New Testament scholar Dale Martin has called for doing away with speaking of the ‘authority of Scripture’. Constructively, he proposes a number of metaphors for Scripture, which, nevertheless, poin...

Metaphors for Scripture: taking up Dale Martin’s challenge:

The Task of Dogmatics: Explorations in Theological Method

In his recent book, Dale Martin, Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies at Yale, offers an apologetic for a nonfoundational reading of Scripture. He begins his argument with a demonstration of the inadequacy of the historical-critical model by critiquing two of its more influential exponents (one each at either end of the theological spectrum): Rudolf Bultmann and George Eldon Ladd. He concludes that:

Theology after Brexit: Does Martin’s Biblical Truths really liberate biblical interpretation from academic control and for real-life Christianity?:

Study of nature of deities & religious beliefs

The institutes of Christian religion

On Christian Theology. By Rowan Williams. Oxford/Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. xvi + 310 pp. $64.95 (cloth); $26.95 (paper). In this single volume, Rowan Williams, Anglican Archbishop of Wales, collects many of his best essays and lectures from the 1980s and '90s and thereby proves himself to be (if there ever was any doubt) one of the best theologians on the contemporary scene. Having read a number of these pieces elsewhere and been, I thought, suitably edified, I was surprised by the depth and profundity they gained when considered together. Any essay by Williams makes clear his skill as a writer and ability to address issues of genuine religious moment, for all the enormous erudition on display. Read in isolation, however, the individual significance of any one tends to fade beneath the smooth surface of its elegant expression. Read together, their recurring themes become an equally elegant interwoven tapestry, systematic theology at its best-spiritually and intellectually rich with a coherence that resists simple formulas. At the heart of Williams' vision is the sense that, like Judaism, Christianity is about a communal way of living-more specifically, the unified community of all peoples that Jesus enables. This is not the church's possession but its mission or project-God's project, indeed, in which Christians hope to participate over the course of historical engagement in conversation and controversy with others in the world. Dedication to such a universal prospect means the overcoming of simple self-concern and self-defense by the church; the church must reach beyond itself-by enlarging the language of faith to engage the world in its particulars, by offering its hope for a genuinely common future with a willingness therefore to judge and be judged by all for failings in that regard (e.g., for narrow-mindedness and pretensions to exclusive privilege). Dedication to such a mission involves a process of transformation and conversion, movement from the loss or dispossession of one's previous sense of things to renewal and recovery in Christ, something we come to learn through the movements of our reading of scripture-e.g., by positioning ourselves within the dramatic course of the parables, according to the paradigm of Jesus' own death and resurrection, and by merging our time with the time of scripture over the course of the liturgical year. The sacraments are a place where such processes unfold; in the Eucharist, for example, Christ preempts our betrayal by offering himself in the passive form of things; we are moved thereby from betrayers to guests of God's own hospitality. Doctrines are about such a process of conversion, about being judged by Christ in the hope of renewal. The cross is that judgment; the resurrection is that hope. Creation ex nihilo captures the same movement: the ability of God to bring something new out of the wreck of our lives without him. Revelation means what is generative of new community. The Holy Spirit is not the final bridge, with Christ, between a far-off God and the world, but the one who brings about our conformity with Christ in a new way of living. The empty tomb ensures a discontinuity between the church and Christ who is present and active in it, and therefore makes clear Christ's continuing freedom to transform it. …

On Christian Theology

Dogmatic constitution on divine revelation - dei verbum

In this, the first full-scale black systematic theology in twenty years, James Evans emerges as a major and distinctive voice in American theology.Seeking to overcome the chasm between church practice and theological reflection, Evans situates theology squarely in the nexus of faith with freedom. There, with a sure touch, he uplifts revelatory aspects of black religious experience that reanimate classical areas of theology, and he creates a theology with a heart, a soul and a voice that speaks directly to our condition.

We Have Been Believers: An African American Systematic Theology, Second Edition

For all of the Bible's popularity, confusion reigns about what the Bible is, its relationship to God and to its human authors and readers, and its proper use. Living and Active answers these fundamental questions by looking anew at Scripture from the perspective of Christian doctrine.Rather than treating the Bible as a sourcebook for theology, Telford Work uses systematic theology to build a compelling new doctrine of Scripture that allows us to see the Bible at work accomplishing God's purposes in the world. Throughout the book, Work incorporates insights from the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist, and evangelical traditions. He also interacts with patristic theology, historical-critical methods of interpretation, and postmodern thought. As a result, Living and Active is the most relevant and ecumenical statement of Scripture now available.