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Theological work, whatever else it may be, is always a reflection on social transformations. Not only pastors but also theologians work with the sources of the Christian traditions in one hand and a newspaper in the other. But how are we to understand the relationship between social transformations and the continuously “compromised” development of Christian ideals, as these are measured by doctrinal formulations? And how might a more deeply sociological perspective on this relationship inform theological work? Matthew Ryan Robinson and Evan F. Kuehn approach this question, not by reconstructing a history of ideas, but rather by telling a story about the development of churches and theolo...
Religion, writes Robert Cummings Neville, articulates existential predicaments and provides venues for ecstatic fulfillment. Like its companion volumes treating ultimacy and religion, Existence advances a systematic philosophical theology to address first-order questions found in the array of Axial Age religions. Issues arising in the major religious traditions are explored through a complex array of philosophical approaches. This second volume shows religion to be the engagement of ultimate realities common to all human beings. Neville finds five problematics relative to ultimate boundary conditions of the human world: the contingency of existence, living under obligation, the quest for wholeness, engagement with others, and the meaning or value in life. Common to all human beings and hence "religion," the engagement with realities is also historically and culturally bound, becoming simultaneously socially constructed "religions." Readers will find Neville's philosophical theology both bold and enlightening, running counter to dominant intellectual trends while richly informed by a long and fruitful engagement with theology, philosophy, and religion, East and West.
In this phenomenological reading of Luther, Marius Timmann Mjaaland shows that theological discourse is never philosophically neutral and always politically loaded. Raising questions concerning the conditions of modern philosophy, religion, and political ideas, Marius Timmann Mjaaland follows a dark thread of thought back to its origin in Martin Luther. Thorough analyses of the genealogy of secularization, the political role of the apocalypse, the topology of the self, and the destruction of metaphysics demonstrate the continuous relevance of this highly subtle thinker.rabbi
Many people these days regard religion as outdated and are unable to understand how believers can intellectually justify their faith. Nonbelievers have long assumed that progress in technology and the sciences renders religion irrelevant. Believers, in contrast, see religion as vital to society's spiritual and moral well-being. But does modernization lead to secularization? Does secularization lead to moral decay? Sociologist Hans Joas argues that these two supposed certainties have kept scholars from serious contemporary debate and that people must put these old arguments aside in order for debate to move forward. The emergence of a "secular option" does not mean that religion must decline,...
How does the Christian produce good works in service of her neighbor after justification? In Martin Luther’s famous 1520 treatise The Freedom of a Christian, the Reformer claimed that Christ’s love “springs spontaneously” from the Christian’s soul as good works. In Luther’s late-medieval theological context, however, this statement was incoherent with philosophical theories of moral action, which required an interplay between the soul and body. This problem persists in Lutheran theology today where human passivity in justification is extended over the Christian’s entire temporal life. Yet, Luther seemed to find solutions to this question in his late controversies with Johann Agricola over law and gospel. This study looks to pneumatological developments in that controversy for resources that support a more coherent view of moral action in the Christian life.
While the COVID-19 pandemic overshadowed all else and would quickly have a lasting impact on our daily lives, other events related to the radical right in 2020 soon surfaced. From terrorist attacks in Germany and India to anti-mask protests across the U.S. and Europe, radical right violence escalated in the midst of circulating conspiracy theories and disinformation. The yearbook draws upon insightful analyses from an international network of scholars, policymakers, and practitioners who explore the dynamics and impact of the radical right. It explores a wide range of topics including reflections on authoritarianism and fascism, the role of ideology and (counter-)intellectuals, and radical-right responses to the pandemic and calls for police reform in the height of the Black Lives Matter protests. It ends with important assessments on best approaches towards countering the radical right, both online and offline. This timely overview provides a broad examination of the global radical right in 2020, which will be useful for scholars, students, policymakers, journalists, and the public.
What are the origins of the idea of human rights and universal human dignity? How can we most fully understand—and realize—these rights going into the future? In The Sacredness of the Person, internationally renowned sociologist and social theorist Hans Joas tells a story that differs from conventional narratives by tracing the concept of human rights back to the Judeo-Christian tradition or, alternately, to the secular French Enlightenment. While drawing on sociologists such as Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Ernst Troeltsch, Joas sets out a new path, proposing an affirmative genealogy in which human rights are the result of a process of “sacralization” of every human being. Accordi...
Die Pluralisierung des Religiösen, die ein besonders prägnantes Kennzeichen gegenwärtig stattfindender gesellschaftlicher Wandlungsprozesse ist, stellt eine enorme Herausforderung für viele Akteure in Kirche, Zivilgesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik dar. Das Ziel dieses Buches ist es, den Begriff der religiösen Pluralisierung zu schärfen, indem er am Beispiel konkreter religiöser Phänomene und Praktiken entfaltet wird. Der Band umfasst Beiträge zu zwölf Themenfeldern, die für die praktisch-theologischen Diskurse in Südafrika und in Deutschland prägend und gegenwärtig von hoher Relevanz sind (Armut und Reichtum, Bildung, Schwellenriten und Passagen, Gesundheit, Religiöse Verge...
What do those who believe 'have' when they 'have faith'? What traces does the experience of faith leave in the believer's existence? And can theologians assure that their studies will genuinely have something to do with 'the wholly Other'? Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), operating within the framework of Karl Barth's (1886-1968) theology, addressed those questions in order to complete this framework. The ensuing dialogue between those great theologians affords us a deeper insight in fundamental concepts such as 'revelation', 'faith', 'christological concentration', 'analogy', 'church' and 'discipleship'. In this study, Edward van't Slot reads this dialogue with regard to both its historical and its theological significance. He shows what Bonhoeffer means when he attacks Barth's 'positivism of revelation', and compares it with Barth's earlier 'negativism of revelation'.
How do the history of religion and the history of political freedom relate to each other? The variety of views on this subject in philosophy, the humanities and social sciences, and the public is broad and confusing. But the grandiose synthesis in which Hegel brought together Christianity and political freedom is still an enormous source of orientation for many-despite or even because of the influential provocations of Friedrich Nietzsche. As Hans Joas shows in Under the Spell of Freedom, a different view has developed in the religious thinking of the twentieth century based on a conception of history that is more open to the future and on a concept of freedom that is richer than that of Heg...