A self-given birthday present 11 mai, 2009

Well, it’s not exactly a self-given present, as it comes from Justin Taylor’s blog, Theologica. I’m happy to read a wonderful interview with Kevin Vanhoozer of…Wheaton (yes, it’s now official).

The subjects Vanhoozer touches on in the interview will be familiar to most of his readers: his concern for theological interpretation of the Bible; fitting, biblically rooted and theologically informed cultural engagement, “healing” the biblical studies – dogmatics divide, still very much prevalent in the academia, nurturing our imaginations (which, argues Vanhoozer, evangelicals, by and large, lack).

He also talks about two of his forthcoming books (2010): Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship, to be published by Cambridge University Press in their Studies in Christian Doctrine series.  “It is a sustained reflection on the claim that God speaks to us and that we speak to God. I develop a communicative or dialogical theism that develops its understanding of the God-world relationship largely out of the biblical depictions of human-divine conversation..” Looking forward to that!

His second book, Pictures at a Biblical Exhibition: Theological Scenes of the Church’s Worship, Witness, and Wisdom, will be published by InterVarsity Press (notice the clever intertextual reference to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an exhibition) is “a collection of essays that attempts to make what I’ve been working on over the past few years a bit more accessible–hence “scenes” rather than the big picture. I argue that we need to recover a biblically rooted, theologically formed imagination for the sake of the church’s worship, witness, and wisdom. If a picture has indeed held the evangelical church captive, then this book could be seen as an exercise in liberation theology!“

My (25 year old) heart is filled with thankfulness 11 mai, 2009

My Heart Is Filled with Thankfulness
Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2003 Thankyou Music

My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who bore my pain;
Who plumbed the depths of my disgrace
And gave me life again;
Who crushed my curse of sinfulness
And clothed me in His light
And wrote His law of righteousness
With pow’r upon my heart.

My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who walks beside;
Who floods my weaknesses with strength
And causes fears to fly;
Whose ev’ry promise is enough
For ev’ry step I take,
Sustaining me with arms of love
And crowning me with grace.

My heart is filled with thankfulness
To him who reigns above,
Whose wisdom is my perfect peace,
Whose ev’ry thought is love.
For ev’ry day I have on earth
Is given by the King;
So I will give my life, my all,
To love and follow him.

Nature in bondage 8 mai, 2009

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

(Romans 8:20-21)

Flickr pics 8 mai, 2009

For those interested, I have just updated my Flick account with fresh pics.

Click here

Kevin Vanhoozer moving to Wheaton College (?) (!) 5 mai, 2009

I’ve just checked Vanhoozer’s Wikipedia profile and noticed he is said to be joining the faculty of Wheaton College beginning with Fall 2009 as Blanchard Professor of Theology (the title of his position comes from Nick Norelli ’s account). Does anyone know more about this? Can anyone confirm?

My admiration for KJV (no, not the King James Version) goes back quite a bit. In fact, my current research project at QUB focuses on his and Anthony Thiselton’s use of speech act theory in biblical interpretation with a special reference to the issue of ‘biblical authority’.

Extreme shepherding 4 mai, 2009

I wonder how the youtube below might be ’translated’ in theological/eclessiological terms?
What do you think? Unleash your sanctified theological imagination and enjoy…

Shall we say this is a metaphor for the technologically savvy church or, more accurately, pastor(s)? Shall we say this is a metaphor for seeker-sensitive showy, spectacular (and, forgive my barbarism, spectatorial) church? I refrain from proposing a ’translation’ regarding the manipulated flock, the dogs, but feel free to imagine critically-constructive.
What shall we say of the marvelous achievement of portraying Mona Lisa? Come on, you must have some theology to read into that…
I could come up with more of such ’translations’, but this is just a wee bit to get you going. Now, go on!

