic. In an essay that shares a title with the book, David Torrance argues that knowledge of God is only available to us through Israel. He lists ten theological claims that “only Israel is able to unfold.” (2) Operating in the background of David Torrance’s essay is the notion that each of these theological claims are sharpened by the revelation of the one who represents Israel in its fullness, namely Jesus Christ. Henry Ellison contributes an oddly short essay in which he says that the concepts of election, law, suffering, morality, the unity of God, and sin are made clearer because of Judaism. T. F. Torrance’s argues that Israel “has been given a vicarious mission to fulfill which is of critical significance not only for the Christian church but for mankind.” (85) However, this vicarious mission, from a Christian perspective, must be understood in a way that shows that “Jesus gathers up in himself the whole history of Israel… and fans it out through his death and resurrection and ascension in an expansive movement toward the coming world community or oikoumene, the all embracing People of God.” (86) Thus for Torrance, Israel is a Christological category.

The final kind of essay consists of the personal stories of Jewish Christ followers. Mark Kinzer recounts his journey of coming to see Jesus Christ the Messiah and explains that faith in the Messiah is the fulfillment of Judaism. Initially, he explains, he feared that becoming a Christian would erode his Jewish identity, instead, he says, he found that his Jewish identity has been strengthened and even fulfilled. He has grown in his love for the Hebrew Scriptures, his zeal for following the Torah has increased, he has grown in his appreciation of the daily patterns of Jewish worship, he has grown in his love of the Hebrew language, and he has grown in his love for the Jewish people and his family. Johanna-Ruth Dobschiner writes her essay in order to “give reasons for the life and hope which is now within me.” (126) She writes of her life as a Jew who came to believe in Jesus as the messiah in order to build a bridge between the church and the Jewish life and faith that she was born into.

The authors of this book ought to be commended for advancing the idea that Israel continues to play a role in God’s plans and purposes for humanity. Furthermore, some of the authors—including both Torrances—deserve recognition for doing the hard work of showing how Christ relates to Israel. T.F. Torrance for example, develops the patristic notion of recapitulation in order to show that Jesus not only recapitulates humanity but that in an important sense Jesus also recapitulates the history of Israel. For Torrance, the vocation and destiny of Israel is fulfilled by the one Israelite who represents all of Israel, namely Jesus Christ. Despite the book’s commendable goal and the Torrance’s interesting contribution towards a Christology that values Israel, the book suffers from a number of problematic claims. George Knight argues that Jesus is the The Land. All the promises about the land that God made to Israel are reconceived as actually being about Jesus’ body. This claim, problematically, erases all of God’s promises about the literal land of Israel.  Similarly, John Reid argues that the Israel’s vocation is directed to the people of Israel, not the state, and that a people do not need land in order to fulfill their vocation.  In other words, God’s calling upon the people is “irrevocable” but the promise of the land is not. He concludes that the “land and sovereign statehood” of Israel is theologically irrelevant. Another problematic element can be found in Dobschiner’s chapter. Although it is difficult to criticize this chapter because much of it is the retelling of her personal experiences and her personal faith, she communicates an under-nuanced, and perhaps even false, portrayal of how most Jews relate to the law. She explains that she “rigidly” kept to the Jewish observances taught by her parents and elders. Yet, she felt bound by her Jewish tradition. Jewish ritual, for her, ended up being a “prescribed method” which exemplified the notion that “the letter killeth.” (133) She explains that eventually she found life and freedom from the law through the Messiah. She was now accepted unconditionally by God rather than being accepted because of a “prescribed method.” (133) Even more problematic than these deficiencies in specific essays is the lack of engagement with different kinds of Judaism. The authors sometimes use “Jews” or “Israel” to refer to the Old Testament (or 2nd Temple) people of God. To say that the Jews of the Old Testament, or during the time of Jesus, have something to say to the church is not a particularly interesting claim. What is more interesting is to say that Jews—specifically those who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah—can teach the church is far more interesting. Yet the discussion of “Jews” rarely moves beyond the Jews of the Bible or generic Judaism (if there is such a thing). More engagement with specific types of Judaism—both historical and modern—would have strengthened this book. Despite these weaknesses, this book serves as a helpful starting point for those who want to consider the claim that Judaism continues to play a role in God’s purposes for humanity.

