Welcome to the 2nd Annual Karl Barth Blog Conference (2008)

By -
Greetings, and welcome to the second annual Karl Barth Blog conference. Some of you are here because you enjoyed last year’s conference and wanted a second dose. Some of you are here because you saw announcement posts at various blogs and thought you would see what all the excitement was about. Some of you have been lead here by more or less relevant blog searches. And some of you are here because your favorite theo-blogger is among the contributing authors. But, while people may arrive here from many destinations, those that stay to read in depth and (hopefully) comment will do so because they – like our authors – believe that there is something significant to be gleaned from the work of Karl Barth, and aren’t afraid of doing a little hard work in attempting to find it.

Whereas last year’s Karl Barth Blog conference was comprised of various authors treating various chapters of Barth’s Protestant Theology in the 19th Century, this year we will think about Barth through the mediating thought of his most distinguished German interpreter, Eberhard Jüngel, and his standard work in the field entitled, God’s Being Is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth. I have offered my own meager reflections on this text previously, and I won’t bore you by rehashing them here because I’m sure that I would need to modify them, and that would take more work than I have time for presently. Besides, we have a number of other contributing authors ready to provide a far more in-depth look.

Here is some information on the authors contributing plenary posts and official responses for the 2008 Karl Barth Blog conference.

Contributing Authors
  • Sergi Avilés holds an Ecclesiastic Doctorate in Philosophy from Ramon Llull University, lives in Barcelona, married, has a cute little son and works as researcher in chief in philosophy and theology at Centre Borja

  • Matthew J. Aragon Bruce is a PhD student at Princeton Theological Seminary and a member of the PC(USA).

  • David W. Congdon just finished his MDiv and will begin a PhD program in Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He lives in Princeton, NJ, with his wife, Amy. In addition to working at the Center for Barth Studies, he plans on flexing his academic muscles by working at Barnes & Noble this summer.

  • Halden Doerge is a sporadic MDiv student at Multnomah University and an editor with Wipf and Stock Publishers. He lives in Portland, Oregon where he is a member of Church of the Servant King, an intentional community where he preaches and teaches regularly. He is also hailed by many friends as a barbeque genius.

  • Jason T. Ingalls holds a MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary (2006), lives in Nashville, TN, and ministers with graduate students at Vanderbilt University.

  • Scott Jackson holds a PhD in theology from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He lives in western Massachusetts, where he volunteers with the Jakob's Well Ecumenical Christian Community.

  • Jon Mackenzie has just received his undergraduate degree in Theology from the University of St Andrews. He is (suprisingly) unmarried and (unsuprisingly) has no children, no pets and (since receiving a degree in theology) no future. He has achieved little in his 22 years and will next year be entering into a Masters programme at an esteemed English university where no doubt his lack of achievement will be daily contrasted against those of his contemporaries.

  • Adam McInturf is a recent graduate of Multnomah University with a background in theology and New Testament Greek. He is actively involved in his local church, Vibrant Covenant Church. He continues to live and work in the northeast Portland neighborhood where he grew up and is beginning an MDiv at Multnomah University this fall.

  • Chris TerryNelson is starting his third year of his Master of Divinity degree at Princeton Theological Seminary. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy at University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 2005. He is married to Anneli TerryNelson and a new father to Nora, who was born on June 4th. He is an Inquirer with the PCUSA denomination, and hopes to be ordained for ministry in New Church Development.

  • Shane Wilkins is a Ph.D. student in the Philosophy Department at Fordham University in New York City.
Plenary posts and responses will appear every morning (EST) for the next five days. An introductory post by Jon Mackenzie on philosophy and theology in Eberhard Jüngel's work will appear a little later today. An index will be posted upon the conference's conclusion. Also, if you have suggestions for how I might organize next year’s conference, feel free to e-mail me or leave your suggestion in a comment.

Enjoy!

Comments

Luke said…
It would be interesting and usefull, that at the end of the conference, you sum up the relevant conclusions. No need to be something too long. Only a few easy points where all participants agree.
June 16, 2008 6:42 AM
Darren said…
Thanks, Travis! Looking forward to the contributions.
June 18, 2008 3:18 PM
Unknown said…
How cool.

