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"Hey, thanks for the feedback. Given the time constraints, I wasn't really about to flesh this section out as much as I would've liked (I never feel like I have enough time to do things justice during the semester!), but I'm with you on a communal hermeneutic. That is paramount, I think. And it's really been minimalized in the tradition. Hopefully, when I get some time I can expand it a bit more. Hermeneutics are a real interest of mine. And it is deeply important -- virtually every theological issue/debate eventually comes back the question of interpretation of the text. Thanks for the link, btw!" - Blake Huggins

"Hey, thanks for the kind words. Brueggemann has been a significant influence on me as well, especially his book The Prophetic Imagination. I think you're right, creation shouldn't be about ascribe do some theory about the origins of the universe. I will leave it to the scientist to figure that one out. Creation is about the ongoing work of God, work in which we are invited to participate. The more I think about, the more it seems clear to me that creatio ex nihilo is really more trouble than it is worth. It is beholden to a static notion of God bequeathed to modernity from Greek metaphysics. That is one of the reasons why I really appreciate the work of Caputo and Keller. Both are interested in theologizing outside those confines." - Blake Huggins

i would really like to see more work done on wittgenstein and theology, especially in this area. - Blake Huggins

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yessss! - Blake Huggins

yessss! - Blake Huggins

Posted via web from Blake Huggins's posterous - Blake Huggins from Posterous

"I think you're right. I don't really have enough technical knowledge to talk about it in depth either, but based on my experience and background, which sounds very similar to yours, it seems that any onto-theology will necessarily be foundationalist by virtue of the metaphysics it acquiesces its theology to. That's one reason why I'm really drawn some of the discussions (John Caputo, for example) going on in the continental philosophy world surrounding what a theology might like after Heidegger and after metaphysics proper." - Blake Huggins

"That's a great point, David. I don't believe the Christian story -- at least as it is to be reified in a postmodern context -- to be either self-legitimizing or foundationalist. It just is. And on a certain level it is absurd to even talk about it outside of type of communal embodiment that exemplifies its transformative and very odd way of being in the world." - Blake Huggins

i don't know that i would say wesley was proto emerging church, but i think the similarities are fascinating. - Blake Huggins

"I'm with you...sort of. I agree about the interconnectedness and the message of liberation and how it will look very different depending on the context. It's probably more semantics for me than anything else. It just bothers me that when we label it as a metanarrative we are forced, by the nature of that term, to compare it with the more violent and totalizing narratives of modernity (the hegemony of reason, faith in human progress, deference to global neo-liberal capitalism and so on). That's why I find myself looking for a different category that holds together the redeeming qualities of both meta- and micro-, as something that is both universal and localized. To me, that is closer to doing it justice. But I definitely get what you're saying. I guess the question is how to maintain the tension between context and universality." - Blake Huggins

"Check your email." - Blake Huggins

"I never really understood all the negative reaction to that book either. Seems like a pretty good metaphor to me (just as long as we recognize the limits of all metaphors). Thanks for that link, by the way. I've been looking for that ever since you mentioned it." - Blake Huggins

"Thanks, John. I appreciate your comments too. I'm on my way out the door for some afternoon meetings. Here are some quick thoughts. You're right. Motlmann is putting the tradition in tension with itself and trying to remedy what he thinks is a dangerous tendency in the West. I get the polemical aspect. I'm not sure I'm necessarily against that on the face of it; but then that itself is a dangerous statement for me to make. I'd need to think about it some more. I certainly am against what passes as that in church and secular politics. It's just not helpful or constructive. Based on what I've read though, it seems that Moltmann's tone isn't so much polemical as it is invitational. He approaches the idea of a social Trinity in the same manner we might the statement: God is love. It would be self-defeating to enforce the idea that God is love by imposing it on others, enforce that idea by bearing faithful witness to it. I don't want to put words in Moltmann's mouth, but I imagine he might..." - Blake Huggins

"Sorry it has taken so long to respond. It's been a busy week. Thanks for the comments. To be honest, until you brought it up I hadn't really thought about doing violence to the Jewish tradition like that. I'm still not completely sure where I stand because that is a valid criticism and one that Christianity, if it is at all honest, runs the risk of perpetuating. So, for now, I would say that I simply read the text differently than my Jewish sisters and brothers. My reading isn't anymore valid or invalid than theirs and I have absolutely no interest in imposing my reading upon their understanding. I believe that would be to do violence to the text and the tradition. So I think there is way to maintain the difference in humility here without "hijacking." At least that is what I would want to do. That being said, I think it is possible to read the Hebrew text in support of the weakness of God. Caputo and Catherine Keller's reading of Job as a warning against the temptation of omnipotence..." - Blake Huggins

