Contextuality in the Theology of Douglas John Hall

The theology of Douglas John Hall has much to offer us in a time of wanton warfare and social injustices. Hall contends that the modern paradigm, supported by an "eternal, universal theology of glory" proves inadequate for addressing the problems of the world in which we live, and offers us a "contextual theology of the cross." This theology, unlike theologies of glory, is not afraid to "walk" into the darkness; in fact, Hall contends that is the only place where the light of God is revealed.     

An Ecclesia and Missio Crucis: Douglas John Hall's Contribution to the Missional Church Conversation

Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall's contextual analysis of the church in North America has contributed significantly to the missional church conversation; however, his own constructive ecclesiology has received less attention. This article presents and critically examines Hall's proposal of a “suffering church” and offers constructive suggestions for further developing it: expanding solidarity into accompaniment; shifting from the category of representation to reconciliation as the paradigm for the church's mission; and finally, considering the theology of the cross in more pneumatological terms.     

What are Churches For? Toward an Ecclesiology of the Cross after Christendom1

Abstract : This essay applies pressure to Douglas John Hall's use of Luther's theologia crucis in his calls for the church to become an ecclesia crucis. In my analysis, the theology of the cross is best used not as a hermeneutical key for discerning Christendom's end and the church's new beginning, but as training in developing the capacity to discern both God and church as they hide under opposite signs. By drawing on Hall, two feminist Lutheran theologians, and Stanley Hauerwas, the essay suggests that the practices of the institutional church might be exactly what is needed for the formation of theologians of the cross.     

Constructive Theology,the Cross of Christ,and the Praxis of Liberation

The article relates Paul Hinlicky's project of critical dogmatics to the constructive work of two Reformed theologians, Jürgen Moltmann's The Crucified God (1972) and Mark Lewis Taylor's The Executed God (2001/2015). After highlighting central tenets of Hinlicky's paradigm I discuss and compare the monographs by Moltmann and Taylor, weighing their similarities and differences. I conclude by pointing out the shared interest of critical dogmatics and constructive theology.     

The Theology of the Cross and God's Work in the World

Ian Barbour has distinguished eight theologies of God's role in nature, together with corresponding models of divine activity. This essay examines these ideas in the light of a theology of the cross. Three of Barbour's approaches—the neo-Thomist, the kenotic, and the existentialist—are able to provide different aspects of a theology of divine action that is consistent with belief that God's definitive revelation takes place in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. These approaches encourage attention to a part of traditional doctrines of Providence, the idea that God acts by "cooperation" with natural processes. The kenotic character of divine involvement in the world means that the regularities of the basic interactions of physics are maintained. The idea of cooperation can be extrapolated into the past, to give some insight into ways of understanding God's activity in originating the universe.     

Theology of the Cross and the Experience of God's Presence: A Lutheran Response to Pentecostal Wonderings

As Lutherans and Pentecostals begin an official international dialogue, the author, a Lutheran member of the dialogue, responds to two related sets of questions raised by a Pentecostal member of the dialogue during a preceding six‐year consultation between these traditions: whether there is a place in the Lutheran tradition for a “theology of glory,” considering the centrality of “a theology of the cross” for Luther; and how Lutherans speak about experiencing the presence of God, and the means through which one encounters God.     

Christian Stewardship in Light of a Theology of the Cross1

Abstract : The article translates a keynote address delivered in Spanish at the November 2007 “Life and Mission” special assembly of the United Lutheran Evangelical Church in Argentina, held in Buenos Aires. Departing from Jesus' “giving it all away on the cross,” it lays a cruciform foundation for a Christian theology of abundant generosity, and offers practical implications for stewardship leaders.     

“Thine is the Kingdom,the Power,and the Glory”: New Vistas for the Theology of the Cross

Abstract : This article examines fifteen recent books on a theology of the cross in the English language. Following the publication of Moltmann's The Crucified God and Hall's Lighten Our Darkness in the 1970s, unprecedented interest has been devoted to a theology of the cross in theological literature. The author categorizes this literature into four types: exegetical and historical treatments, critiques of theologies of glory, challenges to the abuse of power, and signals of the coming of God's kingdom. Two hypotheses are ventured regarding the emergence of these works at this time: 1) they evidence a theological response to the enormity of human suffering brought into awareness in an age of instant electronic communication; and 2) the urgent concern for the poor and the cry for social justice, which emerged with liberation theologies, are now finding expression through advocates for the theology of the cross.     

