Dialog-A Journal of Theology最新文献

This paper explores Dietrich Bonhoeffer's concept of “the nonreligious interpretation of biblical terms in a world come of age,” best known from his Letters and Papers from Prison (LPP). As a case study of its possibilities, we will survey South African thinkers who have explored the concept in rapidly changing contexts. Our leading question is whether academic theology can develop a teleological narrative for a nation that has “come of age.” When a nation or culture becomes so secular that it “outgrows” a traditional use of biblical terms, can those terms be reinterpreted to provide a teleological narrative for the nation? Bonhoeffer can be a resource for academic theologians to address issues in public theology, especially the suffering and oppression of communities still in pain despite a democratic system.

As the abortion debate moves into its next stage since The Supreme Court struck down the Roe v. Wade decision, little has changed, except for the dire circumstances in which many pregnant women find themselves. Both sides in the debate continue talking past each other in nasty ways, using the same tired, old arguments. We need more and fresh data really to advance the discussion. This article provides fresh historical, neurobiological, and theological data for the debate. From history we learn that the debate on abortion has not always been about feminism versus conservatives (though the Pro-Life side has been associated with white nationalism) and that Protestants have not always been divided on the issue. Theologically the author directs us to his previous research indicating that disagreements today among the denominations on the issue have not been theologically related. This has important implications for rendering the debate more civil, since it is not about faith and Biblical fidelity. From Neurobiology, we receive fresh insights about when in the course of a pregnancy the fetus/embryo actually begins to function with a human-like brain, when it is truly a homo sapiens. In addition to offering reflections on the implications of these insights for the abortion debate, we are reminded that the inputs of history and science are most appropriate inputs for Lutherans committed to using the Two-Kingdom Ethic in social ethics and politics.

This article suggests new ways to think about energy and thermodynamics beyond an extractive, fossil-fuel model. The predominant economic model of the modern world has been driven by the extraction and exploitation of fossil fuels—first coal and then oil. These are powerful forces, although their development is more complicated than we might suspect. At the same time, they influence the new science of thermodynamics, which is tied to heat and heat engines that are fueled by carbon-based inputs extracted from the earth. By attending to the work of Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen, however, we can see how energy and thermodynamics can be linked to a different economic model that is not primarily extractive. And this opens up to new perspectives on energy and change, including one that views energy more explicitly in terms of spirit. We can think about energy as something that avoids the dichotomy of matter and spirit in a way such that it participates in both.

This article discusses the intersection between the symbol systems of petroculture and religion in development of the Norwegian oil age. The public TV series State of Happiness (2018-now) dramatizes Norway's adventure with oil and gas, beginning in 1969. Drawing parallels to Darren Dochuk's work on the mutual construction of petroculture and American religion in Anointed with Oil, this essay argues that State of Happiness retells the story of Norway's adventure with oil framed by some in terms of salvation, as a blessing and as the arrival of a better, messianic age. The characters in the series negotiate their religious commitments with the enchantments of the emerging petroculture in the Stavanger region, engaging the themes of Advent, Christmas, Baptism, and Trinity.

This article explores the relationship between Christianity, extractivism, and Amer-European settler colonialism. It argues that Amer-European Christianity is an extractivist religion, with beliefs and practices that are deeply intertwined with an extractivist relationship to the natural world and Indigenous peoples. In conversation with the work of Willie Jennings and exploring the impact of the doctrine of Christian discovery, the extractivist theology of John Locke, and the supersessionist use of divine election and covenant, this article exemplifies how Amer-European Christianity has shaped and been shaped by settler colonial extractivism. It raises the question whether and how Amer-European settler Christians may decolonize their extractivist relationship to Indigenous peoples and the natural world by learning from Indigenous peoples in dialogue with the work of the Osage theologian “Tink” Tinker.

The climate crisis is witnessed on a global scale and it is also experienced in the local communities that work in extractive industries. In this article, a pastor in the Permian Basin explores the term “oilfield trash” as it is used for oilfield workers in the Permian Basin, connecting the epithet with the negative conditions for quality of life there, and comparing it to treatment of oilfield workers in Norway. Treatment of workers is identified as essential to esteem of communities and land. Renaming workers “treasure” in keeping with the tradition of Isaiah 62:4 is identified as part of the healing needed for extractive communities to transition away from fossil fuels. Four avenues of congregational ministry within mining economies are identified, with the way of “partnership” with the workers in the industry recommended as offering hope for churches to help relieve the climate crisis.

Western Christian theological support for resource extractivism is interwoven with theological support of settler coloniality. Christian theology is therefore an essential site for the defense of Indigenous land claims. Replacement theology, also known as supersessionism, should be understood as involving Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations and as imbricating the ideologies and theologies supporting political and material coloniality, including extractivism. This article offers a friendly critique of contemporary anti-supersessionist theological projects through the lenses of postcolonial, decolonial, and global Indigenous thought, suggesting a path toward addressing the crisis of the Anthropocene.

There is a growing tendency within various disciplines of the humanities to conflate the terms extraction and extractivism. While the first word has many everyday uses—tooth extraction, vanilla “extract”—the latter term was specifically coined to identify a malevolent imaginary that indemnifies the removal of so-called “resources,” especially when that displacement involves layers of violence and/or looks solely to satisfy a particular economic aim. Given these disparate denotations, the unqualified use of “extraction” synonymously with “extractivism” introduces unnecessary ambiguity, inviting divergent arguments that ultimately diminish an otherwise worthy discussion and losing sight of the grave issues that underlie the conversation's original intent. As such, this essay investigates the biblical origins of this false equivalency and suggests how this usage might be disentangled to properly recenter the malevolence its users are attempting to describe.

A brief introduction to the theme of the issue and overview of contributors.