The novel coronavirus – officially named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, causing a disease which has flu-like symptoms – seems to be responsible for the current global lockdown or maybe one can even refer to it as a global event. Neither the virus nor the disease that it causes is truly novel, as the virus is part of the SARS virus family and therefore known, and likewise the symptoms of the disease are also well known, even flu-like, and therefore (...) also not novel. Yet, what is truly novel about the virus or the disease it causes is its effect, not specifically referring to the health effect, but its global socio-economic and political effect. It is for the first time in the history of humanity that such drastic global lockdown measures have been taken and that governments have taken the conscious decisions to ‘lay lame’ their economies. Such a radical decision is truly novel. Besides the economic ‘lockdown’, there are numerous socio-economic repercussions; for example, in a single day, millions of citizens in the United States file for unemployment, and similarly in many other countries. Covid-19 is a challenge to the economies of the world, to society at large, to the poor and vulnerable in particular, and to individuals who are ‘locked safely’ in their homes. Religious institutions, which traditionally provide collective meaning, can no longer gather in public places, and offer communal solace. Covid-19 maybe challenges what being human means, or at least, what one has come to believe concerning the meaning of being human. In this article, this question of being human in the time of Covid-19 will be explored. (shrink)

Postmetaphysics in this book is interpreted as thinking through metaphysics at the closure of metaphysics by thinking the impossible possibility of metaphysics. In this site of the closure of metaphysics and the turn to language, the grammar of faith is discovered as the grammar of language or writing. The logic or grammatology of writing and thus of reality is revealed, not contra to philosophy or metaphysics, but when thinking through metaphysics to its end or closure, and there in that site (...) the grammar of faith is revealed as the grammar of texts and contexts and in such a site "God" is a good name to save and hence the possibility of postmetaphysical God-talk. The book concludes with three oblique offerings with regard to such postmetaphysical God-talk, namely a construction of an image, theopoetics and finally holy folly in response to the limitations and possibilities of postmetaphysical God-talk in the light of the conversation between Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida. (shrink)

This article is part of a research project, Conversations after God. The focus of this article is to reflect on the theory and methodology of practical theology in a post-metaphysical context. It will be suggested that practical theology can redefine itself as public theology, but specifically as Christology by engaging the public texts within their contexts, but from a Christ-science hermeneutical approach. The proposed approach is a hermeneutical approach where the Christ-Ereignis guides the inner- and inter-textual reading of texts within (...) contexts. This Christ-Ereignis cannot be translated into a science or even a definable philosophy and therefore the logos is crossed out. Christology, as public theology is done from the margins of the dominant discourses and therefore it could be seen as a Christology from the margins of the market to create spaces of kingdom life: life in fullness. (shrink)

For most readers, myself included, the views and opinions on the Russian attack and consequent war in Ukraine are dependent on the main media houses, who present the situation in a certain language. In this article, Badiou’s understanding of democratic materialism (languages and bodies) will be explored within the context of the war, and how language is used to order bodies into categories of good and evil. In democratic materialism, there are only bodies and languages, but no truth. The question (...) that will be explored in these few pages is, is there a way beyond democratic materialism via truth towards a materialist dialectic? Contribution: The paper contributes to the current discussion on the war in Ukraine and tries to make sense of the geopolitical context of the war. It then seeks to engage with these discourses from a theological perspective. (shrink)

This article seeks to respond to the challenge of doing theology in multi-world contexts, by understanding how these multiple worlds appear. Understanding the role of power in the appearance of these different worlds helps in the deconstruction of dominant worlds, but it leaves one with relativism, and consequently apathy. The article presents a Christo-fiction as a praxis of doing theology in multi-worlds as a way beyond such relativism.