[1] Although listed in the table of contents, a number of these elements are missing in the Wipf & Stock edition.

Some Thoughts on “Dabru Emet”

Dabru Emet (“Speak the Truth”) is a statement by more than 170 Jewish scholars issued in September 2000. It reflects upon potential points of contact between Jews and Christians. You can read the full document here: First Things Magazine – Dabru Emet

Having now read through Dabru Emet I find myself in general agreement with the overall direction and tone of the document. The tone, at least to me, seems quite irenic. It is trying to develop as many points of contact as possible with Christians from both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions (although David Bentley Hart points out that it ignores the contribution of the Orthodox, mainly because the Orthodox have not engaged significantly in Jewish-Christian dialogue.) (Jews and Christians: People of God, 179, 186) Many of the claims, e.g. Jews and Christians seek authority from the same book, Jews and Christians accept the moral principles of the Torah, Jews and Christians must work together for justice and peace, are rather uncontroversial. More controversial, I take it, is the statement that “Christians can respect the claims of the Jewish people upon the land of Israel.” Here the word can is functioning in a hypothetical sense. Christians can do this, but whether they do in fact respect the claims of the Jewish people is a different question. An empirical study, or a survey, could settle this matter. Another controversial statement is that “Nazim was not a Christian phenomenon.” Here the authors are stepping into a tricky topic. They try to be very careful with their language, stating that without Christian anti-semitism Nazi ideology could not have been carried out. The authors connect Nazism to Christianity, but not as a necessary and sufficient condition, rather the relationship is of necessity not sufficiency. Finally, the statement that surprised me the most was the claim that “Jews and Christians worship the same God.” Robert Jenson once claimed that,

To the people of Israel, God is ‘whoever rescued us from Egypt.” (ST, 44)

And that the New Testament answer to “Who is God” is,

Whoever raised Jesus from the dead. (ST, 44)

As a Christian I believe that the one who undertook these actions is the same God. But, alongside of Pannenberg, I’m shocked to hear that Jews would agree to such a statement. As Pannenberg says “the implication of this thesis is that the Christian trinitarian doctrine of God is no longer considered a violation of biblical monotheism.” (Jews and Christians: People of God, 183) If Pannenberg is right about the implication of Dabru Emet’s statement about the God Jews and Christians worship then it seems like one major difference between Judaism and Christianity has been erased. Yet, I find this hard to believe.

IAHR 2020 Congress Open for Submissions and Registrations

 

The XXII Quinquennial World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), hosted by the New Zealand Association for the Study of Religions, will take place August 23-29, 2020, at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand. AAR members, who are also members of the IAHR, are encouraged to submit and attend.

Details provided by the IAHR:

Submissions and registrations for the Congress are now open. The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2019. The deadline for early bird registrations is May 1, 2020.

While welcoming contributions on any topic in the academic study of religion, this year’s Congress will have the theme of Centres and Peripheries. Learn more about the theme and the submission process.

Abstracts will be reviewed on a rolling basis. We aim to give responses within four weeks of submission.

Please visit the Congress website for more information. We look forward to receiving your abstracts and to welcoming you to Otago in 2020.

CFP: Gerald Bray Essay Prize for “Churchman”

Church Society are delighted to announce this new essay competition in honour of Gerald Bray. Professor Bray is a world-leading evangelical Anglican theologian and church historian who has faithfully served as Editor of Churchman for 35 years. The prize is designed to encourage new evangelical authors. The winner will receive £300 and the winning essay will be published in Churchman. Essays should be 5-7,000 words in length, including footnotes, and may be from any theological discipline and on any subject, but must be in accordance with the aims of Churchman as described below.

The deadline for submissions is 1 October 2019.

Churchman is a journal for the Church of England and global Anglicanism. Each issue aims to promote the faith of the Holy Scriptures and such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal, in line with the doctrinal position of Church Society.

Churchman is a journal committed to excellence in upholding high academic standards in its articles, book reviews and editorial.

Churchman is an ecclesiastical journal that aims to speak to the pastoral needs of the contemporary church.

