“Healing the Distorted Face: Doctrinal Reinterpretation(s) and the Christian Response to the Other" (original) (raw)
Related papers
Answerable for Our Beliefs: Reflections on Theology and Contemporary Culture Offered to Terrence Merrigan, Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs Vol 48, Peeters Publishers, 2022
This article argues that all God’s revelation is soteriological because revelation means that God reveals himself as his loving self with the purpose of inviting creation into fellowship with him. The distinction between general and special revelation, perhaps helpful for heuristic purposes, tends to lead to an unhealthy bifurcation between God as Creator and God as Redeemer. This is especially relevant for a Christian theology of interreligious dialogue where the question of the particularity of God’s ultimate revelation in Christ and his universal salvific will comes strongly to the fore. We argue that there are good biblical and theological arguments to be made that God does indeed provide the necessary revelation and means of grace to everyone, in such a way that their particular contexts, including the religious, can provide the holy ground where one can encounter God. Drawing on sources from different Protestant families and from Roman Catholic contributions we try to argue our case such that it is plausible for the particular theologies of both traditions. We specifically combine the Neo-Calvinist concept of ‘common grace’ with a participatory ontology and a dispositional soteriology. In this way we hope to demonstrate the cross-fertilization of an ecumenical and tradition-specific approach to theology of interreligious dialogue.
Why dialogue? Christian engagement in interfaith relations
New Zealand Association for the Study …, 2007
For nearly 2000 years the primary stance of Christianity and Christians towards other faiths and their peoples was to treat them as radically "other" and the targets of evangelical mission. During the 20 th century a sequence of dramatic changes occurred, principally through the ecclesial organs of the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches, even though many Christians (and others) are by no means adequately aware of them. In this paper I briefly review the nature of, and reasons for, this change and discuss some of the key issues and problems that have arisen.
Dialogue with People of Other Faiths and Ecumenical Theology
Ecumenical Review, 1987
Christian ecumenism, as we have come to understand it in the course of this century, has been primarily concerned with intra-ecclesial unity. In the face of the plurality of theological positions and diversity of cultural expressions, it has been an ongoing pilgrimage on the part of churches in search of unity or a collective sense of identity without stifling diversity. With every progress made in visible expressions of unity or consensus in theological self-understanding, our horizons have gradually expanded. As this journey continues, the concerns of Christian ecumenical theology will be increasingly widened to include extra-ecclesial issues which impinge upon our evolving self-understanding and theological task.
Participating in the Ministry of the Cross: A Three-Dimensional, Relational View of Atonement
Canadian American Theological Review, 2021
This paper correlates the objective, subjective, and classic/cosmic dimensions of atonement with (1) Christ’s threefold ministry as high priest, apostle/prophet, and king and (2) Christ’s self-identification as the way, the truth, and the life in relation to the Father (cf. John 14:6). Rather than presenting a novel atonement theory, this paper innovatively integrates and synthesizes various dimensions of atonement and relates them to the life and ministry of the church today. This paper argues that in union with Christ through the Holy Spirit according to the will of the Father, the church participates in the priestly confession of sin (the way of objective atonement), the embodied apostolic and prophetic expression of divine love (the truth of subjective atonement), and the royal redemptive victory over sin and death (the life of classic/cosmic atonement) for the sake of the world and to the glory of God.
Encountering the Other: Christian and Multifaith Perspectives
Pickwick, 2020
How do religious traditions create strangers and neighbors? How do they construct otherness? Or, instead, work to overcome it? In this exciting collection of interdisciplinary essays, scholars and activists from various traditions explore these questions. Through legal and media studies, they reveal how we see religious others. They show that Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Sikh texts frame others in open-ended ways. Conflict resolution experts and Hindu teachers, they explain, draw on a shared positive psychology. Jewish mystics and Christian contemplatives use powerful tools of compassionate perception. Finally, the authors explain how Christian theology can help teach respectful views of difference. They are not afraid to discuss how religious groups have alienated one another. But, together, they choose to draw positive lessons about future cooperation.
Talking with the other(s): towards interfaith understanding
Consensus, 2005
In Honor of Robert Jewett Christian A. Eberhart: A major insight of 20 th century Christian theology has been the understanding of God as the totaliter aliter, the "totally other." It comprises the idea that Christians talk about, and believe in a God who, as the "other," is not to be found in, nor is part of, this world, and that Christian believers develop their faith, and respond in some fashion to this "other" God. Only later in the 20 th century a further "other" became prominent in the realm of Christian theological reflection, however without being honored by the coining of a distinct Latin expression: the other (Christian) denomination, the other religion, respectively the member(s) of "other" religious communities. And while Christian theology isnaturally-still on the way to perform its duty of exploring the totaliter aliter in a vertical sense, the relationship toward the "other" in the horizontal direction has gained new momentum in a world characterized by an increasing frequency of interfaith encounters. Somebody who has been vividly engaged in this latter segment of theological reflection on an academic level is Robert Jewett, 1 and it is our pleasure to greet this friend of ours at the occasion of his 72 nd birthday by presenting to him a modest contribution to this ongoing discussion. Can Christians actually talk to "the other(s)"? Engaging in interfaith encounters is no easy endeavor, it seems. In the following quotation, two scholars have identified preconceived notions of "the other(s)" and their religion as one reason why interfaith encounters might not be successful: 79
Interreligious and Interchurch Debates: Open Questions for the 21st Century
This chapter deals with the recent megatrends in Christianity and the way in which they affect the Ecumenical movement as well as what kind of conclusions one should draw in Ecumenics, in the academic study of Ecumenism. Briefly, the recent developments in World Christianity challenge all the former models which calls for a radical rethinking of Ecumenism.
Christian discipleship and interreligious dialogue: A theological exploration
Systematic Theology Association of …, 2006
What is the relationship between Christian mission and inter-faith engagement? What has interreligious dialogue got to do with Christian discipleship? Is one in competition with the other? Is one subsumed within the other? Is one effectively vitiated by the other? And what is the relation of mission to discipleship? Is it the case that "making disciples" is the goal of mission? "Discipleship has been for centuries a way of thinking and speaking about the nature of the Christian life… But what is meant by Christian discipleship?" 1 Is engagement in dialogue an authentic component of Christian discipleship and witness? Or is interreligious dialogue enjoined, in the end, by virtue of being subsumed to mission, whose aim is something other than the pursuit of dialogical relations? These are examples of the deep questions and theological issues that have arisen ever since, in the course of the twentieth century, a sea-change occurred with the wider Christian Church in regard to relationships with, and views about, other religions. In this paper I shall address just three questions: Is there a biblical basis for inter-faith engagement? What may we make of the "Great Commission" in respect to interreligious dialogue? What is the understanding of mission in regards to discipleship, and how might that relate to interreligious dialogue?