Pan-Africanism and African-American Liberation in a Postmodern World: A Review Essay

This review essay explores Josiah Young's project of developing a liberatory Pan-Africanism that is attuned to cultural diversity and Victor Anderson's advocacy of postmodern cultural criticism in African-American religious thought. After situating African-American religious thought as a branch of Africana thought, the author examines these two religious thinkers' work as an effort to forge a position on African-American religious thought—including its relation to theology—in an age where even theory is treated as a god that is about to die. At the conclusion, secularism emerges as a religious project that normatively undergirds the methodological dimensions of these works.     

A Religion for an Age of Science

The period 800–200 B.C.E. has been called an axial period or age because it was a period of major technological and cultural change that led to the development of new worldviews, which in turn called for and led to the emergence of the current major world religious traditions. The world is now in the midst of another period of major global scientific, technological, and cultural change that is leading to the development of a new global worldview. In this worldview, the cosmos is taken to be more like an activity than a thing—more like an emergent complex of interrelated and interactive doing in space–time than a created complex of beings in space and time–and its complexity and space—time scale are understood to be enormously greater than heretofore supposed.
These changes in worldview call for changes in theology, religion, and ethics. Most workers in the field of science and religion are heeding this call by attempting to reconcile traditional religious concepts with the new scientific concepts. Others, however, have become convinced that the new worldview differs so radically from the previous ones as to mark a new axial age, which calls for a new, post-traditional theology, religion, and ethics, with a theos that is more like an activator of doing than a ground of being, and with meaning and purpose achieved more by a quality of doing than a quantity or quality of being.     

Baptism in a Secular Age

In the Western world, the cultural conditions for interpreting and practicing baptism have changed radically in recent decades. An increasing level of religious plurality is one cultural trend that the theology of baptism must take seriously. One option for responding to this challenge is to interpret baptism as a rite of drastic communal transition whereby one enters into the church and leaves the world—with all its plurality—behind. Another option is to view baptism as a rite that, by bringing us into the church's fellowship with God in Christ, draws us into communion with all living creatures and calls upon us to engage in openness toward others.     

MARGARET THATCHER'S CHRISTIAN FAITH: A Case Study in Political Theology

Throughout the 1980s Margaret Thatcher dominated British and global politics. At the same time she maintained an active Christian faith, which she understood as shaping and informing her political choices and policies. In this article I argue that we can construct from Thatcher's key speeches, her memoirs, and her book on public policy a cultural “theo‐political” identity which guided her political decisions. Thatcher's identity was as an Anglo‐Saxon Nonconformist. This consisted of her belief in values such as thrift and hard work, care for the family and local neighbor, and charitable generosity; her belief in the renewal of the national British Christian spirit; and her notion of morality as the opportunity for free choice. Without a recognition of the centrality of her theo‐political identity, it is difficult to understand the values and beliefs which were central to her political life. The methodological issues raised by the construction of this theo‐political identity are examined in this article. The aim of the proposed methodology is to develop theological insights into a political phenomenon like Thatcher rather than make policy judgments or recommendations.     

Outside the Box: (Post) Secular Projects of Transcendence

Secular theology builds upon the growing recognition and critique of the limitations of the confining box of religion built in and through the modern secularist dispensation. A bipolar model of religion and the secular, and the classificatory web within which it is nestled, have limited theology's field of vision and engagement. This article explores several examples of projects of transcendence that resist easy identification with either the religious or the secular, illuminating the limitations of the religion‐secular classification and the diffuse cultural trends that are reconfiguring it, even leading beyond it.     

The Making of the Reformation. The Early Urban Reformation Between Continuity and Change

While recent scholarship has highlighted various theological, social, and cultural continuities from the Middle Ages to the Reformation, the emergence of early urban Reformations still seems surprising and sudden. Focusing on the case of the electoral city of Wittenberg, this paper discusses elements of continuity and change in the early urban Reformation. It argues that the emergence of the Reformation can only be understood within the long-term social and political contexts of the city’s history. The historical record indicates that the negotiation of religious authority was a continuous theme expressed in repeated social and political conflicts; attitudes and mindsets changed only gradually, creating a sense of cultural continuity that contradicts the traditional idea of violent, rapid change. The narrative of change emerged only later as a result of archiving and collecting strategies, which shaped the collective memory and historical knowledge of subsequent generations.     

Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology

Neurotheological approaches provide an important bridge between scientific and religious perspectives. These approaches have, however, generally neglected the implications of a primordial form of spiritual healing—shamanism. Cross‐cultural studies establish the universality of shamanic practices in hunter‐gatherer societies around the world and across time. These universal principles of shamanism reflect underlying neurological processes and provide a basis for an evolutionary theology. The shamanic paradigm involves basic brain processes, neurognostic structures, and innate brain modules. This approach reveals that universals of shamanism such as animism, totemism, soul flight, animal spirits, and death‐and‐rebirth experiences reflect fundamental brain operations and structures of consciousness. The shamanic paradigm can contribute to a reconciliation of scientific and religious perspectives by providing a universalistic biopsychosocial framework that explicates the biological underpinnings of spiritual experiences and practices and provides a basis for neurotheology and evolutionary theology approaches.     

Reformation Resources for Contemporary Eco‐Justice Theology

Reformation theology has two significant contributions to make to a renewal of environmental theology. Its heritage of sin exposes the fact that human efforts at intervention in the environment are only ambiguously good and in need of redemption themselves. Its heritage of freedom exposes some efforts toward environmental healing as works‐righteousness, available to be transformed by God in hope for a heavenly and earthly future.     

Contours for a Public Lutheran Theology in the Face of Empire

Abstract : Three themes structure Lutheranism's interpretation of the biblical narrative as it intersects with the present challenges of Empire: justification by faith as a declaration of inclusiveness; God's threefold‐multidimensional action creating and sustaining democratic practices (two kingdoms); and the cross as the critical ‘weapon’ against the ‘glory’ of Empire. This implies placing our theology within the present cultural and religious debate in a way consistent with the methodology of the cross: a theology done from the bowels of Empire, revealing its true face behind its alleged ‘benevolent’ mask.     

Ecumenism and Renewal in Brazil: an Appraisal

The ecumenical experience is a call to an experience of renewal, as it makes a challenge for a new form of being-a-church to all of the ecclesiastical proposals crystallized over the centuries. For this reason it demands a decisive opening to cultural, political and religious experiences. These do not always correspond to the criteria maintained by the ecclesiastical institutions, but they contain and manifest in their own way the fundamental values of the gospel.     

Chinese exploration of Orthodox theology: a critical review

ABSTRACT

In spite of the small number of Orthodox Christians in China, Chinese publications relating to Orthodox Christianity, in which many Chinese theologians from other Christian denominations or scholars without formal religious affiliation have been involved in exploring Orthodox theology, have mushroomed in recent years. It is noticeable that these explorations have been shaped not only by the renaissance of Orthodox theology in the twentieth century, but also by the Chinese context. In terms of scope, many of them are related to the Chinese context, including the relationship between Christianity and Chinese culture. In terms of depth, due to the religious backgrounds of the researchers, some of these Chinese explorations fail to integrate the theological, liturgical and spiritual dimensions of the Orthodox tradition, and exhibit difficulties in interpreting, for instance, Orthodox mystical theology. These limitations can be overcome through dialogue with contemporary Orthodox theologians.     

The meaning and legacy of the Reformation in a global perspective

When reviewing the non‐European perspectives of Lutheran theology presented in the contributions of this issue of Dialog, it is easy to recognize a dominant, unifying theme and a common task in a confrontation with the new Pentecostal churches. It then makes sense to refer to the two central themes and tasks of Lutheran theology mentioned in this volume: the development of a Lutheran pneumatology in contrast to the Pentecostal/charismatic movements; and an interpretation of the Lutheran doctrine of justification that concentrates on how the pure grace and love of God can be witnessed in good works. As a future focal point of Lutheran theology, the contributions from non‐European Lutheran Christianity presented here show that the connection between the theology of the cross as a central element of the grammar of Lutheran Christianity and the dialectics of law and gospel for the interpretation of the salutary efficacy and experienceable nature of the Spirit requires further reflection.     

GORDON KAUFMAN'S HUMANIZING CONCEPT OF GOD

Why should Gordon Kaufman's mid‐career theological method be of renewed interest to contemporary theists? Two distinguishing characteristics of the West today are its increasing religious pluralism and the growing numbers of theists who rely on hybrid approaches to construct concepts of God. Kaufman's method is well suited to this current state of affairs because it is open to diverse religious and theological perspectives and to perspectives from science and secular humanism. It also militates against the weaknesses inherent to hybrid approaches—ad hoc constructs of God unable to motivate their holders to overcome human self‐centeredness and so to contribute to the well‐being and fulfillment of others. It achieves this by providing checks to reduce the risk of producing human‐writ‐large God‐constructs. Lastly, Kaufman's method provides criteria to help theists identify humane and humanizing experiences, relationships, concepts, images, and texts (i.e., the basic material from which God‐constructs are fashioned) from the plethora of options available, whether religious, cultural, or secular.     

