Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231203448
Rosemary P. Carbine
{"title":"Book Review: <i>Suffering and the Vulnerable Rule of God: A Feminist Epistemology</i> by Kathleen McManus","authors":"Rosemary P. Carbine","doi":"10.1177/00405736231203448","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231203448","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43855,"journal":{"name":"THEOLOGY TODAY","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135761406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231194545
William McKinney
The presentation was prepared for a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. It asks why a traditional theological school would include social science research as a centerpiece of “reinvention” in 1972. I argue that the former Hartford Seminary Foundation mission was grounded in its inclusive ecumenical theological vision and its operative style in partnership with local, national, and international partner movements (international mission, religious education, theological education, and social service or activism). In retrospect, the Hartford Institute embodies major Hartford emphases of the previous century.
{"title":"Some Reflections on the Hartford Institute at Forty","authors":"William McKinney","doi":"10.1177/00405736231194545","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231194545","url":null,"abstract":"The presentation was prepared for a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. It asks why a traditional theological school would include social science research as a centerpiece of “reinvention” in 1972. I argue that the former Hartford Seminary Foundation mission was grounded in its inclusive ecumenical theological vision and its operative style in partnership with local, national, and international partner movements (international mission, religious education, theological education, and social service or activism). In retrospect, the Hartford Institute embodies major Hartford emphases of the previous century.","PeriodicalId":43855,"journal":{"name":"THEOLOGY TODAY","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135761419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231190321
Paul K. Moser
God has something to prove to humans, but they typically overlook this. They often ask what they can prove about God, but they rarely ask what God aims to prove to or about them. This striking omission calls for correction, for the sake of responsible inquiry about God. The correction offered here will explain that the answer to the question of what God aims to prove determines the answer to the question of what humans are able to prove about God. The needed correction will arise in the light of a recurring but underappreciated biblical theme about what God proves, or vindicates, in the presence of human distrust, avoidance, and alienation toward God. God aims to prove that God alone is perfectly righteous but nonetheless can justify initially resistant people who cooperate in a re-creative process. The process is that of making them worthy of God and God's good news of unmerited divine approval for humans. This perspective has been widely neglected by theologians, biblical interpreters, and philosophers of religion. Restoring attention to it will help to make some sense of God's ways in the world, thereby adding credibility to those ways and to faith in God. (The article uses the term “proof” in a familiar sense of “confirmation,” in a way that does not require the kind of deductive inference found in mathematical or logical proof.)
{"title":"God Has Something to Prove: Vindication in Biblical Theology","authors":"Paul K. Moser","doi":"10.1177/00405736231190321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231190321","url":null,"abstract":"God has something to prove to humans, but they typically overlook this. They often ask what they can prove about God, but they rarely ask what God aims to prove to or about them. This striking omission calls for correction, for the sake of responsible inquiry about God. The correction offered here will explain that the answer to the question of what God aims to prove determines the answer to the question of what humans are able to prove about God. The needed correction will arise in the light of a recurring but underappreciated biblical theme about what God proves, or vindicates, in the presence of human distrust, avoidance, and alienation toward God. God aims to prove that God alone is perfectly righteous but nonetheless can justify initially resistant people who cooperate in a re-creative process. The process is that of making them worthy of God and God's good news of unmerited divine approval for humans. This perspective has been widely neglected by theologians, biblical interpreters, and philosophers of religion. Restoring attention to it will help to make some sense of God's ways in the world, thereby adding credibility to those ways and to faith in God. (The article uses the term “proof” in a familiar sense of “confirmation,” in a way that does not require the kind of deductive inference found in mathematical or logical proof.)","PeriodicalId":43855,"journal":{"name":"THEOLOGY TODAY","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135761402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231190323
Bradley Shingleton
This article proposes certain elements of an ethics of democracy based on the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr. It contends that Niebuhr's concept of democracy must be interpreted in light of his anthropology, and argues that his anthropology provides a broader and more suggestive basis for a contemporary democratic ethics than do his mid-century writings on democracy. The article identifies certain values as foundational for duties of a democratic ethics. These values ground three principal duties of a democratic ethics: a duty of civility, of deliberation, and of tolerance. The duties are derived from fundamental characteristics of human selfhood as Niebuhr conceived it, but they are elaborated here in ways more adequate to the contemporary situation.
