There has recently been a number of books on the Christian understanding of atonement. What has been fascinating for me is the extent to which these books do, or more often do not, use the Old Testament material on atonement as the basis for what they have to say. The New Testament speaks in a variety of ways about atonement and this has become the centre of Christian dogmatics; but this ‘atonement’ is only loosely related to its Old Testament roots. Did the first Christians, then, radically alter what was understood by atonement, or was this radical alteration made by subsequent expositors of their ideas? The latter is more likely; in other words, the original ‘model’ for New Testament theology has been lost.

The market for historical Jesuses has never been hotter. A mob of Jesus books have hit the bookstore shelves recently, whose authors star on videotapes, chat on radio talk shows, and appear on transcontinental live video programs. While interest in Jesus flourishes, however, there is no consensus about what Jesus was really like. The scholars who have landed mass-market publishers are not necessarily the most widely-respected representatives of their fields of inquiry; indeed, there is considerable scholarly resistance to the recent spate of Jesuses.

The theology of the cross, that ‘thin tradition’ stretching back through Luther and Augustine and Paul to find its origins in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves, has often been counterposed to the thicker, yet equally long, tradition of mysticism. In recent years, however, distinctions between these traditions have been expressed less categorically. It is now generally recognized that mysticism cannot be regarded as a single phenomenon. Rather, an understanding of diversity within the mystical tradition is foundational to an adequate appreciation of the richness, not only of mysticism, but of the theology of the cross as well. Ecumenical concerns have provided an incentive for discovering complexities in both traditions, and for breaking down the artificial barriers of long-held prejudices. This may make it possible to perceive ‘mystical theology in Martin Luther and evangelical theology in John of the Cross’.

The idea of the ‘integrity of creation‘ has been widely discussed in ecumenical circles at least since 1983. In that year, the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches (Vancouver) defined its agenda for service in the world in terms of the three rubrics, ‘justice, peace, and the integrity of creation’. A World Convocation on Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation was held in Seoul, Korea, in February 1990.

Scotland's philosophers of the medieval period, priests almost to a man, were deeply interested in the concept of sin. The concept resonates with philosophical overtones, and our early philosophers found something philosophical to say about it. The greatest of those philosophers, John Duns Scotus, wrote extensively on sin in the course of his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Lombard quotes Jerome's dictum that there is sin in thought, word and deed, and in his Commentary on the Sentences Duns Scotus probes this dictum, since it is not only central to moral theology but also problematic to philosophy. I shall attend to an aspect of Scotus's investigation, that concerning the relation between will and sinful thinking. I shall argue against one of his theses and shall seek to replace it with one which is in a variety of ways more defensible.

The subtitle of my lecture suggests a theological sport called ‘Long Jump across Lessing's Gulf’ —jumping across the yawning gulf of historical criticism. However, it is a strange sport; no one has ever won. No one has ever succeeded in jumping across the gulf. Despite several run-ups I, too, have always failed. I've always ended up in the ditch. There, I discovered something important; the ditch is filled with water and it's fun to swim in it. Today, I would like to invite you to do just this; to jump into the ditch, into Lessing's gulf, to plunge into the cold water with me. It may not be as long jumpers but as swimmers that we arrive at the other side — even though we will then need a helping hand to reach dry land.

It has long been recognised that there are significant parallels between the folk tale and the parable. The folk tale presents a single perspective. Only the necessary persons appear; only two persons speak or act at any one time. Contrasts are developed; inessentials avoided. Even feelings or motives are not mentioned unless they shed light on the plot. Repetition is part of the technique — for example, three characters come down the same road and meet the same woman begging by the roadside. Structuralists such as Propp and Lévi-Strauss look for the deep structures underlying all such stories and evident in the function of actants or characters and the resolution of oppositions.

Many traditional Protestants are rereading their heritages through the Church catholic. That includes reading them through Eastern Orthodoxy. To bring forward the best of any particular Christian heritage for the whole Church or to enrich such a heritage by drawing from the whole Church, we need to be keen students of church history, scripture and contemporary situations. Every effort to restate the gospel for the next century must recognize that people see through their participation in communities. All Christians worship together in some kinds of congregations. We may try to get distance from what we believe and how we act, but if we move outside the circle, we take up a stance within another community. As Christians we read and understand from within the Church.

This article will utilize some of the letters of Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) and several of the autobiographical passages included in her Vita to demonstrate how she constructed herself in these writings as a prophetess, a woman imbued with the authority of spirit, which could, at times, override the authority of office of the male ecclesiastics around her.