Churchman aims to equip ministers, students and lay people to persuade others of the eternal truths of our faith in Jesus Christ and the need for them to be applied today for the renewal of the church and the conversion of the world.

Submission Guidelines:

• Entries must be submitted electronically in BOTH Word and pdf formats to admin@churchsociety.org
with ’Gerald Bray Essay Prize’ in the subject line by 1st October, 2019.
• Entries must be accompanied by the entry form available from the Church Society website and must include a signed declaration that the essay is entirely the entrant’s own work.
• Entrants must not have previously had an article published in Churchman, but may have contributed book reviews.
• Entries must not have been previously published elsewhere or be in the process of consideration for publication elsewhere.
• Entering the competition shall be taken as submission of the article for publication in Churchman but any such publication shall be subject to the judgment of the editorial board.
• Entries should follow the Churchman house style. Guidelines can be downloaded from the Church Society website: churchsociety.org
• The judges’ decision shall be taken as final.

“To Heal a Fractured World” by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks – A Review

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes that “the twenty-first century confronts humanity with challenges and scope that seem to defy solution.”[1] (264) A brief perusal of any national newspaper will quickly verify the truth of this claim: regional conflict has kept millions of Yemenis in a state of famine, migrant children suffer atrocities in American detention centers, and Christian worshippers in Sri Lanka are attacked during mass on their holiest day of the year. The world, as the title of Rabbi Sacks’ book suggests, is fractured. This fracturing, however, is not unique; the world has always been “broken” in one way or another, what might be unique in today’s situation is the amount of fracturing present in societies that once seemed to be quite unified. In the American context this fracturing is especially prevalent along political and racial lines, with many suggesting that the exposing—not cause—of the fracturing that was underlying society was the 2016 elections. With this fracturing of society there is an increasing loss of sense of responsibility—not just for global issues—that has always been the case—but for the issues that people in our own society and communities struggle with. Although To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility was written more than a decade before our current political context Rabbi Sacks’ words address the very situation we are in today. His book is a call to responsibility based on the principles of Judaism. “God,” Sacks says, “trusts us and empowers us” to take responsibility not only for ourselves, not only for our own communities, but for the life of others in the world. (12)

One thread that runs through Sacks’s book is the idea of tikkun olam, i.e. “mending or perfecting the world.” (72) The basis for this concept goes back Rabbi Isaac ben Solomon Luria, the Spanish Jewish mystic, who pondered the Zohar. One of Luria’s contributions to Jewish theology (and by way of Moltmann to Christian theology) was the concept tzimtzum, the contraction of God into himself to leave space for the world. (74) Sacks explains that according to Luria when God created the world he “could not leave it devoid of his presence. He therefore sent forth rays of his light…This light was, however too intense for its containers, which thereby broke, scattering fragments of light throughout the world.” (74–75) With these fragments of divine light scattered throughout the world, our task—the task of tikkun—is “to gather up these fragments wherever they are, healing a fractured world.” (75) How does one go about healing a fractured world? Sacks suggests that we can begin this process by taking seriously Judaism’s key concepts of social ethics, namely “justice, charity, love-as-action, sanctifying God’s name, the ‘ways of peace,’ and ‘the mending of the world.’”(14) Another distinctive aspect of Judaism which Sacks argues will encourage us to “mend the world” is it’s sense of responsibility, in fact, he says, “responsibility” is the Pentateuch’s “greatest overarching theme.” (135) The Pentateuch, mostly by way of the failures of its characters, teaches that human beings have personal responsibility, moral responsibility, collective responsibility, and ontological responsibility (i.e. “responsibility to something or someone beyond ourselves”). (144) Another distinctive aspect of Jewish theology that underlies the call to responsibility is Judaism’s high value for human initiative in the divine-human initiative dynamic. God rarely acts unilaterally; yes, “Jewish history begins in miracles, but culminates in human responsibility.” (160) Like a child who begins by needing her parents’ help but eventually matures to the point where she can be responsible for taking the initiative, the Hebrew Bible and the teachings of the Rabbis emphasize that God wants Israel to mature to the point of independent responsibility for the world.

