Theological Movement Research Articles

Liturgy and Biblical Interpretation: The Sanctus and the Qedushah by Sebastian Selvén

Reviewed by: Liturgy and Biblical Interpretation: The Sanctus and the Qedushah by Sebastian Selvén Michael Gabizon sebastian selvén, Liturgy and Biblical Interpretation: The Sanctus and the Qedushah (Reading the Scriptures; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2021). Pp. viii + 233. $55.99. Sebastian Selvén's monograph is part of the Reading the Scriptures series published by Notre Dame Press, a series that explores the intersection between biblical studies and theology. S.'s contribution to the series focuses on the role of liturgy in the broader field of reception history; as he writes, "Liturgy is, among other things, an experienced biblical interpretation" (p. 2). Through an assessment of Isa 6:1–5 in the Qedushot and the Sanctus,S. demonstrates how the study of liturgy provides a lens through which to view historical interpretive traditions (i.e., how certain Scriptures have been understood by different communities) as well as how liturgy continues to shape contemporary interpretations of the text. Following a two-part introduction, in which S. explores the nature of liturgy as well as the structure of the Qedushot and the Sanctus, the next three chapters explore three interpretations [End Page 488] related to Isa 6:1–5 that have been influenced by liturgical traditions: the identity of the seraphim, the concept of holiness, and the divine presence of God. In chap. 1, S. argues that liturgy has largely shaped the conventional understanding that the seraphim from Isa 6:1–3 are celestial beings, thus resulting in the later creation of angelic hierarchies by religious communities. Following a textual analysis of the word "seraphim" in Scripture, whereby he demonstrates that the most consistent definition of the Hebrew word is "snakes," S. proposes that the identification of seraphim as angels was influenced by early Jewish liturgy. In Qedusha deYotzer, for example, Isa 6:1–3 is read alongside Ezekiel 1–3, which recounts Ezekiel's interaction with heavenly figures; this intertextual link requires some form of harmonization between the biblical texts (p. 32). In turn, S. argues that the connection between the two passages has affected the interpretation of Isa 6:1–3 and the study of angels generally: "The received understanding of what they [the seraphim] are has to a large extent been shaped by how they are presented in Jewish and Christian liturgy, and the theological background of these liturgies" (p. 31). S. further explores the development of angelology through both traditions, and he argues that the ramifications of grouping Isa 6:1–3 with Ezekiel 1–3 in Qedusha deYotzer continue to shape biblical interpretations of the seraphim today. Indeed, S. posits that the "resistance towards describing them [the seraphim] as serpents" reflects centuries of conditioned readings through church art and liturgical texts (p. 58). The example of the seraphim, then, reveals one way the study of liturgy develops our understanding of historical biblical interpretation: "Liturgy actualizes and prioritizes certain passages, strings them together in different ways, and in this kaleidoscopic reconfiguration of texts, certain meanings emerge from them" (p. 123). In chap. 2, S. focuses specifically on the thrice-holy cry of the seraphim, questioning whether this short pericope originally functioned as a celestial hymn to evoke awe, or as a warning to instill fear (p. 58). Although he argues that the purpose of Isa 6:3 is unclear, he proposes that the standard categorization of the thrice-holy cry as celestial liturgy originates from the very role of Isa 6:3 in Jewish and Christian traditions. In other words, since this passage is used for liturgical purposes in some religious communities, the qedusha became "something possessing its own ontological integrity: a liturgy, performed by the celestial beings, taking place in the heavens" (p. 70). In this case, S. again demonstrates how liturgical traditions shape biblical interpretation. S. also posits that the spotlight placed on Isa 6:3, and in turn the emphasis on "holy," has influenced theological movements in various traditions, including the holiness movement of the twentieth century (pp. 77–79). Since liturgies naturally determine which Scriptures become important or central for communities, they inevitably mold the theological movements who engage with such traditional readings. In chap. 3, S. discusses...

