Contemporary Theological Perspectives: Recent Episodes
jbarnhar
This podcast is a chronological survey of major theologians and theological movements of the 20th and 21st centuries.
This week we will dive into neo-Anabaptist theology (my personal theological camp). These theologies place a strong emphasis on Christ (as saving Lord and ethical example), community (and church), and discipleship. Often critical of the politics of this world, these thinkers picture the church as an alternative community/politic.
This week we'll explore the work of two Roman Catholic theology post Vatican II with special focus given to Karl Rahner.
This week we'll explore the theology of hope we have in the crucified Christ through the work of Jürgen Moltmann.
This week we'll be exploring the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as the "Death of God" movement in the 1960s that claimed inspiration from him. My podcast will focus on Bonhoeffer and Thomas J. J. Altizer, a proponent of the "death of God."
After reading theologians who abandoned metaphysics for existentialism, we will turn this week to some theologians who embrace metaphysics in a big way. They are all eager to talk about being and the nature of reality. All of them opt for some variety of panentheism--that is, "all-in-God-ism," the idea that all of creation is somehow contained by or brought into God. We'll explore the theology of Paul Tillich and delve into process theology.
This week we will explore more responses to liberal theology. One strategy, represented by the confessional theologians, is to do theology from within a particular Christian tradition for that tradition, rather than attempting to develop a theology with universal relevance. Another strategy, represented by the Niebuhr brothers, is to retrieve particular Christian doctrines in modified form to address contemporary social and political problems.
Although this week's title is "Existentialism and the New Hermeneutic," we will be briefly exploring the history of existentialism and then taking a deep-dive into the theology of Rudolf Bultmann, representative of an existentialist approach to theology rather than Ernst Fuchs and Gerhard Ebling, students of Bultmann and representatives of the "new hermeneutic."
This week we'll start our exploration of neoorthodoxy, with a focus largely on Karl Barth, whose 1919 commentary on Romans "dropped a bomb on the playground of the theologians," and also Emil Brunner.
This week we'll explore conservative reactions to modernism and classical liberalism at the turn of the 20th century - especially Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism.