Archive - Theology RSS Feed

Resources for understanding theology around the worlds

May 11, 2010 in Theology with 1 Comment

If you (like most of us) need to do a little more work on understanding theological perspectives from around the world, Faith and Theology has a nice, short review of the Global Dictionary of Theology (IVP 2008) edited by William A. Dyrness and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen. I haven’t used it yet, but it sounds like a great resource.

Other resources on the subject that I have found helpful include:

  • Craig Ott and Harold A. Netland (eds.), Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity (Baker Academic, 2006)
  • Timothy C. Tennant, Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think and Discuss Theology (Zondervan, 2007)
  • Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford, 2008).

Have you run across any other books that you would recommend for understanding global perspectives on biblical and theological issues?

Why we need “thick” Gospel narratives

May 10, 2010 in Biblical Studies, Theology with 4 Comments

I’m going to be honest here. If I hear one more person talk about the ABCs of the Gospel, the Four Points of the Gospel, the One Minute Gospel, or the Twitter Gospel, I think I’ll have to go home and vent my frustration on one of the two cats who seem to think they live at my house. (Unfortunately, my wife and daughters agree with them.) And, why do I find this so frustrating? Because there is simply too much in the Gospel to unpack in such short Gospel summaries.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with summarizing the Gospel, the NT authors do it all the time (of course, they assume we know the story they’re summarizing). And, a good summary of the Gospel can be very helpful at times. The problem comes when that’s all we do.

This is where I find the idea of “thick” vs. “thin” narratives helpful. (Does anyone know who first developed this language? I know Brueggemann used it quite a bit, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the first.) Our typical Gospel presentations are thin narratives. Such thin narratives provide just enough detail to make it a coherent story, but they leave out most of the detail that makes it a really compelling story. That would be somewhat akin to summarizing Les Miserables as a story about a guy who fell, experienced grace, and sought personal redemption through serving others. That’s technically correct, but you’ve lost all the power that’s in the story. A “thick” narrative, on the other hand, tries to unpack the story in all its rich detail. That way, when you get to the climax of the story, you really know what’s going on. Why it’s good news.

We need to spend much more time telling “thick” Gospel narratives. I don’t know about your church, but we hear about the Gospel quite often in mine. Unfortunately, it’s usually summarized in 5-10 minutes. Occasionally we’ll get a whole sermon on it (especially on Easter). But, I don’t think anyone at my church has ever tried to present a truly “thick” Gospel narrative that helps people understand how it all fits together.

I’ve been doing this recently with the high school group at my church. I’m working through the story of the Gospel in eight weeks. By the time we’re done, I’ll have spent around five hours telling them the story of the Gospel. And, we really don’t have anywhere near enough time to get it all in. But, when we’re done, they’ll have a much thicker narrative for the Gospel. They certainly won’t have the whole story. So, I hope they’re coming to appreciate that they could spend a lifetime filling in more details. But, they’ll have more of the narrative than they did before.

In case your curious, I’m presenting it around the standard Creation/Fall/Redemption narrative (after, that is how the Bible tells the story). But, I think we need to be careful here as well. A Creation/Fall/Redemption approach could easily be a “thin” narrative as well. It’s easy to assume people understand all three parts of this story and how they fit together. I actually find that that is generally not the case. Many Christians know the creation story, but don’t really know what it has to do with the Gospel. And, the same is true with other parts of the story (especially the history of Israel).  So, I’m trying to provide a thicker narrative all the way through. (You’re probably getting a sense now for why 5 hours is not enough time.)

Here’s the outline:

  • Week 1: Introduction and explanation of why everyone (non-Christians, new Christians, and old Christians) need to understand the Gospel more than they do.
  • Week 2: Genesis 1:1-25 and God’s plan to manifest his glory throughout creation as an expression of grace.
  • Week 3: Genesis 1:26-2:25 and God’s plan to create human persons through whom in particular he would manifest his glorious presence in creation.
  • Week 4: Genesis 3 and the fall of Adam and Eve as well as the horrible consequences that resulted for all of creation.
  • Week 5: The rest of the Old Testament (seriously, I only have eight weeks) and God’s faithfulness to his people, plans, and promises in the Garden and throughout the history of Israel.
  • Week 6: The Messiah as the fulfillment of God’s plans and promises for his people and for all of creation.
  • Week 7: How we should respond as individuals and as the people of God.
  • Week 8: How this Gospel transforms the way that we see everything.

So, that’s what I’m doing to try and give the students a thicker narrative for the Gospel. What are you seeing in your churches and ministries? Has your church/ministry done a better job providing thick narratives for the Gospel? If so, what have you been doing?

The 20 most “brilliant” christian professors

May 9, 2010 in Theology with 0 Comments

I thought this post might be helpful as we continue our discussion from yesterday on who we’ll still be talking about 50 years from now. It’s a bit of an eclectic list dealing with Christians who teach in any field, not just Bible and theology.

via First Thoughts.

Beale on the “Adams” of the biblical narrative

May 6, 2010 in Biblical Studies, Theology with 0 Comments

Many thanks to Dane Ortlund at Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology for posting this excerpt from G. K. Beale on the adamic flow of the biblical narratives:

The first Adam should have obeyed and subdued the entire earth, but he did not.

