Friday, January 25, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
paper proposal for 2008 PNW-AAR conference...
So, for the past couple of weeks I've been reading books and articles by/about Paul Ricoeur, and I've decided I want to try and present a paper at this year's Pacific NW regional AAR conference. I've worked on a brief paper proposal, and today I sent it to the chairs of the "theology and philosophy of religion section." Now, I wait to hear whether my proposal has been accepted or not... in the meantime, here's what I'm proposing (which means I have to start figuring out what I want to say about it! hehe!)
Tentative proposal title: "Disproportionality: Viewing the Problem of Evil through Ricoeur's Concept of Fallibility"
This paper examines and critiques the traditional Christian ("Augustinian") account of original or primordial sin/evil through the lens of Ricoeur's concept of fallibility. Rather than condensing the origin of all sin and evil into the first willful choice of a free being felled by pride, Ricoeur's hypothesis of the "fallible man" consists of a "disproportionality" within the person, and this fallibility is the "constitutional weakness" that makes evil possible for humanity.
I will suggest that Ricoeur's view provides Christian theology with a valuable approach to the theological and philosophical problem of evil; one that mediates between Augustinian and Irenaean ideas, avoids some of the potential pitfalls that plague traditional theodicies, and coheres more effectively to our current understanding of persons and of the natural world.
Tentative proposal title: "Disproportionality: Viewing the Problem of Evil through Ricoeur's Concept of Fallibility"
This paper examines and critiques the traditional Christian ("Augustinian") account of original or primordial sin/evil through the lens of Ricoeur's concept of fallibility. Rather than condensing the origin of all sin and evil into the first willful choice of a free being felled by pride, Ricoeur's hypothesis of the "fallible man" consists of a "disproportionality" within the person, and this fallibility is the "constitutional weakness" that makes evil possible for humanity.
I will suggest that Ricoeur's view provides Christian theology with a valuable approach to the theological and philosophical problem of evil; one that mediates between Augustinian and Irenaean ideas, avoids some of the potential pitfalls that plague traditional theodicies, and coheres more effectively to our current understanding of persons and of the natural world.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
just some random new year thoughts...
If we have been made "free indeed" in Christ, why do we continue to live in bondage to that which enslaves us? Because freedom cannot be forced, that’s why. Freedom must be lived into, but living into freedom requires actually believing that the freedom we are stepping into is more real than the bondage that provides comfort and a way of coping with life's uncertainties. It is much easier to step back into a slavery that is real and comfortable than a freedom that remains a mystery. In this sense, anything - even one's religion - can be a form of bondage. Clearly, this is not to say that we do not desire freedom. But we are caught in a dilemma which we cannot easily see: Though we long to be free, it is far easier to remain in a world that "makes sense" and provides "stability" than it is to risk stepping into the mystery of potential freedom. My prayer is that I would be more willing to take the risk of freedom in 2008 and in the coming years...
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
this is kinda cool...
Ever heard of a blog carnival? Well, neither had I, until I was asked if one of my blog entries on Kierkegaard could be included in an upcoming "Kierkegaard Carnival" -- turns out it's a pretty cool idea; a great way to read a bunch of blog entries on a specific topic. So, if you're interested, please check out the Kierkegaard Carnival III, and enjoy the various takes on SK which are available via the wonderful, wacky world of blogdom.
Monday, December 24, 2007
yeah, I said it...
Merry Christmas, everyone! (yes, I respect all other traditional celebrations as well, but really, is this that big of a deal?)
And, a happy new year as well! (depending on which calendar you follow, of course!)
And, a happy new year as well! (depending on which calendar you follow, of course!)
Sunday, December 16, 2007
N.T. Wright at AAR...
One of the lectures I really enjoyed at this year's AAR/SBL conference was N.T. Wright's "God In Public?" Wright is an excellent speaker and always challenges his listeners, and this lecture was no different. He dealt, obviously, with the question of how believers should respond to the issue of God in public, and here is a brief overview.
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For over 200 years, says Wright, God was not viewed as being needed in public (as part of public discourse), but religion was kept, by and large, to the realm of private belief. Now that has changed. Secularists still repeating the statements of Voltaire – religion should not exist and it has nothing to say. According to Wright, this has been debunked. Religion continues to prove its value for society and in public discourse. As for Christians, if you take Jesus and Paul seriously, you have to take the question of religion in public seriously.