Higher Education in Light of the Cross

What is the summum bonum of a university education? The much lauded “liberal” approach of Aristotle, Newman, and Roche proposes that education is for contemplating the truth—an intrinsic, joyous end in itself. This approach offers the benefits of pursuing truth, virtues, and intellectual habits, but it also carries with it the temptations of idealatry and homo incurvatus in se. Christian universities can reform this approach to education, though, with Luther's theology of the cross, reorienting it through the crucified Christ toward the highest ends of life revealed in God's word: faith in God and love for the neighbor.     

Pragmatic Theology and the Natural Sciences at the Intersection of Human Interests

This paper elicits a twentieth-century American story that is deeply rooted in the legacy of American philosophical pragmatism, its impact on a particular school, and its reconstruction of American theology. The paper focuses on three generations of American theologians, and it centers on how these theologians reconstruct theology in light of the science of their day and how they maintain a true plurality of insights about human life in the world. The pragmatic theologian regards the creative exchange between theology and natural science as an opportunity for renewing our understanding of religious life and appreciating the various commitments of scientists and theologians as they meet at the juncture of human interests. The first voice is that of the early Chicago School of Theology represented by Shailer Mathews, Gerald Birney Smith, and George Burman Foster. The second voice is that of Henry Nelson Wieman, a second-generation theologian at Chicago. The final theologian discussed is James M. Gustafson, former Professor of Theological Ethics at Chicago.     

The Way of Salvation in Luther's Theology: A Feminist Evaluation

Abstract : Luther's understanding of salvation can be summed up with the phrase “justification by grace through faith.” The doctrine of justification is the focal point for all theological categories in Luther's theology, including salvation. That said, this article examines various ways grace or salvation is understood to be conveyed in Luther's theology through: the cross, the resurrection or through God's election and covenant with humankind. Throughout the article, it evaluates these foci for salvation in terms of their ability to speak gospel to women's lives today. In particular, it evaluates the appropriate usage of Luther's epistemology of the cross.     

Prison Theology: A Theology of Liberation,Hope and Justice

Abstract : In our nation today, the number of prisons and prisoners continue to grow at rates that are out‐of‐control. One in 100 of our citizens is in jail or prison, the highest ratio in the world. Unlike the poor, homeless, critically ill, and elderly, those in prison are separated from us to the degree they are unseen. Unseen also, is the oppressiveness of the criminal justice system that oversees more than 6.5 million people either in confinement or on probation or parole. Liberation theology, which advocates and works toward freeing people from oppression, includes feminist, black, womanist and Latino/Hispanic movements. This article proposes prison theology as part of the liberation theology family and identifies a prison theology based on liberation, hope and justice. It encourages a prison theology movement led by the church to liberate those under the oppressiveness of the criminal justice system, especially those confined and to energize a passion for justice and compassion for the oppressed throughout the criminal justice system.     

BEFORE THE ORIGINAL POSITION: The Neo-Orthodox Theology of the Young John Rawls

This paper examines a remarkable document that has escaped critical attention within the vast literature on John Rawls, religion, and liberalism: Rawls's undergraduate thesis, “A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith: An Interpretation Based on the Concept of Community” (1942). The thesis shows the extent to which a once regnant version of Protestant theology has retreated into seminaries and divinity schools where it now also meets resistance. Ironically, the young Rawls rejected social contract liberalism for reasons that anticipate many of the claims later made against him by secular and religious critics. The thesis and Rawls's late unpublished remarks on religion and World War II offer a new dimension to his intellectual biography. They show the significance of his humanist response to the moral impossibility of political theology. Moreover, they also reveal a kind of Rawlsian piety marginalized by contemporary debates over religion and liberalism.     

