Search Results (88)

This article presents a theological framework of a Theology of Living, which seeks to reimagine the task of theology as a lived, communal and practical enterprise. Departing from purely systematic or disembodied approaches, this theology emphasises the relational and contextual dimensions of Christian faith. The embedded nature of theology acknowledges that theological reflection is always situated within particular histories, cultures and communities. The deliberative dimension foregrounds the necessity of intentional, dialogical discernment in response to complex moral and spiritual challenges. The embodied aspect affirms that theology is not merely spoken or written, but enacted through the rhythms of everyday life, worship and service. Drawing upon pastoral experience, biblical reflection and theological discourse, this article proposes that such an integrated approach to theology not only bridges the gap between doctrine and practice but also reclaims theology’s vocational role in forming individuals and communities shaped by love, justice and hope. Full article

Writing from a Reformed perspective, I intend to develop a concept of the duplex iustitia. I will argue that it is possible to affirm that infused righteousness is the sole formal cause of justification, while holding that imputation is its material cause. My goal in doing so will be to enumerate another possible area of agreement so that areas of disagreement can be stated in sharper dynamic clarity and therefore more precisely addressed. First, I will articulate what precisely is at issue in the disagreement between Roman Catholics and the Reformed on the matter of justification’s cause. Here I will discuss the role union with Christ plays in both Roman Catholic and Reformed concepts of justification. From these foundations, I will then argue that a Reformed perspective on justification coheres with the Tridentine affirmation that the sole formal cause is the “righteousness of God by which he makes us just”, while retaining the affirmation that its proper material cause is the imputed righteousness of Christ. In this section, I will defend a version of the duplex iustitia. Third, I will conclude by analyzing how this proposal might move beyond some of the agreements reached in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDF henceforth) of 1999 and the International Catholic-Reformed dialogue document “Justification and Sacramentality” of 2015, while also stating the limitations of my proposal. Finally, I will answer some anticipated objections. Full article

This paper examines the political discourse of South Korean conservative Christianity, focusing on its alignment with far-right ideologies that undermine both democratic norms and the theological integrity of faith. Triggered by recent constitutional crises involving former President Suk-yeol Yoon, far-right Protestant groups have engaged in mobilisations marked by hate speech, disinformation, and theological politicisation. Drawing upon Heinrich Bedford-Strohm’s model of public theology, the study critiques this trend and argues for a reconfiguration of Christian public engagement toward justice, inclusion, and rational dialogue. It further explores the blurred boundaries between conservative and far-right Christian movements, the distortion of the public sphere, and the impact of digital misinformation. Ultimately, the paper proposes a theological and ethical roadmap for restoring the credibility of Christianity in South Korea’s pluralistic democracy. Full article

The ecumenical movement’s basic purpose is to seek Christian unity. In facing the challenge of mission and ecumenism today, it is important to explicate how the ecumenical movement understands unity currently, and how the concept may have changed. This article’s hypothesis is that the goal of the church’s visible unity has changed less than appearances might suggest. The concept is now generally understood more holistically in ecumenical theology. In this article, a historical-systematic analysis focuses on the concept of visible unity, especially in the unity statements of the Assemblies of the World Council of Churches. An analysis of ecumenical models of unity and ways of realising churches’ unity in practice follows, as well as a reflection on the turns created by the latest ecumenical debate. The analysis confirms that the visible unity remains a central ecumenical goal in the quest for Christian unity. The turn towards holistic ecumenism seems to help address those who shun institutional ecumenism, without forgetting the Trinitarian and Christological theological basis and the institutional dimension. Diversity is not arbitrary: at its best it supports creativity and trust, freeing individuals for common witness and service. Full article