Sebestyén Jenő, a történelmi kálvinizmus és a Soli Deo Gloria Református Diákszövetség

"Jenő Sebestyén (1884–1950), the Historical Calvinism, and the Soli Deo Gloria Student Alliance. This paper aims to give an introduction into the origins of Jenő Sebestyén’s theological movement, the “Historical Calvinism”, while it discusses Sebestyén’s formative role in the creation and later development of the Soli Deo Gloria Student Alliance (SDG). Historical Calvinism can be understood as the Hungarian adaptation of Abraham Kuyper’s (1837–1920) Neo-Calvinism. Following Dutch examples, Sebestyén inspired his students, especially Zoltán Töltéssy (1900–1932), at the Budapest Reformed Seminary to form a confessional-minded student movement in order to serve the evangelization of the Youth and the spiritual renewal of the Reformed Church in Hungary in the 1920s. Soon, the SDG would become widely popular among high school and university students, attain the support of the church officials, and pursue many debates with the inter-confessional student missionary organizations. Keywords: Abraham Kuyper, Neo-Calvinism, Historical Calvinism, Jenő Sebestyén, Soli Deo Gloria Student Alliance (SDG), Zoltán Töltéssy "

Panentheism and Process Theism

This article examines the relationship between the concept of panentheism and process theism, a theological movement inspired by the philosophies of A. N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Following a brief account of process thought, process theism is defined in terms of two key claims: 1) God is essentially dynamic and interrelated with the world, rather than changeless and independent of the world; and 2) divine power is essentially persuasive rather than coercive. The article argues that process theism, so understood, is readily interpreted as panentheism. For process panentheism, God’s ‘primordial’ and ‘consequent’ natures trace a flow of God into each creature and each creature into God. The article concludes by suggesting ‘apophatic panentheism’ as one attractive approach to process theology.

Teaching Phillis Wheatley Peters through Black Liberation Theology

This essay argues that it is productive to teach Phillis Wheatley Peters through the framework of Black liberation theology, an exegetical tradition that understands the Bible to be a liberatory text and God as siding with the oppressed. While Dr. James Cone—inspired by theological movements in Latin America, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X—named this school of thought in the late 1960s, its existence as an interpretative practice and form of life predates Cone's naming by at least two hundred years. Approaching Wheatley Peters's work from this vantage, I show, enables us to teach students how she's challenging and reordering the reining taxonomies of her era. This approach thus scaffolds students away from their most common misreadings of Wheatley as an accommodationist on the one hand, or a savvy manipulator of religious discourse on the other. Black liberation theology also helps us move students beyond their overreliance on irony/sarcasm as an explanatory framework by providing a heuristic that's grounded in late eighteenth-century racial, theological, and sociopolitical tensions.

The Bible and Catholic Ressourcement: Essays on Scripture and Theology by William M. Wright IV

