The significance of B.S. Childs?

Much of this blog has been dedicated to extolling the praises of a man whose work has deeply influenced me, both spiritually and intellectually: Brevard Childs. I rarely come across statements that express something of the depth of my appreciation, though perhaps Seitz's comments come close. Recently, however, I read a eulogy that tops anything I have said on this blog. In fact, the praises are so high I'm left wondering whether I can fully agree with them. Perhaps my lack a full breadth of knowledge of the field disqualifies me from being able to make an informed judgement, but based on my experience to date I do think I can identify with McGlasson's sentiments. The following is taken from the preface to his Invitation to Dogmatic Theology:

The third decisive influence [on my approach] is the biblical work of Brevard S. Childs. I attended Yale Divinty School primarily in order to learn directly from Childs, and my eager expectation was met by an even greater reality. It is now clear that the work of Childs on canon amounts to nothing less than a brilliant new vision of scripture without parallel in the history of the church, though deeply rooted in the church's tradition of reading scripture. Every theologian worthy of the name has turned directly to scripture as the one source for the knowledge of God. Where else does the church learn to know Jesus Christ? However, never before has the church been closer to the shape and subject matter of scripture than in Childs's work on canon. The confession of canon was the first and foundational creedal affirmation of the ancient church; yet not until Childs's work have the full implications of that confession been so crystal clear and inviting for reflection. Once again, a new era has begun. Theology can never again go back behind Childs when it wrestles with scripture, nor can it count as genuine Christian theology unless it sees with precision the full force of the vision he articulates. The future of dogmatic theology lies with realizing the connection of the discipline with the Bible, and that connection depends upon a firm theological grasp of the issue of canon. The confession of canon is an ontological necessity for dogmatic inquiry and the proper beginning of all valid theological reflection (14-15).

So, how do people feel about that?

Theology, science, and Hendel

A lengthy discussion has ensued from my post responding to Hendel's recent critique of SBL. To put it starkly: I'm claiming that Hendel wishes to impose a particular theological dogma as a norm for determining who may legitimately read the Bible. This is a faith decision. There's nothing wrong with this per se - confessional schools do it as a matter of course, including, ironically, those institutions which gave birth to and still nourish critical Biblical study: the German theological faculties (see this fascinating article on the legal status of Gerd Lüdemann).

I'm grateful to Michael and Kyle, two valuable interlocuters who sit on opposite sides of the fence on this issue. Kyle has shared a link to an interesting article that might put Hendel's comments into perspective: "What Has Theology Ever Done for Science?" According to the author, the answer is "quite a lot." Of particular interest to me is the way that the actual content of our theology can effect the scientific enterprise, for better or worse.

I'd like to emphasize once again that I affirm the existence of an empirically reality that can be comprehended by reason and which can constrain our interpretations in a limited number of directions. Contrary to the author of the article above, however, I do no think that this necessarily contradicts "postmodernism" - though it does depend whose postmodernism we are talking about (for my interaction with an inadequate variety, see my posts on Walter Brueggemann). A very helpful take on this is James K.A. Smiths' The Fall of Interpretation . I quoted this book precisely on the issue of subjectivity and objective reality in my post Postmodernists believe in objective reality too! (Smith, by the way, also happens to author an excellent blog).

Beauty and the Piss Christ.

A friend of mine here in Bonn organized an informal salon last weekend on the topic of "beauty." Various people get together and make various cultural contributions. I didn't have time to think up anything myself, so I simply did a German translation of a wonderful post that Ben Myers wrote a while back entitled Desire and Beauty: An Augustinian Anecdote. Interestingly enough, somebody else brought along a picture of Serrano's (in)famous Piss Christ, which Jason Goroncy also posted on a while back. It seems to me that on the surface these two posts diametrically contradict each other. Augustine talks of God as beauty itself, the actual substance of the form of beauty that we see in created things. Regardless of what we think, God is ultimately the real reason why we yearn for beauty in the first place. Serrano goes on to visually present precisely this God - and yet this image is in fact the opposite of what any healthy individual would consider to be "beautiful": a corpse, tortured to death, soaked in human fluid. How do I synthesize that? This is my own inadequate attempt - please help me to fill in the gaps:

The God that Augstine describes - beauty itself - never, in fact, enters into one-to-one unmediated relation to humanity. The basic Biblical metaphor for the relation between God and man is not a disembodied, formless, spiritual experience, but the Garden of Eden. This image brackets the Two Testaments like an inclusio and it pops up repeatedly and in various permutations throughout the rest of Scripture too. Whatever it means to enter into relation with God, it is always presented as a relationship with God the Creator. How does the Nicene Creed begin and end?

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

...

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

However we conceive of God, then - Augustine's beauty itself - it can only be done within the context of the totality of God's good creation: interpersonal relationships, delicious smells, and spiritual fulfilment and all. The God who meets us in created forms is not a substance that supersedes the form, it is a substance that fills the form and thus redeems it (I think Ben's anecdote illustrates this wonderfully). We can rightly consider beauty in this world as a foretaste of what God has in store for us, his Kingdom, and a "post-taste" of something that once was but was lost (cf. Ps 24).

What does this have to do with the Piss Christ? This is something I'm still struggling to comprehend, as until now I've been used to thinking of the crucifixion in juridical rather than ontological categories. It has something to do with God's way of "filling the forms" ... God so loved this world, this cosmos, that he entered its deepest chambers in order to exhaust their darkness and bring light ... . As long as we live this side of the consummation, we have to train our vision to be able to see God everywhere, even in that place where God the Son cried "Why have you forsaken me?"

I can't wait until the day when form and content become truly co-extensive, the day when - as the poem on Jason's post puts it - there will no longer be such a thing as "useless beauty."

