Theologian Thursday: Karl Barth (1886-1968)

 (image from here)

Karl Barth was born in Switzerland and studied theology at the University of Bern, Tübingen University, and the University of Marburg. He learned from some of the greatest liberal theologians of the time. But as he returned to Switzerland to be a minister in a small church, and studied thoroughly the Institutes of Calvin, his perspective shifted, and he became one of the most outspoken challengers of the romantic, Schleiermachian Christianity. This change was also influenced by the first World War. Many of his German teachers supported the war, but he refused to do so and ultimately rejected their teaching after seeing their personal ethics in this light.

Barth was also one of the founding members of the Confessing Church--those Christians who stood against that Nazi party and their brand of supposed Christianity. In fact, he was forced to resign from his position as a professor at the University of Bonn because he would not swear allegiance to Hitler.

One of the main ideas in Barth's theology is that Jesus is the Word of God--not the Bible. This has important implications for resisting fundamentalist bibliolotry.

Another interesting thing about Barth is that he was a reformed theologian who subscribed to Calvin's teaching, but his understanding of predestination was that God did not "elect" and "damn" certain individuals, but that as Jesus Christ became human, he became both the elect and the reprobrate, and then was raised--implying that all people essentially are saved. This is what some call "soft universalism."

What You Should Read:

• Church Dogmatics (Just kidding. It's 13 volumes and 8,000 pages and is sitting in my office and I've hardly made a dent. But really. Seminal work of the 20th century.)
• The Humanity of God (Short, accessible, good)

Ratings:
(To read more about my rating system, click HERE.)
Gender Equality:
Despite his ambivalence toward biblical inerrancy, Barth's study of Paul and his views on hierarchy lead me to believe he did not have a high view of women. Plus he had some kind of suspicious relationship with his female secretary (who apparently lived with him and his wife...?), which makes me think respecting women might not have been very important to him.
Environmental Sensibility:
Barth focuses much on the transcendence of God and God's "infinite qualitative difference" from the world. Additionally, his focus is generally on humanity's response to God and soteriology, with little interest in the arena in which this takes place, and how people might thus respond to God's creation. Plus he hated natural theology.
Heretical Tendencies:
Many consider Barth to be the father of the neo-orthodox movement, which, in a sense, brought Protestantism back from its romantic roots and refocused it on the Reformation ideals.
General Badassery:
I think anyone in the Confessing Church automatically gets a bunch of stars. And Church Dogmatics is just so crazy thorough and intense and awesome.

Lastly, a quote:
"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world."

Theologian Thursday: Dorothy Day (1897-1980)

 I'm not sure if I would typically classify Dorothy Day as a theologian, but she did a lot of awesome work and wrote some pretty good stuff, and since I've been pretty fascinated with her this week I thought she'd make a good profile for this week's post.

Dorothy Day was a major player in the Catholic Worker Movement, which was founded by Peter Maurin. She advocated for social justice and equality for the poor and otherwise disenfranchised through nonviolent means.

One thing I find interesting is that she didn't convert to Catholicism until her daughter was born (despite the urging of her partner, Forster Batterham, to abort the pregnancy), and she decided to give her the spiritual upbringing she never experienced. Subsequently, she found in the Catholic Church a positive outlet for her longing to do good in the world.

She worked creating "houses of hospitality" to serve the poor and homeless. She organized farming communes to give people work to do and provide food to eat during the Great Depression. She practiced "voluntary poverty," as modeled by St. Francis of Assisi, in order to respond to the call of Jesus Christ on her life.


What you should read:

• Meditation on the Death of the Rosenbergs
• The Incompatibility of Love and Violence
• Loaves and Fishes--talks specifically of her involvement in the CWM.

Ratings:
(To read more about my rating system, click HERE.)
Gender Equality:
She believed all people had a role in caring for the poor, and served right alongside Peter Maurin in his work. (I do wish she used gender inclusive language in her writing...  but I know that's just a symptom of the time period in which she lived.)
Environmental Sensibility:  
The local agricultural focus of  her work illustrates the value she saw in caring for creation. I think her love for the environment also comes out in her disdain of violence and the atomic bomb.
Heretical Tendencies:
Though many of her views were politically radical, I think for the most part her spiritual beliefs were on par with Catholic orthodoxy. She was catechized as an adult, was baptized (apparently conditionally because of her previous baptism in the Episcopal church), gave confession, and took communion. Her cause for canonization is currently open, and she is considered a "Servant of God."
General Badassery:
The fact that she was an outspoken anarchist and a subscriber to a Christian form of communism during the Red Scare is pretty badass.

“What a confusion we have gotten into when Christian prelates sprinkle holy water on scrap metal to be used for obliteration bombing, and name bombers for the Holy Innocents, for Our Lady of Mercy; who bless a man about to press a button which releases death on fifty thousand human beings, including little babies, children, the sick, the aged, the innocent as well as the guilty.”