In January I will begin a one year long survey of Church Dogmatics in a "Monday's with Barth" By the time the 3rd annual Blog Conference comes around I would probably have enough reading in to make a contribution. I don't know what qualifications you are looking for in participants, but if you are open to new writers, let me know.
September 23, 2008 1:50 AM
Post a Comment

Popular Posts

So You Want to Read….Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

By -
Image
"I fear that Christians who stand with only one leg upon earth also stand with only one leg in heaven." "The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from everyday Christian life in community…may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; for in the poor sister or brother, Christ is knocking at the door." "Since ethical thinking in terms of realms is overcome by faith in the revelation of the ultimate reality in Jesus Christ . . . there is no real Christian existence outside the reality of the world." "People who reject their bodies reject their existence before God the Creator." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer Prelude Andreas Steinhoff [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons I envisioned having a lot of time for blogging this summer, but that simply has not been the case - the last month has been a crazy one, to say the least. For two weeks, I was working at a theology summer camp of sorts, the Duke Youth Academy, and s...
Keep reading

So, You Want To Read Karl Barth?

By -
Image
Every now and then I am asked for advice about studying Karl Barth. So, I thought that I would share some of my standard advice here. But, before I do that, let me just say that I am by no means a Barth expert as compared to the people whose books I will mention below. I would be thrilled to find myself in their league one day, but as of yet that remains a distant dream. Still, I have been reading Barth for long enough, and under the supervision of a number of the scholars that I will mention below, that I think I can provide a decent orientation. I have never read Karl Barth before. Which of his books should I read first? Barth’s most famous work is the monumental 13-volume Church Dogmatics . Reading the CD with understanding is not an easy thing, so you definitely do NOT want to start here. Luckily, there are two smaller works by Barth that serve as helpful introductions to his work. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction - Based on the lectures that Barth delivered duri...
Keep reading

Karl Barth on Hell, the Devil, Demons, and Universalism – A Florilegium

By -
Image
You know, all the most interesting topics. Although Barth often confessed that he didn’t find these questions particularly interesting. At best they might draw sideways glances, as it were, as one travels the theological road. But I found a number of places in the records of Barth’s later conversations that I thought folks might find interesting, so I’ve collected them here. And if you aren’t familiar with the term “florilegium,” here you go ! All these texts are from the first volume of Barth in Conversation , with pages numbers given in parentheses along the way. As usual, italics are in the text and bold is mine. Hell “Now we come to hell. You shouldn’t laugh! There is nothing to laugh at! What does hell mean? I think hell means to be in the place where you are once fore all damned and lost without ceasing to exist, without losing the image of God, being what you are but being damned and lost, separated from God, whose creature you are, separated also from your neighbor, from...
Keep reading

George Hunsinger’s gloss of the Christ Hymn in Philippians 2

By -
Image
I’ve been reading George Hunsinger’s (my doktorvater , for anyone who might be new around here) entry in the Brazos Theoloical Commentary on the Bible series on Philippians. Anyone who has studied with George will find this book to be a compendium and application of many of his most characteristic and beloved analytical tools and patterns, and I’ve been enjoying it immensely. But one of the things that really stood out to me was how he glossed the so-called “Christ hymn” of Philippians 2. George Hunsinger, Philippians , Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: BrazosPress, 2020). The gloss that Hunsinger provides is not a historical-critical interpretation. Rather, it is an ecclesial, ecumenical, and theological interpretation that attempts to fill in the blanks for how to understand this proto-liturgical formulation in light of the later formulations of the ecumenical creeds. In order to achieve this gloss, Hunsinger engages in “ecclesial hermeneutics” and makes “...
Keep reading

2010 KBBC: Week 3, Day 1

By -
On the Monstrosity of Christ : Karl Barth in Conversation with Slavoj Žižek & John Milbank By Paul Dafydd Jones For a while, I hoped to frame this conversation in terms of a dramatic interchange – something along the lines of “A Slovenian philosopher, a British theologian, and a Swiss dogmatician walk into a bar…” Alongside an eye-wateringly hip assemblage of cinematic references, literary allusions, and comedic scenes – my early favorites being when Barth imagines a young adult novel, entitled Are you there God? It’s me, Žižek , and when Milbank waxes poetic about the Twilight movies – I wanted to engage some topics that would likely receive attention, were the authors to meet for drinks. Primarily, I envisioned an intense discussion of the logos asarkos and the logos ensarkos , with Milbank talking up the former category, Barth emphasizing the latter, and Žižek asking whether recent debates are but symptoms of secret puzzle, embedded in the Church Dogmatics – a puzzle that...
Keep reading