We must, says Wright, move past the two extremes of secularism and fundamentalism… the enlightenment dualism of God and the public world no longer works. His proposal: returning to the four Gospels. While this may sound surprising, Wright claims that much of the evangelical preaching in the U.S. and England has focused on the Epistles and not the Gospels (while misunderstanding the Epistles!). The Gospels are all, in various ways, about God in public, through the life of Jesus. Wright suspects that the Western world/church would rather eliminate the canonical Gospels than really deal with them.
The Gospels, he explains, are about God reclaiming the whole world for Godself. Of course, we have to ask the question, “which God are we talking about?” Secularists seem to focus on a God who forces his will upon humans, but the point of the Gospels is that God’s kingdom is not a dehumanizing tyranny, but the coming of a God who opposes dehumanizing tyrants. While we as humans only know the dualism of tyranny and anarchy, God’s kingdom is different than both! The Gospels resist our limitations in three ways:
1. The Canonical Gospels are an integrated whole upon which reflection is difficult – the Gospels are often seen as either a social project, or as Christ's Passion narratives with extended introductions! Appeals for an integrated reading have been met with resistance on both sides. An integrated reading of the Gospels rejects the extremes, and tells us that Jesus did release God’s healing to the world, but did it through his death and resurrection. Jesus did not die to save people from the world, but to save people in order to save the world. The narrative read this way resists deconstruction into power games, because it is grounded in crucifixion rather than coercion.
2. The Gospels demand to be read in deep integration with the Old Testament. We do no service when we ignore the Jewish narrative as the story of how God is saving the world through Israel, culminating in Jesus.
3. Gospels integrated present a full picture of the hope of the early Christians, as the final renewal and bringing together of earth with heaven.
Politically, Wright states that there has been a sort of replacement of the resurrection story with the story of democratic freedom. Theological views that rule out the political should be avoided, but this does not mean our political system is God's system. Wright points to Psalm 2: Though the nations rage, God will appoint his own ruler, and we ought to look at the political implications of the nations learning the meaning of God’s rule. Here again he offers three points:
1. The early church did not actually reject the rule of pagans. God wants the world to be ordered, and human order should be involved in making that happen, instead of simply letting the powerful dominate. The New Testament does not promote a disconnect between what the church does and what the world does; rather, it reaffirms the God-given place of secular human rulers. They get it wrong, but God wants them in place, because any order is better than chaos. But how can this be seen in the Gospels?
2. John 19 (and 1 Cor. 2): The rulers of this age inevitably corrupt the order God desires, but Christ’s rule paradoxically heals that corruption, and that actually heals the rulers. In this way, there is both a judgment and a necessity.
3.The present political situation is to be understood in light of the paradoxical Lordship of Jesus himself. Before Jesus, there was a picture in Scripture of rulers who were judged for their wrongs in the present, but now we anticipate the final eschaton, when all is set right.
Now, says Wright, this all may seem a bit silly, given that we live in the midst of what looks like a system that doesn’t match Wright’s vision at all. But, we must remember that the Church is supposed to be the voice speaking truth to power, and our witness cannot be forgotten, ignored, or subsumed underneath a particular political agenda. The church must get on with the work of justice, beauty and healing that the systems know they should do, but can’t figure out how to do. We must collaborate without compromise, and critique without dualism.
We must critique democracy – the view that emerged from the enlightenment dualism that tried to remove God from public. Early Christians didn’t care how rulers came to power, they cared about what they DID in power! We need, as the church, to develop ways to hold governments to account. This presupposes that the church is holding itself to account! We should encourage readings of the Bible that set forth such reforms. Our culture is moving towards a "post-postmodernism" that surpasses both modernism and postmodernism… we must find methods that do justice to both the reality of the text of Scripture, and also the reality of the world in which we live. How can we do this?
One way Wright suggests is this: Take seriously the biblical witness to God in public, for institutions and systems, and find new ways for the full message of the Bible to be heard again. This is not saying that exegesis belongs only to the Church, but rather that it is a common good which we, as Christians, should seek help from all the world in order to discern, even if that discernment then leads us to critique and challenge the world's systems. Instead of allowing our faith to be privatized or hijacked for political or private agendas, it must be lived out in public as a testimony to the way of life offered by Jesus in the Gospels.
-------
For over 200 years, says Wright, God was not viewed as being needed in public (as part of public discourse), but religion was kept, by and large, to the realm of private belief. Now that has changed. Secularists still repeating the statements of Voltaire – religion should not exist and it has nothing to say. According to Wright, this has been debunked. Religion continues to prove its value for society and in public discourse. As for Christians, if you take Jesus and Paul seriously, you have to take the question of religion in public seriously.
