Queen of the Sciences

Second-century bishop and theologian Irenaeus of Lyon is famous for his teaching on recapitulation—how Christ our head redoes everything Adam and the rest of us did wrong—and so, in our worst pun yet, in this episode we recapitulate his teaching. Also, why heresy is not so much a deviation as a dead-end, how redemption is not getting airlifted out of creation, and how my dogma outran your karma.

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Notes:

1. Irenaeus's work is the five books of Against Heresies, but as Dad advises in this episode, you're best off focusing on books 2, 3, and 4.

2. Related episodes to this one you might enjoy are Ignatius in Chains, Poor Anselm, and Athanasius Against the World.

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Five years in the writing, and more than a quarter-century after the fact, I Am a Brave Bridge: An American Girl's Hilarious and Heartbreaking Year in the Fledgling Republic of Slovakia recounts the first year that the Hinlicky family spent as missionaries in Slovakia in 1993 (the year of Slovakia's independence) and 1994. In this bonus episode, Dad and I talk about the theological themes embedded among the hijinks of cross-cultural romance, the difference between omnipotence and totalitarianism, how to talk about sexuality and love from the perspective of faith without being creepy or cheesy, and the experience of relearning the faith from those who have counted the cost and willingly paid it.

Read the complete prologue on my website or jump right in and get a copy of your own!

Among a certain kind of Lutheran theologian, liking Barth just isn't done. We are not that kind. In this episode, Dad walks us through the theological development of the great Swiss Reformed theologian, why Lutherans made it difficult for Barth to receive Luther and what Barth nevertheless gained from Luther, and highlights of Barth's massive theological oeuvre. And we once again discuss the distinction between law and gospel, because what else would we do?

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Notes:

1. Barth is not the easiest read, but if you're feeling inspired to try, here are some suggestions. For absolute beginners, Evangelical Theology and Prayer. Next step up, try his Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum. When you're ready to tackle the Church Dogmatics, any of these three: volume I/1 on the Word of God, volume II/2 on election, or volume IV/1 on reconciliation.

2. Excellent secondary studies on Barth: McCormack, Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology; Hunsinger, Disruptive Grace; and Jenson, God after God.

More about us at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

All memoirs are meditations on providence—so I learned from writing one of my own (see Note #1 below!). I used to think that all Christian memoirs went back to Augustine, but it turns out he had a biblical precedent: Nehemiah, who most unusually in the canon of Scripture reported his own acts and motives in the first person. In this episode, Dad and I consider the advantages of drama over concepts in depicting the interplay of divine and human agency, how to think about Nehemiah's prohibition on intermarriage and the challenges to minority communities, and what good walls and  buildings do for the community of faith, despite all their inherent problems.

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Notes:

1. The long-awaited memoir! I Am a Brave Bridge: An American Girl's Hilarious and Heartbreaking Year in the Fledgling Republic of Slovakia is pretty much what it sounds like. Also, you can find out how Dad parented a teenage girl, why God is omnipotent but not totalitarian, and how to always be homesick for somewhere else. Plus, there are recipes. Order print from Amazon, an ebook from pretty much any provider, or an ebook direct from Thornbush Press!

2. The two commentaries I studied in preparation for this episode are Throntveit, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Myers, Ezra-Nehemiah.

3. Relevant previous episodes: Is Scripture Holy?, Law & Gospel Part 1, Law & Gospel Part 2, Learning to Love Leviticus, Joshua.

4. See Dad's Beloved Community on conscience, pp. 613–630, and for the Christian revision of metaphysics, see his Divine Complexity and Divine Simplicity.

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Now is the winter of our discontent... or is it the winter of our ecumenism? Either way, the mission-motivated drive to reconcile bitterly divided Christians has succeeded so well that all the frisson has vanished right out of it, but hasn't succeeded enough to actually make us one as Jesus and his Father are one. So in this episode, Dad and I talk through our own interest in and commitment to the search for Christian unity, what unity is not, how an ecumenical document differs from a confessional document, and the lively but relatively unknown history of this 110-year-old movement. Also, a few unguarded opinions.

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Notes:

1. Tons of resources about ecumenism at the Institute for Ecumenical Research.

2. Some of the ecumenical documents we mention in this episode: Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, Healing Memories, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Unto the Churches of Christ Everywhere, Mortalium Animos, Unitatis Redintegratio.

3. Not mentioned by name but highly relevant are the document Lutherans and Pentecostals in Dialogue and the new ecumenical outfit Global Christian Forum.

4. Dad on ecumenism: “Staying Lutheran in the Changing Church(es)” in Changing Churches; Luther vs. Pope Leo; “Scripture as Matrix, Christ as Content” in Luther Refracted; Luther for Evangelicals; “Theological Anthropology: Towards Integrating Theosis and Justification by Faith," Journal of Ecumenical Studies 34/1 (1997): 38–73; and “Process, Convergence, Declaration: Reflections on Doctrinal Dialogue,” The Cresset 64/6 (2001): 13-18.

