Category: Ecclesiology

Julian Hartt’s Four-sided Theological Analysis

Post author By Andy Rowell
Post date March 23, 2010

I have found myself over and over returning to this quote:

Hartt knew that the Christian church could not make gospel sense of its own life apart from the culture in which it was immersed. In this regard he reversed his senior Yale colleague H. Richard Niebuhr. For Hartt, Niebuhr's pure dichotomy ("Christ" over against "culture") never existed. In its stead Hartt developed a four-sided theological analysis:church, world, kingdom, and gospel were each to be distinguished yet always to be related to one another, and the task was to recognize their mutual involvement, sorting out the contemporary living gospel whose "preachability" would shape the church and inform the world for the sake of the kingdom of God.

James William McClendon Jr.: Systematic Theology, Vol. 3: Witness (Nashville: Abingdon, 42). Italics added. Here McClendon describes Julian Hartt's quadratic understanding of missiology. In summary, a precise theological analysis will need to refer to church, world, kingdom and gospel.

McClendon is referring to Hartt's book:

A Christian Critique of American Culture

Julian N. Hartt: A Christian Critique of American Culture: An Essay in Practical Theology (1967, 2006).

McClendon relies heavily on Carey Theological College professor Jonathan R. Wilson's dissertation on Hartt written at Duke.

Jonathan R. Wilson: Theology as Cultural Critique: The Achievement of Julian Hartt (1996).

Books Duke Divinity School Ecclesiology Ken Carder Leadership Missiology Missional

Ken Carder’s course The Local Church in Mission to God’s World

Post author By Andy Rowell
Post date January 11, 2010

I am a teaching assistant for Ken Carder's Spring 2010 course at Duke Divinity School entitled Local Church in Mission to God's World (PARISH 175). Here is the latest version of the syllabus. Below are the required texts.

Ken Carder, Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School, is a veteran pastor and retired Bishop in the United Methodist Church. 50 students signed up for the course.

I first learned about Bishop Carder from reading Resurrecting Excellence: Shaping Faithful Christian Ministry

by Greg Jones and Kevin Armstrong (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) when his insights jumped off the page for their wisdom. For example, see this definition of excellence from Carder.

Excellence, then, is being a sign and instrument by which creation is healed, reconciliation is experienced, and justice is practiced. Excellence in the pursuit of healing, reconciliation, and justice requires explicit theological vision, Christ-formed character, and skills that shape persons and institutions that approximate God’s reign of compassion, generosity, and joy. Pastoral excellence includes announcing in word and deed God’s telos, inviting persons and communities to an identity and purpose rooted in God’s new creation, and leading congregations on their journey toward the new creation.

Kenneth L. Carder, "What does God have to do with excellence?" Faith & Leadership website (9 January 2009) partially quoted in Greg Jones and Kevin Armstrong, Resurrecting Excellence: Shaping Faithful Christian Ministry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 49.

Kevin Baker, the lead pastor at Reconciliation United Methodist Church in Durham, NC, is the other teaching assistant. Kevin and I are Bishop Carder's regular preceptors for his courses: Introduction to Christian Ministry and Local Church in Mission. It should be a great course.

Charles H. Bayer: A Resurrected Church: Christianity After the Death of Christendom

St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001. I haven't read this one yet.
David J. Bosch: Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005. "Bosch" is the classic missiology textbook with a dizzying range from New Testament to history to theology. It is dense, rich, almost comprehensive, controversial, and worth discussing.
Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice: Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing (Resources for Reconciliation)

Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008. Katongole and Rice direct the Center for Reconciliation at Duke. Chris is also blogging.
Lesslie Newbigin: The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1978, 1995. I was just the teaching assistant for Geoffrey Wainwright's course on Newbigin. See my Lesslie Newbigin category for more posts on Newbigin. The Open Secret was crafted from lectures on missiology Newbigin gave in the UK after retiring from being a missionary and bishop in India. It's all here–election, authority, Trinitarian thinking, eschatology, capitalism, Marxism, resurrection, liberation theology, church growth, science, interreligious dialogue–classic Newbigin. "The church lives in the midst of history as a sign, instrument, and foretaste of the reign of God" (p. 110).
Tex Sample: Blue Collar Resistance and the Politics of Jesus: Doing Ministry With Working Class Whites

Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006. Sample helps students think through what it means to live and minister in rural contexts. Light bulbs went on for many students as they read this book–"Oh, now I get it. It is a different culture. I had no idea."

Last year I was the teaching assistant for the course and posted the syllabus and books. Spring 2009 Ken Carder's course The Local Church in Mission to God's World books

Duke Divinity School Ecclesiology John Howard Yoder Karl Barth Stanley Hauerwas

Analysis of Nathan Kerr’s Christ, History and Apocalyptic at The Church and Postmodern Culture blog

Post author By Andy Rowell
Post date November 26, 2009
1 Comment on Analysis of Nathan Kerr’s Christ, History and Apocalyptic at The Church and Postmodern Culture blog

I appreciated the analysis and conversation regarding Nathan Kerr's book Christ, History and Apocalyptic during January through March of 2009 at "The Church and Postmodern Culture" blog. But it is a bit tricky to find all of the posts so I list them below. Kerr (B.A., M.A.—Olivet Nazarene University; Ph.D. Vanderbilt University) is assistant professor of theology and philosophy at Trevecca Nazarene University. His next book is entitled Exodus, Exile, and Ecclesia: In Search of the Church of the Poor.

January 12, 2009 Christ, History and Apocalyptic: A Symposium, part 1 Chapter 1: "Introduction," response by Joshua Davis, Ph.D. Candidate, Theological Studies, Vanderbilt University.

January 19, 2009 Christ, History and Apocalyptic: A Symposium, part 2 Chapter 2: "Ernst Troeltsch: The Triumph of Ideology and the Eclipse of Apocalyptic," response by David Congdon, a PhD Student in Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.

February 02, 2009 Christ, History and Apocalyptic: A Symposium, part 3 Chapter 3: "Karl Barth: Foundations for an Apocalyptic Christology," response by John McDowell, a professor and chair of theology in a new post at the University of Newcastle.

February 11, 2009 Christ, History and Apocalyptic: A Symposium, part 4 Chapter 4: "Stanley Hauerwas: Apocalyptic, Narrative Ecclesiology, and 'the Limits of Anti-Constantinianism,'" response by John W. Wright, Professor of Theology and Christian Scriptures at Point Loma Nazarene University.

February 16, 2009 Christ, History and Apocalyptic: A Symposium, part 5 Chapter 5: "John Howard Yoder: The Singularity of Jesus and the Apocalypticization of History," response by Douglas Harink, Professor of Theology at the Kings University College in Edmonton, Alberta.

February 23, 2009 Christ, History and Apocalyptic: A Symposium, part 6 Chapter 6: "Towards an Apocalyptic Politics of Mission," response by James K. A. Smith, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI.

March 02, 2009 Christ, History and Apocalyptic: a week off for further thought

March 11, 2009 Christ, History and Apocalyptic: Nate Kerr's Response