Christ Event Research Articles

Ecclesia and Ethics: Moral Formation and the Church

The present volume is a collection of 13 papers presented at the inaugural Ecclesia and Ethics conference, a global webinar held in May 2013 organized by (then) Ph.D. students from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Those responsible for organizing the conference also serve as the editors of this publication. The chosen essays evince an array of approaches that attempt to address the problem how the ethical reasoning of Scripture informs ethical decisions of the present-day community of faith, and each makes a pointed effort to demonstrate both cogent exegesis and application to the church.The essays are organized into three parts along methodological lines. Part one collects essays that treat broad “Biblical-Theological Foundations” for ecclesial ethics. For example, Dennis P. Hollinger explores the implications of the creation narrative of Gen 1–2 for ecclesial ethics, concluding that an increased focus on this narrative adds an aspect to ethics in which the church seeks to dignify God’s creation. Part two focuses on implications of virtue ethics for ecclesial ethics, with papers from both Stanley Hauerwas and N. T. Wright. Hauerwas’s essay introduces the reader to the concept of virtue ethics through readings of Aristotle and Aquinas, drawing out how habit forms virtue and how true virtue forms Christian life. Part three contains exegetical essays focused on specific texts and contexts for application. For instance, S. Min Chun reads the story of Gideon-Abimelech for its implications for the context of the Korean church. Chun’s reading of this story against the backdrop of a “church-growth” model of ministry will find application in other, similar contexts as well.Several essays focus on Paul and his ethical teaching. The selective treatment that follows demonstrates the variety of approaches found in the book and how these approaches treat a single scriptural figure. In his chapter, Michael Gorman outlines the centrality of the cross to Paul’s ethic. Gorman reads Phil 2:6–11, rightly, as not only a theological recounting of the Christ event but also an exemplary ethical model in which Christ followers are called to “have the same mind as Christ.” Gorman carries his reading into other Pauline texts (2 Cor 5; Rom 5; 1 Cor 6), demonstrating how the cross, for Paul, models the Christian moral life, namely, in reconciliation. In his own essay, Mark D. Baker utilizes a current method from the field of missiology, the study of bounded, fuzzy, and centered groups, to study the Antioch incident recounted in Gal 2. Bounded groups focus on keeping out persons who pollute the group. Fuzzy groups, on the other hand, remove boundaries from consideration but in the process often remove group identity. Paul, in Gal 2, evinces an approach that maintains a centered identity in Christ, which falls neither into judgementalism nor into relativism.Nijay Gupta takes up the question how Paul thinks of discipleship. Paul does not use the terminology of disciple/discipleship. Instead, Gupta demonstrates, Paul consistently utilizes a doulos-ethic that uses the language of slavery when describing the relation of obedience between the believer and Christ. Gupta offers that a doulos-ethic reading of Paul can be used to nuance, with an increased emphasis on obedience, the discipleship paradigm that is current in many churches today. In perhaps the most thought-provoking essay of the volume, John Frederick couples Paul’s cruciform ethic with his ideology of powers and principalities in Colossians and applies it to the sphere of social media. Arguing effectively for the internet as a power/principality of our age, Frederick uses his reading of Colossians to form a litmus test for Christian attitude and activity in the online world.This volume introduces the reader to major conceptual frameworks from major scholars; it exemplifies direct application to the context of the reader; and it demonstrates careful exegesis of the biblical text. It thus should enjoy a broad readership in both church and academy. The volume is well-edited, and each essay is sure to provoke thought and conversation among its readers.

