DET

By Frankjh [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] From Wikimedia Commons The last person to receive communion from Óscar Romero was an Episcopal priest from the United States. The Rev. William Wipfler (as we learn here ) served many years as a social justice activist with the National Council of Churches, heading consecutively its Caribbean and Latin American Department and its Human Rights Office. Wipfler was part of a U.S. delegation, who met with the archbishop and participated in Romero's last Sunday mass, on March 23, 1980, before he was killed the following day while celebrating the Eucharist in the chapel at the hospital where his modest residence was. Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice , by Matt Eisenbrandt (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017). I was struck by Wipfler's emotional account of meeting Romero found in Matt Eisenbrandt's gripping, yet ha...

I’ve long been a fan of Bernhard Lohse. His A Short History of Christian Doctrine , for instance, should be required reading for everyone. Yes, everyone. And I’ve read some of his Luther scholarship before as well. But only recently did I sit down to read through his Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work . This book is incredibly well organized and reads in many ways like a digest of Luther research as it stood at the end of the 20th century. In other words, it is a wonderful resource. One bit that I especially liked was Lohse’s description of the need for reform at the end of the Middle Ages. He situates this need especially within the German context, and that means he gives us more than hackneyed Protestant platitudes. He also include a very well-selected detail about Albert of Mainz to make his point. So here is Lohse; italics are his and bold is mine. At every diet of the German Empire the Gravamina nationis Germanicae —the list of abuses that the diet was as...

Nineteenth Question: Is the Roman pope the successor of Peter in a monarchy or ecumenical pontificate? We deny. At every turn, we’ve seen Turretin leave open the theoretical possibility that Peter was accorded certain honors or excellences. But he has also consistently maintained that such things don’t translate into the sort of position and authority claimed by and for the pope in the early modern period. Here Turretin clarifies the logic that governs his thinking on this: “the pope cannot be the successor of Peter, whatever privilege he [Peter] may have obtained, because it was extraordinary and special (which could not pass over to others)” (18.19.1). In other words, positions or offices are the sort of thing that can be handed to successors, while personal excellences are not—they pertain to the individual only. Of course, no point is properly made unless Turretin can show that Bellarmine is confused and self-contradictory on the matter (18.19.2). Turretin isn’t done making thi...

Eighteenth Question: Was Peter at Rome, and did he hold the episcopate there for many years? We deny against the Romanists. As we move further into Turretin’s series of questions dealing with the Pope, we find him in this question working to remove the foundation of his opponents’ position. He seems a little defensive about making this move, however, because it isn’t a strictly theological point. As he puts it, this issue “seems to be historical rather than theological” (18.8.1). But it is such an important piece of the argumentative puzzle that he can’t help but take a swing at it. His opponents know that on this foundation rests the whole mass of the papal hierarchy and this being disproved, it necessarily destroys the latter. For if Peter was not in Rome and did not exercise an episcopate there, such authority could not flow down into the Roman pope so that he should be considered successor. (Ibid.) In other words, none of the theological arguments about the place and authority...

Seventeenth Question: Was Peter an ecumenical pontiff and the head of the church and the vicar of Christ? We deny against the Romanists. I mentioned previously that question 16 was indirectly about papal primacy , but with question 17 we embark upon a series of questions that address that issue directly. As you no doubt gleaned from what you’ve learned about Turretin thus far, as well as from his posing of the question above, things are unlikely to go well for il Papa . To begin, however, Turretin characteristically wants us to be entirely clear about what he is and is not arguing. For starters, you will have noted that the question is posed with reference to Peter. The logic is that if Peter is unable to claim primacy then the Pope, as the apostolic successor of Peter, is similarly unable. To be clear, Turretin is not arguing that Peter has no sort of primary whatsoever. He seems willing enough to grant Peter a certain sort, or certain sorts, of primacy. He clarifies that “the qu...

Sixteenth Question: Should the government of the church be monarchial? We deny against the Romanists. Turretin begins his discussion of this question by offering a structural reflection: he notes that, thus far, his treatment of ecclesiology has been organized around the distinction between the internal and external aspects of the church. Now, we’re told, we move on to a third aspect – the church’s government. He makes it immediately clear that the church requires some form of government; indeed, he doesn’t entertain the possibility of a church without government. We’re not going to find any anarcho-communitarianism in Turretin! He’s a good Presbyterian forebear: the church requires a form of government because “God is a God of order, not of confusion, nor can order be preserved without government.” So, instead of asking about whether there should be church government, “the question is what that is and what is its nature: monarchical or aristocratic” (18.16.2). That’s right; those ...