Reviewed by: The Bible and Catholic Ressourcement: Essays on Scripture and Theology by William M. Wright IV Jeffrey L. Morrow william m. wright iv, The Bible and Catholic Ressourcement: Essays on Scripture and Theology (Renewal within Tradition; Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2020). Pp. 250. $43. William Wright has published a wonderful collection of essays that are concerned with reading the Bible both historically and theologically. The majority of the essays focus more on method, whereas the last three engage the biblical texts themselves. W. divides his work [End Page 167] into roughly three parts: the first three chapters examine the biblical thinking and work of three Catholic theologians whom W. identifies as Ressourcement theologians but who are more often referred to as informal members of La Nouvelle théologie, the term first used of them by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange: Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, and Joseph Ratzinger/ Pope Benedict XVI. Chapters 4–7 focus more exclusively on Ratzinger/Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth trilogy. The final three chapters apply the sort of biblical hermeneutics covered thus far, represented by de Lubac, Congar, and Ratzinger/Benedict, to specific texts: John 6:1–21 (chap. 8); the use of Psalm 69 in John's Gospel (chap. 9); and John 8:12–20. This focus on John's Gospel is not surprising since W. wrote his Emory University doctoral dissertation on John 9 (published as Rhetoric and Theology: Figural Reading of John 9 [BZNW 165; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009]). Wright articulates the theme of his volume as "the interpretation of Scripture in relation to the movement in recent Catholic theology known as the Ressourcement" (p. 1). The figures in this movement were the thinkers involved in the liturgical, patristic, and biblical renewal efforts that played a foundational role in the work of ressourcement, or retrieval, a going back to the sources, that led to the Second Vatican Council, which was also known for its other emphasis on aggiornamento (updating). In chap. 1 ("Patristic Exegetical Theory and Practice in de Lubac and Congar"), W. examines how de Lubac and Congar approached patristic exegesis as having perennial value. In chap. 2 ("The Literal Sense of Scripture according to Henri de Lubac: Insights from Patristic Exegesis of the Transfiguration"), W. looks more closely at de Lubac's discussion of patristic exegesis, focusing on the concrete example of the Gospel accounts of Jesus's transfiguration. W. describes the way de Lubac engaged the early Christian exegesis of Origen, Jerome, and Augustine. Important for W. is understanding de Lubac's nuanced appreciation for the work of historical biblical criticism while at the same time embracing Maurice Blondel's critique of such exegesis. In chap. 3 ("Echoes of Biblical Apocalyptic in the Encyclical Teaching of Benedict XVI"), W. looks to Ratzinger/Benedict, drawing attention to what he refers to as Ratzinger/ Benedict's "biblical apocalypticism" in his papal encyclicals: "Benedict's analysis of the Church's present moment echoes the apocalyptic motif of a present crisis in which the people of God are caught up in a dramatic conflict with an antagonizing opposition. . . . Benedict positions atheistic humanism as instantiating the apocalyptic figure of the false prophet. . . . Benedict emphasizes the Church's Christoform witness of charity-in-truth as the way to confront these antagonistic accounts of humanism" (pp. 61–62). The significance that Ratzinger/Benedict clearly holds for W. is most evident in the four chapters (4–7) he devotes to the three volumes of Jesus of Nazareth: chap. 4, "A 'New Synthesis': Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Volume 1"; chap. 5, "Pre-Gospel Traditions and Post-Critical Interpretation in Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Volume 2; chap. 6, "Living with the Word of God: The Holy Family in Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives"; chap. 7, "Patristic Biblical Hermeneutics in Benedist XVI's Jesus of Nazareth." W. argues that Jesus of Nazareth demonstrates the kind of exegesis Ratzinger/Benedict thinks should be done. W.'s comment about vol. 1 applies just as well as to how he views the entire trilogy: "It is a genuine exercise in Ressourcement theology" (p. 113), wherein, as he explains in chap. 7, "Benedict's theological presentation . . . is identical with his...

Methodist Christology: From the Wesleys to the Twenty-First Century

All too often Methodist theology can fall into one of two camps. On the one hand, it can become a scholastic (better still, encyclopaedic, in the unlovely sense of that word) engagement with the thought of the Wesleys—repeating them with an ever greater exactitude and believing that to do so is to fulfil the task of theology, speaking as if the gulf of nearly 300 years to the present did not exist and was of no importance. On the other hand, Methodist theology can act in such a manner as to believe that gulf so insurmountable (never mind the 1,700 years of theology preceding it) that we should proceed as if we were working always with a novum—reinventing the theological bicycle with engagements that owe more to creative writing than serious engagement with the theological traditions. This volume of serious historical, dogmatic, doctrinal, systematic, contextual, and constructive engagements is not only important, therefore, in terms of its discussion of Christology but also in moving Methodist theology in general beyond the unhelpful binarized forms it so often takes. Here, tradition and history are explored and taken seriously but neither viewed through the chilly light of scientific historicism, nor treated as a museum piece to be treasured and preserved at all costs. And the theological enterprises that follow engage in a manner that brings the tradition(s) to life in dialogue with other major theological movements, dealing formatively with the contours of Methodist thought on Christology in relation to a variety of figures, movements, contexts, and theologians. False dichotomies of the constructive or the systematic, the dogmatic or the creative, the historical or the theological are finally put to bed. This is a volume whose significance is far beyond the essays it contains on Christology.Vickers and Van Kuiken have assembled an excellent cast of (North American) authors to tackle questions relating to Christology. Identifying the centrality of Christology to the Christian faith (and Methodism more specifically) and the contested ground on which Christological dogmas sit, the essays are arranged into three sections: first, an historical discussion of the Wesleys, the early Methodists, and the nineteenth-century Methodist dogmaticians; second, a focus on the twentieth century and Methodist engagements with Christology in this century (albeit the choices of figures are a little narrow perhaps); and third, a series of essays on the future of Methodist Christologies, including discussion of womanist, feminist, Latina/o, and Christologies ‘after’ significant figures or movements.If I were to be (overly) critical, it might have been good to see some more biblical engagement, and to consider the significant contributions that have been made by Methodist scholars (perhaps dominantly this side of ‘the Pond’) to New Testament Christology: Morna Hooker, James Dunn, and C. K. Barrett all spring to mind. And, as is all too often the case (in our theology), the essays lacked much detail on the preceding context that leads to the Wesleys: chapters on the Reformation and on Patristic Christologies as context for the first section would have helped. But only so much can be done in any volume. And this one is a tremendous achievement of first-rate theological endeavour.