“Stand Still in The Light”: What Conceptual Metaphor Research Can Tell Us about Quaker Theology

The purpose of this study is to explore how an interdisciplinary approach can benefit Quaker Studies. The paper applies conceptual Metaphor Theory to help explicate aspects of theology in 17th century Quaker writings. It uses a combination of close reading supported by a corpus of related texts to analyse the writing of 4 key figures from the first decade of the movement. Metaphor analysis finds that orientational schemas of UP-DOWN and IN-OUT are essential structural elements in the theological thought of all 4 writers, along with more complex metaphors of BUILDINGS. Quaker writers make novel extensions to and recombinations of Biblical metaphors around Light and Stones, as well as using aspects of the theory of Elements. Such analysis can help explicate nuances of theological meaning-making. The evaluation of DOWN IS GOOD and UP IS BAD—except in specific circumstances—is distinctively Quaker, and embodied metaphors of divine immanence in humans indicate a ‘flipped’ soteriology which is distanced from the Christ event.

"In ancient times, God spoke in different ways to our ancestors and through the prophets": Existential and Ontological Possible Parallels between Yoruba Traditional Religion and the Christ Event

According to Paul, grace is a giftto all through the vicarious suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ (Rom. 5:15–16), grace that was extended to all even when humanity was dead in sin. This provides a framework for a theological reexamination of black Africa's religious traditions. Borrowing from traditional Yoruba religious cosmology, it is argued that pre-missionary religious practices are preparatio evangelium, sacred spaces mediating grace and the birthing of communitarian virtues. With parallels from within this tradition, examined with the Christ event, it is argued further that Christian missionary efforts often demonized traditional religions due to ignorance. The colonial assumption that cultural and religious rituals of Africa are "pagan and uncivilized" animism will be debunked. Parallels can be drawn between the story of Jesus and the religious narratives within and beyond Yoruba traditional cosmogony. This essay concludes that traditional religions of ethnic peoples were already sacred spaces mediating Christ's grace before the advent of the slave raiders, colonialists, or white missionaries. It challenges Euro-American perception and understanding of the religious traditions of Africa as sacred places of Christ's grace, thereby creating grounds for an ecumenical handshake between Christianity and various African traditional religious belief systems.

Liturgy and Secularism: Beyond the Divide by Joris Geldhof

Reviewed by: Liturgy and Secularism: Beyond the Divide by Joris Geldhof Barnaby Hughes Joris Geldhof Liturgy and Secularism: Beyond the Divide Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2018 xviii + 158 pages. Paperback. $29.95. Belgian theologian Joris Geldhof is professor of liturgical studies and sacramental theology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and editor-in-chief of the journal Questions Liturgiques/Studies in Liturgy. Although Geldhof has published numerous articles and edited a few books, Liturgy and Secularism appears to be his first monograph in English. This volume is mostly cobbled together from previously published lectures and articles. This leaves the book with an uneven feel, especially since some parts are translated from French and German. Liturgy and Secularism, nevertheless, is an insightful, thought-provoking and challenging read, one that avoids trite interpretations and facile conclusions. Geldhof brings to bear on his subject a strong sense that it is inadequate and unhelpful to blame secularism and modernity for the challenges of the Church and its liturgy today. Moreover, he argues, there is nothing to be gained by trying to turn back the clock or by prolonging the culture wars. Geldhof has thought deeply about liturgy, secularism and modernity, examining them from diverse angles, including anthropology, philosophy, history of ideas, and liturgical theology. He has structured the work like a diptych, each half divided into three chapters of approximately equal length. While the first half is largely devoid of theology, the second is not. Thus, for liturgical theologians, the second half is apt to be easier reading, while the first more challenging because less familiar. Geldhof's dialogue partners range from Giorgio Agamben and Martin Heidegger to Columba Marmion, Lambert Beauduin, and Alexander Schmemann. [End Page 207] Liturgy and Secularism rightly begins by defining and introducing secularism and modernity through the writings of Charles Taylor and Louis Dupré, respectively. Geldhof purposely chooses not to define liturgy, which he thinks has been ill-served by past definitions. Instead, he appeals to liturgy as mystery, something better understood by means of the imagination. And this leads to one of the author's major themes in this short, dense volume: that we need to shift from an epistemological emphasis to a soteriological one. Hopefully this will become clearer in what follows. Geldhof takes seriously this work's subtitle, Beyond the Divide. In the first chapter, he briefly breaks down four antagonisms: Church and world, heaven and earth, cult and culture, and religion and politics. In the third chapter, Geldhof examines the dichotomy sacred and profane, and distinguishes between the sacred and the holy. These are subtle arguments that require close attention. Modernity, he argues, is not a radical desacralization (the sacred disappears), but a profound resacralization (the sacred appears differently). In other words, "modern human beings might recognize the sacred … but they presuppose that it is the human mind which is at the origin of the sacred. For they have practically excluded all the other players in the domain of being" (65–66). The major problem with modernity, Geldhof contends, is not epistemological (proving God's existence), but soteriological ("recognition of the need for grace and salvation," 69). What does any of this have to do with the liturgy? Still in the book's first half, the author contends that modern human beings need to experience a profound conversion. In the words of Dupré, this conversion must be to "an attitude in which there is enough leisure for wonder and enough detachment for transcendence" (68). In the second half of Liturgy and Secularism, Geldhof argues "that the liturgy has an unmistakable desacralizing dimension. Not only does it fail to coincide with natural sacredness, it puts it under critique. It does not do so, however, in a defying, repudiating, or derogatory mode, but with a clear invitation to join in the soteriological dynamic of the Christ event. In other words, it sanctifies" (85). Thus, the liturgy breaks down the distinction between the [End Page 208] sacred and the profane, because it sanctifies all, making everyone and everything holy. In the only chapter comprised of entirely unpublished material, Geldhof highlights the complexity of the liturgy with reference to the Mystical Body of Christ and to mystery theology generally. He does...