"As bad as it will probably sound, I don't really understand the push for being strictly "biblical." If you really wanted to go that far then why be Trinitarian at all? A pretty convincing argument can be made from the silence in the bible. Sure there isn't a full blown doctrine of the Trinity and its nature in the text, that is why Moltmann is drawing from the tradition. I guess I'm not understanding the need to bypass that and go back to the text alone. And, for what its worth, I think we all "read onto" the text. But that's a different subject altogether. Moltmann thinks that the Trinity (dervied from biblical materials and the richness of church history) is precisely the best place to start for the church's social and political agenda mainly because it fosters a completely different way of thinking about the nature of God. That's what I was trying to get at in the post. To be honest, there are some others that do it in a much more lucid manner: Miroslav Volf, Leonardo Boff, and..." - Blake Huggins

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haven't listened yet, but this sounds pretty sweet. - Blake Huggins

embedding recording after the jump. - Blake Huggins

slash was my hero back in my gigging days. ok, maybe he still is. a little. - Blake Huggins

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"See, I think it is those disagreements that would make a conversation or reading of one with the other mind so interesting! I would have to think about it more but I wonder if maybe Moltmann doesn't go far enough in The Crucified God in an area that perhaps Caputo does. I'm thinking primarily of omnipotence. Moltmann wants to hold on to that -- probably because, as you point out, he stands squarely in the German/Barthian theological tradition -- by claiming that God simply resigned God's power in the Cross event. I wonder if this is not radical enough and if perhaps it is not that God is resigning power, but that God doesn't have the power. Of course, Moltmann would argue that it is God's deep love which keeps God from intervening as Christ suffers, but by keeping the omnipotence card in his back pocket I think his argument is weakened a bit. And I'm not so sure that there isn't some residual theodicy issues there as well. If God is omnipotent that question will always be haunting us..." - Blake Huggins

"See, I think it is those disagreements that would make a conversation or reading of one with the other mind so interesting! I would have to think about it more but I wonder if maybe Moltmann doesn't go far enough in The Crucified God in an area that perhaps Caputo does. I'm thinking primarily of omnipotence. Moltmann wants to hold on to that -- probably because, as you point out, he stands squarely in the German /Barthian theological tradition -- by claiming that God simply resigned God's power in the Cross event. I wonder if this is not radical enough and if perhaps it is not that God is resigning power, but that God doesn't have the power. Of course, Moltmann would argue that it is God's deep love which keeps God from intervening as Christ suffers, but by keeping the omnipotence card in his back pocket I think his argument is weakened a bit. And I'm not so sure that there isn't some residual theodicy issues there as well. If God is omnipotent that question will always be haunting us..." - Blake Huggins

that was one of the best one-liners (and there were many) of the whole conference. and this is a great explanation of it. - Blake Huggins

I partially agree with this (see my comment). No one should be afraid to engage with these "new" (they really aren't all that new are they) atheist. Likewise, Dawkins et al need to grow, stop calling theology a pseudo-discipline and assuming all religious persons are beholden to pre-modern cosmology and engage in real dialogue. - Blake Huggins

"I get that. Some of the circles I used to run in (and some I still do) seem only to be interested in crucifying atheists. To me, that is anti-Christian. So we definitely have an internal problem. And that sure doesn't make us look approachable to the general public. Some of us need to own that and get over our problems with difference before we even begin to think about engaging the other. I just think that when you have some people who have done that and are willing to enter into that conversation from the religious side and they are written off wholesale as intellectually inferior it makes it hard to move forward. I guess what I'm saying is that neither "side" needs to be let off the hook. Both need to be willing to see the other as the other. The more I think about it seems that real conversation can't happen until that takes place." - Blake Huggins

"I agree with you to a certain extent here. I have no problems proclaiming the death of the modern "delusional" God. In fact, I'll do it with gusto. I agree with Dawkins (can't remember where he said it right now) that if that god is God then I have no interest in him. My problem is when these guys assume that all "religious" people are backwards thinking idiots beholden to that God and therefore not worth engaging in conversation. To be sure, many religious people have the same reaction to "new" (I'm not sure it's so new) atheism. That surely doesn't help either. But there are some folks out there who seriously want to engage in conversation (Philip Clayton is the most prominent one who comes to mind) and are dismissed simply because they are theologians studying a psuedo-disciple. So I agree with you. I just wish more people (on both sides) were willing to let their guard down and sit down and talk about these things." - Blake Huggins

"Ah, I didn't realize you were a fellow Wesleyan! I get accused of over-emphasis on the experience side sometimes. Maybe I'll start referencing Moltmann as well as Wesley. Sorry we didn't get to meet too. It was hard for to pick some people out -- especially when all you have to go by is a Twitter icon! Hopefully we can do that someday soon." - Blake Huggins