Reformed Public Theology

Description

The Reformed tradition in the twenty-first century is increasingly diverse, dynamic, and deeply engaged in a wide variety of global and public issues, from the arts and business to immigration and race to poetry and politics. This book brings together the insights of a diverse group of leading Reformed thinkers--including Nicholas Wolterstorff, Makoto Fujimura, Bruce Ashford, John Witvliet, Ruben Rosario Rodriguez, and James K. A. Smith--to offer a contemporary vision of the depth and diversity of the Reformed faith and its global public impact.

Sujets

• Calvinist
• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology
• Calvinism

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 17 août 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493430857
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

© 2021 by Matthew Kaemingk
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—­for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—­without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4934-3085-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ® , NIV ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations labeled ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ® (ESV ® ), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016
Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction: Toward a Reformed Public Theology
Matthew Kaemingk
Part One: Public Culture
Immigration
1. Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers: The Migratory Beginnings of Reformed Public Theology
Rubén Rosario Rodríguez
Language
2. Let Every Tongue Confess: Language Diversity and Reformed Public Theology
James Eglinton
Decolonialism
3. African Decolonization and Reformed Theology
Nico Vorster
Euthanasia
4. The Dutch and Death: Pastoral Observations and Theological Reflections
Margriet van der Kooi and Cornelis van der Kooi
Pluralism
5. Religious Pluralism in Indonesia: Reformed Reflections
N. Gray Sutanto
Part Two: Public Markets
Work
6. A Reformed Theology of Work in New York
Katherine Leary Alsdorf
Economics
7. Political Economy in Brazil: A Reformed Response
Lucas G. Freire
Labor Rights
8. Workers’ Rights in China: A Reformed Case for Labor Unions
Agnes Chiu
Part Three: Public Justice
Ideologies
9. Modern Political Ideologies: A Reformed Alternative
Bruce Riley Ashford and Dennis Greeson
Populism
10. Power Politics in the Philippines: A Reformed Response to the Populism and Violence of Duterte
Romel Regalado Bagares
Activism
11. Reflections from a Reformed Activist
Stephanie Summers
Part Four: Public Aesthetics
Art
12. Japanese Aesthetics and Reformed Theology: Reflections on Rikyū, Kintsugi, and Endō
Makoto Fujimura
Poetry
13. Poetry and the Reformed Tradition
James K. A. Smith
Fashion
14. Reformed Resources for Thinking about Fashion
Robert S. Covolo
Cities
15. Streets of Shalom: Reformed Reflections on Urban Design
Eric O. Jacobsen
Part Five: Public Academy
Campus
16. Engaging the Pluralist Campus: Reformed Resources
Bethany L. Jenkins
Research
17. A Reformed Understanding of Scholarship
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Race
18. Critical Race Theory, Campus Culture, and the Reformed Tradition
Jeff Liou
Part Six: Public Worship
Communion
19. A Migrant at the Lord’s Table: A Reformed Theology of Home
Alberto La Rosa Rojas
Prayer
20. Public Trauma and Public Prayer: Reformed Reflections on Intercession
John D. Witvliet
Baptism
21. Sexism, Racism, and the Practice of Baptism in South Africa: A Reformed and Transformative Perspective
Nico Koopman
Confession
22. Confession: Practice for Civil Public Discourse
Kyle David Bennett
Piety
23. Piety and Public Life: The Public Imitation of Christ
Jessica Joustra
Contributors
Index
Back Cover
Dedication
The gospel in its fullness must be directed to all dimensions of human life. Christ’s atoning work offers liberation for people in their cultural endeavors, in their family lives, in their educational pursuits, in their quests for sexual fulfillment, in their desire for physical well-being. It also offers liberation in the building of political institutions and the making of public policy.
—­Richard Mouw, Political Evangelism
The Holy Worldliness of Richard Mouw
This book was composed in honor of Richard Mouw (1940–), one of the world’s leading voices in Reformed philosophy, ethics, and public theology. With an academic career spanning more than fifty years, Mouw has published more than twenty books, hundreds of articles, and has traveled the world over, speaking on a wide range of public issues including politics, race, science, globalization, interfaith dialogue, nuclear disarmament, poverty, marketplace ethics, and Christian education.