Islamic Radicalism: History and a Case Study in the Indonesia Context

In the history of Islam, in the classical era, radicalism has existed, so it is not a new phenomenon in the modern age. Since the time of the Caliph Umar radicalism has emerged, but not yet organized, only in the time of the Caliph Ali bin Abu Talib this movement began to be systemized and organized through a Khawarij theological movement with its radical and uncompromising understanding of various acts of violence to oppose the tahkim or arbitration between the caliphs. Ali ibn Abi Talib and Muawiyah. Arbitration takes place in the context of the Shiffin war in which the khawarij group considers those who agreed to deviate from Islamic teachings. Later in Cairo an organization that had the same characteristics as the khawarij emerged, who wanted the authenticity of the teachings of Islam in the form of literal interpretation, without compromise, softening or reduction or reinterpretation. In filling out theological studies related to radicalism, this research was made to analyze "The relationship between radical genealogists in the classical period and the contemporary era in interpreting the Qur'an literally" At the end of the analysis will discuss the deconstruction of jihad as an effort to explain the meaning of jihad from various paradigms.

Rethinking the Integrative Dimension of Theology with Science: Syntheses and Congruences

If we want to define today's society in one word, trying to capture its meaning, it would be polarization. The interdependence between all social segments, articulated by globalization, has a double function: unpacking the identitary elements that enter in the structure of society (religion, politics, culture, science, etc.) and framing them in a relational dynamic. In this situation are Theology and Science, which, of course, maintain a number of components under their general names. Can we talk about a congruence between these two dimensions of human knowledge? Or they are developing completely separately and antagonistic in social progress? According to Ian G. Barbour there are four types of relation between Science and Religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, integration. This article intends to highlight the congruence between Theology and Science in the paradigm of neo-patristic synthesis , which explores in a phenomenological, theological and philosophical way the relationship between these two. Neo-patristic synthesis is a theological movement from the 20th century, generated by the initiative of the orthodox theologian G. Florovsky.

Contextual Theology as Heritage Formation: Moluccan Culture, Christianity, and Identity

Abstract This article uses the case of Moluccan Protestantism to argue that contextual theology is not merely a postcolonial theological movement, but in some cases also can be understood as part of a larger post-independence political nation-building project of heritage formation. I show how in two key political periods the interests of the Moluccan Protestant church (GPM) and the Indonesian government coalesced. The word ‘heritage’ is central to the Moluccan contextual discourse, and the development of contextual theology resembles practices of heritage formation, being a controlled political process of careful selection of cultural forms, aimed at a sense of ‘authentic’ local identity. The development of a Moluccan contextual theology partakes in the socio-political effort of preservation of Moluccan cultural heritage. At the same time, and paradoxically, the heritage frame in which Moluccan contextual theology is embedded, also hinders the theological goal of contextualization. This article is based on anthropological research into Moluccan theology. Its innovative contribution and relevance lies in the interdisciplinary postcolonial perspective, that understands Moluccan contextual theology as both a theological exercise of inculturation and as a religious expression of Indonesia’s heritage politics.

