Speaking of God after the Death of God

Abstract :  This article affirms the ability to talk about God in the twenty‐first century 40 years after God died (according to Death‐of‐God theologians) in the 1960s. It does so by an appeal to the proper combination of mystery and revelation ideally expressed in the paradox that God reveals Godself as hidden. The language of God's revealed hiddenness comprises a "middle way" which avoids the extremes of theological hubris on the one hand and atheism or unbelief on the other, making it possible to speak today of God in a faithful yet humble manner.     

From Maclean's Triune Brain Concept to the Conflict Systems Neurobehavioral Model: The Subjective Basis of Moral and Spiritual Consciousness

This paper builds upon a critically clarified statement of the triune brain concept to set out the conflict systems neurobehavioral model. The model defines the reciprocal algorithms (rules of procedure) of behavior from evolved brain structure. The algorithms are driven by subjectively experienced behavioral tension as the self-preservational programming, common to our ancestral vertebrates, frequently tugs and pulls against the affectional program-ming of our mammalian legacy. The yoking ( zygon ) of the dual algorithmic dynamic accounts for the emergence of moral and spiritual consciousness as manifested in the universal norm of reciprocity and in the work of such thinkersas Martin Buber and Paul Tillich.     

Grace as Pardon and Power: Pictures of the Christian Life in Luther, Calvin, and Barth

Christians have long understood grace both as a declaration of acceptance and as a power that transforms. This article illumines two theses while investigating the relationship between these understandings of grace in Luther, Calvin, and Barth's development of the law/gospel dialectic and the doctrines of justification and sanctification. First, though each theologian makes use of both understandings of grace, each also tends to emphasize one over the other. The unity and tension within and between these perspectives help to show that while both pictures are of the greatest importance for each other and cannot be separated, they also exist in tension, as long as they are worked out in the lives of sinners. Second, the author claims that the positions of Luther and Barth are more alike than is generally recognized.     

The Indicative of Grace & The Imperative of Freedom: An Invitation to the Theology of Eberhard Jüngel

Abstract :  This essay offers a comprehensive introduction to German theologian Eberhard Jüngel's theology and philosophy of religion. It traces his intellectual development, beginning with his formation studies in New Testament with Ernst Fuchs, and ends with his controversial position in matters of church unity and ecumenism. Special attention is paid to his theological anthropology, and the potential contributions his theology could make in the North American context are assessed.     

Prayer and the Theologian of the Cross: Julian of Norwich and Martin Luther

This article constructs a dialogue between Julian of Norwich and the concept of “theologian of the cross,” as found in Martin Luther and his recent interpreters. Since she is Catholic and medieval, one might begin by suspecting that her theology is not acceptable to someone who follows Luther's teaching in the Heidelberg Disputation. However a closer look will suggest that what she has to say is largely in accord with Luther's standard for a theologian of the cross. Put more positively, Julian is a theologian of the cross, in spite of her use of different language and concepts from those of Luther. The focus of the article is the subject of prayer: what Julian teaches about it, and what may be inferred about prayer from Luther's dramatic theses in his disputation.     

Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon on the care and feeding of [future] Pastors

This article argues that humanist training was all-encompassing, not just for Philip Melanchthon but also for Martin Luther. By reexamining the relationship between the two reformers in this area, the article shows how their substantial, overarching agreements, especially in matters of pedagogy, led to a single-minded reform of Wittenberg's curriculum. Finally, it argues that their revolutionary approach to seminary training also addresses its collapse in our own day.     

Rediscovering pneumatology in the “Age of the Spirit”: A North American Lutheran contribution

This essay explores Luther's pneumatology, especially in his sermons on the Gospel of John, might offer resources for “discerning the spirits” in the emerging “age of the Spirit,” as Harvey Cox and Phyllis Tickle have dubbed it, which sees the rise of the “spiritual but not religious” and movements calling for spiritual revolution. The author shows that Luther's insistence that the Spirit work through the given means of “Word and sacrament,” was not intended to limit the Spirit's activity in the world, but rather to protect God's people from those who would wish to use the Spirit for their own means and power.     

From body to body: A post‐gender politics for the cosmic homo1

This article engages in establishing some common ground, some human and humane politics for the global Luther, in contradistinction to the focus in much recent scholarship on difference/s as an almost hegemonic way of understanding human life. The aim is to move beyond feminist, poststructuralist, and postcolonial theories to a post‐gender politics by employing Judith Butler's concepts of performativity and “abject” bodies. Homo, the human being, will be the hermeneutical key for examining Luther's understanding of God's creation and incarnation as well as of baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the church. The aim is that of searching out Luther's differing performances of body, from the carnal body of the incarnate Christ and the human body to the spiritual body of church and community, and how these matter, materialize and intersect in the body of Christ as one body/homo.     

