Theme Articles: Mujerismo and The Two Kin‐doms: Distinction and Reconciliation

Abstract : The theological ethics underlining mujeristas' theological praxis and Luther's Two Kingdoms doctrine may seem to be contradictory to some. Mujerista theology calls for active engagement in the public sphere. Despite its utilization to the contrary, Luther's Two Kingdoms doctrine calls for that same active engagement of the Christian in civic matters. As a Lutheran Latina, I posit that the theological ethics of mujeristas and Luther's Two Kingdoms are distinct but reconcilable.     

Holy mothers of God: sex work,inheritance, and the women of Jesus’ genealogy*

ABSTRACT

In this article I consider the stories of Jesus’ women ancestors in the genealogy which opens the Gospel of Matthew. Reading these stories in light of Marxist-feminist analyses of marriage, sex work and reproductive labor, alongside contemporary sex workers’ rights discourse, and through Marcella Althaus-Reid's claim that all theology is “a sexual act”, I explore their implications for contemporary debates about property and propriety in both Christian systematic theology and contemporary Christian sexual ethics – which cannot, of course, be disentangled from one another. To conclude, I return to the twinned questions of righteousness and purity which centrally define both theological accounts of Christian identity and Christian sexual ethics, suggesting that righteousness relies for its coherence not only on the abjection of those who fall short of its standards, but also on their labor.     

Hope

Hope is a central topic in Christian theology. In the Nordic countries, it holds a prominent place in recent contributions. The present article discusses relevant elements related to Christian hope in a wider context of politics, other imaginaries, and constructive and critical proposals. Taking its point of departure in conceptual nuances suggested by Derrida, it discusses the recent contributions of Herms, Keller and McCord Adams with regard to how a theological explication of hope can be developed in contemporary constructive theology.     

Søren Kierkegaard and the Impossibility of (Un)Forgiveness

Discussions of forgiveness within Christian theology have tended to focus on the conditions in which forgiveness may be a moral or divine imperative for believers. With regard to Søren Kierkegaard’s theological ethics, this article explicates a radical perspective. For the Kierkegaardian Christian lover, no definitive relational break with the other (however objectionable) can occur. As Kierkegaard emphasizes in Works of Love, in a discourse which bears this sentiment as its title, “love abides.” Indeed, I illustrate how in three consecutive discourses in Works of Love—“VI: Love Abideth,” “VII: Mercy, a Work of Love,” and “VIII: The Victory of the Reconciliation in Love”—Kierkegaard’s ethical vision is grounded in Christian love’s immutability. For Kierkegaard, if Christian love is present, then forgiveness is redundant, and unforgiveness is impossible.     

REMEMBERING HOW AND WHAT I THINK: A Response to the JRE Articles on Hauerwas

In this essay Stanley Hauerwas reflects on his life's work by responding to the critical contributions found in the essays of this volume. Rather than trying to defend a “position,” Hauerwas takes this opportunity to offer further insight into how he sees his work to be driven by theology, insofar as his ethical reflection cannot be extricated from Christological considerations. It is this Christological center that allows him to avoid making a false separation between the person and work of Jesus Christ. For Hauerwas, only in maintaining its Christological center can Christian “ethics” be understood in continuity with the practices of the church, including the practice of Christian speech. Without this continuity, “ethics” fails to be theological.     

The “Self”, its vicissitudes and possibilities: An essay in theological anthropology

Conclusion Some readers may be disappointed that more direct implications for practical theology have not been drawn. I do hope to draw some of these out in the future. But first another step must, in my opinion, be taken. That is an attempt to spell out the relationship between the self and the spirit. Recall that the self is a Johnnie-come-lately to the theological scene. Spirit, on the other hand, has been at the core of Christian reflection since it began, and still is the most comprehensive term for what a human being is, as well as what a human being may become, paradoxically. To this problem of self and spirit I hope to turn my attention, and then to see how the problem's perplexing practical theology looks.     