This systematic theological study critiques the utilitarian religiosity among neo-Pentecostal prophets (NPPs) for promoting a dealmaking or ‘spiritual hustling’ approach to faith, rather than fostering a personal relationship with God. Utilitarian religiosity refers to the use of spirituality as an instrument to extract material blessings from God. NPPs represent a contemporary form of African Pentecostalism, characterised by prophetic figures who claim unique divine mandates to liberate individuals from the evil spirits believed to hinder prosperity in this life. The primary question answered in the article is as follows: how does the relational nature of faith in God in Christian theology challenge the utilitarian view of spirituality among neo-Pentecostal prophets (NPPs) in Zimbabwe? The secondary question is as follows: how should Christian faith be understood and articulated to challenge NPPs to move from utilitarian spirituality to relational spirituality? Utilitarian religiosity is critiqued for promoting a works-based relationship with God, which violates the biblical teaching that faith alone is sufficient to establish a connection with God. The NPPs’ utilitarian spirituality is critiqued from a Reformed theological emphasis on salvation by faith and challenges them to propagate a relational spirituality that comforts and empowers the poor, rather than a utilitarian spirituality rooted in dealmaking that renders God distant from those who most urgently need his presence amid existential struggles. Full article

Christian theology is not an isolated system of knowledge. The theological phenomena of revelation and inspiration are related to human knowledge of self, community and the world, yet it would be insufficient to think that their conceptual content comes only from human natural experience. This truth is expressed in the doctrine of “theological places”, which is most often associated with the Spanish Dominican Melchior Cano because of its systematic presentation. In this contribution, I present the hypothesis that science (in the modern sense) can be understood as a “theological place”, not only from the perspective of direct assimilation of concrete and detailed scientific data, but also at the level of imagination. Imagination turns out to be one of the essential components of the scientific method, of course, differently at different stages of the history of science. At the same time, today, theology itself is increasingly appealing to the imagination. In this perspective, one of the main tasks facing theology is the reception of the scientific imagination at both levels of its functioning: as a paradigm of thinking and a specific set of information that makes up the modern scientific picture of the world. Scientific imagination, not only that which comes from art, literature and philosophy, can significantly stimulate the theological imagination. Full article

Studies on youth theology, although a relatively new research field, offer various theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches concerning young people’s theological thought structures. These studies not only illuminate the process of religious identity formation among youth but also provide an opportunity to reassess the pedagogical and practical dimensions of religious education. In particular, analyses of the intersections of youth theology with family, educational, and religious contexts offer practitioners of this field new perspectives and horizons not only at the theoretical but also at the practical level, contributing to a more inclusive and effective structuring of religious education. The main purpose of this study is to present the contributions of youth theology to the theoretical and practical dimensions of religious education in an analytical framework. In this context, the focus of this study is to examine how the perspectives offered by youth theology on the religious identity construction, spiritual development, and social roles of young individuals can shape the content, methods, and practices of religious education. In this regard, examining the relationship between the pedagogical dynamics of youth theology and religious education aims to provide a theoretical enrichment to the literature and innovative approaches to practical applications. This study was designed with the case study method, which is one of the qualitative research designs, and the document analysis technique was used as a data collection tool. The research data were analyzed using the descriptive evaluation method. This approach enabled the research to be handled in an in-depth and systematic manner and to present the relevant data in a meaningful way. This study, which deals with the phenomena of youth and theology in relation to each other, aims to examine the interactions between these phenomena in depth. In the concluding section, various educational models for religious education targeting young individuals are proposed, offering practical recommendations derived from a theoretical framework. These recommendations aim to highlight the potential contributions of youth theology to religious education, serving as a guiding resource for future research and applications. Full article

This essay responds to Paul Molnar’s Torrance-inspired critique that Barth inappropriately read back elements of subordination into the immanent trinity, improperly introducing a notion of hierarchy within God’s life. It proposes that Nicene and pro-Nicene engagement with John 14:28 permits the kind of trinitarian negotiation Barth undertook and that Barth’s interpretation is to be preferred for exegetical and hermeneutical reasons and concludes with an implication for systematic theology. Full article

In the Qumran War Scroll (1QM) 1:1–15 and 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11, almost the same eschatological interpretative framework is created with words from the semantic domains of light and darkness, kinship, war, ethics, divinity and time. Although the constructed frameworks in these texts look alike, their impact on the self-understanding of the respective Qumran and Thessalonian communities is different. This article aims to reconstruct these frameworks from the texts by using semantic dictionaries and to reconstruct the probable impact of these frameworks on the self-understanding of the communities by utilizing some insights from sociolinguistics. It shows that although communities around the beginning of the era used almost the same frameworks, the effect on group identities could be significantly different. Full article

