Upcoming Sessions at the AAR/SBL 2013: Book Panel on ‘Outlaw Justice: The Messianic Politcs of Paul’

Once again this year we are glad to host a panel session to engage with the author of a recent book which touches on aspects of the work of our group.  We are very grateful to Ted Jennings (Chicago Theological Seminary) who will join us to discuss his most recent book, Outlaw Justice: The Messianic Politics of Paul (Standford University Press, 2013).

The exact date and time is yet to be confirmed, but in all likelihood to run during our regular ‘Additional Meeting’ slot on Saturday evening from 6:30-9:00.   We hope to see you there!

 Panelists:

Kaitlyn Dugan (Student, Princeton Theological Seminary)

Beverly Gaventa, (from August 2013, Distinguished Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Baylor University)

Arne Rasmusson (Professor of Systematic Theology, Gothenburg University, Sweden)

Gordon Zerbe (Professor of New Testament, Canadian Mennonite University)

Respondent:

Theodore Jennings (Professor of Biblical and Constructive Theology, Chicago Theological Seminary)

Upcoming Sessions at the 2013 AAR/SBL: ‘One Church: Holy, Catholic and Apocalyptic’

We’re still working to finalise our full programme of sessions, but are pleased to announce that at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (Baltimore, MD, November 23-26, 2013) alongside our additional meetings we will host a Wildcard Session as part of the regularly scheduled conference (day and time TBA).

‘ONE CHURCH: HOLY, CATHOLIC AND APOCALYPTIC’

Continuing the work of the ‘Explorations in Theology and Apocalyptic’ group which has previously convened as an additional meeting in recent years, this session focuses upon the doctrine of the church as a particularly neuralgic point of contemporary Christian theology and explores various possibilities for drawing upon apocalyptic discourse and modes of thought to advance, re-frame and creatively shift current ecclesiological debates. Four invited panelists engage this task by asking, from varied perspectives and with differing concerns, about the ‘difference apocalyptic makes’ to contemporary theological understandings of the church’s witness and mission, its institutional forms, its sacramental life and practice, and the manner and horizon of its political engagements. What light might renewed attention to the apocalyptic character of the Christian gospel shed upon enduring questions of the unity, particularity, catholicity and historic continuity of Christian communities?

• Dr Philip Ziegler (University of Aberdeen), Presiding

• Dr. Joseph Mangina (Wycliffe College, University of Toronto):   If It’s a Symbol, To Hell With It: Apocalyptic and Transubstantiation

The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist demands consideration of the bodily character of God’s Selbstmitteilung. Christ’s self-gift in the Eucharist is the gift of his body. A good theology of real presence will uphold both the gift-aspect and the bodily-aspect. Setting the Eucharist in an explicitly apocalyptic frame of reference aids in this endeavour. Theologies of real presence often betray dualist assumptions, but if the Eucharist is apocalyptically given, such unhealthy dualisms can be overcome. Since Christ is the reality manifest in the Eucharist, the sacrament can be thought on analogy with the incarnation. George Hunsinger’s recent creative proposal for thinking about real presence has much to recommend it,but I argue that a more properly apocalyptic doctrine of real presence is in fact provided by transubstantiation, carefully understood, with its strong kinship to the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Important ecumenical and ecclesiological consequences follow.

• Dr. Susan Eastman (Duke University Divinity School):   One Church Holy and Apocalyptic?

Does appeal to apocalyptic trump ‘apostolic’ as a descriptor of the church? This paper explores the points of tension and of contact between descriptions of the church as apostolic and as apocalyptic. Insofar as ‘apostolic’ signals an overriding concern to protect the church’s identity through an institutionally protective and unbroken stream of tradition and leadership, apocalyptic descriptors of the church represent a profound interruption and disruption of such self-description. Insofar, however, as the meaning of ‘apostolic’ is drawn from the force of the Greek — ‘sent out’ — the church as apocalyptic must indeed be apostolic. In this sense, the word ‘apostolic’ conveys the church’s union with Christ in Christ’s redemptive incursion into human history existence without remainder and without exception.

