David Kelsey’s 2011 Warfield Lectures: “Glory, Kingdom, and Power”

This year’s Warfield Lectures were given by David Kelsey, the emeritus Yale theologian known especially today for his magisterial two-volume work on theological anthropology, Eccentric Existence (2009). He gave the lectures under the title, “Glory, Kingdom, and Power: Stammering about God.” As Kelsey stated in the opening lecture, these papers are developing the doctrine of God that was implicit but never developed in Eccentric Existence.

Four PTS theo-bloggers—W. Travis McMaken, Nathan Maddox, Melissa Florer-Bixler, and I—have put together summaries of each of the six lectures. Nathan, in particular, is deserving of special appreciation for covering half of the lectures on his own, in addition to attending all six. I am providing a summary only of the third lecture. Below is the index of posts, with links to be supplied as the summaries are posted online.

• Lecture I: “The God of Abraham Praise” (WTM)
  
• Lecture II: “In Praise of the Uselessness of God” (NM)
  
• Lecture III: “Where God’s Sovereignty Is Definitively Expressed” (DWC)
  
• Lecture IV: “God’s Sovereignty in Two Registers” (MFB)
  
• Lecture V: “Where God’s Power Is Definitively Expressed” (NM)
  
• Lecture VI: “God’s Power in Two Registers” (NM)

Upcoming Events: Koinonia, AAR, and Notre Dame

There are some events coming up with which I am involved that are worth taking note of—and attending, if you happen to be in the particular region.

The first is the Annual Forum of the Koinonia Journal, taking place on March 3-4 at Princeton Theological Seminary. As the executive editor of Koinonia, it is my responsibility to organize the forum that becomes the following year’s journal. Our theme this year is “New Conversations in Religion and Popular Culture.” It should be an exciting conference, and I invite anyone in the area to attend. Here is the schedule of events:

Thursday, March 3, 2011 – 7:00-9:00 pm (Stuart Hall 6) 

• Jeremy Ian Kirk (Union Theological Seminary, New York): “James Cameron vs. James Cone: Avatar’s False Messiah and the Continued Relevance of Liberation Theology”  

• Emily Dumler (Princeton Theological Seminary): “A Profile in Courage: A Young Woman in No Country For Old Men” 

• Respondents: Adam Hearlson and Courtney Palmbush (both of PTS)

Friday, March 4, 2011 – 12:00-2:00 pm (Mackay Student Center, Main Lounge) 

• Peter Kline (Vanderbilt University): “Christ-Haunted Ohio: The Spiritual and Theological Vision of Over the Rhine” 

• Nicholaus Benjamin Pumphrey (Claremont Graduate University): “Judges and Heroes: The Scholarly Misinterpretation of the Biblical Judges Reflected in Modern Superheroes”  

• Marc Boswell (Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary): “Thomas Merton Gets the Blues: A Theopoetics of Cultural Engagement”

• Respondents: Blair Bertrand and Sarah Stewart-Kroeker (both of PTS)

The second event is the Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), which will take place on March 17-18 at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick, NJ. As usual, Princeton Seminary students will be out in force at this conference. My own paper is entitled, “Event and Being: Bultmann Reads Badiou.” It is an attempt to reassess the relation between Alain Badiou’s philosophy and Christian theology by bringing Badiou into conversation with Rudolf Bultmann (who is the subject of my dissertation). My starting-point is a paragraph tucked away in a blog post by Carl Raschke, professor of religious studies at the University of Denver, who writes:

I've never been able to prove that Badiou all along has been reading Bultmann's theology of several generations ago about the "Christ event" that is historical, though unintelligible to history itself.  But these associations are not merely aleatory.   It is not accidental that Badiou's well-received book on St. Paul really complements Bultmann, or that Badiou himself is a source of growing fascination among a newer generation of "postmodern" academic theologians (though they all struggle to follow him half the time, as they once did with Derrida).  Badiou is probably more instructive for latter day "Bultmannians", since he has unshackled himself from Heidegger, which Bultmann couldn't.