How shall Israel, and anyone else who desires to heed God’s call to responsibility for the world exercise this responsibility? Afterall, the immense scale of some global issues can seem overwhelming. Sacks’s answer to that question might seem simple, despite its simplicity, it remains a difficult task: Do good whenever God asks us to do good. Redemption of the world, or the gathering of the divine light which was fractured throughout the world begins with small steps; “God does not ask us to save the world…instead God asks us to do what we can when we can. We mend the world one life at a time, one act at a time, one day at a time.” (266)

Rabbi Sacks should be commended for the moral vision he lays out in this book. As I have already mentioned above, our communities seem more fractured than ever. This fracturing even affects institutions that are working hard to mend broken relationships, e.g. Fuller Seminary. The fractured state of Fuller, especially when it comes to issues of racial reconciliation is already well documented, as is Fuller’s attempts to heal these divides. One wonders whether the pain that exists among the community at Fuller would be alleviated if Sacks’ ethics of responsibility were put into practice. What if the community took seriously the concept of collective responsibility, shared fate, and mutual responsibility? Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai said of Israel that “if one is injured, they all feel the pain.” (93) What if we had the capacity to really feel one another’s pain? Rashi explains that “All Israel are responsible for one another in relation to the fulfillment of the commands.” (93) What if we as a community took responsibility for ensuring that we fulfilled Jesus’ command to love well? Rabbi Solomon of Karlin said that “the greatest yester hara [inhibition against doing good] is that we forget that we are children of the King.” (253) What if we took seriously this aspect of our Christian identity? Would taking these ideas that Sacks mentions seriously help to mend the fracturing of our community? Surely they would. Despite providing a vision for bringing healing to our world Sacks’s moral vision suffers from one significant absence, namely the absence of an in-depth discussion of structural evils. Rabbi Sacks focuses—primarily, although not exclusively—on the individual good deeds we can perform. These good deeds, like the story of the man who rescued individual Starfish on a beach, can make all the difference for the person who is affected. Yet, using the Starfish illustration again, once the tide comes again the Starfish will once again be stranded on the beach, and the person who is affected by the good deed will once again suffer from the problems that arise from broken structures. An ethic of social responsibility requires much more than good deeds simpliciter, it requires good deeds done in such a way that can affect the structures of society.

Additionally, Rabbi Sacks should be commended for his extended discussion of collective responsibility. Quoting Karl Jaspers who distinguishes between metaphysical guilt and moral guilt Rabbi Sacks provides reasons for thinking that we are responsible for the acts of those that we are covenantally related to. (114–127) His discussion of a Jewish understanding collective responsibility might serve as a helpful starting point for Christian theologizing about the nature of atonement. For those who advocate for a penal substitutionary understanding of atonement perhaps it is this sense of collective responsibility that allows Jesus to be a penal substitute. Sacks speaks of a covenant of human solidarity. Perhaps because Jesus bears a human nature (and a divine nature) Jesus is considered to be part of the covenantal human community (in addition to the community that composes Israel). As part of that community, it might be the case that Jesus can bear the metaphysical—as opposed to the moral guilt—for the sins of humanity. Such an account bears some similarity to the story of Akhan Joshua 7. There, the entire community, i.e. all those who are covenantally related, bear responsibility (metaphysical guilt) for one person’s sin even though only Akhan himself bears moral guilt. Thus, the entire community is liable for the consequences of one person’s sins. We should be clear that the entire community is not punished, because punishment can only leveled against those who are liable to be censured for he action, rather the entire community bears the penal consequences for Akhan’s actions.[2]

Finally, Rabbi Sacks should be commended for the way that he emphasizes the integration of spirituality and social responsibility. He quotes a Jewish mystic who said, “someone else’s physical needs are my spiritual obligation.” (5) The idea that actions by which we take responsibility for the suffering and needs of others are actually spiritual actions is an idea which might be foreign to certain segments of evangelical Christianity. Certain segments of evangelical Christianity have ignored tangible physical needs because such things supposedly pale in comparison to eternal spiritual needs. This mindset reveals a gnostic tendency that, while not full blown Gnosticism, devalues the importance of embodiedness. Perhaps it is Judaism’s strong sense of embodiedness and the goodness of creation that encourages Jews to care for physical and not just spiritual needs. (Dr. Jen Rosner, Lecture Week 3) Thankfully, due to study of the Hebrew Bible and the metaphysics of human nature contained in its pages, Christian scholars are increasingly seeing how important the body actually is in the Bible.[3] With the help of scholars of the Hebrew Bible and the voices of Jewish leaders like Rabbi Sacks perhaps Christians can recover the importance of our bodies and thereby reintegrated the practices of alleviating physical needs and spirituality.