The “Enemies of God” in Luther's Final Sermons: Jews,Papists, and the Problem of Blindness to Scripture

Martin Luther's attack on the supposed “enemies of God” in his final sermons was part of the reformer's concerted effort to announce his last will and testament for evangelical Christianity. Chiefly, the article defines what made Jews and “papists” distinct from other enemies in Luther's view. Jews and papists both had possessed Scripture since ancient times; yet they remained unreceptive—for reasons Luther struggled to explain—to the Word therein.     

Freedom in the Body: The Physical, the Causal, and the Possibility of Choice

Abstract. In Minding God Gregory Peterson takes a careful look at the kind of freedom that human persons have. He concludes that humans are constrained to be free and unpacks this into a version of compatibilism. That is, humans are not metaphysically free under current existence because of the causal determination inherent in their physical nature, but they can take credit for the origination of selfforming decisions because the causes occur inside of us. Peterson does advocate an eschatological hope looking forward to the breaking of causal determination by God's own action. Thus, Minding God presents an eschatologically limited compatibilism. Compatibilism of any kind, however, presents serious challenges to most Christian theologies and to many religious traditions broadly considered. After I interpret Peterson's position I make the argument that compatibilism is neither desirable nor required for a theological anthropology intent on serious engagement of cognitive science.     

The View from Way Below: Inter‐Species Encounter,Membranes, and the Reality of Christ

Viewing modern life from the perspective and world of those whose lives are treated as expendable commodities in our current economic systems—humans and creatures of every other species—creates, Bonhoeffer asserts, the most reliable hermeneutical standpoint for seeing and living in reality. This essay attempts to fashion in broad strokes a Christian theology of creaturely re‐engagement: learning to live again “way below,” in literal and metaphoric touch with reality. I assert that Bonhoeffer's theology of I/Thou encounter as the means of humans’ ethical formation has the potential to ground a broader theology of inter‐species encounter as well.     

Freedom from and Freedom for: Luther's Concept of Freedom for the Twenty‐First Century

This article examines Martin Luther's two fundamental claims around Christian freedom. Drawing on Luther, I suggest three primary characteristics of Christian freedom that should be recovered and championed in our twenty‐first‐century context: it is relational, it is a gift; and it contains within it an ethical imperative for the sake of the neighbor. Together, these three characteristics point to the fact that in a Christian understanding, “freedom” is never considered by itself, but only in the larger context of “freedom from” and “freedom for.”     

Refining the dual‐process theory of preference construction: A reply to Gawronski,Martin and Sloman,Stanovich, and Wegener and Chien

Our target article proposed a dual-system framework for understanding context and task effects in choice. In this summary, we address the major points made by each set of commentators and, building on their suggestions, define a more precise dual-system theory of preference construction. We also propose some avenues for future research on a broader dual-system approach to understanding choice.     

More Catholic than Rome; more reformed than Geneva: Joseph P. Cassidy and possibilities for renewal in the Church of England

This article traces the integration of theology, spirituality and ethics in the work of Dr Joseph P. Cassidy from his life as a Jesuit, then as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church and then of the Church of England, as well as the new possibilities his work opened up for re-thinking decision-making both in ecclesial groups and in social and political life, not least re-thinking the importance of the laity.     

Reflections on research and learning from the patient: the art and science of what we do

Over three decades ago, John Bowlby argued for psychoanalysis to seek beyond its own parameters if it was to maintain its claim to be a science. Since then there has been a wealth of relevant research from various fields. While this has been instrumental in the development of my own work, this paper concerns learning from the patient. The paper begins with a premise: interpretative analytic work requires three‐dimensionality (self, other and object). Although interpretative work may be ingrained in our professional identity, this triangulation may or may not exist in our patients in any stable way. The paper continues with a brief developmental account of how early archetypally‐shaped shifts in the infant's field of interest establish the experiential components of three‐dimensionality. From there, observational and clinical material with a toddler and a young boy describe how early relational deficits hindered their capacities for three‐dimensionality. Yet both were able to engage with the therapist and to become active in the creation of three‐dimensionality within their own minds. Implied in this work are considerations for working with patients for whom interpretations do not work. Michael Fordham's comments on ‘working out of the self’ are linked with the art of what we do.     

Impressions of the Church of Sweden: liberal and catholic with nuances of Lutheranism

The Church of Sweden is difficult to describe or to characterise, whether as a Folk Church, a national church, as catholic or liberal, or as, in some sense, Lutheran. This article refers to aspects of its complex relations with the Roman Catholic Church and with Lutheranism at large. The author detects, from ecumenical agreement and practice, an incipient new communion of churches, based on a common claim to be catholic and also to be open to developments in society. This group includes the Church of Sweden, the Church of England, the Episcopal Church in the USA, the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht and the Philippine Independent Church, all of which are in communion with each other. The author's presentation is set out in relation to the Church of Sweden's liturgical and sacramental life, its church–state relations, and in an account of the rather asymmetrical shape of ecumenism in Sweden, in all of which the question of gender plays a role.