Update: Jason Goroncy has given a helpful response to my post in the comments section of his original post, which you can read here. I've taken the liberty of reposting his response in the comments to this post. He basically affirms my point and enriches it by drawing on a paper by Trevor Hart entitled "Ugly as Sin? Beauty, Holiness, and the Crucified." Well worth a read.

H.-J. Kraus on Biblical scholarship and theology

There has been a brief exchange on Jim West's Biblical-Studies List on the value of a "secular" Biblical scholarship, in contrast to ... something else (it is not clear what). I may post the elements of the exchange between myself and another (who, out of respect for Jim's rules, will remain anonymous). The initiator of the movement has a blog: Jim's Thinking Shop & Tea Room (which has some very amusing content; I also happen to think his project could produce some fruitful dialogue, and so welcome it). Until then, here is a fitting quote H.-J. Kraus:

Es ist erschreckend, wie stark der historisch-verobjektivierende Distanzierungseffekt einer der Phänomene registrierenden ‘Theologie’ die alttestamentlicheWissenschaft isoliert und sie im Gefüge theologischer Forschungs- und Lehrinstitutionen zu einer unwirksamen historischen Disziplin prägt. Diese Bemerkung sei verstanden als ein weiterer Beitrag zu der von B.S. Childs und R.E. Clements ins Gespräch geworfenen Behauptung einer Krise der Biblischen Theologie [*].

I should add that Kraus was one of the few Old Testament scholars who managed to hold a chair in Old Testament and Systematic Theology at the same time. Kudos. Something to emulate. There is a fascinating seminar going on at the University of Bonn at the moment on the (possible) relationship(s) between Old Testament scholarship and Systematic Theology. Though Bonn currently has both feet firmly in the tradition of consensus German critical scholarship (as did Kraus), Prof. Graupner (who did his PhD on the "theology of E," I believe) stated: "Der Alttestamentler ist zuerst immer ein Historiker. Zu einem Theologen wird er durch den Gegenstand." A bit naive, perhaps, but better than some of the other proposals out there.

[*]Kraus, Geschichteｳ, 559, cf. 557.

Assessing Biblical Law: A division of labour

I posted yesterday on the need for a multiple level interpretation of Scripture. Such an interpretation, however, is an arduous task, as it requires knowledge from all theological fields (Church History, Dogmatics, History of Interpretation, Exegesis, Biblical Theology ... ). How many scholars today can live up to such a challenge? One of the first scholars to pose the challenge was Brevard Childs, in his 1979 Exodus commentary. He divided his commentary up into various stages: diachronic analysis, synchronic analysis, the history of interpretation, and theology. Yet even here, he felt that the dialogue needed to go on, and so he proposes a kind of division of labour. Here's what he has to say on Christian appropriation of Biblical law:

Although the need to provide a far more adequate theological interpretation of biblical law remains primarily the task of the theologian and ethicist, the modern Old Testament scholar can aid in making available pertinent information from his discipline. [*]

According to Childs, then, the theologian needs the exegete, yet given the importance of "correct context," the exegete also needs the theologian. In the context of a discussion of the Christian appropriation of Biblical law, here is an example of what Childs thinks the exegete has to offer the theologian as part of the broader dialogue (he calls them "points that must be taken into consideration"):

1. The historically conditioned nature of the Old Testament law, which includes the Decalogue, has emerged with an even greater clarity on the basis of close study of Ancient Near Eastern material.


2. The Old Testament laws give evidence of having arisen in different historical periods and often performed different functions; there is, however, no clear patter of 'ethical progress' which can be established on the basis of Old Testament texts.


3. Most modern New Testament scholars would seriously question whether Jesus ever intended to present 'a higher ethic'. Certainly his relation to the Old Testament was a different one entirely from that represented by the evolutionist.


4. Jewish interpretation of the Mosaic law cannot be dismissed by Christians as 'rigid' or 'legalistic' but it must be understood, first of all, on its own terms before engaging in a theological debate with Christian theology.

Again, several points should be made which affect the constructive task of developing an adequate theology of biblical law:

1. The idealistic categories which admit divine inspiration only to what is regarded as 'eternally valid' or 'perfect' for all contexts must be firmly rejected in handling the Bible.The theological data of Old Testament law cannot be restricted by an a priori schema of values, symbols, ontology or the like.


2. A theology of biblical law must relate specifically to the structuring of the concrete historical life of the people of God, who in ancient Israel, in the first-century church, and today continue to participate both in the kingdom of God and in the world.


3. All forms of law, Old and New Testament alike, must be ultimately judged in the light of the living God himself who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ through a life of complete faithfulness under the law.

I look forward to reading the recently published I am the Lord your God: Christian Reflections on the Ten Commandments, to see in what sense these theologians have responded to Childs' proposals.

[*] Childs, Exodus, 496.

Tillich on Youtube

Paul Raymont of the blog Philosophy, lit, etc. links to a series of interviews with important figures from the past, including Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr.

I don't know too much about Tillich, so really the main thing that stuck out for me in the opening lines of the interview (which is all I have watched so far) is his statement that one of the reasons why he left Germany for the States in 1933 was his express conviction that the Old Testament is an abiding theological witness for the church (to use Chris Seitz's phrase; I think Tillich just said it is "valuable"). This comment stuck out for me, not just because I'm a Christian who studies the Old Testament, but because I do that hand in hand with a hero of mine: Brevard Childs. Childs himself, it seems, was critical of Tillich on just this point. Here's what he had to say, in the context of a broader discussion about the relation of Scripture to the Reality it witnesses to:

P. Tillich speaks freely of the reality of the New Being which conquers existential estrangement and makes faith possible. Jesus as the Christ is the symbolic expression of this New Being, and the biblical portrait of this symbol mediates a knowledge of God. Participation, not historical argument, guarantees the event on which faith is grounded as a sign of the continuing transforming power of this reality once encountered by Jesus' disciples. That the Old Testament plays a minor role here is apparently taken for granted.

