DET

We interrupt this brief blog hiatus to bring you this important announcement: VOTE FOR DET!!! Click that little up-arrow, right there on the bottom left side. That is all. (Seriously, vote!) ================================== Follow @WTravisMcMaken

…or, Something to keep you busy over the weekend… …or, The Past Fortnight in the Theoblogosphere. Summer is almost over. *sighs Professional structures return to my life on Monday, as new students hit our campus for orientation and faculty return for a series of meetings designed to build community and communicate information about institutional developments. Then there’s that whole thing about getting syllabi done, lectures dusted off, etc. What does this mean for you, gentle readers? It means no more DET until September. That’s right, we’re going on hiatus. You’ll survive, I promise. But, before going dark for a couple weeks, I want to be sure to give you plenty of good links to keep you occupied. First, a couple special service announcements: The first one is shameless: my book is now in print, which means that you can go order a copy . For anyone who has forgotten, the book is on Karl Barth and infant baptism. If you followed any of those links, you’ll also find that ...

Once more onto the Gollwitzer band-wagon, shall we? Gollwitzer is perhaps best known for being on the receiving end of Jüngel’s attention in God’s Being is in Becoming . Well, I went back and read the book from Gollwitzer that Jüngel criticizes there and found some interesting tidbits. You’ll have to wait for a further discussion, but here is one passage that I found interesting to tide you over. Given that so many folk in North America these days are interested in changes in religious demographics, and in trying to convince people that God exists (usually as a cornerstone for social conservatism in politics), I think Gollwitzer here offers a fresh and compelling take on the relation of Christianity and atheism. Helmut Gollwitzer, The Existence of God as Confessed by Faith (Westminster, 1965), 244–45 . As usual, bold is mind. The seriousness of the contradiction between the Christian and the atheist does not lie in the fact that the atheist is a worse man than the Christian—the ...

A footnote in Paul Ricoeur between Theology and Philosophy : Frederick Lawrence tells of a lecture that Ricoeur gave at Boston University in the 1970s. A questioner, objecting to an argument of Ricoeur's, angrily denounced him as a "Barthian," and was deflated when Ricoeur merely responded: "thank you." (195n4) ================================== Follow @marisd

My addiction to writing book reviews apparently knows no bounds, although I will say that I have spoken with an “accountability partner” about this . . . In any case, it works out to your benefit, gentle readers. Once again, this review is with that admirable publication, Reviews in Religion and Theology . If you haven’t yet gotten in the habit of regularly perusing it’s pages, well, you have my sympathies. Here is the most pertinent info: W. Travis McMaken, review of Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, Apostolic and Prophetic: Ecclesiological Perspectives (James Clarke, 2012) . Click here for the review (if you have the appropriate permissions…). ================================== Follow @WTravisMcMaken

Calvin wrote a letter to his mentor, Martin Bucer, that seems to date from early 1549. Bucer had been displaced from Strasburg by the Interim - the Schmalkald League having been defeated by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1547 – at which point he travelled to England and became Regius professor at Cambridge. These circumstances provide the backdrop for Calvin’s musing about the relationship between philosophy and theology. John Calvin, Tracts and Letters , 5.212-13. As usual, bold comes from me: As truth is most precious, so all men confess it to be so. And yet, since God alone is the source of all good . . . whatever truth you anywhere meet with, proceeds from him . . . . For it is sinful to treat God’s gifts with contempt; and to ascribe to man what is peculiarly God’s is a still greater impiety. Philosophy is, consequently, the noble gift of God , and those learned men who have striven hard after it in all ages have been incited thereto by God himself, that they might enlighten the worl...

Summer is a good time to click around on websites, and I hope that some of you, gentle readers, have been clicking around here at DET. However, if you have not yet had occasion to do that, I thought that I would present you with such an occasion today. But I would be remiss if, before I pull out some of the more interesting posts (to me) from deep in the DET archives, I failed to point out some archival collections nearer to hand. For instance, the tabs at the top of the site contain many interesting materials, especially the Serials index page and the Karl Barth Blog Conference index page . Just to give you an idea of what’s in there: the former contains multi-part examinations of figures like (in no particular order) Pannenberg, Tillich, Turretin, Calvin, Gollwitzer and Congar; the latter , of course, contains four years of blog conference posts and discussions. Beyond that, there is the sadly neglected Classic Posts page , with some of my favorite more random DET posts from thro...

…or, Something to keep you busy over the weekend… …or, The Past Fortnight in the Theoblogosphere. Well, then. The last link post was three weeks ago, and quite a bit has happened since then. Before we get on to the usual fare, here are a couple random plugs. The first one is shameless: my book is now in print, which means that you can go order a copy . For anyone who has forgotten, the book is on Karl Barth and infant baptism. If you followed any of those links, you’ll also find that the first chapter and a few other bits are available as samples on the website. Second, and I’ve mentioned this before, you should consider throwing in a few dollars to support this very interesting research project: A Fantastic Affair”: Karl Barth in America, 1962 . If you like Barth at all, you definitely want this project done sooner rather than later, and done right. This is your chance to help make that happen . Ok, now for the usual link fest. Here’s what’s been going on here at DET. The...