Repetition in Hebrews: Plurality and Singularity in the Letter to the Hebrews, Its Ancient Context, and the Early Church

Repetition in Hebrews: Plurality and Singularity in the Letter to the Hebrews, Its Ancient Context, and the Early Church

Gospel Formation and the Catalytic Corrective


 
 
 Burton Mack’s Myth of Innocence delves into the nebulous territory of earliest Christianities with a reformer’s zeal and an academic’s rigour. Confronting a paucity of primary documentation and a scholarly obsession over the historical Jesus, Mack attempts to change the popular and academic vision of Christian origins with what he describes as “a single shift in perspective”: looking at the Gospel of Mark not to study the indelible uniqueness of the Christ Event, but to uncover the social histories of the document and its existence as a social charter.1 Thus, Mack turns to social-historical methodology (and nuanced literary criticism) in order to elucidate the social traditions and interests underpinning the Gospel of Mark,2 and to illustrate how the gospel’s careful craftsmanship informs scholarly and Church traditions of Christianity’s novel origins. Mack argues that Mark’s gospel was a charter document for his community, functioning as an authorizing defence amidst c.70 CE social upheaval, persecution, and perceptions of failure.
 
 

La christologie comme clé d’une théologie « post-substitutive » du judaïsme après Nostra ætate

Depuis la Déclaration Nostra ætate de Vatican II, les théologiens chrétiens ont proposé divers modèles pour une nouvelle perspective chrétienne sur le peuple juif et la permanence de sa relation d’alliance avec Dieu après la venue du Christ. Ces modèles pouvaient originellement être classés en deux catégories fondamentales connues sous le nom d’unique et de double Alliance. Plus récemment, des efforts ont été entrepris pour trouver de nouvelles voies d’articulation des liens aussi bien que des spécificités des juifs et des chrétiens. Une christologie incarnationnelle semble fournir le meilleur fondement à cette quête au sein du christianisme, surtout depuis que plusieurs chercheurs juifs se sont engagés dans une recherche similaire au sein du judaïsme.