The third event is the upcoming graduate student conference at the University of Notre Dame on the theme, “New Conversations on Bonhoeffer’s Theology,” sponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. In addition to public lectures by Bernd Wannenwetsch, Christiane Tietz, and Robin Lovin, there will be twelve graduate student papers. I will be one of those presenters. My paper is tentatively titled, “Bonhoeffer and Bultmann: An Overlooked and Misunderstood Relationship.” Here I will attempt to redirect the conversation regarding these two giants of 20th-century theology. The problem is that most scholars, with the notable rare exceptions of Gerhard Ebeling and Gerhard Krause, have accepted Bonhoeffer’s critical comments on Bultmann at face value. Theologians from Götz Harbsmeier to Russell Palmer to Adam Kotsko have made a sharp distinction between Bonhoeffer’s non-religious interpretation and Bultmann’s program of demythologizing, but really without probing the deeper underlying issues that connect and divide them. I will examine the problem of the relation between the ontic and the ontological—which first appears in Act and Being—since this is the issue that really vexes Bonhoeffer; I will offer a critique of Bonhoeffer’s critique of Bultmann and propose that soteriology, not hermeneutics, is the true point of divergence; and I will conclude by suggesting reasons for and ways of bringing Bonhoeffer more in line with Bultmann.

So that’s Princeton, New Brunswick, and South Bend. If you’re around any of those areas in the coming two months, I hope you’ll consider coming to these events. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Is the Ph.D. a “masochistic exercise”?

“For those who attempt it, the doctoral dissertation can loom on the horizon like Everest, gleaming invitingly as a challenge but often turning into a masochistic exercise once the ascent is begun. The average student takes 8.2 years to get a Ph.D.; in education, that figure surpasses 13 years. Fifty percent of students drop out along the way, with dissertations the major stumbling block. At commencement, the typical doctoral holder is 33, an age when peers are well along in their professions, and 12 percent of graduates are saddled with more than $50,000 in debt.”

—Joseph Berger, New York Times

My future

This past month I was accepted into the Ph.D. program at Princeton Theological Seminary. I will begin the program in systematic theology in the fall. This will mean my wife and I are staying in Princeton for at least the next four years. While we miss the Northwest, we are excited about remaining close to our current community, which has been a blessing to us.

My current intention is to study the historical and theological relationship between Barth and Bultmann, with attention given to Eberhard Jüngel’s attempt to mediate between these two giants of twentieth century theology. I will attempt to answer why this debate has significance for us today, and what we can learn from Jüngel.

In the meantime, I am trying to finish up my M.Div. program here at Princeton Seminary. There are only a few weeks left, and life has never been busier or more stressful. My apologies to those who expected the Balthasar Blog Conference to bring me out of my blog silence! I cannot promise regular posting for awhile. Perhaps this summer will bring renewed energy.

A Call for Papers: Theological Exegesis

The Spring 2008 issue of the Princeton Theological Review will be on the topic of “theological exegesis,” and we are currently accepting submissions. The due date for submission is January 21. It has been my privilege to be one of the general editors of the PTR for the past year. The PTR is a journal of evangelical theology which seeks to be academically rigorous, ecumenically sensitive, and ecclesially faithful. The current PTR is a student-run manifestation of the old PTR that was originally founded by Charles Hodge in the 19th century. We have a national and international readership, and the journal is held at a number of theological institutions.

If you are interested in submitting to the PTR for our spring issue on theological exegesis, see our submission guidelines. Articles should be between 5000-7000 words, though we can be flexible with the length if necessary. Articles can be works of original theological exegesis, or discussions of the work of others. We especially welcome any articles focusing on the work and legacy of Brevard Childs. If you would like, submissions may be sent directly to me (via email link in my profile) or to the executive editor at ptr-at-ptsem.edu.

In addition to articles, we also accept reflections on the chosen theme and sermons that demonstrate theological exegesis at work in a pastoral context. Reflections (and sermons, if possible) should range between 1200-2000 words.

If you have any questions about the journal or the spring issue, please contact me or the executive editor.

New Blog: ideology is ailing

James Rienstra, a Wheaton alum like myself, has just entered his first year in the MDiv program here at Princeton Theological Seminary. He has also given in to the friendly peer pressure of starting a blog, making PTS the undisputed North American hub of theo-blogging. Check out his brand-new site at ideology is ailing.

Impromptu theo-blog conference in Princeton

From right to left: Shane Wilkins, yours truly, W. Travis McMaken, and James (a recent graduate of our alma mater and new colleague, whose wife took this photo) standing in front of the Yankee Doodle Tap Room, part of the Nassau Inn in Princeton, NJ, after hashing out the ethical complexities posed by the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. Also present during this meeting of the minds but gone by picture-time: Chris and Peter.

(Photo shamelessly stolen from WTM.)

New blog: theklines

My friends from Wheaton and now Princeton Seminary, Peter and Megan Kline, are both seminary students and a husband-and-wife musical duo. Their new blog, theklines, is a forum for the discussion of their favorite music (Over the Rhine) and a way for them to get their music into the world. As the site develops, you will find music, pictures, theological commentary on songs, and information on upcoming shows.