Commemorating the Reformation in 2017

This article argues that the commemoration of the Reformation is not just a time to look back historically, but an occasion to reflect where reform and reformation is needed today in church and society. It is clear that in 2017 we cannot but celebrate in an ecumenical dimension, with a concern for religious dialogue, and in a global context.     

Psychotherapy in the aesthetic attitude

Abstract: Drawing upon the writings of Jungian analyst Joseph Henderson on unconscious attitudes toward culture that patients and analysts may bring to therapy, the author defines the aesthetic attitude as one of the basic ways that cultural experience is instinctively accessed and processed so that it can become part of an individual's self experience. In analytic treatment, the aesthetic attitude emerges as part of what Jung called the transcendent function to create new symbolic possibilities for the growth of consciousness. It can provide creative opportunities for new adaptation where individuation has become stuck in unconscious complexes, both personal and cultural. In contrast to formulations that have compared depth psychotherapy to religious ritual, philosophic discourse, and renewal of socialization, this paper focuses upon the considerations of beauty that make psychotherapy also an art. In psychotherapeutic work, the aesthetic attitude confronts both analyst and patient with the problem of taste, affects how the treatment is shaped and ‘framed’, and can grant a dimension of grace to the analyst's mirroring of the struggles that attend the patient's effort to be a more smoothly functioning human being. The patient may learn to extend the same grace to the analyst's fumbling attempts to be helpful. The author suggests that the aesthetic attitude is thus a help in the resolution of both countertransference and transference en route to psychological healing.     

RELIGIOUS HYPOTHESES AND THE APOPHATIC,RELATIONAL THEOLOGY OF CATHERINE KELLER

In one of its most urgent folds, Catherine Keller's Cloud of the Impossible juxtaposes negative theology with relational theology for the sake of thinking constructively about today's global climate of religious conflict and ecological upheaval. The tension between these two theological approaches reflects her desire to unsay past harmful theological speech but also to speak into the present silences about the (perhaps im)possibility of a future that is not only to be feared. Suffusing Keller's Cloud is the related (perhaps im)possibility of living out one's life in conversation with a religious tradition having accepted the nonknowing character of its wisdom. Here, I develop the notion of “hypothetical faith” as an epistemic posture that commits itself to some particular religious tradition even as it acknowledges the unverifiability of that tradition's deepest truths. Understood as operating at the opposite end of the testability spectrum from science, religion‐as‐hypothesis provides a way of saying and unsaying one's tradition at the same time.     

Introduction to Focus Issue on Laudato Si'

The encyclical Laudato si’ can be read as a religious ethic in several different ways. Contributors to this focus issue read it as magisterial teaching, as environmental thought, as Global South criticism, as Latinx theology, and as philosophy of religion. Foregrounding South American and Latinx receptions, the cumulative argument of this focus issue is that LS represents a cultural event that invites interpretations from contexts and disciplines beyond North Atlantic theological ethics.     

The Cultural Revolution and the Emergence of Pentecostal-style Protestantism in China

This article seeks to locate the manifested Pentecostal characteristics of Chinese Protestantism in the context of an individualistic and feminised religious arena during China's Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Life-story interview data collected in south-eastern China reveal that the unavailability of religious authorities during the Cultural Revolution brought about a decentralised and experiential Protestant religious form, demonstrating a cultural pattern similar to that of Pentecostalism. This religious form was particularly successful in attracting women and communicating across cultural frontiers, thus contributing to Protestant breakthroughs in rural areas. Nevertheless, without institutionalising a Pentecostal doctrine and practice, this Pentecostal-like religiosity would be subject to further change with the return of religious authorities after the 1980s. I propose an analytical tool that I call ‘practice-led Pentecostalism’ for grasping this fluid religious dynamic.     

The Scottish Reformation was not Protestant

This article argues that the generally accepted term for the Protestant revolution of 1559–60 in Scotland, ‘The Scottish Reformation’, hides the remnant of a sectarian denominational historiography and should be abandoned. These events should be called ‘The Scottish Protestant Reformation’ while ‘The Scottish Reformation’ should be used for a ‘long reformation’ including Catholic and Protestant reform movements extending from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. This terminological change represents a new way of understanding the Scottish Reformation as a long process in the Christian culture of Renaissance Scotland. It brings historical research in line with developments in other disciplines, which have uncovered a flourishing early Scottish Renaissance. Making Christianity the primary category in the religious history of this period, rather than the polemical binary ‘Catholic/Protestant’, enables a more balanced appraisal of the various religious and cultural movements in Scotland.