DET

My good friend, colleague, and co-conspirator has recently published a book review of Neil MacDonald’s “Karl Barth and the Strange New World Within the Bible.” Shane announces the review , and it is posted on the Center for Barth Studies website . Go check it out!

Word and Spirit in Trinity and Christology It falls outside the scope of this study to give anything like a comprehensive account of Congar’s doctrine of the Trinity. This is especially true because, in the third volume of I Believe in the Holy Spirit , Congar spends a great deal of time discussing the development of the doctrine and dealing with the most important historical figures of both the Greek and the Latin churches. His study is organized by thinking about the filioque , and this point bears directly on the question of the relation between Word and Spirit. Congar undertakes an orientating treatment of the relation between the economic Trinity and the immanent Trinity in the opening pages of I Believe in the Holy Spirit volume three. Although Congar accepts Rahner’s Grundaxiom that the economic Trinity simply ‘is’ the immanent Trinity, Congar is a little hesitant concerning Rahner’s umgekehrt - vice versa.[1] Congar isn’t quite ready to affirm that the immanent Trin...

“What Hath Broadway to do with New Haven? Vanhoozer’s Canonically Dramatic Take on Lindbeck’s Cultural-Linguistic Turn,” in Koinonia: The Princeton Theological Seminary Graduate Forum 19 (2007): 67-84 Review of Paul Molnar, Incarnation and Resurrection: Toward a Contemporary Understanding (Eerdmans, 2007), Koinonia: The Princeton Theological Seminary Graduate Forum 19 (2007): 162-4 I do not believe that this journal is accessible online, but you can go here for a list of all the libraries that carry it. If your theological library isn't on the list, go talk to your librarian! :-)

*Note: This series is taken from a paper that I wrote a year or so ago. As such, it is - along with everything else that I write here on DET - my intellectual property. Feel free to make use of it as long as you observe the proper conventions of attribution. Introduction The significance of Yves Congar’s theology is clearly attested in Avery Cardinal Dulles’s comment that the Second Vatican Council “could almost be called Congar’s council.”[1] An ecclesiologist deeply rooted in the theology of Thomas Aquinas, Congar recognized early the importance of ecumenical dialogue when, as Fergus Kerr notes, “talking theology and praying, with Lutherans, Anglicans and Orthodox, was widely regarded as inappropriate for Catholics.”[2] Congar’s ecclesiological study and ecumenical engagement lead him to recover a doctrinal theme that had languished in the Roman Catholic tradition for some time, namely, the place of the Holy Spirit in theology as a whole and particularly within ecclesiolog...

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion , 4.19.13 - "True Confirmation" "How I wish that we might have kept the custom which, as I have said, existed among the ancient Christians...Not that it would be confirmation as they fancy, which cannot be named without doing injustice to baptism; but a catechizing, in which children or those near adolescence would give an account of their faith before the church. But the best method of catechizing would be to have a manual drafted for this exercise, containing and summarizing in simple manner most of the articles of our religion, on which the whole believers' church ought to agree without controversy. A child of ten would present himself to the church to declare his confession of faith, would be examined in each article, and answer to each; if he were ignorant of anything or insufficiently understood it, he would be taught. Thus, while the church looks on as a witness, he would profess the one true and sincere fai...

Before the throne of God above I have a strong and perfect plea. A great high Priest whose Name is Love Who ever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven on His hands, My name is written on His heart. I know that while in Heaven He stands No tongue can bid me thence depart. When Satan tempts me to despair And tells me of the guilt within, Upward I look and see Him there Who made an end of all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died My sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied To look on Him and pardon me. Behold Him there the risen Lamb, My perfect spotless righteousness, The great unchangeable I AM, The King of glory and of grace, One in Himself I cannot die. My soul is purchased by His blood, My life is hid with Christ on high, With Christ my Savior and my God! ========================= "[T]here are hymns that contain doctrinal insight to rival that of the best theology ever produced. The fact that they are falling out of the church's collective memory is ...

Review of Gerard Mannion, Ecclesiology and Postmodernity: Questions for the Church in Our Time (Liturgical Press, 2007), in Reviews in Religion and Theology 15.2 (March, 2008): 235-7. If you or your institution have the correct subscriptions, you can find your way to a copy of this review through the Blackwell Publishing website for Reviews in Religion and Theology .