This paper will bring Žižek’s divine violence as an Act, a means without end, into conversation with Derrida’s divine violence, différance and auto-deconstruction as the impossible possibility of justice. Although Žižek has, in his later works, conceded to his indebtedness to Derrida, there are certain important differences between the two thinkers. The paper will focus on their respective interpretations of divine violence and the link to minimal difference (Žižek) or différance (Derrida). Their respective interpretations of divine violence will be further (...) explored with regards to Derrida’s auto-deconstruction as a kind of Heideggerian Gelassenheit and Žižek’s interpretation of the Lacanian Act. Critchley criticises Žižek for being too Gelassen in his dream of patiently waiting for an absolute, divine, cataclysmic revolutionary act of divine violence. This patient waiting or non-violent violence will be read within the context of Derrida’s auto-deconstruction: a means (an Act/Event) without specific end. The second part of the paper will explore a re-reading or inter-textual reading of John’s Gospel within the context of the above conversation. The reading will specifically focus on the Christ-event, creating an alternative community to the Roman Empire as it transverses the primal fantasy of this empire. This will be translated into the context of the contemporary neo-liberal fantasy, namely John’s alternative Christian community as a community of subjects who enjoy their symptom. As such a community they present a non-violent violent transversion of the primal fantasy of for example neo-liberalism. Such a community could be interpreted as a community of non-action action with an auto-deconstructive ethos: the divine violence of the Christ-event. (shrink)

Fossils and tombs in museums fascinate us and haunt us with their secrets. The discovery of the remains of Homo naledi, found, as argued by some, in an ancient burial chamber, promises to reveal secrets of an unremembered past, thus offering clues concerning our present-day humans and maybe influence our human future. The paper will not engage directly with what Homo naledi might contribute to the various science-religion and/or theology conversations but rather engage with the grammars of these conversations, by (...) asking the question, why do tombs and fossils haunt us? This article will bring into the conversation Derrida's interpretation on tombs and fossils, his hauntology, as well as the fascination with secrets. It will not offer an interpretation of Naledi, but rather ask the question why she inspires the belief that she has something to offer the science-religion conversation, or why she inspires the belief that such discoveries make no difference to the religious views on creation, for example. Whichever way, the dead, and specifically those dead to human memory, when 'recalled', haunt us and disturb us with their secrets. (shrink)

It has been argued that most countries that had been exposed to European colonialism have inherited a Western Christianity thanks to the mission societies from Europe and North America. In such colonial and post-colonial (countries where the political administration is no longer in European hands, but the effects of colonialism are still in place) contexts, together with Western contexts facing the ever-growing impact of migrants coming from the previous colonies, there is a need to reflect on the possibility of what (...) a non-colonial liturgy, rather than a decolonial or postcolonial liturgy, would look like. For many, postcolonial or decolonial liturgies are those that specifically create spaces for the voice of a particular identified other. The other is identified and categorised as a particular voice from the margins, or a specific voice from the borders, or the voices of particular identified previously silenced voices from, for example, the indigenous backyards. A question that this context raises is as follows: Is consciously creating such social justice spaces – that is determined spaces by identifying particular voices that someone or a specific group decides to need to be heard and even making these particular voiceless (previously voiceless) voices central to any worship experience – really that different to the colonial liturgies of the past? To give voice to another voice, is maybe only a change of voice, which certainly has tremendous historical value, but is it truly a transformation? Such a determined ethical space is certainly a step towards greater multiculturalism and can therefore be interpreted as a celebration of greater diversity and inclusivity in the dominant ontology. Yet, this ontology remains policed, either by the state-maintaining police or by the moral (social justice) police. Contribution: In this article, a non-colonial liturgy will be sought that goes beyond the binary of the dominant voice and the voice of the other, as the voice of the other too often becomes the voice of a particular identified and thus determined victim – in other words, beyond the binary of master and slave, perpetrator and victim, good and evil, and justice and injustice, as these binaries hardly ever bring about transformation, but only a change in the face of master and the face of the slave, yet remaining in the same policed ontology. (shrink)

