Theology and Culture

Irony as Theology: Ethnographic Insights on Church in Unsettled Culture

by Timothy Snyder

Working Paper presented at the US Workshop of the Ecclesiology & Ethnography Research Network at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, MN)

In recent years scholars at the intersection of theology and the social sciences have been exploring how qualitative... more In recent years scholars at the intersection of theology and the social sciences have been exploring how qualitative methods (ethnography) might constructively extend theological reflection. This paper furthers those conversations by returning to ethnographic notes from my 2010-2011 field work and using insights from them to push the boundaries of what might be appropriately called a theological category. Here, irony is explored as a means of confession and revelation.

The Power of Feminist Rituals by Grace Kao

by Feminism and Religion

Originally posted on the Feminism and Religion project

March 31, 2012
by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

Jeanette Stokes’ 25 Years in the Garden is on my bedside... more
March 31, 2012
by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

Jeanette Stokes’ 25 Years in the Garden is on my bedside table. It’s a book I read several years ago with a small group of feminist Christians when I was living in Blacksburg, Virginia. The following passage from one of her essays got me to thinking back to the 2012 PANAAWTM conference (Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry) I had attended just two weeks ago:

“Rituals are part of everyday lives: reading the newspaper, checking the weather, waiting for the mail to come, or talking with a family member at the end of the day. Rituals can also mark the extraordinary events in our lives: the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a birthday, marriage, anniversary, or divorce” (Stokes, 2002, p. 37).

We PANAAWTM attendees participated in two rituals that, while neither “everyday” nor “extraordinary,” were nevertheless symbolically very rich, meaningful, and unifying.

Ecological Disaster & Jacques Ellul's Theological Vision

by Matthew John Paul Tan

A theological response to climate change, co authored with Dr. Paul Tyson of ACU

This paper will focus Jacques Ellul’s insights onto the manner in which our modern technological society is deeply... more This paper will focus Jacques Ellul’s insights onto the manner in which our modern technological society is deeply ingrained in the subordination of both humanity and nature to efficient use. Ellul maintains that our way of life is characterised by structural instrumentalism, which is in turn underpinned by a distorted
theological outlook. The paper asserts that these aforementioned factors together form the key drivers that propel us towards environmental desolation. This paper asserts that no adequate fine tuning of our present way of life will be possible to address issues such as climate change. What is needed instead is the comprehensive sociological and theological  conversion of our society. This paper will conclude by tentatively
exploring ways in which the church might proclaim and embody a prophetic message of repentance and conversion in this and other socio-cultural matters.

Sometimes You Just Gotta Dance: Physical Expressiveness in Worship

by David Johns

Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt: Kurt Vonnegut's Critique of the Theology of Culture

by Joel Harrison

Dandy Discipleship: A Queering of Mark's Male Disciples

by Robert Myles

in the 'Journal of Men, Masculinities, and Spirituality', 2010

While conventional readings of the Bible unambiguously presume the normativity of heterosexuality and binary... more While conventional readings of the Bible unambiguously presume the normativity of heterosexuality and binary categories of gender, this article challenges such modern assumptions by purposefully and strategically re-reading three Markan discipleship texts “sexually.” By combining a socio-rhetorical approach with queer and gender criticism as informed primarily by the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid, the re-readings attempt to penetrate through existing homophobic and erotophobic interpretations. Particular attention is also given to the ways in which the gender and sexuality of the male disciples has been constructed and can be problematized in both the world behind the text and the world in front of the text. http://www.jmmsweb.org/

Girolamo Menghi, esorcista viadanese del Cinquecento

by Davide Balzano

Published in Vitelliana. Viadana e il territorio Mantovano fra Oglio e Po. Bollettino della Società Storica Viadanese, anno IV, 2009, pp. 103 – 124.
Language: italian

The essay deals with Girolamo Menghi, personage who was not very well known in the time of the Counter - Reformation,... more The essay deals with Girolamo Menghi, personage who was not very well known in the time of the Counter - Reformation, directly involved in the religious dynamics shaking those years. The analysis of his life and of his thought reflects the difficulties anyone would encounter when undertaking the hard job of the exorcist.

American Exceptionalism: Theocracy, Empire, and Capitalist Teleology

by James C. Vlisides

Guilt and Calvinist Theology in Lockhart's Adam Blair and Hogg's Confessions

by Amanda McClendon

Written for Professor Ian Campbell at the University of Edinburgh, Fall 2005.

The Anguish of Complacency: An Essay on William R. Hutchison's The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism

by Robert Pierce Forbes

Although Hutchison makes a convincing case for the serioiusness, intelligence, and conviction of American liberal... more Although Hutchison makes a convincing case for the serioiusness, intelligence, and conviction of American liberal theologians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he underestimates and misunderstands--just as they did--the challenge and appeal of Fundamentism.

The Economic Thought of St James and The Jerusalem Love Community

by Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd

This paper was co-authored with Dr G.Gotsis, and published in the History of Economic Ideas, 1:2004. pp  7-35. The file available here is the pre-publication version of the study.