Given my ignorance on such matters, I don't want to judge whether Childs has got him right on this matter or not. But it just goes to show that affirming the Old Testament theologically in theory is one thing, but doing this in practice can be another thing altogether.

נשׂא עון - bearing sin

Some Christians understand Jesus' crucifixion to be an act whereby Jesus bore our sins upon himself. In other words, we did something wrong, and he chose to, somehow, take the consequences upon himself.

This is viewed as unethical by others. They say, "How can someone bear the consequences for something that I have done?"

But doesn't the very logic of forgiving someone mean that you automatically bear their sin upon yourself, in the sense that you live with the consequences and don't pay them back for it? If I can't choose to bear, in some sense, the consequences of someone else's actions, then how can I forgive them?

In short, what Jesus was doing on the cross is an intensified version of what we do for each other when we forgive each other anyway.

This seems to accord with the semantics of one way of expressing forgiveness in Biblical Hebrew. One way to say that you forgive someone in Hebrew is to say that you "bear their sins" (נשׂא עון). The main character in the Bible to do this is God Himself. In fact, it belongs to his essential character to do such things, as he states about Himself in Num 14:18:

יהוה אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וְרַב־חֶסֶד נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן וָפָשַׁע

If you aren't forgiven, then you "bear your own iniquity" (וְנָשָׂא עֲוֹנֹו; Lev 5:17). This has consequences. For example, the Israelites sinned by not trusting in God's ability to give them the Promised Land. As a result, they had to "bear their iniquity" by wandering for forty years in the wilderness (Num 13:34: תִּשְׂאוּ אֶת־עֲוֹנֹתֵיכֶם אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה). In fact, in order for the Israelites not to suffer the consequences of all their sins, the priests had the job of bearing their sins for them (Lev 10:17: לָשֵׂאת אֶת־עֲוֹן הָעֵדָה).

In other words, "forgiving someone" and "bearing the consequences of iniquity" are practically synonymous in Hebrew. At least some times.

So, why can't Jesus bear my sins for me?

Is this the gospel?

I won't be posting much in the next 10 days as I'm off to England for my brother's wedding. As a final thought before I go, I thought I'd post something the learnèd Orthodox blogger Kevin Edgecomb said in response to my post An Eastern Orthodox approach to Scripture. It has to do with the the Orthodox Church's view on the nature of Salvation, an understanding I'm finding increasingly more attractive (not sure about the message on the icon, though!). Why I find it attractive, I'm not sure. It may have something to do with the word "ontology." But in lieu of thinking too much about such weighty matters, I will simply leave his thoughts here for the world to critique and invest my energy into figuring out more relevant issues, such as the textual Vorlage of Ps 24:6.

Salvation is not an intellectual act ... . Salvation is an existential change effected by God Himself in our lives. God became human in order to save the human condition through divinizing it. Inasmuch as we are members of His Body, we are also saved in that same divinization, theosis. The Body of Christ is the Church, the Orthodox Church with its dogmatic theology and understanding of all manner of things. It is a package deal. God in His mercy may work in other ways and places with various people, but the ideal and the only proper way that we know of in the Church, the default option, is found in the Church, where salvation is certain. Outside it, God may or may not be working with someone. Inside it, God certainly does. And part of that work is expressed in the intellectual and spiritual training accomplished by the dogmatic statements in our liturgies, hymnology, and in the Church Fathers.

For some other interesting thoughts on the issue of theosis, I accidently came accross this intersting blog post: theosis as evangelism.

Oh, and of course, I decided to google "inhabitatio dei theosis" in order to see what one of my favourite bloggers has to say about this issue and came up with the following hits (replete with learnèd comment, as usual):

Theosis Defined

Justification as Theosis

The goal of God's self-revelation (in the Old Testament)

Taken from Brevard Childs' Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context.

If one asks what was God's purpose, that is, his motivation in revealing himself, the Old Testament is silent. However, if one asks what was God's purpose, that is, his goal toward which his self-disclosure pointed, then the Old Testament is eloquent in its response. God revealed himself that all may see and know who God is:

I am Yahweh, and there is no other;

besides me there is no God;

I gird you, though you do not know me,

that men may know, from the rising of the sun

and from the west, that there is none besides me;

I am Yahweh, and there is no other ...

I am Yahweh, who do all these things. (Isa 45:5-7).

Or again, the prophet Ezekiel never wearies of grounding God's purpose with the formula: 'that you may know Yahweh' - and thus have life.

Barth's Dogmatics, searchable and for free, online!

Jim West, via Stephen Cook, links to an amazing online resource: Karl Barth's entire Church Dogmatics, in English, searchable and for free on the Internet!

Is there anything else that can brighten up your day more than that?

Update:

OK, something else brightened up my day today. On this post, John Hobbins said this:

The most vital form of biblical criticism has always been Sachkritik, that is, straightforward engagement, disagreement not excluded, with the substance of a biblical text.

The word Sachkritik and its emphasis on substance has become so central to me over the past couple of years, yet, apart from Childs, I've not come accross anyone who uses it. So thank you John: you also made may day!

A Trinity bibliography

Nick Norelli of Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth has published a manificent bibliography of journal articles, seminar papers, dissertations/thesis, and books related to the important issue of the Trinity. It really is worth bookmarking, especially as it is in pdf and so is searchable.

