DET (Die Evangelischen Theologen) is the theological version of a digital news magazine. The DET authorial team provides insightful, thought-provoking content on a wide range of theological, religious, and even political subjects from current events and culture as well as from the Christian and other religious traditions.
*stage whisper from Scott in the wings* “Who cares? Just get on with it, already.”
*clears throat*
Welcome to 2018, folks! DET is awakening from its holiday slumber, and we’re looking forward to another great year of blogging! What will that year hold? What exciting new highs or lows with DET achieve? Only time will tell!
One thing I do want to apprise you of, gentle readers, is that Scott and I are a little uncertain about this year. It has become increasingly difficult for us to keep up our usual posting pace as other demands mercilessly encroach upon our time. So, sadly, I must tell you that DET blogging this year is likely to be much more of an ad hoc sort of thing.
But, we’re not dead yet (*chuckles*), so make sure you’re subscribed whether through email or in some other way (like Facebook), follow us on Twitter (WTM / Scott / DET contributor’s list) if you want to hang out in between blog posts, as it were, and consider submitting a guest contribution. In the meantime, here are some things that we DET folk have been up to since you last heard from us.
Third, speaking of Richard, he also included my book in his recap list, Good Reads: 2017. This guy has good taste in books.
Fourth, I appeared on episode 133 of the Thinking Religion podcast, along with some friends from the interwebs (click the podcast link to get the first cast list). It was fun, and I even got to talk about Gollwitzer a bit at the very end! More importantly, though, I got to wisecrack through the whole thing so…you probably want to just skip to the bit at the end. We’ll see if they invite me back.
Fifth, my Lindenwood colleague, Nichole Torbitzky, and I filmed and posted another installment on our series exploring process theology and Barthian theology together. Click below to watch!
Sixth and finally, you may have missed it but DET awoke briefly from its holiday slumber to offer you an advent reflection from our own Alex DeMarco. It’s never too late or too early for a good advent reflection, so here you go: Looking Back to See Ahead: An Advent Reflection .
Ok, that should have you all caught up on DET goings-on. Now, here’s the list of links from around the interwebs that you’ve been waiting for!
I was kickin' it on Twitter last Wednesday night while doing some grading and then some editing, and I caught a Twitter essay from Christopher Stroop in my feed that leaped off the screen at me. It pulls together a number of issues that have been bouncing around in my head, many of which I fit in the title. Stroop's reflections merge political and psychological analysis, and helps us understand how there could have been "good Germans" and how we might end op with "good Americans." Let us hope that we do not, and work to make that hope a reality.
Anyway, I wanted to share this Twitter essay with you, gentle readers, because there are enough people who read DET or follow me and DET on social media who are within or close to evangelicalism and will be aided by this analysis. Stroop was gracious enough to allow me to collect his tweets and make them available. If you've made your way here on a mobile device, however, you would probably prefer to read this …
[Ed. Note: Andrew Hollingsworth, PhD, is an adjunct professor of theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He tweets: @andrewh_mc11. He writes at Theology and Stuff, and Trinityhaus.]
Wolfhart Pannenberg was one of the most important theologians of the 20th century. Most students (and hobbyists!) of theology will have come across his name in their reading. Some of them may have stopped and looked twice. But by that time they may have noticed that he published a lot, and his writing can be dense, so they may have decided to circle back to him later. Sometime. Maybe. It’s a shame, though, because that would mean missing out on some of the richest theology written in the last century.
But what if these folks just need a little encouragement? A nudge to help them take a leap of faith into the Pannenbergian sea? That’s where this post comes in. I’m going to give you a brief overview of the life and work of Pannenberg, and show you why you should take the plunge!
[Ed. Note: Andrew Hollingsworth, PhD, is an adjunct professor of theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He tweets: @andrewh_mc11. He writes at Theology and Stuff, and Trinityhaus.]
So you want to read Wolfhart Pannenberg? Great! Why, you ask? I’ll tell you. Wolfhart Pannenberg was one of the most important theologians in Germany (and the world!) in the 20th century. Several theologians, such as Philip Clayton, Ted Peters, and Fred Sanders have noted in their obituaries for him that the world lost a theological giant on September 4, 2014. His three-volume Systematic Theology, though not as many volumes as Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, is one of the most significant contributions to the field, having one of the vastest scopes and one of the most ambitious aims of any before it. Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology is perhaps the most interdisciplinary one written to date. He is well known for a statement he made in an interview once: “Because God is the creator of everything…
"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
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 said job was bookended by a bicycle trip from Nashville to Durham and…
Note from the editor: You may recall, gentle readers, a previous anonymous missive published here at DET. The full title of that post was “‘Jesus was a failure: an anonymous missive on the possibility of faith in the modern world.” That same anonymous author has once again been in touch to submit a second missive, which you will find below. It is a powerful re-conception of pastoral work after the death of God. Consequently, we have once again decided to publish the piece in accordance with the author’s wishes. – WTM
There is only one Messiah who redeems us from the irony, the travail, and the
limitations of human existence. Surely he will come. He is the Angel of Death.
Death is the true Messiah and the land of the dead the place of God's true
Kingdom. Only in death are we redeemed from the vicissitudes of human existence...Only
death perfects life and ends its problems.
- Rabbi Dr. Richard Rubenstein
We're all alone. There's no one up there listening to the prayers we utt…
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