The Epistle of James provides a window into the economic thought of the Jerusalem Church immediately prior to the... more The Epistle of James provides a window into the economic thought of the Jerusalem Church immediately prior to the rapid expansion of Christianity through the Pauline movement. James’ work pays special attention to the piety of the poor as they are tested by economic exploitation and oppression. It attacks in the strongest possible terms the capital accumulation of the rich, and the unjust means used to acquire this wealth. James’ epistle also condemns merchants for trusting to their vision of the future, especially given the (presumed) imminence of the Parousia (Second Coming). James’ writings, however virulently anti-worldly, nonetheless stand in a strong tradition of both Judaic and other ancient writings, as well as with many parts of the New Testament, most especially the two Lucan books. He cannot, therefore, be dismissed as an aberative example of proto-Christian economic thought.

The interrelationships between entrepreneurship and religion

by Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd

This is a pre-publication version of the paper which saw the (formal) light of day as

“An examination of the inter-relationships between entrepreneurship and religion” (2007) with George Gotsis, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation 8:2 93-104

This article examines the interrelationships between religion
and enterprise. The authors find that these are... more This article examines the interrelationships between religion
and enterprise. The authors find that these are highly context-specific, and
will vary markedly over time and social setting, mediated by other sociocultural
variables such as political structures and ideologies, and
religious symbolism in the workplace. The individual elements making up
an entrepreneur’s belief matrix influence the entrepreneurial process.
Where religious salience is high, entrepreneurs will tend to use religious
criteria to inform their decision making, even if it harms their short-term
commercial interests. Religious groups can also provide a resource for the
generation of entrepreneurial social capital.

The Paul Tillich Lecture - Draft 7 - 14 Nov 2011 - As Read

by Russell Re Manning

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/11/a-theology-of-culture/

Throughout his illustrious career, Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was fundamentally concerned with the question of the... more Throughout his illustrious career, Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was fundamentally concerned with the question of the religious meaning of culture. The answers that he gave – initially in the revolutionary ferment of 1920s-30s Germany and then again in the brave new world of post-World War II America – were profound and far-reaching in their importance for twentieth-century theology. This Lecture will explore the development of Tillich’s interpretations of the religious meaning of culture and apply his analyses to our contemporary religious and cultural situation.

Unwritten Theology - Russell Re Manning - Draft 1 - 27 Nov 2011

by Russell Re Manning

As presented at Music and Transcendence Conference, Cambridge, November 2011

This paper engages with George Steiner’s powerfully suggestive characterisation of music as “unwritten theology”... more This paper engages with George Steiner’s powerfully suggestive characterisation of music as “unwritten theology” (1989) to suggest ways in which the possibility of a natural theology of music might be theorised.
Steiner’s claim exposes a central dilemma for work that seeks to explore the ways in which music relates to transcendence. On the one hand, for those such as Jeremy Begbie, “music can serve to enrich and advance theology” in its ongoing quest, in his words, “to extend our wisdom about God, God’s relation to us, and to the world at large” (2000). Music, in this case, serves as an aid to reflection, further equipping the theologian in her inescapably writerly enterprise. On the other hand, as Frank Burch Brown suggests: what if the theologian of art allows art not only to assist theology but further to “reshape, somehow, the image and sound, the look and feel, of the substance of faith” (2012)? For such an approach, music itself becomes theology and hence the theologian’s task is radically transformed. No longer able to make use of music to enrich her writing, the theologian is thus displaced and the linguistic hegemony of theology is challenged in favour of a “theology without writing”.
This paper explores the possibilities for theorising a “theology after writing” capable of “reshaping, somehow” not simply the form but also the substance of faith by drawing on, and deliberately distorting, resources from Paul Tillich’s cultural-theological analyses of what he characterises as art with “religious style, but non-religious content”, as well as Jean-Luc Marion’s notion of iconic distance (particularly as developed by James Herbert (2008)). Taking seriously the challenge of thinking of music as “un-writing theology”, the paper suggests that a framework of a natural theology of music might provide the necessary openness to discovery that Steiner’s description requires.

Diminished Quality of Catechesis as a Basis for Limiting the Role of a Catholic Theologian: An Examination of the Controversy Surrounding Elizabeth Johnson’s Book The Quest for the Living God By Michele Stopera Freyhauf

by Michele Stopera Freyhauf

originally published on the Feminism and Religion project.

The biggest mistake people make is to use theology and catechesis interchangeably.  This is an important... more The biggest mistake people make is to use theology and catechesis interchangeably.  This is an important distinction that impacts the scholarly community of Catholic Theologians.  So what is the difference?  Catechesis in the Catholic tradition is an “echoing” of the faith.  Theology on the other hand, using St. Anselm’s definition, is “faith seeking understanding.”  Michael G. Lawler and Todd A. Salzman, in “Beyond Catechesis: What is the Proper Role of Theology”, states that catechesis can be included in theology, but theology is distinguished from catechesis because it “uses scholarly principles not only to communicate the truths of faith but also to explore the meanings of those truths and contemporary ways of articulating them.”  Also the theologians’ role is seen as mediator between the magisterium and the faithful. Richard P. McBrien states that the required role of a theologian is to investigate and examine the whole of the Christian tradition; what it means, how it fits, how it is developed, and how it relates to the outside the world in theory and in practice.  Ex Corde Ecclesiae also emphasizes community and dialogue, which is not always realized in practice.