The current state of Anglo-Saxon dogmatics

Ben Myers of Faith and Theology has this brilliant quote from John Webster:

“I have found that commitment [to Christian dogmatics] has sometimes entailed a measure of academic isolation. In view of the widespread view that English language doctrinal theology is in a much healthier condition than it has been for many years, this isolation may seem odd. But as I read a great deal of contemporary systematic theology, I am struck by a sense that the centre of gravity is in the wrong place – usually it is heavily ecclesial, strongly invested in the Gospel as social and moral reality, overly invested in the language of habit, practice and virtue, underdetermined by a theology of divine aseity. It is not yet Ritschl; but, without a seriously operative eschatology, it has little protection against slipping into social and cultural immanentism…. And so I find myself at odds with those of my British colleagues who are more confident of the state of systematic theology: where they see an invigorated and invigorating discipline engaged in lively conversation in the academy, I tend to see a soft revisionism chastened by bits of Barth, or over-clever Anglo-Catholicism with precious little Christology, soteriology or pneumatology” (Shaping a Theological Mind: Theological Context and Methodology, ed. Darren Marks; Ashgate, 2002) p. 133).

I'm not a systematic theologian, but I sense the developments he warns us against.

'Historicity' at the core of the Gospel?

the Bible makes numerous claims - explicitly and implicitly - concerning the factuality of the events it records. At that most fundamental level, at the central core of Christian beliefs, is the fact that Christ did indeed die for the sins of humanity and then rose from the grave in a great victory over death. This forms the ground and basis of our faith. [*]

This quote is taken from a conservative Evangelical and I affirm it. In the realm of exegesis, however, it often leads to the need to interpret every Biblical story as having happened exactly as it is portrayed. As one Evangelical Introduction to the Old Testament asks: "If Jericho was not razed, is my faith in vain?"

I don't want to answer this question here, simply because I am, at present, unable to. However, I would like to ask whether the category of "history" is as self-evident as we assume, and whether it truly does justice to "the core of Christian beliefs," as Howard put it. As I read Douglas Farrow's fascinating book, Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology, I'm learning that historical events that constituted Jesus' life and mission did not just take place within history, they also transformed it. This is particularly the case with the ascension, which was "the act in which the link between our fallen world and the new creation was fully forged" (p. 39). This act has all kinds of metaphysical/cosmological consquences, consequences which lie at the heart of the Christian kerygma and thus should also be considered as being part of "the central core of Christian beliefs." In short, the Gospel does just redeem me, it redeems the very dimensions of time and space themselves. Paul Minear has made similar observations in relation to other events of the kerygma in his excellent book The Bible and the Historian (which I have posted on a number of times).

In short, though we need to say with St. Paul that "if Christ is not raised, we have believed in vain," we also need to bare in mind Paul's struggle with the ontological implications of this event. The whole of reality itself has been re-arranged around the human Christ, enthroned at the right hand of the Father. And in the light of these implications, we ought to re-evaluate once more just what it means for the Biblical narratives to be "historical," to have literally happened just as they are written. Ultimately, Scripture does not just witness to God's "mighty acts in history," (à la G. Ernest Wright) is also witnesses to his new reality, proleptically tasted in the present as the hors-d'oeuvre of the coming kingdom. Hermeneutically, that implies a vertical and not just a horizontal dimension to exegesis (see Childs' critique of the Tübingen school of Biblical Theology in Biblical Theology, 77. See also my post, The need for ontological categories in Biblical exegesis). The challenge lies in finding the correct balance between the two.

I think, by the way, that Hans Frei was touching on this too, in his response to criticism coming from Evangelicals that his narrative theology had no interest in "historical fact":

Even if I say that history if first of all the facts—and I do have a healthy respect for evidence—I come across something else. Is Jesus Christ (and here I come to the problem of miracle) a “fact” like other historical facts? Should I really say that the eternal Word made flesh, that is, made fact indeed, is a fact like any other? I can talk about “Jesus” that way, but can I talk about the eternal Word made flesh in him that way? I don't think so, just as I don't think that I can say “God created the world” and mean by that a factual referent like any other. ... Once again, yes, “Jesus” refers, as does any ordinary name, but “Jesus Christ” in scriptural witness does not refer ordinarily; or rather, it refers ordinarily only by the miracle of grace. And that means that I do not know the manner in which it refers, only that the ordinary language in which it is cast will miraculously suffice. It is historical reference (to use our cultural category) but it is not historical reference in the ordinary way: nor of course is it metaphor. [**]

[*] Howard, 1993: 35.
[**] Frei, "Response to 'Narrative Theology: An Evangelical Appraisal," in
Theology and Narrative (eds. G. Hunsinger; W. Placher; Oxford: Oxford Uni. Press, 1993), 211-212.

Update: I feel that Halden's two recent posts - Theology, Speech, and Silence and God's Incomprehensibility and Trinitarian Exploration - speak to this issue too, though in a thoroughly different manner.

History and ontology as the subject of Scripture

This post continues my analysis of Christopher Seitz's recently published Prophecy and Hermeneutics. Each post can be read on its own, but it may be best to read them together. For an overview go here.

Seitz's central theological category for thinking about the subject matter of Scripture is “time.” His understanding of time, however, breaks with the traditional Enlightenment model which understands time in terms of “discrete and particularized periods” (35). For the earlier critics since Gabler, “Time becomes history, with a special character and with tremendous expectations placed on it theologically and more generally” (35). Though Seitz wishes to maintain the theological significance of time, he rejects this Enlightenment model and strives to return to an earlier model:

An interest in temporality had of course always marked interpretation of the Bible as a theological and dogmatic endeavor, but it was directly related to more decisive claims about the character of God. … Time was previously understood according to not just economic but also immanent and ontological considerations, and these were seen as subsisting together in , and revealed by, a complex network of scriptural senses (35).