(Confessional) Lutheran perspectives on the unity of the church

From personal experience, this article shares to what degree the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria was and continues to be a gateway to the future, challenging among others the divisions that characterise the Church of Christ worldwide. The article argues that for the 16th-century Reformers the unity of the church was a given and that the (Lutheran) confessions were written to establish such a unity through agreement in confession and joint rejection of false doctrines. However, such statements of faith did not overcome the divisions, but institutionalised them, leading to a divided Church of Christ. Political intervention to work unity between Lutherans and Reformers deepened divisions more than ever, leading among others to a break of fellowship at the Lord’s Supper. Applying Luther’s hermeneutical principle of was Christum treibet (what drives Christ), the author seeks to rediscover a way of interpreting Scripture by focusing not on literal differences, but on that which is foundational to Scripture, namely the Christ event. This is applied in particular to the topic of table fellowship and divisions in Corinth with regard to the Lord’s Supper, addressed in 1 Corinthians 11, culminating in a critical deconstruction of past practices in confessional Lutheran churches. In view of doctrinal differences, a hermeneutics of conversation is proposed that can vigorously debate differences of understanding, without threatening the unity that is worked by Christ himself.

Chrystologia filozoficzna Erica Voegelina

The aim of this article is to investigate philosophical Christology in the works of Eric Voegelin. It seems that for Voegelin, in the person of Jesus Christ the so-called metaleptical structure of consciousness along with divine reality became luminous as present in every human being. What is more, divine reality (self-)revealed in the event of Christ as an eschatological movement of transfiguration. But the Voegelinian Christ is not the hypostatic union of God and man, but the full presence of divine reality in the consciousness of a man named Jesus. I conclude that Voegelinian Christology points to conditions of God’s revelation: the appearance of God is limited by the metaleptical structure of consciousness and his own transcendence.

Reading Galatians 6:16 in line with Paul’s contrast between the new aeon in Christ and the old aeon before the Christ event

This contribution argues for viewing ‘the Israel of God’ in Galatians 6:16 as pointing to God’s people in the previous aeon before the Christ event. Prevalent interpretations of Galatians 6:16 are critiqued in view of the prevalent connotations to the terms Ἰσραὴλ and Ἰουδαῖος in the post-exilic period, Paul’s understanding of the fulfilment of Israel’s messianic hope, and the way in which Paul redefines identity in Christ and the Spirit. Galatians 6:16 is read with the third καί as a normal copulative (not epexegetically), constituting a contrast of the old aeon before or outside of Christ in the “flesh’” under the law with the new aeon in Christ and the Spirit in Galatians and beyond.

그리스도의 현현 사건으로서의 예배 - 기독론적 예배신학을 위한 연구 -

본 연구는 기독교 예배에 대한 신학적 이해를 기독론에 입각하여 정립하기 위한 하나의 시도이다. 신론 중심의 현대 신학의 흐름 속에서 기독교 예배는 우주적이며, 보편적인 하나님 이해의 신학에 기초하여 ‘하나님과 인간 간의 만남’으로서 이해되어 온다. 이러한 이해는 기독교 예배를 일반 종교적 제의들의 영역으로 포함시켜, 보다 풍성한 예배의 이해와 실천의 가능성을 열어주었다. 그러나 기독교 예배에 대한 보편적 접근이 강화될 때, 기독교 예배가 지닌 신학적 특성이 약화되거나 간과되곤 한다. 따라서 본 연구는 기독교 예배가 지닌 신학적 특수성이 무엇인지를 재고하면서 기독론적 예배 신학을 정립하려 한다. 이를 위해 본 연구는 기독교 예배를 ‘그리스도의 현현 사건’으로 정의한다. 그리스도의 현현은 일반 종교적 제의들에서 추구하는 신과의 연접과 차별되는 예배의 신학적 측면으로서, 기독교 예배는 말씀해 오시는 하나님의 주권적이며 선행적인 자기 계시의 사건, 곧 그리스도의 사건으로 촉발되는 현상이다. 동시에 하나님의 주권적인 자기 계시의 사건은 교회로 세상 속에 존재케 하는 사건을 발생시킨다. 이러한 하나님의 주권적 자기 계시를 통한 예배의 이중적 사건성은 기독교 예배를 기독론에 정초한 신학 위에 올려 놓는다. 기독교 예배의 규범은 말씀으로 예배 공동체에 임재하시는 그리스도이시며, 예배의 권위는 그리스도의 현현에 있다. 그리스도에 정초한 기독교 예배는 예배 공동체로 하여금 예수 그리스도의 진리의 말씀과 삶을 송축하며 기뻐하는 그리스도의 윤리 공동체로 세운다. 나아가 그리스도의 현현 사건으로서의 기독교 예배는 세상 한 가운데 진리의 말씀인 그리스도의 임재를 소망하고 기원하는[epiklesis] 교회의 실천이 된다. 따라서 기독교 예배에 대한 기독론적 신학은 예배를 기독교 신학의 특수성인 하나님의 계시 사건에 정초되게 하고 교회로 하여금 세상과의 긴장 관계 속에서 그리스도의 윤리 공동체로 세워져가도록 도울 수 있다. 이러한 연구의 전망을 가지고 본 논문은 기독교 예배의 정체성과 기능, 그 실천적 방향을 재고하고자 한다.