Addressing these complex global issues, Richard Mouw has consistently drawn insight and inspiration from the Reformed tradition. Its hymns and catechisms, devotionals and prayers; its historic works of philosophy and theology; all these inform the way Mouw engages public life. For over fifty years Mouw has made a career of harvesting these theological resources and articulating, in creative and generative ways, how they might inform Christian engagement in public life.
Even though Richard Mouw loves Reformed theology, he does so with critical appreciation, not blind adoration. Calvinistic chauvinism makes him bristle. Mouw readily names the tradition’s weaknesses and blind spots. He repeatedly calls upon his fellow Calvinists to humble themselves, listen to their critics, and learn from other traditions, other faiths, and other cultures. After listening with genuine curiosity and vulnerability, Mouw calls upon the tradition to publicly confess, get up, and reform yet again. 1
For Mouw, Reformed public theology can never be an abstract intellectual exercise. Instead, it must carefully deal with the deep complexity, beauty, and brokenness that is life in this world . Thus Mouw’s work should be understood as a constant search for a “holy worldliness,” as he calls it, a righteous way of being in the world . Longing to faithfully navigate the complex avenues and arteries of public life, Mouw’s writings are shot through with this search for a holy worldliness. 2
The Search for Holy Worldliness
Richard Mouw came of age in the 1960s, and his public theology developed amid the tempest that was American public life in the age of revolution. As a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Chicago and also both an evangelical Christian and a passionate activist, Mouw was particularly engaged with the issues of poverty, racism, and civil rights. He was an active member of the anti-war movement and the SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). In all this, Mouw was fueled by a deep and pious love for Christ and a burning desire to see Christ’s justice made manifest in public life. He would study the political philosophy of Kant, Locke, and Rousseau during the week; then the weekends would be split between organizing in the streets and worship in the sanctuary. From an early age, Mouw was convinced that he could, in fact that he should , sing songs of praise and songs of protest. The reign of God had to be proclaimed, not simply in the church but in the city as well. From an early age, these three callings to philosophical reflection, political action, and spiritual devotion were constantly churning in Mouw’s mind and heart in uncomfortable but profoundly generative ways. 3 Later, on the first page of his first book, Mouw writes: “My training within the environs of ‘conservative-evangelical’ Christianity did not provide me with a theological framework adequate to deal with the concerns over social justice, racism, and militarism that were so much a part of the years I spent doing graduate study at secular universities. Yet it seemed to me then . . . that such concerns must be integrated into a larger concern for sound theology and faithful witness.” 4
Dissatisfied with the public imaginations of the Christian right and the Christian left, the young Mouw ultimately found a home in Reformed public theology. Therein Mouw has spent a career developing and embodying what we might call a “third way” for American Christians to engage in public life. This third way comes to the fore in Mouw’s somewhat playful use of paradoxical phrases like “holy worldliness,” “political evangelism,” “convicted civility,” “principled pluralism,” “baptismal politics,” and “common grace.” In each of these phrases, Mouw invites his readers to question their more narrow or ideologically bound paradigms for thinking about the connections between faith and public life. What if “evangelism” is both spiritual and material? What if baptism is both personal and political? What if Christians are called to be a public force of conviction and civility, principles and pluralism? What if God’s grace is uniquely manifest in the cross of Jesus Christ and yet we also see God’s goodness mysteriously manifesting itself in our Muslim neighbors? Writing for an American audience gripped by myopic ideologies bereft of humility, creativity, or imagination, Mouw’s playful questioning and vulnerable curiosity consistently model a public-theological imagination that invites a creative dialogue rather than a didactic monologue. The conversation is not closed down: it is opened up.
Following his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, Richard Mouw moved to Michigan in the summer of 1968 to serve Calvin College as a professor of Christian philosophy. While there, he and his wife, Phyllis, helped to establish an intentional Christian community in the heart of one of the poorest neighborhoods in Grand Rapids. At the time, Worden Street was a largely Black neighborhood that had been hit hard by economic and racialized forces within the city. White residents (many of them Reformed