Apologetics and Myths: Signs of Salvation in Postmodernity

by Philip Johnson

Lutheran Theological Journal Volume 32, number 2 (July 1998): 62-72.

This essay examines the place of myth in contemporary popular culture and alternate spiritualities, with allusions to... more This essay examines the place of myth in contemporary popular culture and alternate spiritualities, with allusions to myth and new religious movements, myths as a basis for cinematic storytelling (X-Files, Star Trek), mythmaking in the wake of Princess Diana's death, ANZAC. Some brief discussion about mythic archetypes as theorised by Carl Jung, Micrea Eliade and in folklore studies. The material forms the basis for reflecting on a model for Christian apologetics whereby apologists may interact with contemporary myth-making especially via symbols and archetypes to make creative links to the Christian gospel. Illustrated via the writings of The Inklings - C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams and J. R. R. Tolkien.

A theological framework for correlating universal archetypes to biblical and redemptive analogies is discussed and illustrated via Tarot symbolism. Paper concludes with four reasons for pursuing/developing "mythic apologetics" in the context of the cultural shift in postmodernity and New Age spirituality.

The article foreshadows subsequent work of mine such as my co-written book Beyond Prediction: The Tarot and Your Spirituality; and a chapter-length discussion about the Resurrection and myth in my co-written newly released book The Cross is not Enough (on these books see my books section on this site).

Postmodernity, New Age and Christian Mission: Mars Hill Revisited

by Philip Johnson

Lutheran Theological Journal Volume 31, number 3 (December 1997): 115-124.

This paper discussed the emergence of "postmodernity" as a form of cultural change (or paradigm shift) and... more This paper discussed the emergence of "postmodernity" as a form of cultural change (or paradigm shift) and where New Age spirituality is interpreted as reflecting part of that shift. The paper specifically discussed the contours of the shift within an Australian context, and using the Apostle Paul's Mars Hill speech (Acts 17:16-34) as a prism for understanding the missional challenges faced by Lutheran churches and other denominations. The paper briefly profiled the initial experiment in contextual mission of the Community of Hope in spirituality festivals in Sydney, and took into consideration "what New Age says back to the church" in terms of how Christians think and speak about God, theology of creation, practical applicatipons of spirituality to vocation and routines of living, the place of myth and spiritual seeking, and finally the status of women.

This paper should now be read alongside my co-written book Jesus and the gods of the New Age, the Lausanne Paper I co-edited "Religious and Non-Religious Spirituality in the Western World ("New Age"), and my chapter on Booth Ministry in the book Encountering New Religious Movements (for details on these 3 items refer to my "books" section on this site).

Thomas Merton in conversation with Charles Taylor's A Secular Age

by Jonathan Sozek

Presented at the biennial meeting of the Thomas Merton Society of UK and Ireland, April 2010

In the middle of the 1960s Thomas Merton assembled a series of reflections under the title, ‘The Night Spirit and the... more In the middle of the 1960s Thomas Merton assembled a series of reflections under the title, ‘The Night Spirit and the Dawn Air’. In the middle of the decade just ended another Catholic writer of a sort, Charles Taylor, assembled some lengthier reflections in his book A Secular Age. Both writers are Catholic, and both texts grapple with the situation of the ‘believer’ or Christian today. Yet it is argued that these texts, and also their authors, are more substantially related than this. For it seems that Taylor’s book can how us a new way to read Merton, and Merton’s reflections can strengthen Taylor’s argument. [10 pages, for oral presentation]

Three Approaches to Religious Issues in Counseling

by David Presley

The Christian faith continues to be a Powerful influence in the lives of a great number of people in American culture.... more The Christian faith continues to be a Powerful influence in the lives of a great number of people in American culture. Three approaches employed by practitioners of deal with a client's religious faith have been identified through a review of the literature of the past 10 years. The approaches taken include avoidance, eradication, and integration of the client's faith. Practitioners will either avoid dealing with the client's faith, attempt to eradicate faith, or work towards integrating faith into the counseling process. These three approaches are evaluated in view of the American Psychological Association's code of ethics. Any one of the three approaches may be ethically acceptable when practiced within the bounds of professional code of ethics.

A Review of Joyce E. Salisbury, The Blood of Martyrs. Unintended Consequences of Ancient Violence. New York - London, Routledge 2004, 233 pp. ISBN 0-415-94129-6. In Czech.

by Petr Kitzler

published in: Listy filologické 132, 2009, pp. 418-421.