After the flood, Noah was commissioned to subdue the earth, but he had his own ‘fall’ in a garden-like environment, also in connection with the image of nakedness.

Subsequently, God creates a corporate Adam, Israel, who was to be obedient to God in the promised land, which the OT refers to repeatedly as ‘like the garden of Eden.’ They were to go out from the promised land and subdue the rest of the earth. Appropriately, Israel was called by Adamic names, like ‘Son of Adam (Man)’ and ‘Son of God.’ Israel had her ‘fall’ at the golden calf episode, the effects of which were devastating for the nation’s destiny. Instead of subduing the earth, she was subdued by it.

Lastly, God raises up another individual Adamic figure, Jesus Christ, who finally does what Adam should have done, and so he inaugurates a new creation which will not be corrupted but find its culmination in a new heavens and earth. And his names ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man’ also allude to him, not only as the Last Adam, but also as true Israel.

G. K. Beale, ‘The Eschatological Conception of New Testament Theology,’ in The Reader Must Understand: Eschatology in Bible and Theology (IVP 1997)

Understanding bias

May 5, 2010 in Theology, Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Here’s a great song on the different kinds of bias and how they impact our thinking. If you’ve got time to be self-reflective, it would be interesting to think for a while on each of these and where you see them at work in your theological thinking.The one that jumped out at me because I see it all the time in my church history survey class is anchoring bias: “I’m biased because of a small detail that throws off the big picture of the thing.” I don’t know how much time I have to spend on the middle ages convincing students that just because some theologian said one thing they don’t like we don’t have to throw out their theology entirely.

What about you? Any biases lurking up your sleeves?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RsbmjNLQkc]

Around the watercooler

May 5, 2010 in Theology, Uncategorized with 0 Comments

In case you have nothing better to do, here are some interesting recent posts from around the blogosphere:

  • Fred Sanders on The Modern Doctrine of the Trinity. Sanders provides a very helpful discussion of the modern retrieval of trinitarian doctrine, but he pushes this retrieval back to the Romanticism of the 18th century and the turn to history, experience, and the past as sources of theological knowledge.
  • Ben Myers posted a request for good books on theological ethics, and the comments are well worth perusing if you’re at all interested in that topic.
  • On the same note, Jason Goroncy has posted a list of good books and resources on theodicy.
  • Steve Duby has an excellent post on understanding Barth on receiving the Word of God. He does a very nice job unpacking what Barth means when he says that receiving the Word is an event in which even the very condition for the possibility of that event lies in the event itself. (If that summary made no sense, read the post.)
  • Paul Helm has begun a new series of posts on Vanhoozer’s Remythologizing Theology.

Wheaton conference online

April 18, 2010 in Theology with 1 Comment

In case you haven’t heard  yet, the sessions from the Wheaton Theology Conference, Jesus and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright, are available online (audio and video). If you listen to any of the sessions, please blog on it and let us know what you thought.

ETS Paper – Christology and the Mind/Body Debate

March 23, 2010 in Theology with 0 Comments

There have been a few requests for the paper that I presented at the NW regional ETS meeting, An Empty Cipher? Christology and the Mind/Body Debate. So, here it is. Feel free to post any questions or comments you might have.

Is an Arian Still a Christian? The Response of Athanasius

February 13, 2010 in Church History, Theology with 1 Comment

At the very beginning of discourse I of Against the Arians the great Athanasius answers those who argued that the Arians were still Christians. I think his response is brilliant, witty, and pithy. He writes the following,

For what have they discovered in this heresy like to the religious Faith, that they vainly talk as if its supporters said no evil? This in truth is to call even Caiaphas a Christian, and to reckon the traitor Judas still among the Apostles, and to say that they asked Barrabas instead of the Saviour did no evil, and to recommend Hymenaeus and Alexander as right-hand men, as if the Apostle slandered them. (I.2)

It doesn’t get more straightforward that that. Athanasius’ answer regarding whether or not Arius and his followers are still Christians despite being heretical is sarcastically, “Yes, if Caiaphas who had Christ killed is a Christian, if Judas is still an apostle, if choosing Barrabas was not an insult to Christ, and if the Apostle Paul wrongly framed those who persecuted him, sure, then he is a Christian.” There is no doubt how he would have answered at least part of the question asked in class!

This post has been modified from here.

Karl Barth’s doctrine of Israel

February 11, 2010 in Church History, Theology with 0 Comments

It should be unsurprising to anyone who has read Barth that, like any other aspect of theology addressed by Barth, his writing on Israel is both complex and controversial. Perhaps it is a result of his dialectical approach to theology, or perhaps it is simply because of the often confusing nature of his discursive style, but different theologians have come to very different conclusions regarding Barth’s view of Israel. If one wants to understand Barth’s view of Israel, it is necessary to not only study his Church Dogmatics, but also to examine his public life to see the practical aspects of his treatment of Jews, especially in light of the Holocaust. By studying Barth’s theology and practice, one can see that his doctrine of Israel has both positive and negative aspects, and that in practice Barth’s treatment of Jews showed that he too was human, with both strengths and weaknesses.Barth Paper

Page 28 of 30« First...1020«2627282930»