Inhabiting the “Resurrectiform” God: Death and Life as Theological Headline in Paul

Scholarly evaluations of how Paul interpreted the ‘Christ event’ within his arguments routinely compartmentalize the crucifixion and the resurrection, placing the weight of emphasis on the former. Whilst never explicitly denying the critical significance of the resurrection, the appraisals of certain commentators often seem to limit the import of the event to a vindication of Jesus’ ministry, in view of its seemingly ignominious climax. The Pauline lexicon of revivification, however, makes the validity of such a stance questionable and opens the possibility that both elements of the Christ event influenced Pauline thought in ways obscured by the tendency to undervalue the implications of Jesus’ resurrection. A consideration of the distribution and functionality of the ‘death and life’ language in the Pauline corpus, illustrates the weightiness which the apostle attaches to the concept of death reversed by life. By applying such an understanding to 2 Corinthians, this paper will consider how readings of Paul might be enhanced by reassessing the impact of death and new life operating in tandem.

Genuine Humanity

Genuine Humanity

<i>Imitatio Christi</i> and the holy folly of divine violence: The church as ultimate criminal

The calling of the church is to follow Christ ( imitatio Christi ). What does this calling entail? Following Žižek’s and Derrida’s interpretation of Benjamin’s interpretation of law and violence, the paper will argue that the call to follow Christ is not to subvert the law, but as Paul argues - Christ came to destroy the law. In this article, Christ will be interpreted as one who did not counter this violence of the law (state-maintaining violence) with a counter violence of state-forming violence, but completely undermined the justification of both forms of violence (state-forming and state-maintaining) with a divine violence. If the Christ event is read as an exemplary narrative of the post-metaphysics in the linguistic turn in the work of Derrida, this opens up new possibilities for both theology as well as the role of the church within the context of a postmodern world, and these possibilities will be explored.

An Unlikely Retelling of the Incarnation Through Faerie and Pop Culture: Ernest Saves Christmas

A goofy Christmas flick makes an oblique reference to Christ, raising the question of what, if anything, Santa Claus, elves, and Christmas kitsch have to do with Christ's incarnation and nativity. I suggest that, through the vehicle of fairy-story, the film Ernest Saves Christmas, does, in fact, shed light on matters of belief, miracles, and morality – matters central to the incarnation. Even as told by Hollywood, Santa Claus is a fairy-story borrowing wonder and mystery from the Christ event itself.