On the Persistence of the Genealogical in Contemporary Theology

There is a persistence of genealogical discourse in a certain strand of contemporary theology. Opting for the genealogical shapes the theological task of remembrance and engagement with the historical tradition in important, but also problematic, ways. In this article I discuss how genealogical discourse was appropriated by theology, and then uncover its implicit assumptions and tendencies. Analysing some encounters between theological genealogies and various Hegelian thinkers, I draw a contrast between Nietzschean genealogy and Hegelian ‘phenomenology’. This comparison brings to light some fundamental ways in which the genealogical might distort theological writing and practice.     

When the Common Good Takes the Grand(est) Stage The Cosmic Common Good: Religious Grounds for Ecological Ethics,Daniel P. Scheid,Oxford University Press, 2016 (ISBN 978‐0‐19‐935943‐1), xvi + 248 pp., hb £19.99

Rooting itself in Catholic social teaching rather than theology of creation, this book develops a novel approach to Catholic ecological ethics. It argues that the traditional conception of the social common good should be fully broadened to encompass all creation, including abiota. Furthermore, the book suggests a comparative‐theological approach to ecological ethics through careful conversations with Buddhist, Hindu, and American Lakota conceptions and practices. While its vision of the cosmic common good at times appears too inclusive and perhaps ‘too good to be true’, this book is a valuable contribution to Christian ecological ethics and includes a fresh comparative‐theological take on ecological questions.     

Christian Supersessionism,Zionism, and the Contemporary Scene

Postliberal theology has been a topic of considerable theological debate over the past few decades. In his 2011 book Another Reformation, Peter Ochs deploys a postliberal theological model for the purpose of developing a sophisticated understanding of the future of interreligious relations. Ochs argues that postliberal theology is a reparative theology focusing on alleviating human suffering. He argues that the Christian idea of supersessionism may be the most challenging for Christians to confront as they explore avenues for making interreligious dialogue more effective. Ochs critiques the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder's understanding of Zionism as Jewish Constantianism for being an instance of an ostensibly postliberal theology losing its way. In this essay, I offer a critique of Ochs's reading of Yoder, claiming that Yoder's view actually mirrors an important intra‐Jewish debate about the relationship between political power and piety, and retrieves an ingenious contribution of both early Judaism and early Christianity that is effaced in today's growing Constantinian approach to Christian imperialism and Jewish nationalism.     

Beyond Critique: Just War as Theological Political Theology

This article takes up a charge often directed to neo-Augustinians by neo-Anabaptists that their defense of just war lacks adequate theological foundations. It is the case that most contemporary just war advocates, even within Christian ethics, no longer embed their accounts within a distinctively theological context, let alone a robust appeal to a doctrine of God or divine providence attentive to the divine One who really entered history, suffered defeat, and conquered death. This development can be seen as a form of self-denial for the sake of consensus and casuistry. In so doing, however, they confirm the claim of many Christian pacifists that just war reasoning betrays the radical creativity of Christian virtue in the name of some external (often duty-based) notion of responsibility and retributive justice. My project differs. It taps into resurgent interest in political theology as a way to remedy this neglect at least a little. I focus on two aspects of political theology that bear primarily on the relation of the temporal and the eternal: providence and suffering. They are rooted in fundamental theology, guided by the memory of being grafted as strangers into the God of Israel, the same God who showed compassion for Esau even while blessing Jacob. Just war tradition is an act of compassion rooted in providence and the inevitable suffering faced in history. The point is to re-theologize a living tradition that generations of the ecumenical church bequeathed to us as an exercise of their Christian imagination within their historical contexts where they took all of history seriously as God’s time. Wary of idolatry, we should strive for more than critique or a disappointing choice between Christendom or Church as the only theological word to the nations.     