In writing To Heal a Fractured World Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has provided Jews and other religious people (and to a certain extent those without a faith) much to think about. If readers were to appropriate his call to responsibility for others, then perhaps we could take some steps towards cultivating a kinder and more charitable world.

[1] All in text citations refer to Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility (New York: Schocken Books, 2005).

[2] Building upon Feinberg’s work on the expressive function of punishment, Murphy, explains that punishment has four necessary and sufficient conditions:

1) Punishment is hard treatment.

2) Punishment is imposed by an authority who may legitimately impose hard treatment.

3) Punishment is for a failure, i.e. one is subjected to punishment for failing to conform to some standard.

4) Punishment expresses condemnation of the wrongdoer.

If these four conditions are correct, then given (4), punishment is non-transferable because one cannot express condemnation of someone who has not done anything worthy of condemnation. Mark Murphy, “Not Penal Substitution but Vicarious Punishment,” Faith and Philosophy 26 (2009): 255 – 56.

[3] See John Cooper’s Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) for one example of how evangelical scholars are increasingly beginning to argue against a very strong dichotomy between our material and non-material aspects.

Is Theosis a soteriological or anthropological doctrine?

Theosis, write Stephen Finlan and Valdimir Kharlamov, is closely related to a number of other doctrines including: soteriology, Christology, anthropology, the sacraments, personal eschatology, the imago dei, redemption, and sanctification. Despite the doctrine’s connections to a number of other theological loci, in the minds of many—especially those who find their theological bearings in the West—the doctrine of theosis (if it is actually developed) is typically located within the loci of soteriology. Calvin’s own words himself confirm the soteriological approach. He explains that “we should notice that it is the purpose of the Gospel to make us sooner or later like God; indeed it is, so to speak, a kind of deification.” Yet, unlike the soteriological focus on theosis that marks the works of a number of Western theologians, Slavko Eždenci notices that the Orthodox have a robust anthropological element in their doctrine of theosis. He explains that the Orthodox position is that “even before the fall, deification was the end and final fulfillment not just of humanity but of all created beings.”A number of contemporary Orthodox theologians demonstrate Eždenci’s point. For example, Vladimir Lossky describes the connection between theosis and creation saying, “Finally, the cosmic Adam by giving himself without return to God, would give Him back all His creation… Thus in the overcoming of the primordial separation of the created and uncreated, there would be accomplished man’s deification, and by him of the whole universe.” G.I. Mantzardis, similarly writes that theosis is the ultimate goal of human existence. He states,

It is that which from the beginning has constituted the innermost longing of man’s existence. Adam, in attempting to appropriated it by transgressing God’s command, failed, and in the place of deification, met with corruption and death. The love of God, however, through His Son’s incarnation, restored to man the possibility of deification.

Finally, Panayiotis Nellas argues at length that “the real anthropological meaning of deification is Christification,” explaining that “Christ accomplishes the salvation of man not only in a negative way, liberating him from the consequences of original sin, but also in a positive way, completing his iconic, prelapsarian ‘being.’”

So, is theosis a soteriological or anthropological doctrine?

 

Call for Applications: Generations in Dialogue Cohort

An interesting opportunity for those involved in Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue:

The Mullin Generations in Dialogue program is offered through the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California through the generous support of an Institute board member, Peter Mullin, who values mentoring.  The Generations in Dialogue (GID) program invites a widely-recognized senior Catholic scholar to share his or her time, expertise, and wisdom with several junior scholars in the same or related disciplines. Over a two-year period these scholars convene for four weekend dialogues that include discipline-specific discussions, personal reflection, shared prayer, and presentations from distinguished scholars and public intellectuals.  Besides benefitting from two years of mentorship with an eminent Catholic scholar, young scholars will establish relationships with other dedicated scholars in their field.

