Death of Jeremiah? Marilynne Robinson and Covenant Theology (original) (raw)
Related papers
Sentimental Contracts: The Narrative Structure of Puritan Covenant Theology
Debunking the myth of hyper-intellectualism and myopic doctrinism of the New England Protestant Puritans, recent scholarship in Early American Studies has reconsidered the role of sympathy in Puritan theological texts. According to this line of argument, foundational texts such as John Winthrop’s farewell sermon “A Model of Christian Charity” not only sought audiences’ intellectual assent but also advocated the emotional foundation of community. This paper considers the presence of what Ebert Van Engen has called fellow-feeling in relation to the legalist hermeneutics in Early American Protestant texts. Specifically, I ask how contract logic, most prominently expressed in Protestant covenant theology, interacts with sentiment as the basis of community. What logical relations connect these two communal frameworks? And how do seventeenth-century authors harmonize them? I argue that both the appeal to fellow feeling and the appeal to legal obligation, found in New England covenant theology, are parts of a narrative sequence. This narrative inscribes English colonists into a well-known typological structure of the history of salvation. The fabula of this story consists of the act of becoming worthy of covenant by rallying to the banner of fellow feeling and consequently. Biblical exegeses thus dramatizes the struggle of awakening the communal spirit of fellow feeling and the subsequent huddling together of the community of saints under the aegis of the covenant.
Book Review: American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present
Critical Research on Religion, 2021
Rating: 4.5 Are you looking to uncover american covenant a history of civil religion from the puritans to the present Digitalbook. Correct here it is possible to locate as well as download american covenant a history of civil religion from the puritans to the present Book. We've got ebooks for every single topic american covenant a history of civil religion from the puritans to the present accessible for download cost-free. Search the site also as find Jean Campbell eBook in layout. We also have a fantastic collection of information connected to this Digitalbook for you. As well because the best part is you could assessment as well as download for american covenant a history of civil religion from the puritans to the present eBook
Covenant Nation: The Politics of Grace in Early American Literature
2012
Covenant Nation: The Politics of Grace in Early American Literature by Justin M. Scott-Coe Claremont Graduate University: 2012 The argument of this dissertation is that a critical reading of the concept of "covenant" in early American writings is instrumental to understanding the paradoxes in the American political concepts of freedom and equality. Following Slavoj Žižek's theoretical approach to theology, I trace the covenant concept in early American literature from the theological expressions and disputes in Puritan Massachusetts through Jonathan Edwards's Freedom of Will and the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, showing how the covenant theology of colonial New England dispersed into more "secular" forms of what may be called an American political theology. The first chapter provides an overview of recent attempts to integrate theology and theory, specifically comparing Jacques Derrida and Žižek to better understand the latter's theology of materialism which relies on as well as informs the Reformed Protestant covenantal dichotomy of grace and works. The second chapter establishes the complicated architecture of the covenant concept within seventeenth-century New England Reformed Protestantism, and uses church membership transcripts along with Ann Hutchinson court trial documents to demonstrate how this inherently ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREACHING THE PENTATEUCH: READING JEREMIAH'S SERMONS THROUGH THE LENS OF CULTURAL TRAUMA
This article seeks to investigate the rhetorical function of Jeremiah's Temple, Covenant and Sabbath Sermons against the backdrop of cultural trauma. I propose that the three sermons found in Jeremiah 7, 11:1-14 and 17:19-27 provide a good illustration of what is understood under the notion of cultural trauma according to which one or more of the public intellectuals of the time seeks to offer an interpretative framework that is focused on making sense of the calamity that threatened to destroy not only the community itself, but also everything they regarded to be sacred and true. By means of these three sermons, Jeremiah is reminding the people of Judah once again of the important tenets of their faith such as the Temple, the Covenant and the Sabbath as found predominantly in the Pentateuch. By 'preaching' on Judah's earlier traditions, the prophet reconstitutes these ancient customs in a new way in an attempt to rebuild the fractured community.
In the article I argue that it is fruitful to approach the Jeremianic Tradition as a form of collective memory that continually shapes and is shaped by new groups of readers. In collective memory a social group expresses identity in an ongoing process of reconstructing its own position in interacting with existing tradition. My approach illustrates how processes of identity formation take place in the Jeremianic Tradition, including not only the book of Jeremiah but also subsequent appropriations of the book. The approach is applied to Jer 32: 36-41 and its appropriations in the Masoretic text, in the Septuagint, and in the contemporary context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These verses, that I regard as a late insertion into the chapter, change the perspective of the chapter as a whole and constructs a new identity for the readership. The Masoretic Text and the Septuagint represent two different interpretations of the of the role and position of these verses in the chapter. Israeli and Palestinian responses give insight into the role of conflict in the tradition, mostly by pointing out the exclusivist and dominant voice in the text, which overlaps with that of the Zionist narrative, dominant in Israeli society.