On theology, theological inquiry and the theologian 24 aprilie, 2009

“Theology is not one field in the way in which, for example, geology is. It does not have a subject matter that can be neatly circumscribed, because it is the nature of religions to pervade the whole of life, individual and corporate, and to offer a comprehensive horizon embracing all reality. In this respect it is more like philosophy (at least in philosophy’s self-understanding) than any other discipline and for theology one of the most important relationships is with philosophy.” (Ford, F. David, Shaping theology, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2007, p. 31)

And to complement this quote on the nature of theology, read below some excellent excerpts from a recent R. R. Reno article in First Things entitled “On Graduate Study in Theology”

Here is what Reno has to say about choosing an academic environment in which to pursue a graduate program in theology. Right on mark:

“Intellectual rigor, commitment to students, robust theological personality—all these factors matter. But none are more important than a healthy spiritual atmosphere. Here I want to be blunt. You are no more likely to mature as a theologian outside an atmosphere of prayer and piety than as a scientific theorist removed from the laboratory.”

Here is what I take to be a duly broadening of the finality of theological inquiry:

“The ultimate goal of theological inquiry is beyond the natural capacities of reason—an elevation of the mind toward a participation in the divine.”

And while I’m still creatively cutting and pasting quotes from people far wiser and wittier than me, read below a superbly disconcerting description of the ideal theologian according to David Bentley Hart:

“The properly trained Christian theologian should be a proficient linguist, with a mastery of several ancient and modern tongues, should have formation in the subtleties of the whole Christian dogmatic tradition, should possess a considerable knowledge of the liturgies, texts, and arguments produced in every period of the Church, should be a good historian, should have a thorough philosophical training, should possess considerable knowledge of the fine arts, should have an intelligent interest in such areas as law or economics, and so on. This is not to say that one cannot practice theology without all these attainments, but such an education remains the scholarly ideal of the guild.”

Isn’t it a wee bit ridiculous to aspire to be a theologian after such a description? And if it isn’t ridiculous, isn’t it at least scary?

Evolutionary theism and hermeneutics 9 aprilie, 2009

The title promises more than this post will offer, and for that I will readily apologize. My inquiry is this: I am aware that many Christians in the academia are evolutionary theists. 6 (literal) days creationists, i came to realise, are a “major minority” which you’ll find in certain fundamentalist circles of Christianity. This came as a huge surprise, growing up in a creationism-imbued environment. But before you start stoning me to death, allow me to modestly declare my agnosticism on the subject. I haven’t yet been persuaded by none of the 2 choices that are allegedly compatible with orthodox Christianity (creationism – evolutionary theism). Creationism seems ridiculously naive, anti-intellectualist and massively fideist, but evolutionary theism entails an alarming amount of theological revisionism.

Will someone  help me out of my agnosticism and spell out, firstly the hermeneutical implications for evolutionary theism, and secondly, the theological implications? How does a theistic evolutionist’s hermeneutics look like? How will he read Genesis 1-3 or the whole of Genesis? Where does he begin reading in historical key, shedding the parabolic, symbolic key of interpretation? Is Adam an historical individual or a social group? You know… all those comments and objections creationists will corroborate to defeat theistic evolution.

I agree with Vanhoozer and the rest of the hermeneuticians desiring to be sensitive to the genetic (genres) diversity of Scripture, but readiness to detect genres will not help us actually identify them. I’ll read Psalms and I’ll know it’s poetry. I’ll read Revelations and I’ll know it belongs to apocalyptic literature, but what is Genesis, especially the first chapters? History (in what sens? what kind?) or/and hymnic literature? Is Genesis 1-3 a “Creation’s praise to the Creator” or is it veracious history (in distinct inerrantist terminology)? Can it be both?

Well, enough with the questions.

Please feel free to comment and try to shed some light on the matter. Please also suggest articles and books. I’ll gladly accept your recommendations. Let us be edified and know what it is that we’re reading so we’ll know how to “read the Bible for all its worth”!

David Bentley Hart’s new book 28 martie, 2009

I gladly announce David Bentley Hart’s new book, ”Atheist Delusions. The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies” that John Milbank says will leave the New Atheists with no other option than to “repent and rejoice at the discreditation of their erstwhile selves.” The commendations below hint at a momentous book of great erudition, one couldn’t have expected otherwise from Hart, that will strike a powerful blow to the New Atheist’s already sinking boat. The book is published by Yale University Press and will be out, well, Monday, 30th of March.

