MEDIAting Theology


Book Description

This collection engages the challenges and opportunities for doing theology in the context or age of media. The intersection of media with theology is reciprocating: media boosts theology in its functions to inform, connect and educate; theology humbles the globalizing media with a reminder – media is in mediation but not in domination. Media and theology thus intersect at mediating (negotiating, interceding, resisting, protesting) and they should avoid the temptation to colonize. The essays are presented in two overlapping clusters: Mediascapes (intersection of media and a selection of land- and sea-scapes) and Mediations (implications of mediating theology for interrogating hegemonies). The topics addressed include social media and #tag cultures, the fourth industrial revolution and artificial intelligence, homiletics, social resistance, Palestine, Latin America, climate change, and Covid-19. Dieser Sammelband betrachtet die Herausforderungen und Chancen für die Ausübung von Theologie im Medienzeitalter. In ihren Berührungspunkte bedingen Medien und Theologie einander: Medien unterstützen die Theologie bei ihrer Aufgabe zu informieren, zu verbinden und zu bilden. Theologie wiederum erdet die globalisierten Medien, indem sie daran erinnert, dass Medien eine Vermittlerrolle ausüben und keine Herrschaftsrolle. Diesen Vermittlungsaspekt haben Theologie und Medien gemeinsam (Verhandeln, Intervention, Widerstand, Protest), weshalb sie der Versuchung widerstehen sollten, überheblich zu werden. Die vorliegenden Beiträge sind in zwei Bereiche unterteilt: Medienlandschaften und Vermittlung. Die besprochenen Themen beinhalten Social Media, Hashtag-Kultur, Industrie 4.0, KI, Homiletik, sozialer Widerstand, Palästina, Lateinamerika, Klimawandel und Covid-19.




Constructing a Mediating Theology


Book Description

How does an almighty and all-loving God respond to his beloved human creatures, who are made in his image and yet implicated in sin and suffering? What is the origin of human suffering? Is it sin or the limitations of human beings? Is God moved by our suffering? If he sympathizes and co-suffers with us, can he deliver us out of our miseries? Thousands and perhaps millions of people have asked these questions and are searching desperately for their answers. Two major views have been advanced in the history of Christian theology to describe God's response to the suffering of the world: divine impassibility and divine passibility. More recently, a third, mediating position between impassibilism and passibilism has arisen which affirms both the impassibility and the passibility of God. This position can be identified as modified classical theism, an approach that grasps the perfect and relational nature of God. Following this mediating position, this book sets out its own constructive understanding of a mediating position with the help of a new way of understanding the way in which the eternal actions (and corresponding passions) of the divine persons condition one another--the dynamic reciprocity model.




Mediating Religion


Book Description

This is the first book to bring together many aspects of the interplay between religion, media and culture from around the world in a single comprehensive study. Leading international scholars provide the most up-to-date findings in their fields, and in a readable and accessible way.Some of the topics covered include religion in the media age, popular broadcasting, communication theology, popular piety, film and religion, myth and ritual in cyberspace, music and religion, communication ethics, and the nature of truth in media saturated cultures.The result is not only a wide-ranging resource for scholars and students, but also a unique introduction to this increasingly important phenomenon of modern life.




The Encyclodedia of Christianity, Vol. 5


Book Description

Written by leading scholars from around the world, the articles in this volume range from sin, Sufism and terrorism to theology in the 19th and 20th centuries, Vatican I and II and the virgin birth.




The German Roots of Nineteenth-Century American Theology


Book Description

By exploring the significant influence of German theology, especially mediating theology, on American religious thought, this book sheds new and welcome light on nineteenth-century American Reformed theology. It is the first full-scale examination of that influence on the Mercersburg theology of Emanuel V. Gerhart and the Princeton theology of Charles Hodge. Annette Aubert shows that in the development of their works, Gerhart and Hodge took into account both the tradition of the church and the contemporary theological developments in Europe, especially Germany. Aubert masterfully incorporates the German sources of Schleiermacher, Ullmann, Tholuck, Hagenbach, Dorner, Hengstenberg, and other nineteenth-century German scholars to show that the work of Gerhart and Hodge is much better appreciated when interpreted in a wide intellectual and religious context. Aubert's organic and transatlantic approach offers a deeper understanding of the American Reformed theology of two influential thinkers and illuminates the extent of the cross-fertilization between American and German thought.




