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“The Centrality of ‘Life’ for Johannine Ethics”
Get PDFJan van der Watt has described ethics as rational and systematic reflection on actions that are deemed positive or negative. Basic questions involve the point of departure and the aim of ethical action. He rightly identifies God as the authoritative center for Johannine ethics and makes two observations that warrant further development. First, as the point of departure, “God is the living God (6:57), the God who is life and gives life,” and Jesus too “is and brings life.” Second, in “line with the task of Jesus, the aim of believers is to give, sustain, and promote life.” “Promoting life is the consistent point of focus for ethical behaviour in John.” These comments appear in van der Watt’s wide-ranging discussion of Johannine ethics, but here I give them central place. Although studies of Johannine ethics have often focused on Jesus’ command to love one another, I will argue that works of love and expressions of truth support the goal of life. From a Johannine perspective, the central ethical question is, “What will foster life?
Reading Karl Barth\u27s Trinitarian Theology of Freedom in the Sociopolitical Context of Chin Christianity
Get PDFThis thesis argues that the act of reading Barth’s Trinitarian theology of freedom in the Chin context helps the Chin to acquire a new understanding of the Trinity, which reminds them of how the triune God stands in solidarity with them in their hard situation and how the triune God gives them freedom, which empowers them to engage their sociopolitical environment in a positive way. The sense of this Trinitarian logic requests the Chin evangelical and ecumenical Christians to appropriate the implications of Barth’s Trinitarian theology for reshaping their Trinitarian misperceptions underlined by the tendency to perceive the Trinity in a detached and individualistic way. Their interaction with Barth’s view leads them to notice that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit always work in the shared divine mission of recreating, redeeming, and transforming humanity in its existential world. The picture of how the triune God embraces humanity and gives the gift of freedom to the latter basically reflects the indivisible, harmonious, and interdependent work of the triune God. This Trinitarian imagination will stand as a constructive inspiration for Chin theologians and pastors to improve their “pastoral” engagement with the suffering Chin, and also to reclaim the “political” role of Chin Christianity in response to the realities of their sociopolitical context. The function of this Trinitarian principle primarily deals with how the belief of God’s solidarity with humanity inspires the life of the dehumanized Chin and how their encounter with God in this setting transforms and shapes them to live freely for God and for the good of others
How Can Pastors Who Are Working with Youth in Tanzania Help Youth Resolve Christian-Muslim Tensions?
Get PDFLove and Politics: A Convergent Reading of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and Kierkegaard’s Works of Love
Get PDFThis dissertation got its start when I realized that a convergent reading of Hegel and Kierkegaard may be possible on the topic of love and politics. That is not a capricious topic, but one that has become central in contemporary political philosophy besides being at the heart of what Christianity is about, and I will address it with the goal of making love politically operative today. So, before I immerse myself into Hegel and Kierkegaard, I will investigate some contemporary political philosophers who, although with different perspectives, agree that love is a significant concept for philosophy and politics: Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Martha Nussbaum, and two authors who have been writing collaboratively, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. And since I want love to be politically effective and not a mere ideal, I will submit these political philosophers to what I, inspired by Merold Westphal, call the motivation and enablement test: what would motivate us as their readers to try to enact this love; and even if we are so motivated, how might we be enabled to do so to any significant degree?
Hegel and Kierkegaard are two prolific and complex authors, so I will concentrate on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, devote one chapter to each of these works, and submit these authors as well to the motivation ad enablement test. Next, I will attempt the convergent reading that prompted this dissertation. Finally, I will reread and review my expected convergent reading considering what I intend to learn from and with the contemporary political philosophers and offer an overall goal and more immediate goals toward a politically operative love for today
The Episcopal Church of Liberia Gravitating Towards Financial Independence: Strategies and the Way Forward
Get PDFThis thesis project sought to solicit and find strategies and the way forward as to how the Episcopal Church of Liberia can be financially independent and sustain itself as a diocese. The Episcopal Church of Liberia, a faith tradition of which I am a member and an ordained clergy, continues to a large extent rely on support from the Episcopal Church in America for the running and operation of the church. This has and continues to be the practice and trend of successive leadership dating as far back as the days of the church under missionary bishops. With the church now under indigenous leadership and bishop and as the Episcopal Church in the United States of America plans to discontinue its annual financial support to the church in Liberia, how can the church in Liberia achieve financial independence and sustainability? This research therefore looked at stewardship, leadership development, and investment as key strategies as to how the Episcopal Church of Liberia can achieve financial independence and sustainability
Signs and Christology in John 6:1-21 in Light of Jewish and Greco-Roman Frames of Reference: Prophet, King, and Revealer of God
Get PDFVocation of the ELCA: Dismantling White Supremacy
Get PDFWhite Supremacy is an embodied belief and culture that must be eradicated in order for us to live into the diverse, mutually flourishing kin-doms that God has called us into. The history of white supremacy and racist theology includes ideas of mission, hierarchy, and compromise. White people and predominantly white institutions are vocationally called to do the specific work of dismantling white supremacy. The Lutheran theological tradition has commitments and practices that can ground and compel people into and through this work.
Two ways of understanding white supremacy culture are White Body Supremacy by Resmaa Menakem and Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture by Tema Okun. These two ways of understanding white supremacy can help us to recognize, heal, and dismantle white supremacy, and eventually belong to new, recreated, or resurrected ways of whiteness without supremacy and full belonging in a diverse mutually flourishing kin-dom