- Steve Durby reviews Merold Westphal’s Whose Community, Which Interpretation? . In this first part of the review, he offers a very nice summary of the book, which sounds like it might be worth engaging if you’re looking for an introduction to contemporary developments in hermeneutics. He’ll follow up in a later post with more evaluative comments.
- The theses on Kingdom-World-Church that Nate Kerr posted the other day at Inhabtitatio Dei sparked a tremendous amount of discussion in the comments along with responses from James K. A. Smith and David Congdon (among others). The discussion has been lively enough that James K. A. Smith has written another post suggesting that this discussion demonstrates theological blogging at its best.
- Diglot poses the question, How drastic would Christian theology change if aliens arrived on our planet? After discussing how different traditions might respond, he suggests that this could ultimately lead to a Christology that is more functional than ontological (i.e. multiple “christs” all serving the same function). (HT echurchwebsites)
- Sam Thomas discusses the concept of “mystery” in the Dead Sea Scrolls and what that says about how the Qumran community functioned. (HT Jim West)
- And, Entertainment Weekly offers a list of the 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years. Homer Simpson takes the top spot (hard to disagree with) and Harry Potter comes in second (hard to like, but still hard to disagree with). And, I was surprised, though pleased, to see the vampire slayer herself come it at #3. But, the Dude should definitely be higher than 14 and Sydney Bristow deserved better than 42.
Flotsam and jetsam (6/11)
One Response to “Flotsam and jetsam (6/11)”
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Kerr’s theses were interesting. Too much wonky language, and use of Greek (that he immediately translates). JKA Smith was perceptive in pointing out that for all the talk of “the world” it was never defined, or at least Kerr, et al didn’t recognize its equivocal use in Scripture.
Additional, question for the “apocalypse” crew: what does it mean that Christ says that the Church is His body, and it is His Spirit that is poured out on this body (much like at His own baptism)? Jesus didn’t do or say those things about “the world”?
For all the quoting of Barth, it seemed like the final angle in de-centering the Church, was that the Church finally will take its cues from culture, i.e. “the world” since that is the arena that Jesus is really focused on.