Theologian Thursday: Elizabeth Johnson

This is the first Theologian Thursday I've done in which the theologian is still living. I've had this weird anxiety that if I profile someone who's still around, they'll somehow find my blog (everyone Googles themselves, you know. Don't pretend you don't.) and think I've grossly misrepresented their life or work and hate me forever. But I've been on a feminist theology kick lately, and I figure Elizabeth Johnson is one of the least likely people to hate me forever. Or at least I hope so. Anyway.

 (image from here)

Elizabeth Johnson is one of my favorite Catholics! And she's basically one of the reasons I'm a feminist, too. I read her Consider Jesus in undergrad, and She Who Is earlier this year, and she's pretty rad.

Johnson received her BA from Brentwood College, her MA from Manhattan College, and her PhD from Catholic University of America. She currently teaches theology at Fordham University. She's also a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph. She started studying theology right before Vatican II, and the council's focus on dialog with the modern world has shaped her work.

One of the most important things Johnson advocates for is the use of feminine imagery when talking about God. She says it's no coincidence that the Church has been oppressive to women while using male-gendered pronouns and metaphors to talk about God. But she points out that the Bible is rich with images of God taking feminine form--a hen gathering chicks, a laboring or nursing mother, a washerwoman, a seamstress, etc.--and therefore we are free and encouraged to do so in our worship and our personal spiritual life. This is so empowering for women who have their whole lives been forced to envision God as a male ruler or similar oppressor, with whom they could not identify.

(If you want a list of biblical references to female imagery, check out this blog post from Mike Morrell. It's a great resource!) 

What you should read:

• She Who Is. No brainer. Just do it.
• She has tons of published articles and they're all good. (OK, I haven't read ALL of them to know that, but I mean, I imagine they have to be.)

 Ratings:
(To read more about my rating system, click HERE.)
Gender Equality:
I mean, this is obvious right? I'd give her six stars if I could.
Environmental Sensibility:
Most feminist theologians agree that as we see the value of women as an important part of God's story, the same becomes true for all God's creatures, including the environment. Oh! And this reminds me of another of her books--Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit. Check it out.
Heretical Tendencies:
Having new(ish) unpopular ideas is never easy, especially if you are a feminist in a Church that doesn't allow ordination of women and has hundreds of years of engrained patriarchy. But I love that Johnson is committed to the Catholic Church and working for its betterment rather than running away from it.
General Badassery:
Again, I wish I could give her six stars! Like I said, I do not envy her position as a feminist in the Catholic Church, but she is so awesome for studying what she's passionate about and speaking truth to power (consequently, she's been blasted by lots of bishops and other Catholic officials). She's written tons of great stuff, won awards, and been in important leadership positions, and is generally just rad.

And a quote (I had to just pick one since there are so many good and important ones!)
"What is at stake is simultaneously the freeing of both women and men from debilitating reality models and social roles, the birthing of new forms of saving relationship to all of creation, and indeed the very viability of the Christian tradition for present and coming generations. Are the religions of the Book up to the challenge?"

[Guest Post] Theologian Thursday: Leo Tolstoy

I'm so excited for this week's Theologian Thursday, because it was put together by none other than my dear boyfriend, Curtis! As I've mentioned before, he just completed his Master's in Religion with an emphasis in Theology, so he's probably more qualified to write these posts than I am! He wrote his thesis about nonviolence and pacifism in the Wesleyan tradition, and is on a mission to make the Church of the Nazarene (and probably the whole church, I suppose) a peace church. Now, on to the good stuff!

 (image from here)

The path that led Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) towards his Christian pacifism and anarchism is certainly fascinating considering the life of pleasure afforded to him in his youth. He came from a family of nobility, but sadly his parents died while Tolstoy was young. He was raised by other members of his family, and attended Kazan University beginning in 1844. But Tolstoy did not seem cut out for the academic life and left school and returned to his hometown. Eventually, Tolstoy, along with his brother, joined the Russian army.

It was during his time of military service that Tolstoy took up writing, and the travels required of his army career exposed him to new experiences that would begin to influence his thinking. One of the more notable experiences is his witness to a public execution in Paris carried out by the state. Tolstoy later met exiled French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, which further shaped Tolstoy’s outlook on politics.