{"title":"Toward a Niebuhrian Ethics of Democracy","authors":"Bradley Shingleton","doi":"10.1177/00405736231190323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231190323","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes certain elements of an ethics of democracy based on the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr. It contends that Niebuhr's concept of democracy must be interpreted in light of his anthropology, and argues that his anthropology provides a broader and more suggestive basis for a contemporary democratic ethics than do his mid-century writings on democracy. The article identifies certain values as foundational for duties of a democratic ethics. These values ground three principal duties of a democratic ethics: a duty of civility, of deliberation, and of tolerance. The duties are derived from fundamental characteristics of human selfhood as Niebuhr conceived it, but they are elaborated here in ways more adequate to the contemporary situation.","PeriodicalId":43855,"journal":{"name":"THEOLOGY TODAY","volume":"133 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135761403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231203448d
L. Ann Jervis
{"title":"Book Review: <i>Paul, Then and Now</i> by Matthew V. Novenson","authors":"L. Ann Jervis","doi":"10.1177/00405736231203448d","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231203448d","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43855,"journal":{"name":"THEOLOGY TODAY","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135761602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231203448c
Kevin Timpe
not dictated solely, and limited only to, how we perceive it from “within” our culture, and that at times, we need to be willing to listen to what comes from “beyond” as well. This book certainly speaks to the present need, especially when it comes to mission in the global context, and lives up to its title, God at Work in the World. Pachuau must be commended as he addresses real issues in a real way.
{"title":"Book Review: <i>Freedom and Sin: Evil in a World Created by God</i> by Ross McCullough","authors":"Kevin Timpe","doi":"10.1177/00405736231203448c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231203448c","url":null,"abstract":"not dictated solely, and limited only to, how we perceive it from “within” our culture, and that at times, we need to be willing to listen to what comes from “beyond” as well. This book certainly speaks to the present need, especially when it comes to mission in the global context, and lives up to its title, God at Work in the World. Pachuau must be commended as he addresses real issues in a real way.","PeriodicalId":43855,"journal":{"name":"THEOLOGY TODAY","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135761608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231203448f
W. Travis McMaken
tributions and perspectives. And finally, in her exposition of “misfitting,” a concept borrowed from disability studies, Raffety celebrates the ways in which nonstandard bodies and minds destabilize theological concepts and Christian practices in ways that open up room for the creative work of the Spirit to transform communities toward justice and mutual flourishing (a concept that is, itself, destabilized through various misfittings!). While the book engages Christian leadership, I would like to see someone develop a work in conversation with Raffety’s From Inclusion to Justice that deeply engages and critiques historical and contemporary Christian theories and practices of leadership. I could imagine this book being used in a number of theological settings because of its accessible style, because it provides an example of Christian ethnography done well, and, most significantly, because it advances a thesis that is crucial for the future of the church in a world where disability is unexceptional.
{"title":"Book Review: <i>Living Belief: A Short Introduction to Christian Faith</i> by Douglas F. Ottati","authors":"W. Travis McMaken","doi":"10.1177/00405736231203448f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231203448f","url":null,"abstract":"tributions and perspectives. And finally, in her exposition of “misfitting,” a concept borrowed from disability studies, Raffety celebrates the ways in which nonstandard bodies and minds destabilize theological concepts and Christian practices in ways that open up room for the creative work of the Spirit to transform communities toward justice and mutual flourishing (a concept that is, itself, destabilized through various misfittings!). While the book engages Christian leadership, I would like to see someone develop a work in conversation with Raffety’s From Inclusion to Justice that deeply engages and critiques historical and contemporary Christian theories and practices of leadership. I could imagine this book being used in a number of theological settings because of its accessible style, because it provides an example of Christian ethnography done well, and, most significantly, because it advances a thesis that is crucial for the future of the church in a world where disability is unexceptional.","PeriodicalId":43855,"journal":{"name":"THEOLOGY TODAY","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135761404","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231203448e
Benjamin T. Conner
{"title":"Book Review: <i>From Inclusion to Justice: Disability, Ministry, and Congregational Leadership</i> by Erin Raffety","authors":"Benjamin T. Conner","doi":"10.1177/00405736231203448e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231203448e","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43855,"journal":{"name":"THEOLOGY TODAY","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135761410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231203448b
Hminga Pachuau
together closely enough to warrant collecting them in a single monograph. An introductory chapter that lays out the aim of the project from the beginning would have allowed the reader more easily to situate Cho’s explorations in the context of his larger project. Another somewhat problematic issue is that Cho’s generally careful and insightful close readings of the biblical texts sometimes read more into the text than is actually there. Two representative examples include Cho’s reading of Job and Judah. With regard to the latter, Cho presents Judah as an example of a biblical character who exhibits a willingness to die on behalf of others in the Joseph story, but while Judah does tell his father, Jacob, that he will “stand surety” for Benjamin (Gen 43:9) and later offers to take Benjamin’s place as a slave (Gen 44:33), he never actually offers to die for him. Cho says that in the former case Judah “in effect” says, “I am willing to die,” and in the latter he accepts the prospect of the “symbolic death of slavery” (p. 149; emphasis mine). One may question, however convenient it would be for Cho’s purposes, whether any sort of death, figurative or otherwise, is truly at issue in the text. Likewise, in his discussion of “Job and the Problem of Suicide,” Cho reads Job’s desire for “strangling” (Job 7:15) as a reference to death by his own hand (p. 42), but it is far from clear that Job’s declarations concerning his desire to die represent an actual contemplation of suicide. One can express a willingness to die without wanting to kill oneself or indeed without even truly wanting to die. On this, the interested reader may benefit from putting Cho’s volume in conversation with Hanne Løland Levinson’s recent monograph The Death Wish in the Hebrew Bible. Despite these quibbles, though, Cho’s exploration of the willingness to die in the Hebrew Bible demonstrates to Christian readers of Scripture that the central theme of Christ’s self-sacrifice on behalf of others is already foreshadowed by and ultimately dependent upon themes and values found in the Hebrew Scriptures. While the precise formulation of the idea of a deity who dies on behalf of others is foreign to the Hebrew Bible, the Christian soteriological claims surrounding death, suicide, and vicarious sacrifice are not entirely original to the New Testament, but ultimately represent reformulations of ideas already present in the Hebrew Bible.