5. Me on ecumenism: "Reflections Five Years into Ecumenism," "Six Ways Ecumenical Progress Is Possible" Concordia Journal 39/4 (2013): 310–32, entries on "Ecumenical Movement" and "Pentecostalism, Global" in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Martin Luther, and A Guide to Pentecostal Movements for Lutherans.

6. And heck, let's get the whole family in on the fun: check out my husband Andrew's book Here I Walk: A Thousand Miles on Foot to Rome with Luther tracing our pilgrimage on the 500th anniversary of Luther's. (Except it was the 499th... we found out too late.)

7. If you want to take up the catechetical call at the end of the episode, why not try the Small Catechism: Memorizing Edition?

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After a recent dive into the theological, philosophical, and political writings of Hannah Arendt, I found her so disturbingly prescient that I wanted to talk her ideas over with Dad—only to discover that Arendt was one of his earliest and most formative influences, and still is now, in ways that he only realized as we talked. So, in this episode, much about her writings and why Eichmann in Jerusalem elicited such a firestorm, why you should never say "it can't happen here," and that, contrary to popular belief, the most troublesome of all pronouns is "we."

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Notes:

1. Books by Hannah Arendt discussed in this episode: Love and Saint Augustine, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Eichmann in Jerusalem, On Violence

2. Two movies: Hannah Arendt and Vita Activa

3. See Dad's Before Auschwitz and his recent article "Hitler's Theology: A Cautionary Tale for Today's Peril"

4. Kušnieriková, Acting for Others: Trinitarian Communion and Christological Agency

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After setting the stage in our last episode with the distinctives and circumstances of John's Gospel, here we turn to its message: being born again (or is it from above?), how the Father and the Son can be one and yet the Father greater than the Son, whether John's commendation of love of friends is a retrogression from Paul's enemy-love, and how the confrontation with Pilate and the powers functions as the mega-exorcism consolidating the individual exorcism accounts in the Synoptics.

And if every one of things that Jesus did were recorded, the internet itself could not contain the podcasts that would be published.

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Notes:

1. Bultmann, "Eschatology of the Gospel of John" (1928) in Faith and Understanding, 165-183

2. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus

3. Hill, Paul and the Trinity

4. Twelftree, In the Name of Jesus

5. For Dad on John, see Divine Complexity, 69–96

6. For me on John, see "Law and Gospel (With Some Help from St. John)," a sermon on "Doubting Thomas," and the Winter 2020 issue of Theology & a Recipe, "Latkes for Jesus"

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One of these kids is not like the other... and among the New Testament Gospels, that weirdo kid is John. He drops the parables and the Sermon on the Mount and the exorcisms, shifts the cleansing of the temple from the end to the beginning, turns poor Lazarus in Abraham's bosom into a dead man walking out of a tomb, and is totally unfazed by Gentiles but levels constants accusations against "the Jews"... even though most of his heroes are Jews, too. What gives? In this episode, Dad and I talk through the Johannine distinctives and the theories as to why this Gospel turned out so different, in the process voting for our favorite. No spoilers here... you gotta listen all the way through to find out.

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Notes:

1. Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John (among others)

2. Bultmann, The Gospel of John

3. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel

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In which Sarah unloads a jeremiad on the Revised Common Lectionary and Dad mostly stands at the side of the road and watches. Also, ways to work around lectionary limitations, and whether you should preach "with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other."

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Notes:

1. Revelant previous episodes of ours include What Is (Not) the Job of a Pastor?, Learning to Love Leviticus, The Relationship between the Old and New Testaments, and Is Scripture Holy?

2. This jeremiad pretty much follows the course of the jeremiah I wrote for Mockingbird, "The Top Ten Reasons the Lectionary Sucks and Five Half-Assed Solutions." Lots of relevant links in the notes there.

3. A good podcast for lectionary preachers, hosted my old friend John Drury, is Fresh Text. I'll be in an upcoming episode (where I manage to restrain my RCL disdain reasonably well).

4. Strawn, The Old Testament Is Dying

5. Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man

6. You can find my sermon series on Romans on my YouTube channel.

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Welcome to Season 3 of Queen of the Sciences!

To kick off the most welcome new year in recent memory, we tackle the question of the certainty of faith. What does it even mean to be "certain" where something like "faith" is concerned? Can we have the same certainty as, say, apostles and early Christians, or as folks before various revolutions in science and historical study? Where does doubt fit in, or hard questions? Is faith something that you have or something that has you? All this and more!

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Notes:

1. Relevant previous episodes include Justification by Faith, Faith to the Aid of Reason, and The Freedom of a Christian.

2. Here's the Council of Trent criticizing what it took to be the Reformation doctrine of faith.

3. For Tillich on faith as being grasped by ultimate concern, since his Systematic Theology, vol. 3, pp. 129-134

4. For Barth on prayer, see the Church Dogmatics III/4:87-115 and Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts

5. See Dad's Beloved Community for an example of "critical dogmatics" in action, and also his forthcoming article "Retrieving Luther on Prayer" in The T&T Clark Companion to Christian Prayer

More about us on sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!