During the course of their two-year appointments, the participants – Mullin Institute Scholars – share the direction of their research interests with the senior scholar and each other. This conversational setting fosters a more deeply connected scholarly community and influences excellent scholarship that respects faith traditions.

Themes for the first three Generations in Dialogue programs included the History of Catholicism, Christian Spirituality, and the Writer and the Arts, with senior scholars John O’Malley, S.J., Bernard McGinn, and Greg Wolfe.  The eighteen junior scholars in the three cohorts came from a broad variety of disciplines—from medieval history to creative writing to pediatrics, and each has continued in a fruitful academic career.

Upcoming Cohort in Sociology of Religion

The fourth cohort will begin in the fall of 2019, led by Fr. John Coleman, S.J. a leading scholar in the sociology of religion and ethics, who has taught at institutions ranging from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley to Louvain University in Belgium and Fu Jen University in Taiwan.  A native Californian, he is currently an associate pastor at St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco.

Fr. Coleman’s publications include Globalization and Catholic Social Teaching(Orbis, 2005) and Christian Political Ethics(Princeton, 2007).  He has also contributed over eighty chapters in books on topics ranging from Catholic Social Teaching to globalization.  Two of Coleman’s most recent chapters are “The Future of Catholic Social Thought” in Modern Catholic Social Teaching: Commentaries and Interpretations (Kenneth Himes, ed., Georgetown, 2018) and “Faith Based Organizations: Social Service and Advocacy” in Faith-Based Organizations and Homelessness (Manuel Mejido, ed., Fordham, forthcoming).

“ . . . Coleman is a thoughtful and authoritative voice on the weighty issues facing the Church and the nation…Over dinner or lunch, he’s a companion and conversationalist, and interested in your opinion as a check on his own. I cannot think of another person more supportive of the Catholic intellectual life . . . .”
Fr. Mike Russo, Ph.D.

CFP: Colin Gunton Memorial Essay Prize for IJST/SST

See the CFP below:

Society for the Study of Theology / International Journal of Systematic Theology

Colin Gunton Memorial Essay Prize

2019 competition deadline: 31 October 2019

 

The Society for the Study of Theology and the International Journal of Systematic Theology award an annual essay prize – now entering its sixteenth year – in memory of Colin Gunton.

The topic for the 2019 competition will be ‘Grace’. Because the prize celebrates Colin Gunton’s contribution to constructive Christian theology, essays should function within this same broad sphere. Entry to the competition is restricted to current students and to those within three years of their doctoral graduation at the closing date. Entries will be judged on academic merit.

The winner of the 2019 prize will be invited to attend the annual conference of the SST in 2020, where a presentation of the prize of £200 will be made as a part of the conference reception. The winning essay will be published in the IJST; other competition entries may also be considered for publication.

Essays must follow the Submission Requirements for Journal Articles, with the additional proviso that there is an absolute word limit on entries of 8,000 words (including abstract and footnotes). Essays should not include the author’s name, be under consideration for publication elsewhere, or have been published previously. The closing date for entries is Thursday, 31 October, 2019. The judges (two from the SST and two from the IJST) hope to make their decision by January 2020, and competing authors will be informed of the result by February 2020.

Entries should be e-mailed to Dr Martin Westerholm at martin.westerholm@lir.gu.se.

Further information about the prize can be found on the IJST website.

Why Does Anything Exist?

The answer to that question, as is the answer to every question (as Sunday school kids would say), is Christ….

[The Incarnation] is the great and hidden mystery, at once the blessed end for which all things are ordained. It is the divine purpose conceived before the beginning of created things. In defining it we would say that this is the mystery of the preconceived goal for which everything exists, but which itself exists on account of nothing. With a clear view to this end, God created the essences of created beings, and such is, properly speaking, the terminus of his providence and of the things under his providential care… It is the mystery which circumscribes all the ages, and which reveals the grand plan of God (Eph 1:10-11), a super-infinite plan infinitely preexisting the ages…. [Christ himself is] the very goal for which his creatures manifestly received the beginning of their existence.

Maximus the Confessor, Ad Thalassium 60