Tolstoy is, perhaps, most recognized for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but I find him most fascinating for his theological and philosophical works. Although married with children, Tolstoy was increasingly drawn to ascetic moral writings. The ascetic spiritual path proclaims that holiness is achieved through self-denial. Many later pictures of Tolstoy show him wearing the clothing of peasants as a sign of opposing the lavish lifestyles of the wealthy. Biblically, Tolstoy focused on Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. His views on nonviolence were founded upon Jesus’s encouragement of his disciples to turn the other cheek. Therefore, a true Christian would denounce violence and embody a pacifist lifestyle. This belief was also backed by Jesus’s Great Commandment to love God and neighbor. The state, as a body committed to the use of violence, therefore must also be renounced. Tolstoy was strongly anarchist, but made sure to separate himself from those anarchists who sought to advance their agenda through means of violence. Tolstoy’s views were definitely contrary to those of the Church in Russia, and continually faced censorship and opposition. The Church experienced great power and wealth from its close ties to the Russian government, which Tolstoy greatly opposed. For this reason he opposed the idea of the Church along with the state.

What you should read:

• The Kingdom of God is Within You
• On  Anarchy

Ratings: 
(To read more about my rating system, click HERE.)
Gender Equality:
I am not familiar enough with all of Tolstoy’s writings to make a sound judgment on his view of gender equality, but his views on nonviolence are applicable to all people regardless of gender. However, I assume that at the root of asceticism its support of chastity might have created negative outlook towards women or any expression of sexuality, but since he was married it seems safe to assume that there was tension in that relationship.
Environmental Sensibility:
Tolstoy extended the Christian command to not kill to all living creatures. As a result, he abstained from eating meat and likened slaughtering houses to battlefields. This universal care for all of God’s creation leads me to believe that Tolstoy would value and care for the world and all that is in it.
Heretical Tendencies:
According to the Church Tolstoy was exposed to in Russia during the late 19th and early 20th century, he was certainly a heretic. The Church continuously sought to censor him, and the Church’s more preferable method of exiling opposition was only abandoned due to his large number of followers.
General Badassery:
Tolstoy witnessed violence during his travels and his time in the military, which caused him to grow wary of the oppression caused by the state and he was disappointed in the Church’s silence regarding the abuse. Tolstoy took it upon himself to write and educate himself on Christian nonviolence and anarchism despite the dangerous threats and consequences of this decision. Not only was Tolstoy at odds with the Church, he distinguished himself from the anarchists that espoused violence. Clearly, Tolstoy was not compelled by seeking a large number of friends, but instead held fast to his convictions regardless of his beliefs’s popularity.

Quote: 
"Christianity in its true sense puts an end to government. So it was understood at its very commencement; it was for that cause that Christ was crucified, So it has always been understood by people who were not under the necessity of justifying a Christian government. Only from the time that the heads of government assumed an external and nominal Christianity, men began to invent all the impossible, cunningly devised theories by means of which Christianity can be reconciled with government. But no honest and serious-minded man of our day can help seeing the incompatibility of true Christianity—the doctrine of meekness, forgiveness of injuries, and love—with government, with its pomp, acts of violence, executions, and wars. The profession of true Christianity not only excludes the possibility of recognizing government, but even destroys its very foundations."

 Thanks, Curtis! You're the bomb and I love you.  Please leave a comment and let us know what you think. Have you read anything by Tolstoy? If this post gets some positive feedback, maybe I can convince Curtis to write guest posts more often! :) 

Theologian Thursday: Walter Wink (1935-2012)

Doing a little different Theologian Thursday this week, as I found out that Walter Wink passed away last Thursday.

I haven't personally read very much by Wink, except a couple articles and excerpts here and there, but he was pretty influential in Curtis's thesis, and many of his ideas made appearances therein. I'm familiar with his redemptive activism for pacifism and homosexuality in the church, and his CV is extensive and impressive.


I think one of his most important ideas regarding nonviolence is that of "Jesus's Third Way" which is that when faced with conflict, you do not fight or merely surrender, but "take control of the power dynamic" and find "creative alternatives to violence." It also means being willing to suffer violence rather than retaliate.

You can read an excerpt about the Third Way from one of his books--The Powers that Be--HERE.

His booklet Homosexuality and the Bible is available HERE.


Probably his best-known work is the Powers trilogy, which includes Naming the Powers, Unmasking the Powers, and Engaging the Powers.  I'll be looking into picking these up soon, and I encourage you to check them out as well.

It's sad to think he will no longer be with us, contributing so much wisdom to the dialog of the church, but we can be grateful for the work he has done and the impact he has made.

I'll leave you with this great quote of his from Engaging the Powers:
"In the struggle against oppression, every new increment of violence simply extends the life of the Domination system and deepens faith in violence as redemptive."

Theologian Thursday: Macrina the Younger (327-379)

This week's post concludes my series on the Cappadocians. Even though she's certainly not a "Father," Macrina had a significant influence on the education and edification of her brothers Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, and their partner in crime heresy-fighting Gregory of Nazianzus.

Not only that, but there is a bakery in Seattle from which I'd LOVE a t-shirt/mug/something. I really need to go. Maybe when I'm [hopefully] up there for the meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society next year (fingers crossed/that's a blog post for later).

Anyway. On to the good stuff.