The phenomenon conceptualized in this paper as political pentecostalism is described as a post-confessional Christian network of religious leaders and megachurches that has transformed the political scene on a global scale in the last decades. This new development represents a point of inflection in many respects within the trajectory of modern societies, particularly in the Global South, and adds new challenges to the already vexed relation between religion and civil society. Methodologically, this paper sets out to systematize the results of extensive ethnological studies about this phenomenon with the aim of reconstructing its genealogy, capturing its distinctive phenomenological traits, and distilling its central theological tenets. Defining the latter along the lines of spiritual warfare, dominion theology, and over-realized eschatology constitutes the condition for establishing as well as engaging its underlying political theology, which will be appraised in the last section. The criticism leveled there with the aid of the concepts of katechon, sovereignty, and common good is indicative of the necessity of a broader theological debate, given the multiple inconsistencies contained in its political theology, while being aware of the challenges that they pose to Christian theology as a whole. Full article

This essay presents four different steps that we can follow to establish an analogical connection between the Christian praxis and the Trinitarian immanent life. To illustrate these steps, we have provided a case study of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s treatment of obedience. Obedience is employed analogically to speak of the Trinitarian life of God and of the Christian life, by means of grounding this concept in the personhood of Christ, to be more precise, in his mission. In other words, the Christian obedience becomes a participation in the eternal Trinitarian love between the persons. Balthasar’s treatment of this subject illustrates an example whereby a theory–practice split is overcome with the employment of analogy in systematic theology. Full article

In the burgeoning field of ecotheology, scholars have been compelled to propose typologies to introduce and categorize existing but diffuse ecotheological insights. Taking ecotheology as a particular epistemic theology, I argue for an alternative way of typologizing that entails meticulously examining the extent to which ecotheologians engage with competing epistemes, namely “postcolonial typology”. To illustrate, I will examine a range of ecotheological works from a postcolonial nation, Indonesia. I present three groups of ecotheologies: the “expansionist”, the “tribalist”, and the “essentialist” approaches (or strategies). The expansionist group extends or expands the systematic theology formerly introduced by European missionaries during the colonial period as a way to ecologize their theology. The tribalist approach prioritizes retrieving and incorporating local or tribal wisdom. Finally, the essentialist group focuses on identifying categorical frameworks that may signify “Indonesianness”, which involves a “strategic” choice of essentialism that yields to a national or transtribal theological cohesion. In the end, I will also note one pedagogical implication of employing postcolonial typology. Full article

This article examines the influence of Augustinian thought in the development of Arthur Prior’s tense logic. In particular, the article investigates Prior’s use of the 11th chapter of Confessiones and debates whether Augustinian temporality can correctly be characterized as a form of presentism. The investigation follows two distinct paths: The first part demonstrates the significance of Augustinian thought in the development of presentism and discusses the validity of Prior’s claim that this ontological doctrine “embodies the truth” behind Augustine’s view of past, present, and future. This line of inquiry will show that Augustine’s discussion in Confessiones does contain elements that could be applied in developing such a view of the ontology of time. The second part of the article, however, will highlight the dangers of applying concepts of the modern philosophical debate anachronistically when interpreting Augustine, as his view of time is then not adequately represented and often severely misunderstood. Understanding the historical roots of presentism accentuates the need for an explicit and careful definition of the concept in the contemporary debate about time. Full article

This paper explores recent discussions on the nature and character of Christian doctrine and doctrinal arrangement within leading accounts of systematic theology, that is, the attempt to offer an integrated and cohesive account of the central commitments of the Christian faith. Through such discussion, I argue that the perennial epistemological problem systematic theology faces in its attempts to speak about a (divine) object who definitionally exceeds such speech is related to the specific ethical problem of systematic theology’s performances as a hegemonic discipline, one which often functions to exclude non-white, non-male perspectives. In light of these challenges, I contend that “positive” reasons for continuing systematic theology remain remote; systematic theology cannot be saved. Yet neither can it be avoided, lest such problems are willfully repeated and because of the ways systematic theology continues to be a leading site of doctrinal reflection within Christian education and intellectual reflection. I therefore conclude this paper by exploring two apocalyptic responses to the crises facing systematic theology which advocate for its continuation precisely by calling for its “end”. Full article