Pere Marquette Lecture in Theology – serie

O'Regan pointed to the "exile" of apocalyptic in the modern period, and its "contemporary return" in a host of theologians, including, but not limited to: Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jurgen Moltmann, Johann Baptist Metz, Sergei Bulgakov, Karl Barth, Stanley Hauerwas, Jacques Derrida, (to a limited extent) the Pope Benedict XVI, David Bentley Hart, Catherine Keller, John D. Caputo, and Gianni Vattimo. Apocalyptic is not so exotic before, especially since we find such diverse thinkers sharing the same theological "spaces" (e.g. Balthasar, the "Pope's theologian," and Derrida, share the same space - this is surprising) O'Regan finds it helpful to map out three spaces in order to distinguish these different thinkers. He has three of them: 1) Pleromatic: maximum level of content; 2) Metaxic: in-between level of content; and 3) Kenomatic: empty of content.

The question of the given is central to philosophy; phenomenology uses the method of reduction to find the given. This lecture asks whether there is anything that resists reduction, whether there is something irreducible. The author concludes that the phenomenology of givenness addresses the gap between what gives itself and what shows itself, so that the self of the phenomenon emerges only by the exercise of a properly phenomenological hermeneutics.

The consequences of becoming a Christian in the early Christian movemen is set apart from that move from any other religious affiliation. You could become a Mithraist or Isiac or whatever, and it made no difference to your previous religious activities and loyalties. You continued to take part in the worship of your inherited deities of household, city, nation. But if you became a Christian you were expected to desist from worship of all other deities. And the ubiquitous place of the gods in all spheres of social and political activity made that difficult, and made for potentially serious consequences if you did desist. Indeed, it made it difficult to know how you could function socially and politically (to use our terminology).This book explores the growth of adherents to early Christianity; that all across this early period people became adherents of Christianity in the face of the costs and consequences of doing so.

The author addresses the continuing importance of the Reformation and its ongoing relevance for theology today through an exploration of Luther’s understanding of Christology, the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ. “In Luther’s theological position lay a strong and uncompromising affirmation of the absolute centrality of the person of Jesus Christ for the Christian faith. In this sense, the principle, slogan or motto “Christ alone” (solus Christus) is the culmination of the other three, similar phrases – Scripture alone (sola scriptura); by faith alone (sola fide); by grace alone (sola gratia) – which are often associated with Reformation theology. The centrality of Luther’s fixation on the person of Jesus Christ as the one, single redeemer of humankind will, I hope, open a perspective for the commemoration of Luther and his Reformation that should be of interest and concern for Protestants and Catholics alike.” From the Introduction

The Gospel of John, one of the most enigmatic writings of the early Christian movement, has continued to produce sophisticated scholarly analyses of its literary form, its relationship to the Jesus of history, and its fundamental theological claims. Drawing on contemporary Johannine scholarship, this study explores how the gospel weaves into a dramatic narrative a process of serious reflection on a fundamental question of religious epistemology – how one can possibly come to a knowledge of a mysterious God through a special human witness.

Rowan Williams distinguishes four modes of 'negative theology' - what we do not and cannot know about God. He argues that such theology is best approached within the context of the worshipping Church and that it offers some intriguing pointers towards a better understanding of artistic endeavor.

This work of Christian political theology argues that the redemption offered by Christianity cannot be separated from the political and social realities of human oppression and injustice. According to M. Shawn Copeland, redemption cannot be understood solely as an abstract theological concept; redemption is a lived political act tied to the personal and communal transformation that works to turn church and society towards justice, dignity, the common good, and human flourishing. Theologizing from the perspective of the historical and transgenerational Black experience of social and cultural oppression in the United States, Copeland reinterprets the Christian doctrine of redemption as necessarily political and urges all Christians to confront the structures of power which continue to dehumanize Black and all oppressed people.The Politics of Redemption begins by reviewing various biblical and theological meanings of redemption, then considers the notion of redemption as a crucial, but often contradictory theme in American culture and politics. Moving to the specific context of African Americans, this work shows how God is portrayed as responding to the pain of the enslaved with a message of hope, liberation, and redemption.Redemption, Copeland argues, is properly understood as God’s work of love through Christ and the Holy Spirit aimed at the restoration of humanity to unity with God and the transformation of relationships, of society, and of the cosmos. If such transformations are to take place, individually and collectively Christians must resist the temptation to forgetfulness regarding the historical and ongoing effects of chattel slavery on all Americans, acknowledge the humanity of Black people, and respond to divine grace through redemptive acts of solidarity, hope, and love.