This more ancient understanding of time is more in line with that of the Bible, which wishes to witness to the “history of the prophetic word in Israel and the world, under God's providential care and final purpose” (219). This has hermeneutical implications for the late-modern interpreter. We need to go back to school, as it were, a rediscover

a form of historical interpretation of the prophets that will … try to comprehend just how the prophetic canon is offering its own very sophisticated version of history (72).

Seitz's thesis about the nature of Biblical history is that it is inherently figural. The Bible does not overly emphasise the particular nature of temporally discrete periods, rather it coordinates them according to “a theological account of the significance of history, seen from the perspective of several centuries” (50). I will discuss the hermeneutical implications of this insight into the “coordinated” nature of the text in another post. For now, I want to focus on the broader “comprehensive theological account” afforded by the Bible's canonical view of history as the goal of exegesis.

According to Seitz, the messengers of God's word are “participant[s] in a drama larger than [themselves]” (245); they belong to “to a larger history and sweep than they as individuals were able to recognize at the time” (242). The function of secondary levels of tradition is to “figure” these “elected agents” into this larger theological reality. The deeds, words, and events of the prophet's lifetime are understood within the broader context of God's providence, within “a larger history of God's ways with his people” (190).

I will focus on the way in which the Bible does this in a later post. My next post will give examples of the theological reality to which the “consolidated witness” (17) of Scripture is pointing.

P.S. For a more philosophical analysis of the problem of "time," especially as understood by the Venerable Bede and the Enlightenment, see the two fascinating posts by Tim F. of The Moving Image. The first is Rome Paper Part 1, the second Scripture and History. I posted a tantalizing excerpt here.

Top 100 Theology Blogs

By Jessica Merritt, from the Christian Colleges website (I'm number four, but the numbering is clearly arbitrary!)

The study of religion is interesting, and you’ll find a variety of blogs online devoted to it. Among these, you’ll find blogs about politics, history, writings, and more, all of which are represented here. Follow this list of top notch theology blogs to gain a deeper understanding of religious studies.

General Theology

These blogs cover anything and everything theology.
Two Powers in Heaven: Two Powers in Heaven discusses an ancient Jewish theology that believes there were two holy powers in heaven.
azcoyote: Get thoughts from a theologian through this blog.
Euangelion: Euangelion discusses New Testament studies, Christian origins, following Jesus, and more.
Narrative and Ontology: Here you’ll find Old Testament theology and a big picture look at Christianity and religion.
Experimental Theology: Visit Experimental Theology, and you’ll find writings on God and religious truth.
America’s Young Theologian: Dan Morehead discusses links, politics, books, life, and more in theology.
Reformation Theology: Reformation Theology supports a reformed look at religion.
Bryan’s Thoughts: Bryan writes about Biblical studies and theology on this blog.
Douglas Knight: Douglas Knight’s blog offers a wealth of resources for Christian theology.
New Epistles: Here you’ll find writings on theology, spirituality, scripture, and more.
Biblical Theology: Check out this blog to read about biblical theology and related topics.
Christians in Context: Christians in Context discusses Orthodox Christianity in a historical and contemporary context.
Jesus Creed: Scot McKnight writes about Jesus and Orthodox faith as it relates to current theology.
Revelation is Real: This blog is about reflections on Christianity and often the book of Revelation.
Theological Scribbles: Robin Parry writes about various theological issues as well as books.
Theology Forum: Visit the Theology Forum to find a discussion on the cultivation of theology.
Sweet Tea & Theology: Read this blog to find new developments in theology, resources, and thought.
Stepping into the Light: Stepping into the Light is a great blog and book for new Christians looking for a better understanding of Christian theology.
Koinonia: Koinonia offers conversations on the Bible and theology for Christians.
Stalin’s Moustache: Check out Roland Boer’s blog to read about the Bible, theology, philosophy, and more.
Christian Theology: These bloggers come together to discuss Christian theology.
Parchment and Pen: This group of bloggers focuses on theology and informed discussion.
The Lucifer Effect: The Lucifer Effect considers how good people turn evil.
HIM-An Introduction: Get an introduction to God through this theology blog.
Faith and Theology: This blog is all about faith and theological scholarship.

Criticism

Read these blogs that cast a critical eye on myths, faith, and more.
NT Wrong?: This blog asks if the New Testament, Old Testament, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity are wrong.
Skeptical Christian: The Skeptical Christian addresses the myth that Christianity is a leap of faith.
Why Faith: This blog explains faith from a Christian perspective.
Politics
Read these blogs to discover a political discussion on religion.
Theopolitical: On Theopolitical, you’ll find smart discussions on the intersection of politics and theology.
God’s Politics: Learn about the political issues in Christianity today from God’s Politics.
Faithfully Liberal: Get an understanding of the theology of a liberal Christian on this blog.
Law and Theology: Christopher Neiswonger discusses the way law affects theology and

