17 Nov
If you are interested in the question of how the Bible relates to your life as a Christian, then Four Views on Moving Beyond the Bible to Theology (Zondervan, 2009) is a book for you. Here are the four views in brief:
Principlizing (Walter Kaiser): We move beyond the Bible by [...]
6 Nov
People ask what I am studying a lot, and I always have to decide in the moment if I am going to say the short or long version. My short version has been going like this: “I am studying Christian ethics as improvisation with a particular emphasis on poverty.”
But I don’t really like having to [...]
27 Oct
Awhile back, we changed the name of our blog to reflaction, a word we made up to try to communicate the inseparable relationship between reflection and action. As I was reading through Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paul Freire this past weekend, I ran across a great section where he explains the impossibility of a [...]
15 Oct
If you were to outline the plot of Scripture, what would it be? Something I am wrestling with in my studies right now is if we consider Scripure the transcript of the theodrama, then how should we identify its various acts? Different scholars have various proposals, like the following:
N. T. Wright (The New Testament and [...]
7 Oct
Part of my PhD research is to show that improvisation is a fitting way to talk about Christian ethics. What do I mean by this?
First, we can see history as revealed in Scripture as a drama of God’s action towards man. This is a real, historical drama in which God is both author (Father), director [...]
11 Sep
A big debate in academic theology circles is the relationship between exegesis and theology. Which comes first? How is one related to the other? Which is a bigger priority? Last night I ran across a colorful explanation by Kevin Vanhoozer:
“Exegesis and theology are not in a relay race but rather in a dance: an exegetical-theological [...]
18 Aug
In his book Mañana: Christian Theology in Hispanic Perspective, Justo González asks the question, “What are the socioeconomic consequences of the doctrine of the Trinity?”
There are many possible answers to this question, but González takes the following angle. “If the Trinity is the doctrine of a God whose very life is a life of sharing, [...]
3 Jul
The Belhar Confession is an important statement of belief adopted by the Dutch Reformed Mission Church of South Africa in 1986. The confession arose out of reflection on the struggle with apartheid in South Africa. After the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) and the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (DRSA) united in 1994 to [...]
1 May
The most relevant question for our Christian mission to the world is: what is the gospel? When we turn to Scripture, we find that the gospel has definitive content, content that can be preached, witnessed to, made know, displayed, heard, believed, and received. In chapter 3 of Mission between the Times, Rene Padilla looks at [...]
6 Apr
Liberation theology signifies not just a new theme around which to structure theology, but an entirely new way of doing theology, that of “critical reflection on praxis,” or in simpler terms, “reflection on action.” Gutierrez explains that while theology has been conceived for centuries as “faiths seeking understanding,” we must not think of faith as [...]
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