ROADS TO RECONCILIATION: AN EMERGING PARADIGM OF AFRICAN THEOLOGY

The heart of contemporary African Christian theology is the notion of “reconciliation.” Contextualizing this movement, the article begins by surveying the three major theological paradigms—inculturation, liberation, and reconstruction—that shaped post‐colonial African theology. Drawing on the writings of Desmond Tutu, John Rucyahana and Emmanuel Katongole and three grassroots reconciliation ministries, I delineate four principles of African reconciliation theology: interdependence, prophetic advocacy, holistic transformation, and alternative Christian community. The article concludes by addressing outstanding challenges of memory, justice, brokenness, and pluralism and considers how the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation could offer further theological resources for the emerging paradigm.     

On Christian Discernment and the Problem of the Theological

This article lays the groundwork for a theology of discernment that seeks to address modern anxieties about the integrity of the theological by showing how Christian believers are sanctified for the identification of true speech about God. It does so by arguing that post‐Kantian understandings of the activity of the human subject in judgement need not be seen as inimical to an account of Christian discernment, that recognition of Paul's understanding of the place of discernment in the Christian life points to alternatives to Barth's attempt to resolve the difficulties of the theological through an exclusive appeal to divine activity, and that Augustine develops a helpful account of the place of a theology of discernment in addressing the problem of the theological by treating the connection between these topics as an element within theologies of sanctification and creaturely vocation.     

An Impossible Possibility? Jewish Barthianism in Interwar Germany

In this essay I examine the Jewish reception of Karl Barth's theology in Germany of the 1930s. This I do through an analysis of a disputed exploration into the possibilities and limitations of the theological principles of dialectical theology for the formulation of a Jewish theology that took place at the time. The publication of Karl Barth's Römerbrief (1919, 1922) generated a great stir among Christian circles in Germany. Profoundly challenging the fundamental assumptions of liberal theology, Barth's ‘dialectical theology' was quickly recognized as an epoch‐making work. But the impact of Barth's theology exceeded its Christian readership. As a corresponding disillusionment of liberal theology in its Jewish version took place among Jews, Barthianism presented itself as a compelling theological model offering a profound rejoinder to the spiritual needs of Jews as well. Yet alongside the recognition of the potentially constructive engagement with Barth's radical thought for a rejuvenated articulation of Jewish theology, Jewish thinkers similarly acknowledged the many challenges and difficulties such a theological encounter implied from a Jewish point of view, thereby projecting their understanding of the Jewish‐Christian difference.     

The Influence of Social Critical Theory on Edward Schillebeeckx's Theology of Suffering for Others

Edward Schillebeeckx has consolidated the theoretical and practical dimensions of the Christian approach to human suffering in his theological method, specifically his theology of suffering for others. The various elements and sources of his method can be gleaned from his later writings, especially those published during the 1970s and 1980s. Schillebeeckx's theology is anchored in (1) the Thomist-phenomenological approach of Flemish philosopher Dominic De Petter; (2) the historical-experiential theology of Marie-Dominique Chenu; and (3) the social theory of the Frankfurt School. De Petter's perspective on Aquinas integrated a Thomist epistemology with the phenomenological notion that concepts cannot ultimately capture the reality of human experience. From Chenu, Schillebeeckx acquired his commitment to both solid historical research and engagement with socio-political problems facing church and world.
The problem of suffering, which constitutes an essential dimension of Schillebeeckx's theological ethics with its dual emphasis on theory and praxis, raises the question of human responsibility in the face of unjust and needless suffering. His theoretical-practical approach to the alleviation of human suffering evolved within the framework of social critical theory, specifically: (a) Schillebeeckx's theological integration of Theodor Adorno's negative dialectics into his own method of correlation, which promotes various forms of critical resistance to socio-political injustice rather than a single program; and (b) the unification of theory and praxis, a priority of Jürgen Habermas's 'new' critical theory that Schillebeeckx endorses. Both principles of critical theory — negative dialectics and the union of theory and praxis — inform Schillebeeckx's eschatological orientation and his conception of liturgy as a form of social ethics.     

