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.     

BETWEEN MT. MORIAH AND MT. GOLGOTHA: How Is Christian Ethics Possible?

In this paper, I explore a new way of understanding Christian ethics by critically interconnecting the theological meanings of the Aqedah (“binding”) narrative of Mt. Moriah and the Passion story of Mt. Golgotha. Through an in‐depth critical‐theological investigation of the relation between these two biblical events, I argue that Christian ethics is possible not so much as a moralization or as a literalistic divine command theory, but rather as a “covenantal‐existential” response to God's will in the impossible love on Mt. Moriah as well as in the Son's willing embrace of God's will on Mt. Golgotha.     

Difficult but Necessary: Conditions of a Contemporary Theology of Love

Abstract : Nørager takes his point of departure in the observation that in modernity “love” has increasingly and undisputedly acquired the status as the fundamental attribute of God. This in turn, however, has made a theology of love vulnerable to the critique leveled by Ludwig Feuerbach, who argued forcefully that God's love in reality was nothing but humanity's ideal of perfect love. Briefly rehearsing two of the most important solutions to this conundrum (Søren Kierkegaard and Anders Nygren), Nørager finds both of them unduly polemical toward “natural” love, leaving us with the idea of a dichotomy or inner opposition between human and divine love. Instead, Nørager points toward a new theology of love where eros and agape are recognized as differing aspects within a continuum of love, and where human and divine love are perceived as mirroring one another.     

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 Heterological Quest: Michel de Certeau's Travel Narratives and the Other of Comparative Religious Ethics

One of the central methodological issues for contemporary practitioners of comparative ethics is how to conceptualize and relate to the other encountered in cross-cultural studies. A valuable resource for reflection on this problem is the work of the French historian and cultural theorist Michel de Certeau, whose diverse opus coheres around his notion of heterology—a science of the other. In this article I explore perspectives on the cultural other emerging from Certeau's analyses of a series of travel narratives documenting the European encounter with the peoples of the New World. Certeau's meditations on the metaphor of the voyage, the interplay of orality and literacy, the politics of ethnography, and the semiotics of the return of the repressed offer, I suggest, important insights for comparative ethicists.     

While We Wait: The Foolishness of Scarcity,the “Devalued Other,” and Pedagogies of “Becoming”

This article considers how Christian women leaders might, in the absence of global economic equality for women, reframe theological dialogue that affirms the work and worth of the “devalued other” – 21st‐century women living in economic insecurity – and to declare that Jesus' eschatological hope is in the feminization of abundance. The article engages the parable of the wise and foolish virgins as a messianic requirement to deconstruct the barriers that keep the devalued other from seeing her full potential and to challenge the foolishness of scarcity that has taken hold of the daughters of privilege. It seeks to engage an African feminist hermeneutic as the primary methodology and to craft an emerging pedagogy of “becoming” that speaks to the cosmic shift to strengthen the agency of women as we await the coming Parousia.     

A measurement to assess transition,maintenance and satisfaction in the swinging lifestyle

Researchers studying consensual non‐monogamous relationships have traditionally used theoretical lenses that were based on heteronormative, monogamous couples’ experiences. An exception to these theoretical models was a grounded theory formed by Kimberly and Hans (2017) that explored how swinging relationships were initiated and maintained. This study further tests this theory by having 273 self‐identified swingers complete a quantitative, online measurement based on the model’s concepts and themes. Results further supported that theoretical model with two notable exceptions: participants disagreed with having high self‐esteem prior to entering the swinging lifestyle and that men (rather than women) screened potential partners. Nevertheless, therapists can use the measurement as a tool to guide dialogue with couples that are interested in or are currently participating in a non‐monogamous relationship.     

Engaging God's Mission and Diakonia in Life of Public Spheres: Justification and Economic Justice

Abstract : This article approaches the theology of mission from the point of view of God's mission and diakonia, seeking a missional model of the grace of justification and economic justice in an age of World Christianity. The author engages a hermeneutical‐prophetic side of evangelization—viva vox evangelii—in the public sphere, and demonstrates the intrinsic connection between missio and diakonia Dei in Jesus Christ using a trinitarian‐hermeneutical perspective. The article shows that evangelization as God's mission occupies a central place by taking into account challenges from the postcolonial emancipation in the context of Empire.