“With impressive erudition and polemical panache, David Hart smites hip and thigh the peddlers of a ‘new atheism’ that recycles hoary arguments from the past. His grim assessment of our cultural moment challenges the hope that ‘the Christian revolution’ could happen again.”—Richard John Neuhaus, former editor in chief of First Things

“Provoked by and responding to the standard-bearers of ‘the New Atheism’, this original and intellectually impressive work deftly demolishes their mythical account of ‘the rise of modernity.’ Hart argues instead that the genuinely humane values of modernity have their historic roots in Christianity.”—Geoffrey Wainwright, Duke Divinity School

“In this learned, provocative, and sophisticated book, Hart presents a frontal challenge to today’s myopic caricature of the culture and religion that existed in previous centuries.”—Robert Louis Wilken, University of Virginia

“Surely Dawkins, Hitchens et al would never have dared put pen to paper had they known of the existence of David Bentley Hart. After this demolition-job all that is left for them to do is repent and rejoice at the discreditation of their erstwhile selves.”—John Milbank, author of Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology

“A devastating dissection of the ‘new atheism,’ a timely reminder of the fact that ‘no Christianity’ would have meant ‘no West,’ and a rousing good read. David Hart is one of America’s sharpest minds, and this is Hart in full, all guns firing and the band playing on the deck.”—George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington

The journey from the Renaissance to the postmodern man 28 martie, 2009

Here’s a humorous yet sobering Ravi Zacharias illustration from part 1 of his message entitled “Engaging Culture with Conversations that Count”:

“Two Australian sailors who had arrived in London went into a bar that night, and drank themselves rather silly.  Walked out of that bar room uneasy on their feet and walked into a dense English fog.  Unable to find out where they were, wobbling on their feet, they wanted to get some directions when they saw a man coming in.  Unknown to them was a highly decorated English Naval officer with medals on his chest and so on. But these two Aussies, now silly drunk, walked out, looked towards him and said: “Say ‘ya bloke, can you tell us where we are?”  And the naval officer, rather offended, said, “Do you know men know who I am?” At which point one Aussie said to the other, “We are really in a mess now.  We don’t know where we are and he doesn’t know who he is.”  – That is the journey from the Renaissance to the postmodern man.”

Stories of emergence 27 martie, 2009

I’m currently reading through some of the “stories of emergence” Mike Yaconelli has generally edited in order to get a feel for the emerging conversation, to experience and, if only for a brief period, join the community so keen on authenticity so I can understand these guys before I start accusing them of, say, having bought into postmodernism (like that wouldn’t beg a thousand nuances and qualifications) and having sacrificed evangelical convictions (like that wouldn’t beg a thousand nuances as well).

I’ve particularly enjoyed Todd Hunter’s section titled “Entering the conversation”. Fresh, hip, like everyone else in the conversation, but, rather surprisingly, quite balanced. You’ll find a compelling albeit repetitive apology for story (necessarily and stubbornly opposed to proposition) and a stimulating resolution Hunter has written to help him “stay in a storied posture” (p. 49). Read it below and subscribe…

“I am going to apprentice myself to Jesus in order to learn to live in Ultimate Reality, the Ultimate Story – God and his kingdom. I intend  to learn to do what Jesus did and say the things he said in his loving, confident, peaceful manner. I intend to be with him as his apprentice (through the Holy Spirit) doing the necessary and appropriate things (disciplines, means of grace) for apprehending this new kind of life. I do this for the sake of God, to work with him as he extends the benevolent rule and reign of his kingdom to others. I do not do this to earn or merit anything; it is my simple, but passionate (pearl of great price and treasure in the field), cooperation.”

Carl F. H. Henry on Evangelicalism 19 martie, 2009

“If evangelical Christians do not join heart to heart, will to will and mind to mind across their multitudinous fences, and do not deeped their loyalties to the Risen lord of the Church, they may well become – by the year 2000 – a wilderness cult in a secular society with no more public significance than the ancient Essenes in their Dead Sea caves.” (Evengelicals at the Brink of Crisis, Word, Waco, Texas, 1967, pp. 10-11)

A sobering, prophetic word. Can someone deny he was at least partly right? The “fences” Henry was speaking of in 1967 may be now even more “multitudinous” than then. While some  (read: fundamentalists) have turned into austere members of a “wilderness cult” whose mode of dealing with the barren secular society has been primarily resistance and trenchant opposition, some have surely abandoned their darkened, essenic caves running frantically and irresponsibly towards secularism’s chimerical oases.