Thirteenth Question: Are the name catholic, antiquity, continued duration, amplitude, the succession of bishops, harmony in doctrine with the ancient church, union of the members with each other and with the head, holiness of doctrine, the efficacy of the same, holiness of life, the glory of miracles, prophetic light, the confession of adversaries, the unhappy end of the persecutors of the church and the temporal happiness of those who have defended it, marks of the true church? We deny against the Romanists. Buckle your safety belts, because this is a long one… In fact, I thought about splitting it into two parts, but I worried that created a precedent which would ultimately spiral out of control. Oh, and while I’m offering random preliminary reflections, questions 12 and 13 remind me of Calvin’s discussion of the sacraments in book 4 of the Institutes : you get his teaching in chapters 14–17, and then you get his deconstruction of the Roman position in chapters 18–19. But enough ...

Eleventh Question: Is the church infallible or can it err about faith? The former we deny; the latter we affirm against the Romanists. We reach now what is in many ways the main event in Turretin’s ecclesiology. Given that his is an “elenctic” theology—a theology aimed at refuting an opponent; we would not be far wrong to call it a “polemic” theology—it is critical that he deal with this issue because “the question concerning the infallibility of the church is the most agitated of all which lie between us and the Romanists about the church and of so great importance that the papacy seems to rest upon it as its principal fulcrum” (18.11.1). In other words, if Turretin can win this argument, quite a few other dominoes will fall. Turretin begins, as usual, by clarifying the issue. This is not about the invisible church, but about the visible; it is also not about the mas of believers, but about pastors; and it is also not about individual pastors, but the church’s pastoral office as a...

Kimlyn J. Bender, Confessing Christ for Church and World: Studies in Modern Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014). * Barth’s Gifford Lectures from 1937 and 1938, published as The Knowledge of God and the Service of God According to the Teaching of the Reformation , receive – in my humble opinion! – far too little attention these days. So I was very pleased to see that Bender’s eleventh chapter takes them as its theme. It is a good and useful chapter, which I appreciated especially for the way it contextualizes the Gifford Lectures historically, as well as Barth’s contribution to them. This leads Bender into a number of interesting sub-conversations about natural theology in general, what it means for theology to be not only “a science” but “a peculiar science” (emphasis mine, p. 318), and the place of theology in the modern university. The piece of the chapter that I want to highlight for you below has to do with the place of tradition in theology. Bender here brings B...

Some of you, gentle readers, may recall that I mentioned Bender briefly here at DET not too long ago. Back in February I noted that the Center for Barth Studies website had published a review of Bender’s book on Karl Barth’s Christological Ecclesiology . Well, it turns out that I’ve been on something of a Bender-binge. Kimlyn J. Bender, Confessing Christ for Church and World: Studies in Modern Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014). * Bender is associate professor of theology at Truett Seminary, which is part of Baylor University. This volume is a collection of essays, some new and some old, dealing with issues in – you guessed it! – modern theology. But the subtitle could easily have read “Studies in Barth’s Theology.” Even if Barth’s name isn’t in the title of a chapter, he is never far away. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’ll be posting about this volume another time or two in the coming weeks, but I want to take a moment and introduce you to the book...

This was originally an appendix to the link post that I have scheduled for Saturday morning. But it continued to grow and began to take over that post, so I decided that it required separate billing. I recognize that I'm diving into dangerous territory here, what with rolling up theological, ecumenical, sexual, and political issues into a big ball...but what are blogs for if not stuff like this? I’m sure you have heard about the current fracas within Roman Catholicism over the recent Vatican (CDF, actually) censure of a large North American nun organization (Leadership Conference of Women Religious, representing ~57,000 women whose median age is over 70…). There have also been reports of the USA bishops "investigating" the Girl Scouts and, of course, there's all that stuff in the political arena at the moment over health insurance and contraception. For my very Protestant money, this is one more instance of the deeply broken nature of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, a...