'My city of ruins' is the title of a song by Bruce Springsteen and will accompany a public theological reflection of imagining alternative cities. A city of ruins is either a city of ruins in the sense that it is a city in ruins. Alternatively it is a city of ruins in the sense that it is a city that is built from ruins, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. The article will reflect on the second alternative namely the (...) poiesis of a habitable, sustainable and political space in a time when all the meta-discourses of constructing and social engineering lie in ruins . The article will focus on Derrida's ideas of deconstruction and the hope and prayer of perhaps. Springsteen's song includes the prayer: 'come on, come on, rise up!' A city of ruins prayed into existence, rising up by the call of those longing for a liveable, sustainable city to rise up from the ruins of too many empty promises of the various political agendas. Creating and imagining a city of prayer, which involves the prayers for justice incarnate in the broken language of revolutions, and transformations and political construction, thus calls a city of promise into existence. (shrink)

This study brings the thoughts of Derrida into conversation with François Laruelle’s non-philosophy or non-standard philosophy. Laruelle argued that Derrida is a philosopher of difference, thereby grouping Derrida together with Heidegger and Deleuze as philosophers of difference. The argument of this article is to explore Derrida’s work, bringing it into conversation with Laruelle’s non-philosophy and non-standard philosophy. This article is focussed specifically on Derrida’s democracy to come in line with Laruelle’s democracy of thought. The context of this discussion is the (...) end of philosophy or the closure of philosophy, and the opening of this closure for a democracy is yet to come – or whether the ideas of the end of philosophy or the closure of philosophy (metaphysics) are philosophical materials for Laruelle’s science of philosophy or non-philosophy. Laruelle does not seek a democracy to come, but understands these different thoughts as democracy of thought: all thoughts equal and unifacially turned not towards a democracy to come, but a future. (shrink)

This article represents a response to Andries van Aarde's view on a 'gateway to the future from a deconstructed past', a paper presented as part of a conference, 'Gateway to the Future from a Deconstructed Past', commemorating the centennial anniversary of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria, 05-06 April 2017. The article argues that texts, and theology faculties as texts, are just as any structure or construction haunted by their sacred secret. Haunted by the ghosts in the (...) texts from the past to be inspired for the calling of a theology and religion faculty in a time of populism and the 'renaissance of nationalism', according to Van Aarde. In being given the responsibility not only of responding to his contribution but also co-sharing the responsibility of the history of the faculty, the author says that he has a choice: he could respond to the letter of the text or I could be spooked by the ghosts of these texts, the haunting of the sacred secret, calling through Professor Van Aarde's deconstruction of these texts. The author decides to seek to allow the ghosts of his text to call him. A call, as most calls, to which one can only respond: Here I am! Here I am in this moment of history at this particular Faculty of Theology and Religion. This is a call to share the responsibility, the responsibility of being here and the responsibility of the being of a theology and religion faculty in a time of populism and nationalism, both globally and locally. (shrink)

Maybe, before we speak of time, or maybe whilst we are speaking of time, or maybe after we have spoken of time, in the various modes of time’s insistence to exist, one should give time to the talk of time. There are various different modes of time’s insistence to exist, such as quantum physics in conversation with relativity theory where time is constructed as a fourth dimension of space. Or there are the modes of time in history, religion, psychology and (...) philosophy, and each of these modes is composed, and composes its own specific object called time, and a particular subject who understands and interprets time in that particular mode. Yet, before, whilst or after these modes of time’s insistence to exist, one should maybe give time to time’s time. Give time for the various times to articulate themselves in the various modes of existence, thereby creating both a whole plurality of differing subjects, as well as plurality of differing objects, all called ‘time’. Once time has been given time to talk its talk, to articulate itself within the various modes, it will be interrupted by the articulations of time in various modes of time still to come. These disruptions of time by time always still to come opens the door for a theological narrative – a narrative on time, but created by the coming of messianic times, interpreted in the mode of hope but also in the mode of a promise from the past. (shrink)