Argula von Grumbach, a contemporary of Luther, was the first woman Protestant author to be published, some 30,000 copies of her eight writings circulating between 1523–4. She leapt into the public eye by challenging the Ingolstadt theologians to debate with her, a mere woman, their actions in forcing a young student, Arsacius Seehofer, to retract publicly his reforming views. The Bavarian noblewoman, who defended her right to speak out by a lively new reading of Scripture, and who broadened her appeal by a comprehensive call for the reformation of church and society, had to cope with vicious attacks on her personal life and with death threats. Her incomprehensible neglect by Reformation historians is only now beginning to be remedied. This paper addresses her understanding of sin and grace.

It has often been remarked by Schleiermacher's critics that his surprisingly high Christology is an awkward interlude in what may otherwise be described as a transcendental philosophy of religion. Schleiermacher's brief intoxication with Romanticism as evidenced in the Speeches, the undeniable influence of Schelling and Spinoza upon his early intellectual development, and the fact that The Christian Faith begins with a general description of the God-consciousness, all contribute to the suspicion that The Christian Faith is primarily an attempt to harmonize Christianity with the prevailing cultural thought forms of the day. This is, for instance, the way that Barth describes Schleiermacher's project: first and foremost, he understands it as an enterprise in apologetics.

What is the purpose of a doctrine of the immanent Trinity? Broadly speaking it aims to recognize, uphold and respect God's freedom. Without theoretical and practical awareness of this freedom all theological statements about the significance of created existence become ambiguous and constitute merely human attempts to give meaning to creation using theological categories.

According to recent literature, the crisis of modernity owes much to an uncritical acceptance of the ‘Enlightenment metanarrative’. The Enlightenment, with its sanctification of reason, privileged technological progress and personal advancement and created the illusion that human potential and happiness was unlimited. All one had to do was to free oneself from superstition (for example, religion) and the world would be a better place. Modernity has, correspondingly, emphasized individual rights, personal power, and wealth. In spite of the promise of modernity, however, the wars, famines, poverty, and inequality of the modern world have made it all too obvious that the end result of the Enlightenment's goal to alleviate the miseries of the human condition applies only to a small portion of the population. In this respect, the contradiction between the universality of the Enlightenment project and its application to a minority of the population lies at the heart of many of the critiques of modernity.

In The Christian Faith Schleierrmcher offers three critiques of miracles—a pragmatic, an epistemological, and a metaphysical critique. Of these three critiques, by far the most important is Schleiermacher's metaphysical critique. In his own day, it was this critique that decisively distinguished Schleiermacher's account of miracles from the traditional orthodox account. In contemporary theological debates over contingency and divine action, it is this critique that underlies much of the continued skepticism towards miracles. Now as then, Schleiermacher's metaphysical critique of miracles continues to be a live issue

The concept of unio mystica stands out of the more distinctive aspects of H.R. Mackintosh's theological work. Generally regarded as one of the leading English-speaking theologians of the first third of this century, Mackintosh and his innovative insights have since fallen into comparative neglect. Interestingly, the concept of the unio mystica seldom appeared as a theme on its own, apart from his programmatic article ‘The Unio Mystica as a Theological Conception’ (1909). Rather it served as a leitmotif which recurred at important points in his christology and soteriology. This essay will survey the meaning and importance Mackintosh gave to the unio mystica, and the various ways the concept functioned in his theology. Hence the first part will reconstruct his understanding of union with Christ, while the second part will examine three main applications of the concept: participatory christology, justification, and the Christian life. We will also explore some of the potential the concept may have for contemporary theology in a few concluding remarks.

Arthur C. Cochrane has spent a lifetime recalling the Christian church to its vocation: confessing faith in Jesus Christ as the one Lord and Savior proclaimed in Holy Scripture; confessing sin; and submitting in freedom to the ethic which springs from sole reliance on Christ. The vocation has given focus to many concerns. He has worked to invigorate Christian understanding of the role of confessions of faith, to revive careful study of Reformation theologians, and to develop appreciation of the contribution of Karl Barth. He has engaged in ecumenical dialogue, fostered ecumenical relationships, and worked to arouse Christians to ethical response concerning the poor, worship, the state and war. He has been acutely sensitive to the constant need to determine a Christian response to challenging contemporary events, whether horrors or opportunities.

The theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar can be described as an attempt to provide an exposition of a verse in one of Gerard Manley Hopkin's most memorable poems in which the Jesuit poet declared that ‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God’. This verse, and indeed the poem as a whole, affirms the Christian's cosmic experience of God. Just as the mythological view of the relationship between god and the world is that the world is a sacred theophany, the world is, for the Christian, the theophany of God's glory and beauty.