Karl Barth can and has been characterized both as radically anti-Catholic and radically ecumenical. What makes it difficult to arbitrate such competing claims is that both are true of Barth at different times. One of the times that Barth was favorably disposed to Catholic theology was during his time teaching in Münster. As Amy Marga points out in the below quotation, Barth's theology at that time shared a number of important assumptions with Catholic theology in this period. As Amy further makes clear, however, Barth finally rejected these assumptions in his mature theology. Karl Barth’s Dialogue with Catholicism in Göttingen and Münster: Its Significance for His Doctrine of God , 92 (as usual, bold is mine): Barth started out with three assumptions about the Incarnation that made his conversation with Roman Catholicism in Münster an unproblematic one. First, he was working with the assumption that the Incarnation presupposes creation . Because the Incarnation is reconciliatio...

Amy Marga reviews Benjamin Dahlke, Die katholische Rezeption Karl Barths: Theologische Erneuerung im Vorfeld des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils (Mohr Siebeck, 2010) . Here's your chance to access some of the German literature on Barth from the comfort of your Anglophone mind! Be sure to check it out ! ================================== Follow @WTravisMcMaken

I have a review of Amy Marga's book, Karl Barth’s Dialogue with Catholicism in Göttingen and Münster: Its Significance for His Doctrine of God , that is now up on the Center for Barth Studies website . Surf on over and check it out! ==================================

Karl Barth was a Reformed theologian, without a doubt. He purified Protestant theology according to its own best insights, to be sure. But we Protestant readers of Barth often forget just how ecumenical his vision was, something that Roman Catholic and Orthodox readers of Barth are quick to pick up on. Indeed, I helped with George Hunsinger’s intro to Karl Barth class this past semester, and had an Orthodox student who constantly reminded me of this - it was quite interesting to get a glimpse of Barth through her eyes. In any case, Amy Marga - who spoke at the recent PTS Barth conference - has a nice paragraph on the foundation of this ecumenical quality of Barth’s thought in her book, Karl Barth’s Dialogue with Catholicism in Göttingen and Münster: Its Significance for His Doctrine of God : Barth’s curiosity about thinkers outside of the typocal cast of Reformation figures was one of the earliest – but perhaps farthest-reaching – ecumenical move[s] that Barth made. While not ‘ecume...

Franz Leenhardt [*], Two Biblical Faiths , 76-7. Eastern Christianity has always emphasized far more than Western Christianity the function and the action of the Holy Spirit. In this way it has endeavoured to affirm and safeguard the “overflowing” of the earthly by the heavenly; it has steadfastly refused to confound the event with the institution, the eschatological with the actual; it has wished to preserve for every mystery an open door to a beyond which should be its glorification. This tendency of its thought was manifested in the maintenance of the epiklesis in the eucharistic liturgy; the church must pray that the Holy Spirit should be outpoured on the gifts and the faithful. The Latin church, on the contrary, attributes to the priest the power of pronouncing in persona Christi efficacious words for the production of consecration. In that context the liberty and the living action of Christ are placed in the power of the historical institution; the Holy Spirit merges with this...

Those of you who have noted my persistent promotion of Keith Johnson’s book, Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis , might be interested to know that a Roman Catholic blogger has now engaged with Johnson’s work . Actually, I should say that this blogger has engaged with a very fragmentary aspect of Johnson’s overall argument, namely, that portion set forth in Johnson’s recent Modern Theology article. There is much, much more in the book. That said, this blogger’s response to Johnson (and Barth) is by turns puzzling and problematic: In terms of puzzling, we have this blogger’s insistence that RC theology is interested in denying that sin “goes ‘all the way down.’” To anyone who has read Augustine, such a claim sounds scandalous, even without considering one’s possible Protestant sensibilities. In terms of problematic, this blogger seems not to have paid sufficient attention to Johnson’s whole essay, and therefore does not deeply engage with Barth's position. He quotes from one of J...

This is from the posthumously published ethics section of CD 4.4, entitled The Christian Life , 136-8. The bold sections are large print given to set the stage; the normal text is Barth's small print: The one form of the denial and apostasy is the church in excess, the presumptuous church which exalts itself and puffs itself up. At this point one is naturally inclined as a Protestant to think especially of the Roman church. There may be something in this. But one should keep in view that the Roman church is not just a church in excess, involved in apostasy only on this side. One should also keep in view that, even if in less striking and classical form, the church in excess, in apostasy on this side, may be very clearly seen in the non-Roman Christian world, not only on its right wing among the Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Lutherans, but also on the left wing, even down to the Baptists, though only on the margin. [Ed: It's very interesting to me that Barth puts Luther...