• Dr. Chris Huebner (Canadian Mennonite University): The Apocalyptic Body of Christ? Reflections on Yoder and Apocalyptic Theology

  The work of John Howard Yoder figures prominently among many of those who represent the so-called “apocalyptic turn” in recent theology. And yet among the many themes that are said to identify Yoder as a fellow apocalyptic thinker, one theme about which there seems to be comparative silence is his understanding of the body. This paper sets out to explore that silence. In doing so, it investigates two questions: first, Is Yoder’s understanding of the body in tension with other aspects of his work that might be characterized as more properly apocalyptic? Or, second, can we find in Yoder an account of the apocalyptic body that might serve to enrich recent discussions about apocalyptic theology?

• Mr. Ry O. Siggelkow (PhD Candidate, Princeton Theological Seminary): The Transgression of the Integrity of the Church

Post-Yoderian political theology concentrates upon preserving the church’s distinctive public identity vis-à-vis modern political formations claiming that previous ways of thinking about the church’s relationship to politics owe too much to Troeltsch and the liberal Protestant establishment. Convinced that political theology has too often acquiesced to the norms of modern secular politics, such theology redirects Christian theological attention away from the modern nation-state and onto the church’s tradition and core practices. The church and its liturgy are not only the site for the formation of Christian virtue, but also in themselves and as such constitute Christian political action. Drawing on the work of Käsemann, MacKinnon, and Yoder I argue that this “turn to the church” in political theology can re-inscribe the very Constantinian logic it seeks to resist and suggest that an account of the church framed by an apocalyptic theologia crucis provides the necessary corrective.

Explorations in Theology and Apocalyptic at the 2012 AAR/SBL in Chicago

II/ Explorations in Theology and Apocalyptic—Session II (Sunday evening– details TBA)

‘Satan and all his Works’—Four papers on the ‘third agent’ in the apocalyptic drama of salvation

J. Louis Martyn has argued that we must recognize the importance of the “third actor” (besides God and humans) in the Christian redemptive and moral drama, namely, Satan, and/or the powers of Sin and Death, and/or the “principalities and powers.” While Martyn has recently refocused this issue for Pauline theology, it is also increasingly important in other strains of modern and contemporary theological reflection. These papers will variously explore the significance of the “third agent” in  contemporary theology and examine the contribution of that theme to Christian theology in an apocalyptic mode.

Papers offered by:

• Trevor Eppehimer (Hood Theological Seminary):  ‘Domestic Insurgency or Foreign Invasion? John Milbank and J. Louis Martyn on Redemption and the “Third Actor”’
•  Myles Werntz (Baylor University): ‘The Ubiquity of Christ and the Sites of Redemption:William Stringfellow and the Resistance to Death’
•  Matt Croasmun (Yale University): ‘An Emergent Account of Sin in Romans 5-8 as the “Third Actor”: Emergence Theory as a Source for Contemporary Christian Theology’
•  Scott Prather (University of Aberdeen): ‘Apocalyptic and Providential Power(s)’

Chair: Jodi Belcher (Duke Divinity School)

Explorations in Theology and Apocalyptic at the 2012 AAR/SBL in Chicago

I/ Explorations in Theology and Apocalyptic—Session I (6:30-9:00 in Conference Room 4C at the Hilton Chicago Hotel)

Session M17-403 in the AAR Programme Book

James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree—A Panel Discussion

With an eye to the themes of our working group, our three panelists will engage with James Cone’s most recent work, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Orbis Press, 2011), reflecting particularly upon the theological and ethical questions it provokes. Prof. Cone will be present to reply.  The good folks at Orbis Press are kindly sponsoring this session.

Panellists:

•  Nate Kerr (Trevecca University)
•  Christopher Morse (Union Theological Seminary)
• J. Kameron Carter (Duke University)

Responding

• James Cone (Union Theological Seminary)

Chair:  Nancy Duff (Princeton Theological Seminary)