Tomáš Sixta
Why and How to Pursue Contemporary Theologies?
Searching for an Answer within a Debate between George Lindbeck and David Tracy
The study deals with contemporary theologies in three dimensions. First, it analyzes how the relationship of theologians to the present day and their understanding of development in the discipline, influences the forms of contemporary theological work. The author contrasts two metaphors for theological work: putting together a puzzle (assuming immutability) and a journey through a landscape (an open and dynamic process of searching for truth). Of these metaphors, he prefers theology understood as a journey. This emphasizes the necessity of not giving up on a deeper penetration into mystery. In the second part, based on the dispute between George Lindbeck and David Tracy, it shows two basic ways of understanding the relationship between faith and the contemporary world. In the third part, three basic sources of inspiration for contemporary theologies are offered: current social topics, inspiration from other sciences (especially philosophy), and the specific current problems of individual theological disciplines.
Survey: What Has Caught Your Attention in Contemporary Theology?
The survey explores current trends in theology through contributions from scholars of varied backgrounds and disciplines. The responses highlight diverse emphases, including theology’s dialogue with philosophy, its engagement with global crises, the renewal of theological ethics, and the role of human experience and language. While affirming the importance of historical work, the contributors stress theology’s responsibility to address present realities credibly and imaginatively. Overall, the survey portrays contemporary theology as a plural and dynamic field seeking relevance in today’s cultural and existential challenges.
Jan Motal
“Against thrones, powers and dominions”
An Outline of Contemporary Radical Theology
The author presents post-war radical thought about Christianity which is referred to as radical theology. He describes various Christian and post-Christian approaches which stem from biblical and theological heritage, which critically question traditional images of God, church authority, and dogma. They emphasize the emancipation of the marginalized, social justice, or a new concept of the subject and faith, and often work in dialogue with philosophy, politics, and modern sciences. Proponents of this movement accept the situation of a secularized person as a positive challenge, emphasizing co-responsibility for the fate of the world, participation in creation, and the active entry of humanity into history, and they strive to overcome social inequality and technological and military threats. The dominant element of this thought is relationality, the discovery of the other as a dialogical, equal partner in the complex and inexhaustible event of faith.
Clive Hamilton
The Anthropocene Epoch and Its Meaning
Humanity operates like a force of nature capable of affecting the destiny of the Earth System. This epochal shift profoundly alters the relationship between humankind and the Earth, presenting the conscious, thinking human animal with an unprecedented dilemma: As human power has grown over the Earth, so has the power of nature to extinguish human life. The emergence of the Anthropocene has settled any question of the place of human beings in the world: we stand inescapably at its center. The outstanding question remains: What kind of human being stands at the center of the world? And what is the nature of that world? Unlike the scientific fact of human-centeredness, this is a moral question, a question that brings theology within the scope of reflection on the critical failures of human irresponsibility. Much of Christian theology has so far flunked the test of engaging the reality of the Anthropocene. It is time to push harder at the questions the Anthropocene poses for people of faith.
Daniel P. Horan
Deconstructing Anthropocentric Privilege
Imago Dei and Nonhuman Agency
In this article, the author takes as a starting point the need to reframe the imago Dei to include nonhuman creatures alongside members of the human species in some form. Following the compelling work of others, he contends that the Christian tradition offers an abundance of resources – theologically and scripturally – that account for the diverse manifestation of the imago in all creatures. The study explores the question of why members of the human family have so consistently overlooked or, perhaps more accurately, subjugated other creatures in articulating the Christian doctrine of the imago Dei. The study presents a summary of the classical view that the imago Dei is predicated of homo sapiens alone and that, as a doctrinal concept, it serves as a placeholder for human uniqueness within creation. It argues that the pervasive anthropocentrism found in Christian theologies of creation, has arisen in part because of an anthropocentric privilege that remains to be critically examined. The author draws on the postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak’s notion of “unlearning one’s privilege as one’s loss” in order to map a way forward in recognizing nonhuman creaturely agency as an imperative for theologians engaging in theological reflection on creation. Finally, the study offers a brief overview of some current research on nonhuman creaturely agency that ought to be engaged theologically in light of this uncovering of anthropocentric privilege.
Paula Fredriksen
The Subject Vanishes: Jews, Heretics, and Martyrs after the Linguistic Turn
The “linguistic turn” in early Christian studies, a signal contribution of the work of Elizabeth A. Clark, has raised scholarly awareness of the degree to which terms previously thought to describe social realia in fact function as discursive categories rhetorically deployed for various ends by ancient authors. With this new awareness, how then do we now move from – or work with – our texts’ rhetorical “Jews”, “heretics”, and “martyrs” to recover these ancient historical actors? How does thinking with ideas such as “religion” and “ethnicity”, or with terms such as “paganism”, “Judaism”, and “Christianity”, hinder or help our efforts? How do invocations of “persecution” throughout the first through fifth centuries serve as a dramatic medium for the internal construction of group identity? This essay explores these questions, while raising others about the lures of anachronism and the requirements of narrative for writing history – our own recreation of the past.
Jiří Lukeš
Jesus of Nazareth and an Outline of a Discourse on Criteria and Methodology of Third Quest
The study focuses on describing the New Quest and Third Quest of Jesus Research while rejecting the existence of the Fourth Quest in the context of memory theory. It reviews the differences in the use of criteria by G. Theissen and J. P. Meier. It presents the conclusions of other scholars associated with the Jesus Seminar, including J. D. Crossan, B. L. Mack, and J. S. Kloppenborg. It also presents P. Pokorny’s views on the question of criteria, as well as selected positions of J. D. G. Dunn on the characteristics of the Third Quest. It also presents E. Käsemann’s characterization for context and development. The final section of the study reflects on the contribution of memory theory to the field of New Testament interpretation.
Petr Beneš CSsR
Contemporary Theology Through the Eyes of Informed Laypeople
“Challenge of Králíky”
A Czech priest and theologian offers an insight into a summer prayer and discussion meeting with a small group of believers, during which they delved into various current theological topics. Based on this experience, he generalizes certain challenges for contemporary theological thought: the necessity to begin theological reflection from creation, not the fall; to understand the diversity of cultures and religions as a path toward essential unity, not as a decline from an original “perfect” unity; to take seriously the existence of different traditions within Scripture and the early church and to accept that the goal is not to unify them, but to develop them; to collaborate across religions, including in theological research; to theologically process the experience of faith of people in extreme situations, especially migrants; to explain and convey the therapeutic dimension of faith; not to support the exclusivity of Christianity; to elaborate, in collaboration with historians, on the inclination of many religious people toward authoritarian regimes.
“I have to keep an eye on those open forms”
An interview with Jan Kovářík about sculptures that defy the laws of classical sculpture
This issue of Salve on contemporary theologies, on “news” in the ancient “science of God,” is accompanied by examples from the work of Czech sculptor Jan Kovářík. At its core are two complementary interventions that the author prepared in 2023 for the Church of the Holy Savior and the refectory of the Dominican monastery in Prague, the Dominikánská 8 platform. Both works are united by the impression that we are witnessing the emergence of something new, something that is still searching for its form. Further on in this issue, you will find the realization of the Angel for the Holy Sepulchre of the pilgrimage site at Bílá Hora, where the Benedictine sisters from Venio Abbey work. You will also find examples of the very latest works of the artist. The interview was prepared and the interventions at the Church of the Holy Saviour and Dominikánská 8 were accompanied by Klára Jirsová and Norbert Schmidt.