If you are in the Princeton area (broadly speaking), look out for their upcoming shows. They hope to play about once a month.

Recap of the spring 2007 semester

In my return to blogging after a hiatus due to finals, I would like to recap my semester in terms of the most important insights I gained theologically or academically. The spring 2007 semester brings my second year at Princeton Theological Seminary to a close, during which I co-helmed the editorship of the Princeton Theological Review, presented a paper at the regional AAR meeting, and took many more theologically stimulating courses from some of the great professors at this institution. In the midst of this environment, here are just three of the things I learned over the past several months:

1. The centrality of theological exegesis for the church today. Two of the courses that I took this semester dealt with relation between systematic theology and biblical exegesis—one in terms of how Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans holds up in light of scholarship on Paul’s epistle to the Romans, and the other examining Galatians with an eye toward theological scholarship. These two courses revealed two important things for me: first, that I love theological exegesis, and second, that theological exegesis is of central importance for the church today. The former was clear in how much I enjoyed writing my papers for those two courses, but the latter is much more significant. The church today suffers from a lack of biblical knowledge and a complacency regarding the core doctrines of the church. The Bible has become a dead letter due to the failure of churches to ground their identity in the gospel, and theology has become a dead letter due to the failure of theologians to escape from the academic ghettoization of theology. Theological exegesis holds a lot of promise for the church as an enterprise which seeks to reinvigorate examination of the Bible without losing sight of the central dogmas of the church. At the same time, theological exegesis engages in rich theological exposition while attending to the texts that shape the life of the church community. Hopefully, the current interest in theological exegesis is a sign of great things to come.

2. The significance of Schleiermacher today. A course on Schleiermacher this semester with Bruce McCormack was especially instructive. It is difficult to read Barth without understanding Schleiermacher, and this course was particularly helpful in elucidating the central theological insights of the great Berlin theologian. It was helpful to see how Schleiermacher upholds the insights of Chalcedon while dismissing Nicaea, how he grounds election in a single, eternal divine decree (anticipating Barth’s later christological grounding of election), how he dialectically interrelates the natural and the supernatural, and how his system expands upon his basic foundation in the feeling of absolute dependence (not always consistently, as his doctrine of creation demonstrates). For me, especially, having grown up in American evangelicalism, the connections to Schleiermacher’s theology are manifold, and hopefully I will have a chance to explore these later.

3. The ecumenical possibilities in a theology of the eucharist. I truly enjoyed my course on the eucharist with George Hunsinger, where we explored the ecumenical possibilities of a theology of the Lord’s Supper which seeks to faithfully uphold the central insights of the major traditions in the Christian church. The course was both historical and systematic, and throughout we sought to identify the key elements of each tradition in order to see how they cohered with other articulations of the eucharist. In the end, we went back to the Reformers—Peter Martyr Vermigli, in particular, but Luther and Calvin as well—to uncover some obscure connections with Orthodox sacramentology which may prove to be ecumenically fruitful. In the end, I find myself quite optimistic about the theological possibilities, but much less optimistic about the ecumenical possibilities. In my study of Hans Urs von Balthasar for this paper, and having read some thoughts by Orthodox leaders, it is clear that simply articulating a theological position on the eucharist which is acceptable to all will not bring about a common table—though I can certainly hope and pray that such a theology will be the first step toward such a reality.

Finals

My absence from blogging as of late is a consequence of the fact that I am in the midst of finals. But the end is in sight. Less than a week and I will be finished.

There will be much rejoicing. (And blogging.)

Princeton Theological Review: Theology and the Arts

The new issue of the Princeton Theological Review, a student-run journal for which I am the co-general editor, is now available online thanks to the hard work of our webmaster, Chris TerryNelson. The new issue, on “Theology and the Arts,” includes articles by Gordon Graham, Bruce Benson, Matthew Milliner (of Millinerd), and yours truly. Our book review editor, WTM, did a fine job of putting together some excellent reviews. Chris has put together a nice list of articles by bloggers in this new issue.

My article, entitled “‘A Pre-Appearance of the Truth’: Toward a Christological Aesthetics,” was given as a paper at the Mid-Atlantic Regional meeting of the AAR on March 2 in Baltimore. While it does not quite live up to the proposal I posted online, I am quite happy with the final product. The article has three sections: (1) first, I examine Eberhard Jüngel’s relational-actualistic ontology of justification in order to elucidate the basic shape of his soteriology; (2) second, I offer a close reading of Jüngel’s essay on the beautiful to see how his soteriology and his theological aesthetics are interrelated; and (3) third, I draw from the comparison between the first two sections insights toward formulating a christological aesthetics rooted in the justifying work of Christ.