Sunday, August 24, 2014

Announcement: AAR Group Sessions - Open and Relational Theologies




Our Open and Relational Theologies group sessions are Saturday and Sunday mornings at AAR.
Below are the details. Please plan to attend!

Theme: John B. Cobb, Jr.: Work and Legacy (co-sponsored with other groups)
Thomas Oord, Northwest Nazarene University, Presiding

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Saturday, Nov. 22 - 9:00 AM-11:30 AM

John B. Cobb, Jr., has exerted extraordinary influence on how scholars think about a wide range of topics. In addition to being a foremost spokesman for process theology, Cobb's work on economics, liberal theology, postmodernism, ecology, Wesleyan theology, politics, metaphysics, feminism, religious pluralism, science and religion, and more is remarkable. Cobb has authored more than 50 books, co-established a major theological center for research, and is recognized around the world as an extraordinary scholar of transdisciplinary studies. His stamp on theology -- especially in America and China -- is indelible. As Cobb nears his 90th birthday (Feb. 2015), this quad-sponsored session honors his intellectual legacy. Panelists explore Cobb's contributions to many subjects, and Cobb will be present in the session to respond.

Panelists:
Philip Clayton, Claremont School of Theology
Catherine Keller, Drew University
Gary J. Dorrien, Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary
Michael Lodahl, Point Loma Nazarene University
Marit Trelstad, Pacific Lutheran University
Jay McDaniel, Hendrix College

Responding:
John B. Cobb, Jr.
Theme: Twentieth Anniversary of Book, The Openness of God (IVP Academic, 1994)
Brenda Colijn, Ashland Theological Seminary, Presiding

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Sunday, Nov. 23 - 9:00 AM-11:30 AM

In 1994, The Openness of God hit bookshelves and created a stir. Co-written by Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker, and David Basinger, the book offered "a biblical challenge to the traditional understanding of God." The position advocated by the co-authors said God grants freedom to humans, is involved in genuine interaction with creation, takes risks, and does not know the future exhaustively. What has come to be called "open theism" was born. Since 1994, the open theism movement has been criticized variously. But open theology has grown and expanded in ways the original authors could have never imagined. It has become one of the major theological options embraced by those in religious academia, in local Christian congregations, in philosophical circles, and has influenced the science and theology discussion. In this session, three of The Openness of God authors and three respondents talk about what has transpired before and after the book was published 20 years ago. The authors reflect on where open theology has come and where it might be going. Respondents address particular questions about open theology's relationship to the Church, the academy, and various sciences.

Panelists:
Richard Rice, Loma Linda University
John Sanders, Hendrix College
David Basinger, Roberts Wesleyan College

Responding:
Bethany Sollereder, University of Exeter
Timothy Moore
Thomas Oord, Northwest Nazarene University

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Business Meeting:
Thomas Oord, Northwest Nazarene University



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Index - Postmodernism & Philosophical Theology






Index to Postmodernism & Philosophical Theology


x

Book Review - The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology, Part 1

Phase III: Christianity's Journey from Modern to Postmodern Theology

Index to Postmodernism and Philosophy

The endless wheel of Postmodernism



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The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology, Part 1



Modernity has been an age of revolutions—political, scientific, industrial and the philosophical. Consequently, it has also been an age of revolutions in theology, as Christians attempt to make sense of their faith in light of the cultural upheavals around them, what Walter Lippman once called the "acids of modernity." Modern theology is the result of this struggle to think responsibly about God within the modern cultural ethos.

In this major revision and expansion of the classic 20th Century Theology(1992), co-authored with Stanley J. Grenz, Roger Olson widens the scope of the story to include a fuller account of modernity, more material on the nineteenth century, and an engagement with postmodernity. More importantly, the entire narrative is now recast in terms of how theologians have accommodated or rejected the Enlightenment and scientific revolutions.

With that question in mind, Olson guides us on the epic journey of modern theology, from the liberal "reconstruction" of theology that originated with Friedrich Schleiermacher, to the post-liberal and postmodern "deconstruction" of modern theology that continues today. The Journey of Modern Theology is vintage Olson: eminently readable, panoramic in scope, at once original and balanced, and marked throughout by a passionate concern for the church's faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This will no doubt become another standard text in historical theology.


Baylor Historical Theologican Roger Olson


The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/08/22/the-acids-of-modernity-and-christian-theology/

by Scot McKnight
Aug 22, 2014

Modern theology is theology done in the context of modernity, which means, in the context of what happened to thinking and culture as a result of the Enlightenment. Modern theology is often a code expression for “liberal” theology, and many ways that might be right. But Roger Olson, in his big book The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction, [has] massively updated [a] book he co-wrote with Stanley Grenz (called Twentieth Century Theology, 1992), spends less time thinking about “liberal” and far more about “modern.”

To get what he’s doing we have to understand what “modernity” is, what one famous American thinker called the “acids” of modernity?

The "acids of modernity..."

- Walter Lippmann' 1929 essay "A Preface to Morals"


"Corrosion is an apt metaphor for the effects of overblown
certainty, legalism, inerrancy, and the insistence on
surely knowing everything. It can eat you alive."

- anon

Olson highlights seven features of modernity, each of which has stronger and weaker forms, so that one must have nuances all over the place if one wishes to be intelligent about this kind of subject. I have spent some of the last year reading about liberal theology, and I see Roger’s book as the best sketch of the big picture we have available today.

So, what is modernity?

1. Rationalism: the omnicompetence of autonomous human reason.

2. Skepticism: an anti-posture toward tradition, especially Christian religious traditions, as beliefs not based on reason.

3. Scientism/naturalism: a belief in the scientific method, on the indubitable realities of the empirical world in contrast to beliefs, and in a worldview that is shaped by naturalism.

4. Secularism: life can be lived best without God and religion. Religion belongs in the private, personal sphere of life.

5. Historicism: everything in history is causally related to other historical events.

6. Optimism: modernity, when lived well, leads to inevitable progress in overcoming misery.

7. Anthropocentrism: humans are at the center of knowing and the center of the universe.

(8.) These elements, when pursued, enable us to pursue progress in society and culture.

Many major modernistic voices — e.g., Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson — have contended that modernity’s march would trod religion, especially Christianity, under foot and it will disappear but Christianity, paradoxically, has flourished in a worldview of modernity.

Modern theology traces how various theologians have accommodated to modernity’s central features. Some have capitulated; many have reacted under the control of modernity. So there is a spectrum from capitulation and subversion all the way to robust reframings of the tradition in more modernistic categories (many would say that is what American Protestant fundamentalism was/is).

Where do you place “progressive Christianity” in this discussion?

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