DET

David Kelsey is here at PTS this week giving this year's Warfield lectures, so it seemed fitting to put up a quote from one of his earlier works. David Kelsey, Providing Doctrine: The Uses of Scripture in Modern Theology , 169-70. [T]heologians' decisions about which role in an argument supporting a theological proposal ought to be filled by scripture [ed. aside: Kelsey earlier gives a very complex analysis of how Scripture actually gets used in supporting theological arguments] is largely determined by a decision about how best to characterize the subject matter theological proposals are chiefly to elucidate. But that is to say that they are determined by the particular way each theological tries to catch up the full complexity and singularity of the mode in which God is present in a single imaginative judgment. Theologians' decisions about how to use scripture, like their decisions about how to construe the scripture they use, are determined by decisions that are liter

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…or, Something to keep you busy over the weekend… …or, The Past Fortnight in the Theoblogosphere. CBS Review of Flett's Witness of God - I've talked about this book in the past, so I was thrilled to get a review of it up on the CBS website. Its a good, lengthy review so be sure to check it out. Meanwhile, if you haven't yet read this book - go buy it now! The End of Ecumenism - Halden Doerge and Ry Siggelkow stir the pot a bit. More Doodlings and Yet More Doodlings - Kim has been on a roll lately. Here are two of my favorites from this bunch: "Are people who pray happier and healthier than those who don’t? Only if they are not doing it right;" "What was God doing before he created the world? I suspect he was doing some forward planning and thinking about Holy Saturday." On Prayer: Fourteen Theses - Ben Myers sets the short stories aside for a bit. Here is #7: "Nothing could be further from the truth than the notion of prayer as a spon

It's turning into "Heresy Week" here at DET... I've been reading through the Barth/Bultmann correspondence this morning, and came across the below in one of the appendices. Given that I posted about Hans Frei's understanding of heresy on Monday, I figured I should throw this up as well. To set the stage, Barth is writing in response to a letter from a bishop asking whether Barth considers Bultmann's views on the resurrection, etc, to be dangerous things. The bishop was prodded to seek an answer to such questions by a letter he received from a pastor who had heard Bultmann lecture and refer to "the legend of the empty tomb" and the "marvel of the resurrection." This pastor hoped to initiate the founding of specifically ecclesiastical institutions for the training of clergy - a move which puts one in mind of a chapter from the church's history in the United States. While Barth does not hide his misgivings about Bultmann in his lette

Hans w. Frei, Theology and Narrative: Selected Essays (George Hunsinger and William C. Placher, eds.; OUP, 1993): 49. [A] heresy is often the sign that orthodoxy has sacrificed the elements of mystery, and along with it tentativeness or open-endedness, to an oversimplified consistency. Reminds me of Ralph Waldo Emerson's, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Sorry for how quiet it has been around here this week. I spent the day up in New Brunswick for the joint meeting of the New England & Maritime AAR region, the Mid-Atlantic AAR region, and an equivalent SBL region. David Congdon and I both presented, in the same session, and both presentations went well. The week was given over to preparation for that. Now, you might think that's a lame excuse for not posting since, if you read David's blog, you know he has been doing a series on a Christianity Today review of Rob Bell's new book that is causing so much consternation and hand-wringing. I just want to be clear that he has been able to do that AND work on a conference paper because his wife and son are currently away visiting family. So, yeah, I've been working hard too. ;-P In any case, I'll be back to my usual posting schedule next week, although likely the 2-post model rather than the 3-post model, since it will be time for a rendition of "Meanwhile,

Deanna Ferree Womack has reviewed John G. Flett's The Witness of God: The Trinity, Missio Dei, Karl Barth, and the Nature of Christian Community (Eerdmans, 2010), which has been a subject of discussion here at DET . Its a nice, lengthy review, so be sure to check it out .

…or, Something to keep you busy over the weekend… …or, The Past Fortnight in the Theoblogosphere. Sorry for the radio silence this past week. It is mid-semester reading week here at PTS and, while that usually means an uptick in my productivity, childcare responsibilities have reversed the trend this year. On the plus side, I got some quality time with my boy. But the rest of the theo-blogosphere kept things ticking along in my absence. Here is some of the stuff I found particularly interesting. “A Re-Reading Guide to Schleiermacher” - Evan Kuehn reflects on what it means to read Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre in light of his letters to Lücke . I suspect that I could guess the transmission history whereby this approach was bequeathed to Evan. “Doodlings” - Kim Fabricius is up to more his usual playfulness. One of my favorites from this batch: “If the eucharist makes the church, perhaps we need a different vintage.” “A Theology of Taxation” - Richard Murphy offers meaty foo

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

It’s that time of year again – time to make plans to attend this year’s Barth Conference at Princeton Theological Seminary. This year’s conference title is Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: An Unofficial Protestant-Catholic Dialogue , and it will take place June 19-22, 2011. There are numerous web resources that you can check out for further information. For instance, you can check out the conference website , the conference Facebook group , or the conference Twitter account . If you are more old-school, you can also sign up for e-mail updates . If you want further information beyond all this, feel free to write the conference organizers: barth.conference [at] ptsem [dot] edu Here is a list of conference speakers to whet your appetite a bit: Speaking on Divine Being: Robert Jenson; and Richard Schenk Speaking on the Trinity: Guy Mansini, OSB; and Bruce McCormack Speaking on Christology: Keith Johnson; and Thomas Joseph White, OP Speaking on Grace and Justification: Amy Marga; and