Queen of the Sciences

You may have missed the recent U.S. presidential election, since it was kinda inconsequential and nobody was paying any attention to it. Oh wait... In today's episode, Dad and I take up the topic of "our democracy" as it has been talked about in the U.S. during this grueling election year, why Christians have an investment in flourishing democratic government (especially considering the alternatives), how the distinctions between church and state, and God's two kingdoms, play out in a democratic nation, and what we can faithfully do in our callings as Christians and citizens. Plus, Sarah reminds you that you are not Bonhoeffer.

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Notes:

1. Related episodes: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King Jr, Two Kingdoms 16th Century Edition, Two Kingdoms 20th and 21st Century Edition

2. Tocqueville, Democracy in America

3. Heise, The Gates of Hell (on the elimination of the Russian Lutheran Church during the Soviet period)

4. Bonhoeffer, Ethics and Letters and Papers from Prison, plus DeJonge's Bonhoeffer on Resistance

5. Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics"

Many religions are historically entangled with one another, but no relationship is as close, fraught, or dangerous as that between Judaism and Christianity... kind of like a pair of biblical brothers, in fact. In this episode Dad and I discuss the enormous number of things these two have in common, why that makes the not negligible difference of assessment about Jesus so explosive, how we might learn from one another, and how we might learn to wait for God to confirm our faith, one way or another.

Notes:

1. Related episodes: Islam, World Religions, Unbaptized God, On Hamas's Attack on Israel, Before Auschwitz, Galatians 1, Galatians 2, Nehemiah, Luther and the Jews, The Relationship of the Old and New Testaments

2. Nostra Aetate

3. Cohen, Everyman's Talmud

4. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son

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What's that story about the medieval monk who tried to find peace through religious good works, got wise to the power and corruption of the religious establishment, had a breakthrough to trust in the mercy of the transcendent one who became immanent for our salvation, and as a result left the monastery, got married, had children, and worked among ordinary folks? No, not Luther. Shinran! In this episode, Dad and I explore the rather startling parallels between the True Pure Land school of Buddhism in Japan and Lutheran Christianity, then discuss what the implications of these overlaps may, or may not, mean from our theological perspective.

Notes:

1. Related episodes: Islam, World Religions, Justification by Faith, The Certainty of Faith, Justification by Faith Revisited, Faith Just Faith, Japanese Theologian Kazoh Kitamori

2. Most of the information in this episode I drew from Jodo Shinshu: A Guide; you might also be interested in Taitetsu Unno, River of Fire, River of Water: An Introduction to the Pure Land Tradition of Shin Buddhism

3. Armstrong, Buddha

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Six years of top-quality theological podcasting... Show your support by becoming a Patron!

After considering "World Religions" as such, in this episode Dad and I turn our attention to considering a specific world religion. But our burden here is not to discuss the details or the disputes about or within Islam, but mainly to inquire about it as a challenge to Christian theology. Do we wrongly exalt the finite man Jesus to the status of the infinite? Does our complex creed betray a fatal weakness compared to Islam's simple one? How did God as Christians know him allow a competing monotheism to arise under his providence? Not surprisingly, we also put some theological questions of our own to Islam.

Notes:

1. Related episodes: World Religions, John of Damascus, Fear and Phobias, Two Kingdoms 16th Century Edition, Two Kingdoms 20th and 21st Century Edition, On Hamas' Attack on Israel, Luther and the Jews

2. Some resources for more in-depth study of Islam on its own terms: Fletcher, The Cross and the Crescent; Saeed, Islamic Thought: An Introduction; A Common Word: Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor

3. Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, and see also Janosik, John of Damascus: First Apologist to the Muslims

4. Sanneh, Summoned from the Margin

5. Shoemaker, Creating the Qur'an

6. Manji, The Trouble with Islam

7. Also consider listening to this episode I did with Enter the Bible on the variety of millennialisms and the temptations of interpreting history

Exactly what the title says it is!

And please check out Crackers and Grape Juice!

You know that there is such a thing as "world religions," and you know which ones they are. But why? Where did such a notion even come from? And why are some in but some aren't? Is "religion" even the right word for everything categorized under it? And if not, why has "religious studies" come to dominate, not to say replace, "theology" at virtually every college in America? In this episode Dad and I trace the genealogy of the concept of both "religious studies" and "world religions," take a look at what one might dare to call a crisis of faith within these disciplines, and give some ideas about how religious studies and theology can actually do each other some good.

Notes:

1. James, The Variety of Religious Experience

2. Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions

3. Shoemaker, Creating the Qur'an

4. Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth

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The more ecumenical dialogues establish agreement, the more they turn up disagreement. Why, 115 years into multilateral Christian dialogue and 60 years into bilateral dialogue, does Christian unity look farther away than ever? Why can't we all just agree? In this episode, Dad and I delve deeply into Lutheran theologian Robert W. Jenson's book Unbaptized God, which posits that the problem isn't disagreement at all—it's disastrous agreement on a faulty premise at the root of the theological enterprise. We agree and disagree with Jenson, both of which reactions prove to be tremendously fruitful.

Notes:

1. Jenson, Unbaptized God

2. Apocalyptic and the Future of Theology

3. Related episodes: Apologetics, Second Peter and the Second Coming, John of Damascus, Chalcedon vs Luther, Bonhoeffer's Christology, A Hegel with all the Fixin's

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Is the apologetic enterprise coercing people outside the Christian faith into a decision on which their eternal fate depends, conceding the terms of the debate to the culture's notion of what's important, or making fruitful contact in ways specific to the person and situation? (I bet you can guess our answer.) In this episode, Dad and I examine some worse ways of making a defense for the faith that is within us en route to some recommendations of a more excellent way. Plus, Sarah complains even more about Tillich.

Notes:

1. Related episodes: The Bible in One Hand and the Newspaper in the Other?, Chalcedon vs Luther, The Resurrection, Good Tillich, Bad Tillich, Niebuhr, Critical Social Theory, An Unlikely Marriage, Luther and the Jews

2. McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict

3. Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man

4. Tillich, Systematic Theology vol. 1

5. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine

6. Sarah's book of law-gospel parables, Pearly Gates

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Whose all-time favorite NT epistle is Second Peter? Yeah, I thought so, i.e., nobody's. Terse yet wordy, full of highly developed doctrine yet also threats of judgment, and most likely pseudepigraphal, it's a tough nut to crack. In this episode, Dad and I haul out our exegetical nutcrackers and extract the sweetmeat (to push an already overstrained metaphor too far—though you gotta admit, it fits with Second Peter's prose style), which, oddly enough, proves to be the Parousia of Christ and God's astounding patience, desiring that all, yes all, come to repentance. Plus, more on the Transfiguration!

Notes:

1. Sarah's book on the Transfiguration is now in print and available for general purchase! Get Seven Ways of Looking at the Transfiguration as an ebook and audiobook direct from Thornbush Press, print (or any other format) from Amazon.

2. Bauckham, Jude–2 Peter

2. Schnelle, The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings

3. Harink, 1 & 2 Peter

4. Saarinen, The Pastoral Epistles with Philemon & Jude

5. Related episodes: Jude, The Transfiguration, I Peter, Faith Just Faith

Holy moly! Six years of top-quality theological podcasting! Why not show your support by becoming a Patron?