Christianity.
History
Be sure to check out these blogs for a healthy dose of religious history.
PaleoJudica: PaleoJudica offers a look at ancient Judaism and its context.
The Wisdom of Our Ancestors: Get a look into wise Jewish teachings from this blog.
The Jesus Dynasty: This blog accompanies a book by the same name, which is concerned with early Christianity.
Prewrath Rapture: Prewrath Rapture writes about the history of Prewrath.
Bible/History Blog: Bill Heroman covers both the Bible and history on this blog.
Earliest Christian History: Check out this blog for information on Christian origins and early Judaism.
Old Testament Story: Otstory discusses stories of the Old Testament.
Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean: Philip A. Harland discusses social and religious life in the ancient Mediterranean.
Thoughts on Antiquity: In this blog you’ll find a celebration of all things ancient, including ancient religious finds and texts.
Ralph the Sacred River: Edward Cook writes about ancient religion and more.
Academic
You’ll find a lot to learn from these academic theologists, including professors, researchers, and students.
The Blogging Parson: Michael Jensen has a doctorate in Martyrdom, and teaches Christian Doctrine.
Exploring Our Matrix: Dr. James McGrath writes this blog about exploring the theological world.
The Religious Researcher: Read this blog to find cutting edge Christian research on today’s theology.
Philonica et Neotestamentica: Here you’ll read research notes on Philo of Alexandria as well as New Testament issues.
Blue Cord: Blue Cord offers an academic study of the Bible from lecturer Kevin A. Wilson, PhD.
Targuman: In this blog, you’ll find writings about Targum Lamentations, biblical and rabbinic literature, and Christian theology.
Katagraphais: Katagraphais offers theology, books to read, and more.
The Christian Journey: Check out this blog to find a collection of Bible teaching and devotional writings.
The Fire and the Rose: David Congdon is a PhD student in systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Singing in the Reign: These professors of theology offer insights into Christianity, ancient Judaism, and more.
Biblia Theologica: This professor of New Testament Studies and Biblical Theology writes about biblical and theologic thought.
Higgaion: This Associate Professor of Religion at Pepperdine shares thoughts about theology and family life.
Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology: This blog offers a look at theology from a student.
Leithart: Dr. Peter Leithart discusses theology and literature on this blog.
Notes from Off-Center: Andrew Tatusko of Mount Aloysius College writes on postmodern theology and more.
Judy’s Research Blog: Judy studies and shares information about the Gospel of Thomas.
Helm’s Deep: Professor Phil Helm offers philosophical theology on this blog.
Shored Fragments: Steve Holmes of St. Mary’s College in Scotland offers fragments of theology that are interesting enough to share.
NT Gateway Weblog: Associate Professor Mark Goodacre writes about the theology of the New Testament on this blog.
Professor of Old Testament: Dr. Claude Mariottini writes about the study of the Old Testament.

Clergy
These ministers, preachers, priests, and more offer a strong perspective on theology.
Shuck and Jive: Shuck and Jive features a Presbyterian minister’s writings about spirituality, theology, social issues, and beyond.
Delivered By Grace: Rev. Josh Buice offers a resource for preachers, laypersons, and teachers within the church looking for theological guidance.
Doug Chaplin: Doug Chaplin shares his thoughts on theology in modern Catholocism.
The Reformed Pastor: This Evangelical Presbyterian pastor discusses Christian faith.
Ponderings on a Faith Journey: This Church historian and pastor shares his thoughts and opinions.
Real Live Preacher: Gordon Atkinson writes about his life as a preacher and essays on theology.

Society & Culture
Discover the intersection of society, culture, and religion through these theology blogs.
Losing My Religion: Check out this blog to learn about society versus religion.
ThinkChristian: ThinkChristian discusses Christ, culture, and everyday faith.
a time to tear down A Time to Build Up: Dr. Peter Enns covers discussions on the Bible and contemporary Christian faith.
The Intersect: Chris Goodman shares his insight on the intersection of ministry and the Internet.
Christ and Pop Culture: This blog brings Christian theology and pop culture together.
The Evangelical Outpost: The Evangelical Outpost offers a look at politics, culture, and religion.
Between Two Worlds: Justin Taylor’s blog offers a mix of theology, philosophy, politics, and culture.
in the open space: God & culture: Here you’ll find thoughts on God, faith, and culture.
the church and postmodern culture: Find contemporary philosophy on culture and theology together in this blog.
C. Orthodoxy: Ken Brown writes this blog to discuss the links between Christian faith and

postmodern culture.
Writings
These blogs are concerned with the study of religious texts.
biblicalia: biblicalia focuses on important theological texts.
Off the Wall Torah: Check out Off the Wall Torah for a discussion on the Jewish theological text.
Ancient Hebrew Poetry: This blog focuses on poetry from the Ancient Hebrew times.
Biblical Theology: This blog promotes the study and discussion of the history, methodology, direction, and more of biblical theology.
Rabbis and Their Writings: Find the writings of rabbis through this blog.
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth: Check out this blog to read book reviews on theological texts and more.
The Naked Bible: Michael Heiser discusses biblical theology in an ancient context.
NT Resources: In this blog, you’ll find lots of information and resources about the New Testament.
Awilum: Awilum discusses the Bible and ancient Near East.
Andy Naselli: Andy Naselli’s blog focuses largely on contemporary texts about theology and Christianity.
Bite My Bible: Bite My Bible discusses how the Bible is portrayed on the British media scene.
Hebrew and Greek Reader: Get help in reading Hebrew and Greek literature from this blog.
The Bible Post: Find Bible teachings, devotions, and more on this blog.
Chrisendom: This postgraduate student’s blog focuses on Paul’s language and beyond.
Hypotyposeis: Check out Hypotyposeis to find readings from the Gospel and beyond.
The Guild of Biblical Minimalists: These bloggers believe that the Bible is primarily and theologically an apologetic work.
Confessions of a Bible Junkie: This blog offers a good look at biblical studies.
Daily Hebrew: Daily Hebrew posts daily readings from Biblical Hebrew.
Codex: Read this blogger’s thoughts on biblical studies and important theological texts here.
Theological Musings: Theological Musings is all about musings on theological writings.
Jesus, Paul, and Luke: This blog focuses on Jesus, Paul, Luke, early Judaism, and Christianity.
The Reformed Reader: The Reformed Reader discusses books from a reformed Christian perspective.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright on "the black religious experience"

For a powerful introduction to Black Liberation Theology, or the "black religious experience," check out this video of a slickly presented speech by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Barak Obama.

