Jeremiah and Homiletics

This chapter explores homiletical possibilities afforded by the book of Jeremiah to the Christian preacher. The earliest layers of contextualization are examined through consideration of preaching on Jeremiah in the early Church, focusing on sermons of Origen. In discussing the early modern period, the chapter attends to the preaching of Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin. Finally, the chapter reflects on homiletical moves made by contemporary preachers in a variety of ecclesial contexts from the nineteenth century to the present, including Charles Spurgeon and Walter Brueggemann. Noteworthy in the homiletical reception of Jeremiah are four passages: first, the commissioning of Jeremiah (1:4–10), which foregrounds agonistic dimensions of prophetic witness and has served as a focus in liturgies of ordination; second, the lament, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” (8:22), transformed in a renowned African American spiritual into the asseveration that “there is a balm in Gilead,” namely, Jesus; third, Jeremiah’s depiction of the divine word as irresistible, “like a burning fire shut up in my bones” (20:9); and fourth, the promise of the new covenant that God will inscribe on the heart (31:31–34).

Cries from the Cross: Jesus and the Wrongfully Convicted

This paper endeavors to affirm the humanity, make known the pain, and lift up the prophetic witness of wrongfully convicted individuals. I bring forward their spiritual journeys and place them in dialectical relationship with Jesus Christ. When we understand Jesus’ death as utterly wrongful and position him in radical solidarity with the wrongly condemned, we see that when the State wrongfully incarcerates, cages, and executes, Jesus too is crucified.

Reforum: A brief but not unimportant chapter in the Dutch Reformed Church’s apartheid saga

In 1985 when storm clouds were gathering over South Africa, and a state of emergency was declared, a group of members of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) Family, clergy as well as laity, founded an organisation, Reforum. The two-fold aim of Reforum was to provide a prophetic witness against apartheid, calling the DRC to take leave of its theology of apartheid, and, secondly, to work towards the reunification of the DRC Family. The article researches the original Reforum documents, minutes, reports, conference material and letters, that hitherto laid untouched in the DRC Archive, in Pretoria. The programme of Reforum, especially the national and regional conferences held by the organisation over the 7 years of its existence, is discussed. The initial negative reaction of the DRC officials and synods, as well as the critique from some in the Dutch Reformed Mission Church and the DRC in Africa that Reforum was not radical enough in its approach, are recorded. The summation, at the end, is that Reforum did play a significant role, albeit humble and short lived, in the annals of the DRC’s apartheid saga. Relevance: The DRC’s apartheid saga, the story of a church that had over many years lived with apartheid and even provided a theological argument for separate development, eventually came to the point where the DRC not only repented of its past, but declared apartheid and the theology of apartheid a sin and a heresy, continues to fascinate historians, including church historians. For South African Christians, clergy as well as laity, it helps explain their often troubled past, as well as present. The often neglected story of Reforum and the role and contribution of the organisation in this process needs to be recorded. Original research: the author provides original qualitative research, using material that had lain untouched in the DRC Archive for three decades. This may be considered to be a preliminary study. The archival material merits more and deeper attention. It may well provide material for post graduate research.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The research is of value for the study of South African general history, South African church history, ecumenical studies, and practical theology.

Locating European Mission in a Wounded World in Deep Transformation

This article explores the challenges to engaging in Christian mission in Europe in these times. It takes as two defining characteristics of the current moment woundedness and the need for deep transformation. The woundedness of Europe is marked by the consequences of globalization which, on the one hand, give people the sense of losing control over their own world and, on the other, the influx of migrants and refugees escaping political and economic disorder in Asia and Africa. A spirituality of woundedness, based on the wounds of Jesus Christ, is offered as a basis for attending to wounds as a missio ad vulnera. The profound transformation to which Europe is called will require a spirituality based on conversion, kenosis, building community, and prophetic witness.

Erratum: Editorial: Prophetic witness in weakness

No abstract available.

Creation and New Creation in the Book of Revelation

The topics of creation and new creation are central to the persuasive strategy of Revelation. Addressing itself to a context in which cosmology was often deployed to buttress Roman hegemony, Revelation constructs a “counter-cosmos” to undermine Rome’s pretentious claims to sovereignty. Within this narrative world God is worshipped because he is both the maker of all things and the one who makes all things new. Revelation’s frequent portrayals of cosmic turmoil and catastrophe function to undermine Rome’s claim to secure existence, but the ultimate hope is that creation will be renewed by means of a transference of sovereignty, where the divine reign displaces the corrupted rule of Babylon. Such hopes ultimately serve John’s wider pastoral goals, in which he is seeking for Asian Christians to foster critical distance from their surrounding culture, and so form them for prophetic witness to the nations.

On Patting Snakes and Sitting under Trees: Just Peace Theory and Prophetic Witness

As a reaction against the failures of Just War theory in creating a more harmonious world, recent times have seen the emergence of Just Peace as a corrective to the tendency to use Just War as justification for, rather than a warning against, aggravated conflict. This article considers the contribution of Daniel Philpott to this literature, and argues that theoretical concepts alone will be insufficient for the institution of a Just Peace. In looking for complementary images, the article considers two images from the prophetic corpus to image a Just Peace. Strikingly, both prophetic passages draw on ecological imagery to imagine a world at peace.

Disability, Vocation, and Prophetic Witness

This paper builds on Frances Young’s suggestion that people with profound intellectual disability have a prophetic vocation. It explores the idea of vocation using the experience of intellectual disability as a critical hermeneutic that brings to the fore a perspective that views vocation as something that includes all of the Body of Christ and not just the head. The intention is to offer a different more theologically and practically inclusive perspective on vocation that might enable us to create communities where each member's vocation was valued and enabled.