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 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
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
I have been thinking lately about how to classify different types of theology. This is what I have come up with thus far. Don’t be shy in terms of leaving feedback as I would love to hear whether or not this sort of typology rings true. What I am interested in here is only secondarily connected to the sorts of theological positions taken by those doing theology in any of the modes that I will explicate. The modes themselves are what interest me. It seems to me that one can fall anywhere on the continuum between orthodoxy and heterodoxy while working within any of these modes. Of course, some modes may make it easier than others to lean toward one or the other pole on this continuum, but that is beside the point. Also, I don’t think that any theologian is working exclusively within any single one of these modes. Every theologian operates in combinations of these modes, with certain of them being primary and others secondary. Furthermore, the various modes within which a cer
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
Perspective is undoubtedly a blessing. It comes with time and experience, and no small amount of grace. But gaining it also means coming to terms with hard truths—truths about ourselves, about the world at large, and about the traditions and institutions that have shaped us (for better or for worse; though usually it’s a bit of both). Ten years ago, I graduated from Cairn University—a small, evangelical Christian university in Langhorne, PA. Cairn isn’t widely known, and it certainly isn’t a place that regularly makes the news. But you might have seen it in a recent AP report: “ Christian college ends program citing gender, sex guidelines .” That title doesn’t quite capture the magnitude of the decision. In a May email from Cairn University President Todd Williams, alumni were notified that, based on a decision made at the spring meeting of the board of trustees (and following the administration’s recommendation), the university “will be eliminating the School of Social Work and al
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