România şi legalizarea urîciunii 17 martie, 2009

Citiţi aici un articol răscolitor semnat Mihail Neamţu, intitulat “Incestul penal şi România promiscuităţii” referitor la prevederea Noului Cod Penal prin care se renunţă la incriminarea incestului. E nevoie de vocea unora ca Neamţu să zgâlţâie conştiinţa bătucită a unei Românii care se promiscuizează văzând cu ochii.

Iertaţi imaginea poate prea dură, dar sunt unele lucruri, printre care incestul şi toate anomaliile sexuale, care îi provoacă lui Dumnezeu o greaţă cosmică! Doamne, ai milă!

Obama and stem cell research (SCR) 15 martie, 2009

Never thought I’d be writing a snippety post on Obama tonight, but do allow me to link you to a sobering and hugely incisive article about Obama’s no-line position concerning SCR.

When, nota bene, a stem-cell research activist and a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics for five years gives a strong word of warning concerning Obama’s stance and decisions concerning SCR, everyone must listen up, whether they’re pro or against the issue.

You might be somewhat aghast at what lies ahead!

Read here:

Ajutor pentru Silvian Guranda 10 martie, 2009

Cei care au o Biblie românească în variantă electronică veţi şti poate că textul a fost introdus de Silvian Guranda. Mai multe nu ştiam despre dumnealui înainte ca bunul meu prieten Voicu Bojan să pornească acţiunea de “comando” de binefacere despre care puteţi citi mai jos.

“

Dragilor,

Fara patetisme si bla bla-uri, treaba sta, pe repede inainte, in felul urmator:

Povestea lui Silvian, prietenul meu, a inceput cu o iesire la iarba verde cu familia – nevasta si 3 copii. O muscatura de capusa i-a schimbat radical viata. S-a infectat cu un parazit cu nume frumos – Borelia care a generat o boala destul de ciudata numita Lyme.

Mai nimeni in Romania (mortii domnului Lazarescu) nu prea stie ce e si de unde se apuca. Asa ca a inceput ping-pongul cu un om tot mai bolnav, cu sistemul imunitar prabusit. In cele din urma a sfirsit la psihiatru. Dihania s-a insinuat in sistemul nervos si i-a dat peste cap tot organismul, generind si o tumoare pe creier. Slava Domnului a supravietuit operatiei si azi e viu. Povestea e complexa si e buna de roman autobiografic – sper sa-I las lui placerea sa-l scrie intr-o zi.

Silvian a devenit in citiva ani dintr-un tip activ, om de radio si cap de familie cu multiple talente, un pensionar de boala, un fel de rejectat al societatii. Are o pensie de 230 de ron, adica vreo 60 de euro.

Zilele astea insa se intrevede o raza de speranta. Silvian a descoperit o clinica in Germania specializata exact pe problema lui. Medicii de acolo i-au raspuns la mesaj si sunt gata sa-l ajute. Starea lui e din pacate tot mai proasta, iar testele medicale sunt o urgenta. Il citez scurt pe doctorul de la Borreliose Centrum Ausburg:

Dear Silvian,I think you suffer from chronic Lyme and coinfections. After reading your history I would propose to test for Lyme activity (CD57 and Elispot-LTT), for Chlamydia pneumoniae (antibodies and Elispot-LTT), Ehrlichia (antibodies and Elispot-LTT), ANA-titre, ANCA, Babesia antibodies. I think it is a combination of chronic Lyme with Chlamydia infection…

Din pacate drumul in Germania, spitalizarea si testele aferente nu se pot face fara bani. Habar n-am citi. Am initiat aceasta actiune de comando sperind sa-l putem ajuta cumva. Orice suma e binevenita. E un mare privilegiu ca astazi sa putem fi de folos cuiva, oricui.

Ca sa fie totul rapid si direct, va trimit contul sotiei lui si adresa lui de email (silvianguranda@gmail.com), poate o sa-I scrieti macar un mesaj scurt de incurajare.

GURANDA LIDIA VIORICA
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IBAN USD: RO 63 BTRL 01 302 201 938 165 XX
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bank: Transilvania, Sucursala Cluj-Napoca
swift code: BTRL RO22CJA

Va multumesc din inima, anticipat, la fiecare. Doamne-ajuta! Voicu Bojan

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