Das Urereignis aller Häresien

1.44 Das Urereignis aller Häresien ist diejenige Gestalt des Aberglaubens, die den Glauben an Jesus Christus als "das eine Wort Gottes, das wir zu hören, dem wir im Leben und im Sterben zu vertrauen und zu gehorchen haben", unmöglich macht, in dem sie "außer und neben diesem einen Wort Gottes auch noch andere Ereignisse und Mächte, Gestalten und Wahrheiten als gottes Offenbarung anerkennt".

1.441 Häresien sind Versuche, den Glauben illegitim zu bereichern.

...

1.45 Die Ursache aller Häresien ist die Unfähigkeit (Unlust), Gott in Jesus Christus ausreden zu lassen.

1.451 Der Unfähigkeit, gott in Jesus Christus ausreden zu lassen, entspricht der Zwang (die Lust), Gott ins Wort zu fallen.

...

1.4621 Häresien sind heillos.

...

1.474 Die bloße Rezitation des Bekenntnisses zu Jesus Christus bewahrt die Theologie nicht davor, häretisch zu werden, sondern macht sie erst recht häretisch. Bl0ß rezitierte Bekenntnisse sind christologischer Aberglaube.

From E. Jüngel, Thesen zu Grundlegung der Christologie, 283-284; in the awesomely named Unterwegs zur Sache (Chr. Kaiser Verlag: München, 1972).

Quote of the day: Proof of the inspiration of the Bible

... in the last resort, the proof of the inspiration of the Bible—not, indeed, in every particular, but in its essential message—is to be found in the life-giving effects which that message has produced, wherever its word of truth has gone. This is the truth in the argument for inspiration based on the witness of the Holy Spirit. The Bible has the qualities claimed for it as an inspired book ... It leads to God and Christ; it gives light on the deepest problems of life, death, and eternity; it discovers the way of deliverance from sin; it makes men new creatures; it furnishes the man of God completely for every good work. That it possesses these qualities history and experience through all the centuries have attested.

J. Orr, Revelation and Inspiration, 217-218; cited in Stephen Chapman, “Reclaiming Inspiration for the Bible,” 198.

Quote of the day: Verbal revelation

The revelation is in the text itself, in the words that confront us there in all their strangeness, and not in a history or a personal biography or an event that we reconstruct by means of the text. The event of revelation is available to us only through the text of Scripture interpreted in the context of the church. It is through these words and no others that God intends to speak to us, and, when he does, we know that there is no other kind of inspiration than verbal inspiration. Far from implying any divinizing of the words of Scripture, verbal inspiration understood in its Biblical sense takes the words of the text with full seriousness as the words of real men, spoken or written in a concrete human situation, and yet at the same time words in which God ever afresh reveals himself to me. [*]

What do people think of this? Is it justified? What are the alternatives?

[*]James Smart, Interpretation of Scripture, 195-196; cited in Stephen B. Chapman, "Reclaiming Inspiration for the Bible," 200.

The Nicene Creed - some interpretations

In my book review of Brazos Presses' Nicene Christianity, I summarized those articles dealing with the nature of creeds as such and their role within the life of the Church. In this post, I outline the rest of the essays in the book, each of which deal with a different article of the Nicene Creed.

C. Seitz opens with the first article, focussing on the phrase maker of heaven and earth. His approach is strongly exegetical, attempting to show the Biblical roots of the phrase and the meaning the creed therefore assumes in its current elliptical form. The phrase “maker of heaven and earth” is often tied to the personal name of God, the LORD, which assumes a particular identity in Israel's unique history. Jesus is not related to “deity,” he is related to Yhwh. This holds for all the propositions in the first article: “Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, each in its own way bespeaks the divine and sacred name” (28). The implication is that it is not possible to talk of the Son without reference to the Father, who is the foundation for faith. In this light, attempts to recover a “historical” Jesus, measure his work according to an abstract standard of truth, or reduce the Father to the beneficia Chrisit are to be avoided.

C. Gunton struggles with the tension between exegesis and theology in his treatment of One Lord, ... Begotten, Not Made .... Both creedal and Biblical formulations of Jesus' “begottenness” are not clear enough to rebuke the threat of Arianism, which undermines Christ's salvific significance. The creedal formulation risks depersonalizing the Son and thus risks marring the image of God, who is “the one who is the love of Father and Son in the Spirit” (38; emphasis mine). An attempt to recapture Jesus' uniqueness by turning to Scripture, however, faces the challenge of his time-conditionality. How do we speak of one who is eternally begotten? The solution lies at a more abstract level of analysis. Though in terms of the economic Trinity the Son is subordinate to the Father, at the level of the immanent Trinity it is soteriologically necessary to hold that he is fully divine. The absolute distinction between Creator and creation requires us to believe that if someone is to restore a sinful creation back to its maker, he cannot partake of that creation's sinfulness. Gunton summarizes: “The paradox is twofold: first that by putting this man, and this man alone, on the side of the Creator we maintain the integrity of the creation; and we can do it while remaining true to a confession of his full humanity” (44). “Eternally begotten” maintains the necessary tension between the economic and immanent Trinities and enables us to maintain a sense of the monarchy of the Father without rendering the Son as less then fully divine.

A. Torrance deals with the question of Jesus' Being of one substance with the Father. This truth's affirmation is the ground and warrant of both our salvation and our ability to talk about God in the first place. Epistemologically, “Jesus mediates knowledge of God because he is Immanuel” (56). But epistemic access to the Godhead also has a Trinitarian structure: the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit, who is also “of one being with the Father,” creates the necessary subjective conditions for a recognition of the Incarnate Word. Soteriologically, only Jesus can save as sin is essentially against God, and thus only He Himself can deal with it. To this dimension belongs also his essential humanity: God Himself provides the requisite human response, and in doing so also makes it possible for us too to have the mind of Christ.