We must, says Wright, move past the two extremes of secularism and fundamentalism… the enlightenment dualism of God and the public world no longer works. His proposal: returning to the four Gospels. While this may sound surprising, Wright claims that much of the evangelical preaching in the U.S. and England has focused on the Epistles and not the Gospels (while misunderstanding the Epistles!). The Gospels are all, in various ways, about God in public, through the life of Jesus. Wright suspects that the Western world/church would rather eliminate the canonical Gospels than really deal with them.
The Gospels, he explains, are about God reclaiming the whole world for Godself. Of course, we have to ask the question, “which God are we talking about?” Secularists seem to focus on a God who forces his will upon humans, but the point of the Gospels is that God’s kingdom is not a dehumanizing tyranny, but the coming of a God who opposes dehumanizing tyrants. While we as humans only know the dualism of tyranny and anarchy, God’s kingdom is different than both! The Gospels resist our limitations in three ways:
1. The Canonical Gospels are an integrated whole upon which reflection is difficult – the Gospels are often seen as either a social project, or as Christ's Passion narratives with extended introductions! Appeals for an integrated reading have been met with resistance on both sides. An integrated reading of the Gospels rejects the extremes, and tells us that Jesus did release God’s healing to the world, but did it through his death and resurrection. Jesus did not die to save people from the world, but to save people in order to save the world. The narrative read this way resists deconstruction into power games, because it is grounded in crucifixion rather than coercion.
2. The Gospels demand to be read in deep integration with the Old Testament. We do no service when we ignore the Jewish narrative as the story of how God is saving the world through Israel, culminating in Jesus.
3. Gospels integrated present a full picture of the hope of the early Christians, as the final renewal and bringing together of earth with heaven.
Politically, Wright states that there has been a sort of replacement of the resurrection story with the story of democratic freedom. Theological views that rule out the political should be avoided, but this does not mean our political system is God's system. Wright points to Psalm 2: Though the nations rage, God will appoint his own ruler, and we ought to look at the political implications of the nations learning the meaning of God’s rule. Here again he offers three points:
1. The early church did not actually reject the rule of pagans. God wants the world to be ordered, and human order should be involved in making that happen, instead of simply letting the powerful dominate. The New Testament does not promote a disconnect between what the church does and what the world does; rather, it reaffirms the God-given place of secular human rulers. They get it wrong, but God wants them in place, because any order is better than chaos. But how can this be seen in the Gospels?
2. John 19 (and 1 Cor. 2): The rulers of this age inevitably corrupt the order God desires, but Christ’s rule paradoxically heals that corruption, and that actually heals the rulers. In this way, there is both a judgment and a necessity.
3.The present political situation is to be understood in light of the paradoxical Lordship of Jesus himself. Before Jesus, there was a picture in Scripture of rulers who were judged for their wrongs in the present, but now we anticipate the final eschaton, when all is set right.
Now, says Wright, this all may seem a bit silly, given that we live in the midst of what looks like a system that doesn’t match Wright’s vision at all. But, we must remember that the Church is supposed to be the voice speaking truth to power, and our witness cannot be forgotten, ignored, or subsumed underneath a particular political agenda. The church must get on with the work of justice, beauty and healing that the systems know they should do, but can’t figure out how to do. We must collaborate without compromise, and critique without dualism.
We must critique democracy – the view that emerged from the enlightenment dualism that tried to remove God from public. Early Christians didn’t care how rulers came to power, they cared about what they DID in power! We need, as the church, to develop ways to hold governments to account. This presupposes that the church is holding itself to account! We should encourage readings of the Bible that set forth such reforms. Our culture is moving towards a "post-postmodernism" that surpasses both modernism and postmodernism… we must find methods that do justice to both the reality of the text of Scripture, and also the reality of the world in which we live. How can we do this?
One way Wright suggests is this: Take seriously the biblical witness to God in public, for institutions and systems, and find new ways for the full message of the Bible to be heard again. This is not saying that exegesis belongs only to the Church, but rather that it is a common good which we, as Christians, should seek help from all the world in order to discern, even if that discernment then leads us to critique and challenge the world's systems. Instead of allowing our faith to be privatized or hijacked for political or private agendas, it must be lived out in public as a testimony to the way of life offered by Jesus in the Gospels.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
so... here's something that really makes me mad...
Corrupt law enforcement - this should not be tolerated. It just makes me sick...
ttp://www.reason.com/news/show/123632.html
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