Liturgical Theology as a Research Program

This essay is centered around five questions: (i) What is the proper place of liturgical theology? (ii) What past evolutions have there been and what tendencies are there currently in the field of liturgical theology? (iii) What contents should liturgical theologians focus on? (iv) How can liturgical theologians engage in research? And (v): How can liturgical theology appropriately respond to events occurring in Church and society? Each question corresponds to one part. The rationale behind ordering the content this way is the following: starting from a reflection about the non-evident place of liturgical theology, an attempt is made to reposition it on the basis of its genealogy in the Liturgical Movement. It seems that this is a particularly fruitful way to give liturgical theology a proper profile and identity. Correspondingly, liturgical theology can be considered a fully-fledged research program that manifests its usefulness and fruitfulness. In particular, it is shown that liturgical theologians are called to engage in the study of the meaning of Christian worship, and thereby contribute to theology as a whole. They are to employ a variety of methods but should proceed in such a way that directs reflection, research and spirituality always towards the core of liturgy, as established by the history and economy of salvation and culminating in the paschal mystery. If, and inasmuch they do this, they will have a great deal to offer given the complex challenges the Church and theology are confronted with today. The fundamental principle of this entire essay is that liturgical theology does not simply deal with Christian rituals, festivals and sacraments, but with the core of faith itself—God, the world, the Christ event, tradition, Church, and redemption—to the extent that it is embodied and expressed in worship practices.

Religion and Film

Is cinema evil, or sacramental? Can films make theological contributions? Can film-viewing be a religious practice? How do films, values and power interact? The study of film and religion engages a range of diverse questions through different approaches and methods. In this contribution, I distinguish three complementary approaches. In the first section, I discuss those that focus on the film as text, the representation of religion in film, and how theology happens in film. The next section will broaden this perspective by taking into consideration how films affect audiences, and how the relationship between film and audience might have religious dimensions or serve religious functions. In the third section, attention to the text and the audience are combined with the consideration of both film and religion as agents in cultural processes in order to think about how film and religion are shaped by and shape value systems and ideologies. In the last section I will begin to tackle the difficult question of theory and method. I consciously postpone this part until the end because, in many cases, methodologies and theoretical frameworks are implied in and emerge from concrete case studies rather than being consciously reflected upon. This final section has two goals: it will make explicit some of these underlying assumptions to serve as a starting point for a more sustained reflection on the theories and methodologies of the field, and it will highlight some of the pitfalls we encounter if we are not methodologically and theoretically precise in our work.

The Nature and Promise of Analytic Theology

In the past decade analytic theology has established itself as a flourishing research program that includes academic journals, monograph series, a dedicated annual conference, research centers on several continents, and a growing and diverse body of work produced by scholars drawn from philosophy, theology, and biblical studies. In this short monograph Oliver Crisp, James Arcadi, and Jordan Wessling introduce readers to analytic theology. The work provides an account of analytic theology, some of the main areas in which analytic theologians have worked, and some of the prospects for the future of analytic theology going forward. It also addresses some key objections to analytic theology as a theological method, and aims to acquaint scholars and students with this new and promising theological movement.

Decolonial Theology in the North Atlantic World

This essay develops a response to the historical situation of the North Atlantic world in general and the United States in particular through theological reflection. It offers an overview of some decolonial perspectives with which theologians can engage, and argues for a general perspective for a decolonial theology as a possible response to modern/colonial structures and relations of power, particularly in the United States. Decolonial theory holds together a set of critical perspectives that seek the end of the modern/colonial world-system and not merely a democratization of its benefits. A decolonial theology, it is argued, critiques how the confinement of knowledge to European traditions has closed possibilities for understanding historical encounters with divinity, and thus possibilities of critical reflection. A decolonial theology reflects critically on a historical situation in light of faith in a divine reality, the understanding of which is liberated from the monopoly of modern/colonial ways of knowing, in order to catalyze social transformation.

Theology of Religions

Adams maps and analyses the field of ‘theology of religions’ (ToR) and its various typologies, examining the assumptions in how religion is assessed. The purpose is to identify how contributions to ToR select and deselect material and trajectories, editing according to presuppositions and interests. Adams’ analysis consciously relies on Andrew Shanks’ Hegelian notion of ‘truth-as-openness’ (divine hospitality) as it illuminates three dynamics, or ‘scandals’, within ToR. The first, concerned with how a religion’s particularity or identity is constructed, is subdivided between ‘particularity transcended’ and ‘particularity re-centred’, along the lines of Jenny Daggers’ postcolonial insights. The second concerns the interactions when one religion engages an Other’s strangeness, and the third is concerned with how religions aim to transform socio-political systems which feign or obstruct universality, so to effect ever greater solidarity. The text notes key trends, beyond Christianity and including deepening interdisciplinarity, and potential developments from a critical but constructive standpoint.

Theology and Race

This study develops a Christian theological response to the problems of race and anti-black racism in conversation with black theology and womanist theology. It provides a detailed introduction to multiple voices, developments, and tensions in these two theological traditions over the last half century. It offers an overview of James Cone’s arguments and their reception. It considers turns toward pragmatism and genealogy in black religious scholarship, focusing on Cornel West, Peter Paris, Dwight Hopkins, Victor Anderson, Anthony Pinn, Bryan Massingale, J. Kameron Carter, and Willie Jennings. It analyzes womanist theological treatments of intersectionality, narrative, and embodiment through Jacquelyn Grant, Katie Cannon, Delores Williams, Emilie Townes, Karen Baker-Fletcher, Kelly Brown Douglas, Diana Hayes, and M. Shawn Copeland. Finally, it suggests some open questions related to hybridity, sexuality, and ecology. Ultimately, it argues that the credibility of Christian theological witness depends significantly on the quality of Christian theology’s response to anti-black racism.

Continental Philosophy and Theology

Continental philosophy underwent a ‘return to religion’ or a ‘theological turn’ in the late 20th Century. And yet any conversation between continental philosophy and theology must begin by addressing the perceived distance between them: that one is concerned with destroying all normative, metaphysical order (continental philosophy’s task) and the other with preserving religious identity and community in the face of an increasingly secular society (theology’s task). Colby Dickinson argues inContinental Philosophy and Theologyrather that perhaps such a tension is constitutive of the nature of order, thinking and representation which typically take dualistic forms and which might be rethought, though not necessarily abolished. Such a shift in perspective even allows one to contemplate this distance as not opting for one side over the other or by striking a middle ground, but as calling for a nondualistic theology that measures the complexity and inherently comparative nature of theological inquiry in order to realign theology’s relationship to continental philosophy entirely.

The Role of Theology in the History and Philosophy of Science

After a bibliographic introduction highlighting various research trends in science and religion, this essay explores how the current academic and conceptual landscape of theology and science has been shaped by the history of science, even as theology has informed the philosophical foundations of science. The first part assesses the historical interactions of science and the Christian faith (looking at the cases of human dissection in the Middle Ages and the Galileo affair) in order to challenge the common notion that science and religion have always been at war. Part two investigates the nature of the interaction between science and Christian theology by exploring the role that metaphysical presuppositions and theological concepts have played—and continue to play—within the scientific process.