Is there anything outside the Christian Text or is the Christian Text all there is? The article will argue that the Christian Text has formed and shaped Western thinking to such an extent that it is impossible to think in the global world, co-created by various Western texts, without Christianity. The fact that the West colonised the world, and that today the Western media dominates the language of the global village, makes it nearly impossible to think outside the Christian Text (...) and thus the universal domination by the Text. This article will first argue that for the Western-influenced world, there is nothing beyond the Christian Texts, and then it will argue that although this Text has universal dominance, there is an interpretation of its central message as a message of weakness and vulnerability, which challenges its imperialism. This leads towards the question: what is a possible praxis of such a universal and 'imperial' Text with its message of vulnerable weakness, specifically from a post-colonial context like South Africa? (shrink)

This article explores Professor T.F.J. Dreyer's definition for preaching that he developed for preaching in the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NRCA) three decades ago. Dreyer's own homiletical perspective towards preaching developed continuously through numerous philosophical paradigm shifts since 1989. His basis theory plays an important role in the theological training of the church's students today. The aim of the research is to reflect on the changes, following Dreyer's homiletical development over three decades. The research discovers a strong prophetical character (...) in the homiletical approach of Dreyer and concludes by asking how a kairos moment of prophetical speech can benefit the NRCA. CONTRIBUTION: This research hopes to contribute to the existing research that was done in the homiletical field of traditional Afrikaans-speaking churches in South Africa. The research also contributes by identifying some homiletical perspectives that can help the church to proclaim the gospel in times of transition. (shrink)

Humans live by experiencing various types of sufferings, directly or indirectly. For this reason, it is evident that one of the topics of great interest in congregations is the question of suffering. This study aims to present redemptive-historical narrative preaching as a homiletical strategy for preaching on suffering. Redemptive-historical narrative preaching can be a homiletical alternative for preaching on suffering because it improves the weaknesses of the traditional homiletic and new homiletic and further develops their strengths. In this study, we (...) will identify the main problems of preaching on suffering in Korean churches. Then, we will discuss redemptive-historical preaching and narrative preaching, which form the foundation of redemptive-historical narrative preaching. Finally, we will propose and explain the redemptive-historical narrative preaching in detail and why it is suitable to respond to contexts of suffering within congregations.CONTRIBUTION: Redemptive-historical narrative preaching has greater significance, not only in terms of overcoming the limitations of redemptive-historical preaching and narrative preaching but also in maximising the advantages of both. This research would contribute to the field of homiletics of the Hervormde Teologiese Studies journal. (shrink)

This article is based on a PhD study entitled: ‘Wellbeing and work performance of Christians in managerial positions: A Namibian case study’. The main aim of the study was to find out if there is a correlation between the well-being and work performance of Christian managers and support from their families, which would culminate into a model for use by Christian managers, Christian managers’ families and Christian practitioners such as pastors, counsellors and other practitioners in the helping profession. The study (...) was based on Don Browning’s revised correlational approach to practical theology and used a mixed methods research design. Thirty-two Christian managers in Ohangwena Region, Namibia, participated in the study, and six biblical examples and other key scriptures were selected to draw theological principles related to Christian managers’ well-being and work performance in relation to family support. The aim of this article is to present the model, which is based on the understanding that Christian managers’ well-being affects their work performance, that family support contributes significantly to Christian managers’ well-being, that Christian managers have a role to play if they are to receive family support, and that churches play an important part in encouraging family support for Christian managers. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 56 Heft: 2 Seiten: 181-201.

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 59 Heft: 1 Seiten: 182-198.

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 58 Heft: 1 Seiten: 16-38.