Participation in Christ: An Analysis of Pauline Soteriology

Paul’s conception and description of God’s soteriological enterprise continues to be a prominent focal point in constructions of the apostle’s theology. The present essay attempts to provide an outline of this aspect of Pauline theology from inception to corporate participation. The essay is comprised of three parts: (1) an extended examination of the definition of Paul’s gospel; (2) a brief analysis of the way in which the gospel relates to Paul’s own self-presentation; and (3) a few concluding thoughts concerning the way Paul extends his conception of the gospel to the ecclesial community. The primary argument of the essay develops a construction of the participatory nature of Pauline soteriology, building on the notion that the prophetic scope of Paul’s gospel compels the apostle to understand both his own ministry and Christian theology in terms of a participation in the new creation inaugurated within the Christ event.

‘Do not quench the Spirit!’ The discourse of the Holy Spirit in earliest Christianity

The Trinitarian discourse of the 4th and 5th centuries grew out of earlier developments, whilst at the same time reflecting a renewal over against the language of the earliest Christian sources. This article reflects on the way in which early Christianity thought about the Holy Spirit and developed a new discourse on the basis of earlier, Jewish traditions. It situates the development of the idea of the Holy Spirit as God’s presence in past and present within the social history of the developing Christian movement, and shows how this idea was connected to the concept of apostolic succession. Thus, emerging Christianity legitimised itself and its social structures by the theology of the Holy Spirit. Its message was presented as old instead of new, as the Holy Spirit had foretold the Christ event. Its organisation was seen as divinely inspired, because its leaders were thought to be endowed with the Spirit. In this development, the narrative of Luke-Acts has thoroughly influenced the way in which Christianity developed a new discourse to present itself as old.

The Receding Sea of Catholic Faith: Collective Memory and Common Worship

This article offers an interpretation of ongoing changes in Catholic worship as seen in relation to the whole process of ecclesial reception of Vatican II in a changing world. The context is a weakening of common Catholic identity and collective memory. The reasons for this are explored, as well as the reasons why participation in Church life waned. As other changes took place, the implementation of the liturgical renewal mandated by Vatican II meant a transition for many from a ritual of devotion to active participation in liturgical ritual. The difficulties inherent to such ritual change are discussed and placed in relation to the deeper cultural and historical challenges to keeping memory of the Christ Event. New modes of expressing collective memory and collective identity are now being sought. There is no single path to follow; some look to a retrieval of popular piety and some to an interpersonal search for truth through scriptural reflection. This latter is often done in different kinds of small communities, allowing attention to be given to the personal and social quest of participants, to freedom of expression and to the cultural diversity of interpretation. This appeal to different modes of prayer has implications for the ongoing development of common worship and the retrieval of a common memory.

Jesus as ‘The One who Entered his Rest’: The Christological Reading of Hebrews 4.10

This article argues that in Heb. 4.10 the substantival aorist participle ὁ εἰσελθών should be translated ‘the one who entered’, and that its implied subject is Christ; it further suggests that, understood this way, this verse coheres with Hebrews’ strong emphasis on the completed nature of Christ’s salvific work, expressed in particular with the image of Christ’s enthronement or session using Ps. 110.1. The article thus challenges the view that the rest motif in Heb. 3–4 is purely a ‘sermon illustration’ with no connection to the strong Christology pervading the rest of the letter; additionally it underscores the creativity with which the author expresses the sufficiency of the Christ event, and strengthens the proximity of the motifs of entering rest and entering the heavenly sanctuary.

N. T. Wright's Great Story and Its Relationship to Paul's Gospel

From his own study of the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism, N. T. Wright reconstructs what he calls "the great story" of God's relationship to the created order, to the human race, and to Israel. His insistence that Paul's gospel of the crucified and risen Messiah is to be interpreted within the framework of this threefold great story employs an approach that is contrary to Paul's own: Paul understands God's relationship to the creation, to humankind, and to Israel within the framework of the gospel rather than the reverse as claimed by Wright. Paul's approach is a function of his apocalyptic understanding of the Christ event as God's eschatological invasion of the human cosmos to effect its liberation from evil powers. Wright fails to do sufficient justice to this and other aspects of Paul apocalyptic theology, particularly as this comes to expression in Galatians.