ECONOMY OF “INVISIBLE DEBT” AND ETHICS OF “RADICAL HOSPITALITY”: Toward a Paradigm Change of Hospitality from “Gift” to “Forgiveness”

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct a Christian theology of “hospitality” through a critical reading of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche as well as through an in‐depth biblical and theological reflection on the ethics of hospitality. Out of this reconstructive investigation, I propose a new Christian ethics of hospitality as a radical kind. As a new paradigm, this radical hospitality is distinguished from other types in that it is no longer conceived on the model of “gift”. The new Christian ethics of hospitality is rather reconstructed on the model of “forgiveness” by critically appropriating the concept of “invisible debt” that lies between the hosting citizens and the migrants in the senses of “you owe us your presence” and “I owe you my security and success.” While the hospitality of the gift defines the relationship between the hosting citizens and the migrants as givers and givees, the new paradigm of hospitality identifies this relationship as between creditors and debtors. In this regard, a new Christian hospitality called for unto citizens of the hosting society is a radical kind that challenges them to transcend the creditor‐debtor consciousness.     

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN'S EVOLUTIONARY NATURAL THEOLOGY

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin develops, as is well known, a model of evolution as a convergent progression from primordial multiplicity through increasing degrees of complexity toward a final Omega point of spiritual consummation. I explore how Teilhard fuses Darwinian and Lamarckian theories of evolution in developing his own, and in particular his defense of the view that Lamarckism is fundamental to a proper understanding of evolution's human phase. Teilhard's scientific interpretation of evolution is inspired by Christian cosmological insights derived from patristic theology and contemporary Pauline scholarship and cannot be separated from them. His integration of science and theology provides the basis for a renewed evolutionary natural theology that supplants the traditional static models developed by William Paley and others. Teilhard's natural theology also provides a framework for theological ethical reflection on how humanity should act in its capacity as created co‐creator with God. In later work, he considers the implications of his evolutionary theology for the wider universe. Teilhard thus presents an invigorated natural theology grounded in evolution that confirms and completes a dynamic and teleological view of the cosmos.     

Three Reviews of For Life Abundant: Practical Theology,Theological Education,and Christian Ministry,edited by Dorothy C. Bass and Craig Dykstra, 2008

For Life Abundant, the fruit of sustained reflection among systematic theologians, practical theologians, and pastors, is an important new work that deserves attention. The volume provokes creative and critical thinking about practical theology. Its contributors conceptualize the field as a disciplined practice of imagination and skill residing at the confluence of Christian tradition and living ecclesial communities, and ask what such a construal of practical theology might mean for theological education. Given the significance of For Life Abundant, Teaching Theology and Religion asked three theological educators who are located in different regions, types of institutions, and fields, to review and respond to it. Rebecca Slough describes the volume's central questions and organization, and considers how it might contribute to the deliberations of a seminary faculty regarding a school's curriculum. Martha Stortz shows how the process and structure of For Life Abundant are in themselves illustrative of the conceptualization of practical theology for which it argues. Kwok Pui‐lan notes the volumes strengths and goes on to probe its lacunae, particularly with regard to global, gender, and multi‐cultural considerations relevant to a robust construal of pastoral theology in our time. While the authors of these three reviews and responses to the volume did not interact as they wrote them, together they comprise a conversation that should be on‐going. TTR invites further responses to the volume.     

MUST ETHICS BE THEOLOGICAL? A CRITIQUE OF THE NEW PRAGMATISTS

In the last decade there has been a pragmatic turn in the work of those doing Christian ethics, especially as represented by the work of Jeffrey Stout and Franklin Gamwell. The pragmatic turn represents a critique of the highly influential work of Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair MacIntyre, which argues for a strongly intra-church ethics. The pragmatists are correct in arguing that Christian ethics must engage the public sphere. However, I argue that they are deeply mistaken in their claim that this engagement must rest on a weak or non-existent theology. I show that the claim that robust theology adds nothing to ethics, and that we can get along without it, is unsustainable.