Zusammenfassung Habermas fragt vor dem Hintergrund geschwächter Kräfte der sozialen Integration in kritischem Bezug auf Carl Schmitt nach dem vernünftigen Sinn der alteuropäischen Kategorie des Politischen. Schmitt versteht seinen Begriff des Politischen im Sinne des jus reformandi, mit dem sich die Reformatoren für das Politische in seiner klassischen Gestalt und für religiösen Zwang entscheiden. Habermas erhofft sich einen komplementären Lernprozess von religiösen und säkularen Bürgern und vom eschatologischen Denken einer unter demokratischen Bedingungen erneuerten Politischen Theologie, dass es gegenüber einem idealisierenden, (...) normativen Denken ‚Zeitempfindlichkeit‘ einklagt. Sein Ansatz bei der in Geschichte und Sprache inkarnierten Vernunft ist einer am Ereignis des Wortes Gottes und der Kommunikation des Evangeliums orientierten Theologie eng verbunden und hilft deren Bedeutung für das Politische zu klären. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Nach Luther soll das Evangelium nicht nur in der persönlichen Meditation des Wortes, sondern auch in der öffentlichen Verkündigung, erfahrbar werden. Dies verlangt von der Verkündigung, kritisch zu rechtlichen und sozialen Verhältnissen Stellung zu nehmen. In Spannung zu diesem Anliegen tritt Luthers Instrumentalisierung des Sprachhumanismus für sein Interesse an der objektivierenden Absicherung seiner Lehre durch die äußere Klarheit der Schrift. Der darin gründende Machtanspruch lässt einen antidialogischen und aggressiven Kommunikationsstil und eine feindselige Haltung insbesondere gegen das Judentum und seine (...) eigenständige Schriftauslegung herrschend werden. Der Humanismus verliert damit seinen wesentlichen Gehalt. Doch eine Deutung der Schrift und der Wirklichkeit im Sinne der Christus-Mystik gewinnt erst durch einen offenen Prozess der Interpretation, durch Kontextualisierung, Selbstkritik und durch Dialog an Plausibilität. Die von Luther in der Christologie geforderten Perspektivenwechsel können nur so gelingen und ihre befreiende und Solidarität stiftende Kraft entfalten. Eine Abwertung des Judentums als Bundesvolk ist damit prinzipiell unvereinbar. (shrink)

The article starts by observing a parallel between the identification of Christ's humanity and universal human nature, for which Harnack repudiates some church fathers, and David Strauss' claim, in his Life of Jesus, that the subject of the Incarnation must be all humanity. It is argued that this oppositional stance is indicative of fundamental philosophical and theological differences between the Tübingen School and the Ritschl School. Those differences, however, are then explained as emerging from what is ultimately a common project (...) of a radical form of historical theology. This project, it is argued, Ritschl took over from Baur while correcting it in crucial ways. Taken together, the two central theological schools of the 19th century thus illustrate the potential and the limits of christian theology within the historicist paradigm. (shrink)

Die neu gegründete Reihe Paracelsus Studien bietet ein wissenschaftliches Forum für interdisziplinäre Forschungen, die sich kultur- und wissenschaftshistorisch Modellen eines ganzheitlichen Weltbildes widmen und den Dialog zwischen den Disziplinen anregen. Der frühneuzeitliche Alchemist, Mystiker, Theologe und Philosoph Paracelsus (1493-1541) dient hierfür als Leitfigur und Vorbild. Als eröffnender Sammelband fokussiert Mystik und Natur Epochen und Persönlichkeiten der Geistesgeschichte von der Spätantike bis in die Gegenwart, die sich der Integration von Spiritualität und Wissenschaft widmeten: Hildegard von Bingen, Jakob Böhme, Emanuel Swedenborg, Josef (...) Goerres und Johann Wolfgang von Goethe stehen ebenso im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchungen wie gegenwärtige ganzheitliche Ansätze und ihre historischen Bezüge. (shrink)

