The essay explores the inner logic that connects Jenson's view of the work of Christ, the person of Christ, and the doctrine of God. More specifically, it examines his understanding of the cross, the incarnation, and the trinity. Despite clear intentions to the contrary, Jenson lands outside the bounds of established ecumenical consensus. His view of the cross tends toward Socinus, of the incarnation toward Arius, and of the trinity toward Hegel in ways that seem subordinationist and tritheistic. One possible reason for this outcome is a rationalistic mindset that displays a low tolerance for paradox in dogmatic theology.
The theology of the Eucharist has long been the subject of heated debate, particularly since the Reformation. George Hunsinger's book explores ways in which Christians might resolve their differences in this area. With the aim of fostering ecumenical convergence, he tackles three key issues dividing the churches about the Eucharist: real presence, Eucharistic sacrifice, and ordained ministry. Hunsinger, a Protestant theologian in the Reformed tradition, brings Eastern Orthodox views more systematically into the discussion than has been common in the West. He also discusses the social significance of the Eucharist. His detailed conclusion summarizes and clarifies the argument as a whole with an eye to explaining how the views proposed in the book could lead the churches, beginning with the Reformed church, closer to the day when obstacles to Eucharistic sharing are overcome. George Hunsinger has been chosen as the recipient of the 2010 Karl Barth Prize by the jury of the Union of Evangelical Churches in the Evangelical Church in Germany.
accomplished only if it is embodied in the here and now by communities living out salvation. When modern people ask "Where is God? Why doesn't he break his silence? Where is salvation to be found?" we can only point to concrete communities of people gathered by God in all their radical contingency and say "Look." Some of Lohfink's exegetical conclusions may be disputed, but I find the overall argument wholly convincing. This book has become my one volume I would take to ecclesiology desert island, though to categorize it as "ecclesiology" is to diminish its importance. It is, as the subtitle suggests, nothing less than a "theology of the people of God," and I hope that the breadth of its vision will encourage others to transgress the boundaries of their subspecialties.
C r i ti c's Corner Torture, Common Morality, and the Golden Rule A Conversation with Michael Perry C EORCE H U NSI N C ERTorture is the refusal-the ultimate refusal-to recognize ourselves in others.It is not merely a failure of understanding. When undertaken in our name, it means the failure of our own humanity. Torture not only inflicts injustice on the victim; it also corrupts and degrades the perpetrator. Any nation that resorts to torture is doomed, in the end, to moral corruption and decay. A society that rewards those responsible for torture, instead of holding them accountable, is approaching spiritual death.In his book The Idea of Human Rights, Michael Perry, who holds the distinguished chair in law at Wake Forest University, understands torture and atrocities in this way: They represent, he says, a failure to see ourselves in the other. Torture and atrocities effectively require viewing the victims as subhuman or pseudohuman, even as threats to what is human-as vermin to be exterminated from the earth. They reject the claim that every human life is sacred. In other words, they 'deny that every human life has objective dignity and intrinsic value in itself.Perry himself rejects this viewpoint vigorously. He holds that "certain things ought not to be done to any human being and certain other things ought to be done for every human being." Yet at the same time, he arrives at a provocative conclusion. He denies that there is any intelligible secular version of the belief that all human life is sacred. "I conclude," he writes, "that there is, finally, no intelligible (much less persuasive) secular version of the conviction that every human being is sacred; the only intelligible versions are religious." He continues: "The conviction that every human being is sacred is, in my view, inescapably religious-and the idea of human rights, therefore, ineliminably religious."' George Hunsinger is the Hazel Thompson McCord Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, president of the Karl Barth Society of North America, and founder of Church Folks for a Better America.
Abstract:The essay asks whether the 'necessity defense' can be used to legitimate torture. By modifying the criteria so as to fit the case, it is argued that torture fails to meet the established norms of the historic just-war tradition, which also underlie international law. 'Interrogational,' 'terroristic,' and 'demonic' aspects of torture are distinguished along the way. It is concluded that torture admits no necessity by which it can be justified.
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