The Oxford History of Modern German Theology, Volume 1: 1781-1848


Book Description

From the closing decades of the eighteenth century, German theology has been a major intellectual force within modern western thought, closely connected to important developments in idealism, romanticism, historicism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Despite its influential legacy, however, no recent attempts have sought to offer an overview of its history and development. Oxford History of Modern German Theology, Vol. I: 1781-1848, the first of a three-volume series, provides the most comprehensive multi-authored overview of German theology from the period from 1781-1848. Kaplan and Vander Schel cover categories frequently omitted from earlier overviews of the time period, such as the place of Judaism in modern German society, race and religion, and the impact of social history in shaping theological debate. Rather than focusing on individual figures alone, Oxford History of Modern German Theology, Vol. I: 1781-1848 describes the narrative arc of the period by focusing on broader intellectual and cultural movements, ongoing debates, and significant events. It furthermore provides a historical introduction to each of the chronological subsections that divides the book. Moreover, unlike previous efforts to introduce this time period and geographical region, the volume offers chapters covering such previously neglected topics as religious orders, the influence of Romantic art, secularism, religious freedom, and important but overlooked scholarly initiatives such as the Corpus Reformatorum. Attention to such matters will make this volume an invaluable repository of scholarship and knowledge and an indispensable reference resource for decades to come.




The Journey of Modern Theology


Book Description

In this major revision and expansion of the classic 20th Century Theology (1992), coauthored with Stanley J. Grenz, Roger Olson tells the full story of modern theology from Descartes to Caputo, from the Kantian revolution to postmodernism, now recast in terms of how theologians have accommodated or rejected modernity.




Christocentric Reformed Theology in Nineteenth-Century America


Book Description

Knowledge of the ideas of the theologian Emanuel V. Gerhart is essential for understanding nineteenth-century American theology. Gerhart was one of the first to introduce a complete systematic Christocentric theological system to Americans. His Institutes of the Christian Religion developed the ideas of European theologians and promoted the effort to systematize Mercersburg theology. Gerhart embraced German idealism rather than Scottish philosophy in his scholarship. As a mediating theologian, he attempted to reconcile historical Christianity with modern culture. His lectures, essays, and texts addressed the religious challenges and intellectual issues of his day from a Christocentric perspective. Together they were a major contribution to the Mercersburg Movement in particular and American theology in general from the antebellum period to the progressive era. His publications were devoted to a range of disciplines that included education, philosophy, and theology. This volume portrays Gerhart's core theological ideas as found in his main texts and offers introductory commentaries and gives the historical background for his intellectual contributions.




The Blackwell Companion to Nineteenth-Century Theology


Book Description

Bringing together a collection of essays by prominentscholars, The Blackwell Companion to Nineteenth CenturyTheology presents a comprehensive account of the mostsignificant theological figures, movements, and developments ofthought that emerged in Europe and America during the nineteenthcentury. Representing the most up-to-date theological research, thisnew reference work offers an engaging and illuminating overview ofa period whose forceful ideas continue to live on in contemporarytheology A new reference work providing a comprehensive account of themost significant theological figures and developments of thoughtthat emerged in Europe and America during the nineteenthcentury Brings together newly-commissioned research from prominentinternational Biblical scholars, historians, and theologians,covering the key thinkers, confessional traditions, and majorreligious movements of the period Ensures a balanced, ecumenical viewpoint, with essays coveringCatholic, Russian, and Protestant theologies Includes analysis of such prominent thinkers as Kant andKierkegaard, the influence and authority of Darwin and the naturalsciences on theology, and debates the role and enduring influenceof the nineteenth century “anti-theologians”




Theology at the End of Culture


Book Description

This book is a reconsideration of Paul Tillich's (1886-1965) project of a theology of culture and art. Concentrating on Tillich's widely neglected pre-emigration writings (1910-1933), Re Manning reconstructs and defends Tillich's proposals for theology of culture as a philosophically sophisticated programme of theological engagement with culture and art. 'On the boundary' between the extremes of liberal Christian humanism and neo-orthodox isolationism, Tillich's project is shown to be a powerful continuation of the mediatory intentions of the 'Schleiermacher-Troeltsch line' of modern Protestant theology to overcome the 'intolerable gap' between religion and culture. Drawing heavily on Tillich's incorporation of Schelling's positive philosophy into the deep structure of this theology, Re Manning argues that Tillich's 'Idealistic/Romantic theology of mediation' provides a way through the entrenched oppositions of the 'divided mind' of twentieth century theology to a constructive theology of cultural engagement. Further, this book offers an assessment of the continued relevance of Tillich's project in the situation of contemporary philosophical theology. Beyond the dominant antithetical types of postmodern theology - Mark C. Taylor's a/theology and the 'radical orthodoxy' of John Milbank - Re Manning argues for the possibility of a 'Tillichian postmodern theology of culture' able to engage with the spiritual situation 'at the end of culture.'