Ideology and politics were among the dynamics that shaped the scholarly reception of Friedrich Hölderlin and his work from the 1920s to 1940s. By taking the examples of research reports by Adolf von Grolman, Johannes Hoffmeister, and Heinz Otto Burger as well as of the controversy between Wilhelm Böhm and Ludwig Strauß, we outline the reciprocal function of Hölderlin and the DVjs. In doing so, we specifically focus on Paul Kluckhohn’s role in Hölderlin research, not only as an editor but (...) also as a public speaker and academic promoter in politically turbulent times. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eclecticism RediscoveredUlrich Johannes SchneiderMichael Albrecht, Eklektik. Eine Begriffsgeschichte mit Hinweisen auf die Philosophie- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1994 (Quaestiones 5), 771p.Patrice Vermeren, Victor Cousin. Le Jeu de la Philosophie et de l’Etat, Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1995 (Collection “La philosophie en commun”), 390p.Not so long ago eclecticism was held to be little more than a non-systematic form of thinking or constructing, and still today that is the generally (...) accepted meaning of the term. Moreover, eclecticism has lost its traditional bad reputation and seems increasingly attractive to late twentieth-century thought in search of non-dogmatic and non-systematic forms of philosophizing. At the same time, however, historians of philosophy are discovering that eclecticism was a distinct and important feature of European intellectual history. In particular eclecticism can be recognized within early modern thinking especially at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in France the philosophy of the nineteenth century can be seen as essentially eclectic until the revolution of 1848.Whatever the significance of the postmodern state of mind, recent views concerning philosophical eclecticism are largely the product of researches into the history of philosophy. There is an obvious inclination of today’s intellectual historians to investigate background figures of European modernity. The increasing willingness of historians to enlarge the notion of philosophy in both its disciplinary and historical definition seems to be in agreement with a similar disposition of contemporary philosophers. As we can learn from Michael Albrecht’s and Patrice Vermeren’s books, a critical appreciation of eclecticism throws light both on the conditions of contemporary philosophizing and on the politics of philosophy in the modern age.What Albrecht does in his encyclopedic examination of eclectic ideas is very different in scope and method from Vermeren’s study of Cousin. However, [End Page 173] both authors address philosophy as a university discipline, and both suggest that eclecticism resonates in certain strategic ways with contemporary lines of thinking. Although the eclecticism of early modern Germany and that of nineteenth-century France arose in different contexts, here, too, there are important similarities. Both varieties wanted to distance themselves from the mainstream philosophy of their time—German eclectics fighting the influence of Cartesianism, while France’s foremost eclectic, Cousin, was trying to supersede Hegel and Schelling.The first to point out the importance of eclecticism in early modern European philosophy was Helmut Holzhey, 1 and the most condensed account of the whole “syndrome” was given by Horst Dreitzel. 2 We know now that eclecticism was unjustly removed from the history of philosophy. In its past articulation, mainly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, eclectic thinking combined the claim for freedom of thought with the rejection of dogmatism and sectarianism. Michael Albrecht shows with great diligence and with more than abundant evidence that eclecticism is a genuine part of modern scientific and philosophical thought, and any reader of Albrecht’s long list of eclectic thinkers can have no doubt about the importance of the idea.Over more than six hundred pages Albrecht divides his findings into forty-eight chronological chapters. He tries not to comment on his subject, although eclecticism quickly reveals itself as a tricky thing. Albrecht talks loosely about “the idea of eclecticism,” the “eclectic thought,” the “eclectic claim” because he wants to keep the idea of eclecticism close to the literal sense of the word: in Greek ek-legere means selecting, or choosing. Broadly speaking, philosophical eclecticism turns out to be in general just a claim. It was used by those who did not want to be regarded as dogmatic, sectarian, or systematic thinkers. Albrecht reports that claiming to be eclectic did in practice not amount to very much, and indeed he notes (457) that no philosopher ever wrote an eclectic work.Around 1600 Justus Lipsius and Jacopo Manzoni were among the very first to advocate eclecticism openly, and here already Albrecht draws his general conclusion: “Practically no author embracing eclecticism... has made the idea work” (382). This is especially true for philosophers. In medicine and in physics we know of Daniel Sennert and Johann Christoph Sturm who practiced a method based on... (shrink)

Andrew Arato. Seyla Benhabib. Hauke Brunkhorst. Cornelius Castoriadis. Jean Cohen. Helmut Dubiel. Klaus Eder. Gunter Frankenberg. Hans-Georg Gadamer. Axel Honneth. Johann Baptist Metz. Gertrud Nunner-Winkler. Claus Offe.".