Union and Difference: A Dialectical Structuring of St. John of the Cross’ Mysticism

This paper intends to append the frame of dialectic upon St. John of the Cross’ delineation of mysticism. Its underlying hypothesis is that the dialectical structuring of St. John’s mystical theology promises to unravel the web of relational concepts embedded within his immense writings on this unique phenomenon. It is hoped that as a consequence of this undertaking, relevant pairs of correlative opposites that figure prominently in mysticism can be elucidated and perhaps come to some form of resolution.

The Middle Passage,Trauma and the Tragic Re-Imagination of African American Theology

African American Christian consciousness developed in response to the traumatic field in which African American subjectivity took shape. The expression of the faith in the African American tradition is fundamentally tragic as a consequence. The Middle Passage is the existential and symbolic nodal point of this experience. There is a sense in which African Americans remain very much on the water; marginalized and suspended between worlds. There is a deeper sense in which the African American situation and response reflects the condition of modernity and post-modernity in the sense that it is hardly more than modernity becoming conscious of itself. A thorough examination and exploration of its significance is essential to developing a theology that adequately expresses African American Christian consciousness. This paper is an attempt to lay out, what I think, are some of the basic components of the experience and the bare outlines or orientation of such a theology grounded in it.     

Invitation to the Triune Conversation: Explorations of Prayer through the Theology of Robert Jenson

This paper attempts to contribute to our understanding of prayer through an engagement with its crucial role in the systematic thought of Robert Jenson. I present prayer as our invitation to the triune conversation. Developing some of Jenson's categories, I work to show that a Christian understanding of prayer connects to a spectrum of systematic loci, especially creation and anthropology, the sacraments and ecclesiology, mission and eschatology. In these three modes, the anthropological, the ecclesial and the eschatological, prayer enters into the ultimate conversation that animates the world through faith, love and hope. This paper concludes by arguing that such an account of prayer, if authentic, supports a contemporary retrieval of the cataphatic dimension of theology.     

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.     

The Theology of Jean Daniélou: Epochs,Correspondences, and the Orders of the Real

After a survey of the life and work of Jean Daniélou considered as the classic theologian of twentieth century 'ressourcement', his theological method is explored under three headings: 'epochs' indicates his reliance on the theology of history as developed by 'biblical theology'; 'correspondences' his cosmic aesthetics, indebted to French Symbolism, and invoked theologically by way of typology; 'orders' his Pascalian emphasis on a distinction between levels of reality and the variety of epistemological approaches they require. The article concludes by applying Daniélou's method, so understood, to the heart of his theological doctrine, his account of God in Jesus Christ.     

A Theology of the Cross for South Africa

This article seeks to investigate in what ways the Lutheran theologia crucis - when brought into dialogue with the South African historical-political context - can be of epistemological as well as pastoral significance for the people of South Africa. South Africa is a nation in the process of coming to terms with a traumatic past of violence, oppression, suffering and injustice. In order for healing and reconciliation to occur, people must find some kind of meaning in the story of the past, and indeed must find the seeds of hope and new beginnings in this story. This article argues that the story of South Africa can be likened to a story of the cross, and that the God of South Africans can be identified as the God of the cross, the Deus absconditus who is mysteriously and paradoxically revealed in suffering and injustice. In identifying the God of the cross as their God, and seeing their story as a story of the cross, South Africans may also anticipate theirs to be(come) a story of the resurrection and of new life.     

Toward the 'Rights of the Poor' Human Rights in Liberation Theology

In this article, the author traces the response of liberation theologians to human rights initiatives through three distinct stages over the past thirty years: from an initial avoidance of the concept, to an early critique, and then to a nuanced theological appropriation. He contends that liberation theology brings a thoroughgoing concern for the poor and an innovative methodology of historicization to the discussion of human rights. In clarifying the treatment of human rights within a specific religious movement, the author also addresses larger questions about the specific role of human rights language. To this end, the article shows how liberation theologians have grappled concretely with the divisions among different 'generations' of rights, various rights discourses, and diverse options for rights advocacy.