Justification by Race: Wesley Swift’s White Supremacy and Anti-Semitic Theological Views in His Christian Identity Sermons

This article explores the discourses of Minister Wesley Albert Swift (1913–1970), one of the original and leading proponents of Christian Identity, a racial theology movement which emerged in the United States after World War II. It is not the aim of this study to analyze the discourse of Christian Identity as an isolated element, but to understand its interrelation with the political-religious culture of the country during the 1950s and 1960s. Christian Identity rhetoric may be understood based on its socio-historical context. During the formulative years of Christian Identity, nuclear anxieties, along with the fear of Communist infiltration, were deeply present within the white supremacist and their anti-Semitic views. At the same time, the civil rights movement of African Americans stimulated violent white supremacy politics and rhetoric by the extreme right. Combining the white hegemonic fear of minority advances in American society, Christian Identity was created as a cult for the racist right. As such, it attempted to legitimized white supremacy and perpetuate the Judeo-Communist Conspiracy myth. Race — as a biological issue that reflects the spiritual essence of a person — is the central element of anthropology built by Christian Identity, which claims the white race was literally created in the image of God. Therefore, they argue, it is the only race predestined for salvation. As an expression of an extreme Calvinist world view, Wesley Swift constructed a Christian theology that ideologically unified different political strategies of the postwar extreme right, which continues to this day.

African Christian Inculturation Project: Theological Motifs of Liberation and Decolonization

This paper discusses the African Christian theology of inculturation. The theology of inculturation – the African indigenization of Christianity – is one of the African theological movements advocating for the liberation and decolonization of African religious, cultural, and political thought. It is a theological motif that emerged from the African experience of suffering and political and cultural denigration under European colonialism. This paper argues that the African theology of inculturation is a theological outlook that addresses African political, spiritual, and social conditions in the post-colonial era. It is modest and transformative because it offers hope to Africans and empowers them to seek positive change and inclusion, while rejecting a narrative of religious and cultural dominance. It demands recognition of Africa and its cultures by the West as an equal stakeholder in Christ’s victory on the cross. The African theology of inculturation expresses a unique African response to the gospel of salvation; in other words, Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted in line with African values, which situate Christian theology in the African cultural and cosmological worldview. The African cosmological worldview takes African indigenous cultures and philosophy as instruments that explain to Africans the relationship between Christianity and the realities of political and religious life in Africa.

African Christian Inculturation Project: Theological Motifs of Liberation and Decolonization

This paper discusses the African Christian theology of inculturation. The theology of inculturation – the African indigenization of Christianity – is one of the African theological movements advocating for the liberation and decolonization of African religious, cultural, and political thought. It is a theological motif that emerged from the African experience of suffering and political and cultural denigration under European colonialism. This paper argues that the African theology of inculturation is a theological outlook that addresses African political, spiritual, and social conditions in the post-colonial era. It is modest and transformative because it offers hope to Africans and empowers them to seek positive change and inclusion, while rejecting a narrative of religious and cultural dominance. It demands recognition of Africa and its cultures by the West as an equal stakeholder in Christ’s victory on the cross. The African theology of inculturation expresses a unique African response to the gospel of salvation; in other words, Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted in line with African values, which situate Christian theology in the African cultural and cosmological worldview. The African cosmological worldview takes African indigenous cultures and philosophy as instruments that explain to Africans the relationship between Christianity and the realities of political and religious life in Africa.

The Solved Conflict: Pope Francis and Liberation Theology

The battle for meaning and influence between Latin American liberations theologians and the Vatican was one of the most significant conflicts in the global Catholic church of the twentieth century. With the election of the Argentinean Jorge Mario Bergoglio as head of the global church in 2013, the question about the legacy of liberation theology was actualized. The canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the pope’s approximation to the public figure of Gustavo Gutiérrez signaled a new approach to the liberation theology movement in the Vatican. This article argues that Pope Francis shares some of the main theological concerns as pontiff with liberation theology. Although the pope remains an outsider to liberation theology, he has in a sense solved the conflict between the Vatican and the Latin American social movement. Through an analysis of ecclesial documents and theological literature, his can be discerned on three levels. First, Pope Francis’ use of certain theological ideas from liberation theology has been made possible and less controversial by post-cold war contexts. Second, Pope Francis has contributed to the solution of this conflict through significant symbolic gestures rather than through a shift of official positions. Third, as Pope Francis, the Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio has appropriated certain elements that are specific to liberation theology without acknowledging his intellectual debt to it.