{"title":"Book Review: <i>God at Work in the World: Theology and Mission in the Global Church</i> by Lalsangkima Pachuau","authors":"Hminga Pachuau","doi":"10.1177/00405736231203448b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00405736231203448b","url":null,"abstract":"together closely enough to warrant collecting them in a single monograph. An introductory chapter that lays out the aim of the project from the beginning would have allowed the reader more easily to situate Cho’s explorations in the context of his larger project. Another somewhat problematic issue is that Cho’s generally careful and insightful close readings of the biblical texts sometimes read more into the text than is actually there. Two representative examples include Cho’s reading of Job and Judah. With regard to the latter, Cho presents Judah as an example of a biblical character who exhibits a willingness to die on behalf of others in the Joseph story, but while Judah does tell his father, Jacob, that he will “stand surety” for Benjamin (Gen 43:9) and later offers to take Benjamin’s place as a slave (Gen 44:33), he never actually offers to die for him. Cho says that in the former case Judah “in effect” says, “I am willing to die,” and in the latter he accepts the prospect of the “symbolic death of slavery” (p. 149; emphasis mine). One may question, however convenient it would be for Cho’s purposes, whether any sort of death, figurative or otherwise, is truly at issue in the text. Likewise, in his discussion of “Job and the Problem of Suicide,” Cho reads Job’s desire for “strangling” (Job 7:15) as a reference to death by his own hand (p. 42), but it is far from clear that Job’s declarations concerning his desire to die represent an actual contemplation of suicide. One can express a willingness to die without wanting to kill oneself or indeed without even truly wanting to die. On this, the interested reader may benefit from putting Cho’s volume in conversation with Hanne Løland Levinson’s recent monograph The Death Wish in the Hebrew Bible. Despite these quibbles, though, Cho’s exploration of the willingness to die in the Hebrew Bible demonstrates to Christian readers of Scripture that the central theme of Christ’s self-sacrifice on behalf of others is already foreshadowed by and ultimately dependent upon themes and values found in the Hebrew Scriptures. While the precise formulation of the idea of a deity who dies on behalf of others is foreign to the Hebrew Bible, the Christian soteriological claims surrounding death, suicide, and vicarious sacrifice are not entirely original to the New Testament, but ultimately represent reformulations of ideas already present in the Hebrew Bible.","PeriodicalId":43855,"journal":{"name":"THEOLOGY TODAY","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135761605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00405736231197439
Gordon S. Mikoski
I have never warmed up to theological visions that make a hard and fast distinction between the church and the world. I have always found such distinctions inaccurate, if not downright farcical. It is a pious and noble idea to think that the church functions as a community of believers who live a qualitatively different life than the rest of the people in the society in which they live. The correlate to the church as a “set apart” community entails that “the world” or secular society lacks kindness, mercy, or awe at the transcendent mysteries of life. This distinction does not hold up under empirical scrutiny and turns out to be more of a desire than a demonstrable reality. My first problem with the “godly church vs. godless world” theoretical construct is that it does not resonate with my pastoral experience and observations of actual church people. On most days, it is hard to tell the difference between what they do “inside” church and what they do “outside” in other aspects of society. I have witnessed shockingly godless behavior among church people while they were doing churchy things. My second problem with this fantastical construct has to do with the fact that many of the so-called “secular” arenas of human life often bear witness to people acting with care and compassion toward others and showing respectful curiosity at life’s mysteries. This is not to say that I cannot detect any difference between what goes on in the church fellowship hall and the shopping mall; it is just that the lines have always seemed rather fuzzy to me. There are deeper levels to my unease with sharp dividing-line theories like Luther’s two kingdoms theory and with more contemporary neo-Aristotelian Protestant virtue ethics. As a Reformed pastor and practical theologian, I object on principle to the idea that some part of creation has been abandoned by God and turned over to malignant forces of godlessness. Theologically, I see all of creation as coming from and belonging to God. This world is God’s world—always has been, is now, and always will be. Corruption, evil, rebellion, and dehumanization stem, in my admittedly Calvinian-Augustinian view, from the disordering or twisting of things that are created good. If some parts of creation were to be truly abandoned by God, I believe that they
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