J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P., deals with the question of creation in terms of the science-theology relation. Whereas science and philosophy can analyse creation's physical and ontological structures, a theological account of the cosmos as the stage for a divine drama which seeks to share its life with humanity is required in order to “personalize” the universe. Creation is the decision of a free agent, and humanity as the imago dei is uniquely capable of entering into this relationship. God's presence amidst evolution is understood in terms of secondary causes, providentially guiding creation to its providential goal. The recently developed “anthropic principle,” which argues that creation itself is directed to the emergence of human life as such creates space for potential fruitful dialogue.

R. Jenson expands our categories to breaking point in his treatment of “He was made man” by attempting a form of “revisionary metaphysics.” How can Jesus' pre-existence be considered “incarnate,” a logical necessity if we do not wish to posit two separate identities for him? Jenson's answer has to do with the nature of the place he came from: heaven. Heaven is part of creation, yet not as another piece of space but as the future mode of the final kingdom. Jesus comes to us from this created eschatological future in the power of the Spirit, who is the agent and power of that future. The incarnation occurs in this agency, “in the absolute possibility that is the final reality of historical being” (82), so that the future comes from where Jesus is. “There is only one advent of the messiah.”

D. Yeago outlines the implications of the clause Crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. In short, the effect of the cross is to transform reality, as “divine love acts in a human way and human acts have divine force” (91). This global redemption took place as an episode in Israel's history in that Jesus accomplished the righteousness which was Israel's vocation: The cross was the “final test and unsurpassable realization of Jesus' distinctive way of being human” (97). The outcome is public: a renewed community with a divine calling and commandments. The “relational space” marred by sin is cleared by the cross, so that genuine communion with God is possible, as it takes place in Jesus alone, the new humanity and our hope.

C. Braaten reminds us the importance of physical Resurrection, which confirms Jesus' claims and continues his cause in history. Braaten outlines the various takes on the issue by key theologians (Pannenburg, Barth, Bultmann etc.) and concludes that it was an objective event, constituting a new mode of being in continuity with the old, applied by the Holy Spirit in preaching and the sacraments. The effect of such faith is motivation for mission, as the “resurrection is God's unique way of reclaiming the whole world for himself” (118).

D. Farrow confesses the significance of Christ's coming, which cannot be understood apart from Christ's ascension and heavenly session. Melchizedek provides the paradigm for understanding, as it combines the political dimension—Christ is the final authority as he currently rules through his church—and the priestly (Aaronic)--Christ's ascension to heaven completes the atonement, from where he now receives our sacramental thanksgiving. His return will be a public display in which he comes as judge. This return (parousia) will be the end of history as we know it, nevertheless it will break into our history. It will be an act of new creation, a fundamental act of reordering that impinges on creaturely reality.

T. Smail offers an overview of the Holy Spirit. His being is constituted by the Trinity, as he “furthers the purposes of the Father as revealed in the gospel of the incarnate Son” (151). In this movement he is a person, taking on a different role to Jesus as enabler of subjective response to Jesus and communicator of eschatological life. His relation to Father and Son has been a cause of division between East and West. After reviewing the pros and cons of each proposal, Smail offers his own suggestion: “from the Father there originate two converging movements of divine self-giving. On the one hand, the Son comes from the Father through the Spirit; on the other, the Spirit comes from the Father through the Son” (165).

K. Green-McCreight works out the implications of He spoke through the Prophets. Amongst other things, it testifies to the unity of Scripture as a whole. The Patristic term skopus signifies goal and boundary of Scripture, understood to be and objective reality, not entirely identifiable with the text but related to it and borne by it. Divine meaning, then, is not identifiable with pure lexical meaning, so that a rule of faith is necessary as part of our hermeneutic. By hearing the parts in relation to the whole, Scripture interprets itself. The rule also functions as a guide for evaluating different interpretations: they must account for the unity of the God of Israel and the new covenant.

W. J. Abraham talks of the siginficance of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. This clause is was not a definition but a witness to a living historical reality, a reality no longer fully evident. Given the tension between the fact that the most adequate referent of the creed is the Eastern church (they didn't introduce the filioque clause), yet the Holy Spirit, who is the true source of the church, as deigned to create multiple divided churches, we must pray for a new Pentecost and return to the church of the creed. This will involve 1) a return to the canonical heritage of the 1st millennium, 2) a relativising of our epistemological commitments, and 3) reckoning with the real possibility of divine judgement. Perhaps then the beautiful metaphors for the church in the New Testament will once again become more of a reality.

S.K. Wood negotiates the ecumenical challenge of one baptism for the forgiveness of sins from a catholic perspective. The prime distinction between believer's baptism and infant baptism is not the requirement of a mature profession of faith (both affirm that), but rather the location of that faith. For Catholics, there is a complex dynamic between the community, which proceeds the individual by nurturing him, and the individual himself, who must believe. Thus parents believe by proxy, until the child decides for itself in post-baptismal catechism. However it takes place, though, baptism is into the one Lord, who alone constitutes the unity of the churches. This raises the question of why baptised Protestants may not partake of the Eucharist. The answer is that Eucharist completes the unity the baptism only initiates, as it is here that “ecclesial and christological communion achieves repeatable sacramental visibility” (197). The Eucharist, however, separates the churches by identifying them in their particularity. This brings us to a bind: sacramental unity depends on ecclesial unity, yet the reverse is also true. However this is negotiated, the connection of baptism to Eucharist must be maintained as both constitute the church.

V. Guroian's contribution on the resurrection is unique in that it consists of an poetically evocative letter to his suffering mother, rather than abstract theology or biblical exegesis. It is theology in practice, as he weaves images from the Bible, nature, and poetry into a testimony to the need for faith in the resurrection of the flesh.