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Idolatry and Ethics in the Reformed Tradition – with Douglas Ottati

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I’ve never much liked how many people characterize the Reformed theological tradition. Talking about “the 5 points of Calvinism” or “TULIP” might work for some people as a starting point, but it breaks down really quickly – at least if you’re a true inhabitant of the Reformed tradition and not a reactionary (either as a peripheral hanger-on without connection with a historically Reformed church or as a member of a splinter group within that historical family). Other folks talk about the importance of God’s “sovereignty” in Reformed theology. This isn’t wrong, but it’s also very closely connected with the “5 points” business. Together, these approaches set up a picture of God as some kind of all-powerful, supernatural potentate that must be obeyed unless you want to risk dire consequences. I don’t find this image particularly compelling, either on its own merits or as a reading of the Reformed tradition. And, honestly, it makes me think of the line from Jesus Christ Superstar when Je
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Two Recent Sermons on Ephesians 1

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It’s been nine months since I last posted (Scott came through with a post in the meantime - thank you, Scott!). Thankfully, that doesn’t mean I’ve been completely intellectually dormant, however. One of the things that absorbed the all-too-limited bandwidth that I have to give to theology in my current stage of life was, perhaps surprisingly, preaching. I did my share of preaching back in seminary, but I haven’t made it a habit since then. However, my family’s home congregation is currently in the midst of pastoral transition and I offered to plug some gaps over the summer. Consequently, I wrote and preached my first sermons in well over a decade. As it happens, Ephesians 1 was presented to me by the lectionary for the first Sunday that I stepped into the pulpit. I’ve always had a soft spot for Ephesians, and how could I pass up the opportunity to preach about election in a Presbyterian church? So, I didn’t pass it up. The sermon was entitled “Choices.” But that passage fro
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The Last Word: Berrigan's Eulogy for Stringfellow

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"Billy Hathorn at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons While finishing this post, I learned that the eminent German theologian – and truly gracious human being – Jürgen Moltmann had died. Early in his career, Moltmann’s Theology of Hope helped launch a new genre of political theology that sought to retrieve the doctrine of the resurrection to foster projects of liberation and social transformation. William Stringfellow – sadly, to my mind, without real critical engagement – expressed suspicions of the early political theologies of the 1960s, particularly in their dependence upon Marxist theory, but I do find a congruence between him and Moltmann in their respective affirmations of the power of the resurrection to renew the churches and the world at large. In this spirit of gratitude, I offer the following reflections. Like many modern Christian thinkers, William Stringfellow refused to speculate about the possibility of conscious personal existence after d
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George Hunsinger’s gloss of the Christ Hymn in Philippians 2

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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 “
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What Am I Reading? David Congdon’s “Varieties of Christian Universalism”

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Wondering what to do with that gift card you received for Christmas? Wanting to start the year off right with a compelling read about rethinking everything you thought you knew about the doctrine of salvation? Have I got a book for you! David Congdon’s (ed.) Varieties of Christian Universalism: Exploring Four Views (Baker, 2023) will not disappoint. David and his collaborators present a reliable and excellent roadmap to the primary varieties of Christian Universalism. Those who have never considered universalism before will benefit from the careful and ordered tour, and those who have long considered it will be delighted by the clarity and detail of the positions exhibited. This volume is well worth engaging. I tweeted some quotes from this book as I read it, and I’m going to link those in below for your consideration. But I also must say that Congdon’s contributions to this volume are more than worth the cost of picking up a copy in and of themselves, and the chapters from Gregg
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Karl Kautsky’s Notebooks: Insight into a Writer’s Methods

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Karl Kautsky was a leading German-language democratic socialist politician and theoretician at the end of the 19th century and in the early decades of the 20th century. He wrote an interesting text called The Foundations of Christianity (Ger: Der Ursprung des Christentums ) in 1908. I haven’t read it at this point, though I’d like to remedy that someday. Kautsky; George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) However, I was reading about Kautsky and came upon a passage that described his “notebook” method of research and reflections, especially in regards to his work on the above-named volume, and I found it fascinating. This jumped out at me because, as someone who researches and writes, I’ve tried various methods to keep my materials organized and productive, and I don’t feel like I’ve found a way that really works for me yet. This frustrates me. Additionally, I recently read a post by Elissa Cutter about “Journaling as a Means of Research” that I found interesting.
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Do We Need A Pentagon? Reconsidering the Wesleyan Quadrilateral

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If one spends enough time in the United Methodist Church, they’ll eventually hear something about the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral”—a four-fold hermeneutic of authority John Wesley utilized in his development of the movement that would later become known as “Methodism.” The four components of Wesley’s quadrilateral are 1) scripture, 2) tradition, 3) reason, and 4) experience. These, for Wesley, were the authoritative lenses through which the Christian faith is fostered in each person. And while he engaged extensively with each of these components in his writings and sermons, he never explicitly laid out the organized concept of the quadrilateral as we know it today. That language came much later from American theologian, Albert Outler. [1]    However, while for many Methodists the quadrilateral feels relatively specific to our tradition, it’s actually not something unique to Wesley. Coming from an Anglican context, Wesley would have been more than familiar with the “Anglican Triad.” This
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