Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction

1. Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction Chapter 4: The Modern Period, c.1750 to the Present Wiley-Blackwell 2010

2. Theology and Cultural Developments in the West • The Enlightenment critique of traditional theology • The rationality of Christian beliefs • The basic ideas of Christianity can be derived from reason • Reason can judge revelation • Conflicts with traditional Christian theology • The notion of revelation • The status and interpretation of the Bible • The identity and significance of Jesus Christ • The doctrine of the Trinity • The critique of miracles • The rejection of original sin • The problem of evil Wiley-Blackwell 2010

3. Romanticism and the renewal of the theological imagination • Appeals to human intuition and imagination • Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), The Christian Faith • Marxism: an intellectual rival to Christianity • Karl Marx (1818-83) • Marxism in Russia and Europe • Marxism and Latin American liberation theology • The crisis of faith in Victorian England • George Eliot (AKA Mary Ann Evans, 1819-90) • Matthew Arnold (1822-88) • Darwinism: a new theory of human origins • Charles Darwin (1809-82), Origin of the Species • William Paley; Charles Kingsley • Postmodernism and a new theological agenda • Abandonment of centralizing narratives (metanarratives) • Deconstructionism • Impact on biblical interpretation and systematic theology Wiley-Blackwell 2010

4. Key Theologians • F.D.E. Schleiermacher (1768-1834) • Christian Faith: defense of the faith to its “cultural despisers” • John Henry Newman (1801-90) • From the Oxford Movement to the Catholic Church • Karl Barth (1886-1968) • God’s self-revelation • Paul Tillich (1886-1965) • Correlation of culture and faith • Karl Rahner (1904-84) • “transcendental method” • Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-88) • Theodramatics • Jürgen Moltmann (b.1926) • A suffering God • Wolfhart Pannenberg (b.1928) • Revelation as history Wiley-Blackwell 2010

5. Denominational Developments in Theology • Catholicism • Second Vatican Council (1962-5) • Catholic Tübingen School (1830s) • Hans Urs von Balthasar and Karl Rahner • Orthodoxy • Russian Orthodoxy • Greek Orthodoxy • Protestantism • Liberal Protestantism • Neo-orthodoxy • Postliberalism • Fundamentalism Wiley-Blackwell 2010

6. Evangelicalism • Four central assumptions: • The authority and sufficiency of Scripture • The uniqueness of redemption through Christ’s death on the cross • The need for personal conversion • The necessity and urgency of evangelism • Adiaphora • Pentecostal and charismatic movements • Three “waves”: • Classic Pentecostalism (early 1900s) • 1960s and 1970s in mainline denominations and Catholicism • The “signs and wonders” movement (e.g., John Wimber) Wiley-Blackwell 2010

7. Some Recent Western Theological Movements and Trends • Liberal Protestantism • Friedrich Schleiermacher • In light of modern culture and knowledge, Christian beliefs were: • abandoned (e.g., doctrine of original sin) • reinterpreted (e.g., divinity of Christ) • Optimistic view of human nature • Middle road between traditionalism and rejection • Paul Tillich (1886-1965) • Critiques • Universal human religious experience? • Reliant on transient, secular cultural developments • Willing to abandon Christian distinctives to be acceptable to culture Wiley-Blackwell 2010

8. Modernism • Catholic theologians and the Enlightenment • Alfred Loisy (1857-1940) • George Tyrrell (1861-1909) • Modernism in mainstream Protestant denominations • England • United States • Neo-orthodoxy • Karl Barth (1886-1968), Church Dogmatics • The self-revelation of God in Christ through Scripture • Dialectical theology • Neo-orthodoxy • Critiques: • Emphasis on the trascendence and “otherness” of God • No external criteria to verify claims - fideism • No account of other religions Wiley-Blackwell 2010

9. La ressourcement, or La nouvelle théologie • Catholic theological revival in France • Jean Daniélou, “The Present Orientations of Religious Thought” (1946) • Rediscovering and reappropriating original sources of theology • “Primacy of the pastoral” (Yves Congar) • Feminism • Conflict with Christianity • Reappraisal of the Christian past (Sarah Coakley) • Challenges to traditional theology • The maleness of God • The nature of sin • Pastoral theology • The person of Christ Wiley-Blackwell 2010

10. Liberation theology • Latin American context, 1960s and 1970s • CELAM II (1968 gathering of Catholic bishops at Medellín, Colombia) • Basic themes: • Oriented toward the poor and oppressed • Critical reflection on practice • Use of Marxist theory for social analysis • Key theological issues • Biblical hermeneutics • The nature of salvation • Black theology • North American context, 1960s and 1970s • Joseph Washington, Black Religion; Albert Cleage, Black Messiah • The “Black Manifesto,” Detroit, 1969 • James H. Cone (b.1938), Black Theology of Liberation Wiley-Blackwell 2010

11. Postliberalism • Rejection of “universal rationality” and common religious experience; particularity of the Christian faith • Antifoundational: rejects universal foundation of knowledge • Communitarian: appeal to values and language of a community • Historicist: importance of traditions and historical communities • George Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine (1984) • Paul Holmer, Grammar of Faith (1978) • Theology as descriptive, intrasystematic discipline • Christian ethics in communities (Stanley Hauerwas, b.1940) • Radical orthodoxy • 1990s movement in Anglican theology • John Milbank (b.1952) Wiley-Blackwell 2010

12. Theologies of the Developing World • India • Christianity indigenous to India by the fourth century • European colonizers • Resentment of westernization • Keshub Chunder Sen (1838-84) • Indian independence, 1947 • Christianity and Hinduism • The cosmic Christ includes all pluralities of religious experience • Christ is the goal of the quest of Hinduism • Hinduism’s relation to Christianity is analogous to the Old Testament and Judaism • Christianity is incompatible with Hinduism • The Hindu context gives to rise to a specifically Indian form of Christianity Wiley-Blackwell 2010

13. Africa • European missionaries and colonizers • Indigenous African theologians • John Mbiti (b.1931), Kenya • Kwame Bediako (1945-2008), Ghana • Charles Nyamiti (b.1931), Tanzania • South Africa and apartheid Wiley-Blackwell 2010