Os presbiterianos na Colômbia (1856-1993): uma visão histórica através de sua culto, liturgia e templos

This article explores, through a historical view of worship, liturgy, and temples, how the Presbyterian Church was established and contextualized to Colombia, facing symbolic struggles in an environment of confrontation and differentiation, first with the Catholic Church and then with the theological movements within the Protestant world, from its establishment in the mid-19th century to its consolidation in the 20th century. This exploration takes place through bibliographic and documentary research, and an analysis of the development of worship, liturgy and temples, allowing us to glimpse the changes and permanence in the imaginaries, representations and practices that materialized in the church’s institutions and discourses, and that impacted all the spheres of its reality. These changes were the product of the hermeneutical work of reading the Bible to make it relevant to its context.

HIJRA, BETWEEN SOCIOLOGICAL AND THEOLOGICAL PHENOMENON

This study examines the Hijrah group in Indonesia as a social and theological movement. Except to be a role model, Hijrah is also interpreted as an effort to get closer to Allah. Today, the understanding of the Hijrah values seems to have shifted and formed a polarization of ignorance in religion with the exclusivity of the group's reason. Hijrah principally is not just a matter of strengthening the religious values symbolically, but also the mission of building an open mind on social and religious plurality. This study uses a literary method and phenomenological descriptive and the socio-theological reason approach of Muhammed Arkoun. The results show that a reason can be formed by a structural systematization model of a group. Hijrah is seen as shifting religious labeling, only existing in the crowd that eventually creates a logical deadlock and forms a new social class. As a result, it is clear that the Hijrah group does not offer individual independence but gives birth to a generation with exclusive minded.

A Study on the Liberation Theology Movement: The Case of Latin America

Katolik Hıristiyanlığın hakim olduğu Latin Amerika kıtasında 1960’lı yıllarda insanların sosyo-ekonomik haklarını savunan Kurtuluş Teolojisi (Liberation Theology) hareketi ortaya çıkmıştır. Söz konusu teoloji, manevi kurtuluştan (salvation) çok dünyevi kurtuluşu (sosyal ve ekonomik) hedeflemesi açısından Roma Katolik Kilisesi’nden farklılaşmaktadır. Aynı zamanda Latin Amerika kıtasındaki bu hareket; yoksulların, fakirlerin, işsizlerin, topraksız çiftçilerin ve şehirlerdeki gecekondu mahallelerinde unutulan Hıristiyanların bir isyanıdır. Bu isyan hareketini teologlar ve din adamları destekleyerek Marksist ideolojide yer alan “praxis” (eylem/uygulama) kavramını ön plana çıkarmışlardır. Bu kavram doğrultusunda yerel kiliseler içerisinde “Taban Cemaatleri” kurulmuştur. Kurtuluş Teolojisi hareketi ortaya çıktığı günden bugüne kadar birçok değişime uğramıştır. Biz de bu çalışmamızda Kurtuluş Teolojisi adındaki halk hareketinin nasıl ortaya çıktığını, işlevini gerçekleştirirken nelere başvurduğunu, hangi aşamalardan geçtiğini ve bugün hangi konumda olduğunu ortaya koymaya çalıştık.

Political Theology of Radical Orthodoxy

Shevchuk, Pavlo. “Political Theology of Radical Orthodoxy.” The dissertation for the degree of candidate of philosophical sciences – 09.00.14 (041 – Theology). The dissertation is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the theopolitical concepts of a new theological movement – radical orthodoxy. For the first time, a holistic study of the political theology of radical orthodoxy was carried out, particularly the theopolitical concepts of its most influential representatives J. Milbank, A. Pabst, and V. Cavanaugh. As part of the study, the main ideas of the critical theologians of the current were generalized and systematized. A critical analysis of their projects for building a new political structure was carried out. The prerequisites for the formation and features of its theological approaches are determined. The strengths and weaknesses of the concepts ofJohn Milbank, Adrian Pabst, and William Cavanaugh are shown.

"Significance of Art and Music the Theological, Political, and Philosophical Movement Called as the Long Reformation."

"Significance of Art and Music the Theological, Political, and Philosophical Movement Called as the Long Reformation."

Gesetz und Evangelium im Nachkriegsprotestantismus by David Scherf

Reviewed by: Gesetz und Evangelium im Nachkriegsprotestantismus by David Scherf Matthew L. Becker Gesetz und Evangelium im Nachkriegsprotestantismus. Religion in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 5. By David Scherf. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. 285 pp. This doctoral dissertation, accepted at the University of Osnabrück, examines the transformation of the distinction between law and gospel in the work of three post-WWII West German Protestant theologians: Ernst Wolf (1902-1971), Helmut Thielicke (1908–1986), and Carl Heinz Ratschow (1911–1999). The author, [End Page 245] a Lutheran pastor in Bavaria, provides brief biographical sketches, summarizes key works, surveys the secondary literature, and offers theological analysis and a concluding assessment. While the introduction describes the cultural crisis in German Protestantism after the First World War and gives an overview of three key theological movements in the Weimar era (dialectical theology, religious socialism, and neo-Lutheran confessional theology), the first chapter only offers an incomplete description of the contrasting views on law and gospel by Werner Elert, Karl Barth, and Paul Althaus. As important as that Auseinandersetzung was for later developments, it should have received fuller analysis. More context was needed, as well as better sources. Why Scherf used post-1945 writings from Althaus but not from Elert is unclear. A strength of the chapter is how it identifies important if subtle differences between Elert's and Althaus' positions on the revelation of law. The Barthian-Erlangen debate over law and gospel was partially continued by the three central figures in Scherf's study, but also transformed by them in the changed cultural and political situation of postwar West Germany. These three middle chapters provide insightful perspectives on figures lesser known today and whose ideas are worthy of further engagement. The starting point for Wolf's social ethics coincides with the first thesis of the Barmen Declaration, which focuses solely on the incarnate word. Wolf, who had been Barth's student, replaces the latter's notion of "law" (Gesetz) with "command" (Gebot). Wolf moves from "the new human being" in Christ to the content of the divine command that summons the disciple of Christ to faithful obedience in the world. Christ's command is the form of the gospel, and the gospel, which is all about the assurance of divine grace, is the content of the command (99). According to Wolf, the basic unity of command and gospel within the one word of God has consequences for the political existence of the Christian. Such a view begins and ends with the one lordship of Jesus Christ. It rejects Elert's and Althaus' understandings of "two kingdoms," "the orders [End Page 246] of creation," and "natural law," and it reframes the Creator's orderings and social structures along the lines of Bonhoeffer's "mandates" and the command/summons to exercise Christian love in society. In contrast to Wolf, Thielicke defended the sharp antithesis between law and gospel, whose impact on the Christian life abides unto death, but he took more seriously the problem of secularization in post-war West Germany than did his Doktorvater Althaus. Thielicke transformed the law-gospel dialectic to speak more clearly to the challenges of Christian faith and ethical behavior in that postwar liberal democracy. Nevertheless, like Elert and Althaus, Thielicke stressed that the word of God is not a singular, uniform message since it addresses us in this twofold form. While both the law and the gospel give knowledge of the self, the law discloses that the human being is alienated from God and under God's judgment (123). Every divine command always implies that I ought not to be what I am. Thus, the divine command cannot be the content of the gospel. Rather, over against the law and command of God, the gospel discloses that I am reconciled with God and it actually creates this new reality. Against Barthian-Wolfian social ethics, Thielicke insisted that the distinction between law and gospel and the related distinction between the two kingdoms are crucial since they each seek to maintain the gracious promise of solo-Christo and sola-fide, while also opening up important ethical implications for the Christian life. Ratschow, who studied under Friedrich Brunstädt and who edited...

Biblical Interpretation, Race, and Union Presbyterian Seminary

Chattel slavery in the United States was never foreordained. The deliberate misinterpretation of Scripture predisposed people to accept what the Bible condemned. The development of the Biblical Theology movement, by emphasizing the plain sense of Scripture over cultural assumptions and discredited scientific theories, led Union Presbyterian Seminary to repudiate the immorality that was slavery and segregation.