(image from here)

Macrina was educated in the Bible and the ways of the Church by her mother Emily, and, after the man to whom she was betrothed died before they were married (and before she even knew she was betrothed to him, interestingly enough), she decided to remain a virgin and commit herself to a life of service. She helped her mother raise and teach her nine younger siblings, as well as found two monasteries on their estate in Pontus, and was a constant source of stability and comfort through various deaths in the family. When her mother died, she gave all the money of the family estates to the poor, and lived with the nuns, teaching and working in the community.

After Basil died, she also fell ill, and her brother Gregory came to visit her. Despite her sickness, she comforted Gregory and pointed him to God even to her final breath.

Macrina's life is an example of humility. Though she was born to a wealthy family, she considered herself equal to the nuns with whom she lived, and endeavored to educate all those around her, regardless of rank. Indeed, her death bed was not even a bed at all--it was a board covered with a sack. This sense of equality leads many to assume she believed in and taught universal salvation.


What you should read:

• The Life of Macrina by Gregory of Nyssa

Ratings:
(To read more about my rating system, click HERE.)
Gender Equality:
She was a woman (obviously) but did just as much (and just as important) work for the Church and for her community as her brothers. Indeed, as I've mentioned before, her brothers owe much of their education and upbringing to her.
Environmental Sensibility: 
Environmental Sensibility: 
I'm a bit split on this rating. On one hand, she was an acetic, and had platonic/almost gnostic ideas about the body and the physical world (i.e. they're not important--the spiritual is what matters). On the other hand, her theology of the universal love of God leads me to believe that she would agree with care for creation, just as God cares for creation. I guess I'll leave it at a two.
Heretical Tendencies:
Macrina is together with her brothers and the rest of her family with influence from Origen, and now that I think of it, a lot of her acetic/mystic practices were discarded by the western church, and might be considered unorthodox. But certainly her humility and her love and care for people are and should be normative practice.
General Badassery:
I don't think she is really bad-ass in the usual sense, but the fact that she helped raise 9 kids, founded and worked in monasteries, and generally held her family together is pretty admirable. Plus, she died praying while lying on a wooden board. Dang.

And a quote:
"When the evil has been exterminated in the long cycles of the æons nothing shall be left outside the boundaries of good, but even from them shall be unanimously uttered the confession of the Lordship of Christ."

Theologian Thursday: Gregory of Nyssa (335?-395?)

 (image from here)

Gregory of Nyssa was St. Basil's younger brother. His upbringing is therefore very similar to Basil's and also to Gregory of Nazianzus--privileged, well-traveled, and well-educated. While he is not considered a Doctor of the Church, he was a bishop, and his writings have been influential in academic discourse regarding the Trinity and the "uncreated" nature of God.

Most of his trinitarian theology, not surprisingly, aligns closely with that of the other Cappadocians and their idea of the social trinity--that the three ὑποστάσεις (hypostases/persons) of the Trinity exist as one in a deeply unifying and ontologically significant bond of mutual love. His other works include many homilies (for example, "Treatise on the Work of the Six Days," which mirrors Basil's Hexameron), and works on the Christian life and holiness. In line with his influence from Origen, much of his theology is based on the infinite and uncreated nature of God and universal salvation--that all humanity has been assumed by the Son and therefore redeemed.

OK--Here's the best part. HIS RELICS LIVE IN SAN DIEGO! While writing this post, I found out that St. Gregory of Nyssa Greek Orthodox Church in El Cajon has them/it (still unsure what exactly the relic is... I think it's a jawbone?). Super cool! I might try to go check it out sometime.

What you should read:

• On the Holy Spirit (yep, he wrote one too)
• Great Catechism, chapter 26 (so good!)

Ratings:
(To read more about my rating system, click HERE.)
Gender Equality:
Gregory was big on the idea of humanity being the image of God, in that humans are free and spiritual beings (he followed Origen in this, except that Origen believed in pre-existent souls and Gregory believed souls were created at the same moment the body was). With all of his emphasis on the nous of people, and their spiritual being, I didn't see much about differences between men and women in this regard--he seemed to place them (implicitly) on more or less even ground.
Environmental Sensibility: 
Gregory seems to have had a pretty Platonic idea of nature--that the world was formed from "ideas" in God that manifest themselves through physical qualities outside of God. Therefore, the essence of nature doesn't really exist (i.e. isn't tangible or available to us). Only its qualities. So I'd assume his care for creation was minimal.
Heretical Tendencies:
He spoke out against heretics like Apollinarius and Eunomius. But he did get a lot of his ideas from Origen, who was actually a heretic. So he toes the line a bit.
General Badassery:
I don't know anything especially bad-ass about him. But he did have a heck of a lot of influential correspondence, and he does do a lot of interesting work with Origen's thought. I think he gets the short end of the Cappadocian stick, but he shouldn't!

And a quote:
“Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.”