Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Religion Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Religion

Foreword To 'Sermons From Mind And Heart: Struggling To Preach Theologically', Brad Kallenberg, William Trollinger Aug 2015

Foreword To 'Sermons From Mind And Heart: Struggling To Preach Theologically', Brad Kallenberg, William Trollinger

Brad J. Kallenberg

One does not flip through a car manual and mistake it for poetry. Nor does one pick up the Sunday comics and mistake them for a Physicians' Desk Reference. That is because native speakers seldom make mistakes of genre when reading ordinary English texts. Yet pick up a collection of sermons, and one may feel at a loss: What is going on here? What am I to make of these sentences? What sort of genre is this? What am I, as a reader, to expect (or not to expect) from a sermon, especially from a printed sermon? Should I expect …


The Descriptive Problem Of Evil, Brad Kallenberg Aug 2015

The Descriptive Problem Of Evil, Brad Kallenberg

Brad J. Kallenberg

Language is like the cane in the hand of the blind person. The better one becomes at getting around with the cane, the more he or she is apt to forget the cane but through the cane perceive the objects scraped and tapped by the other end. A defective cane may distort the world perceived by the blind person. So too, defective use of language threatens to muddy our understanding of the things we talk about. When discussing something as difficult as natural evils, a frequently undetected defect in our language use is “overly attenuated description.” In this piece, I …


A Member Of No Community? Theology After Wittgenstein, Brad Kallenberg Aug 2015

A Member Of No Community? Theology After Wittgenstein, Brad Kallenberg

Brad J. Kallenberg

The study of Wittgenstein has spawned a new sort of Christian theology. A growing list of theologians have discovered in Wittgenstein a therapy for conceptual confusion and tips for how to go on, not only in religious faith and practice, but also in the practice of theology as an academic discipline. This is not to say that such thinkers have succeeded in turning Wittgenstein into an instrument of apologetics or that Wittgenstein has “delivered” them from the grip of their own religious particularity. No; they have learned from Wittgenstein the skill of silence. Their theology, like Wittgenstein’s philosophy, comes to …


The Master Argument Of Macintyre's 'After Virtue', Brad Kallenberg Aug 2015

The Master Argument Of Macintyre's 'After Virtue', Brad Kallenberg

Brad J. Kallenberg

In September of 1995 the Associated Press released a wire photo showing Russian lawmakers of both genders in a punching brawl during a session of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.' Is this behavior an ethnic idiosyncrasy? Do only government officials duke it out over matters of great importance? Or have fisticuffs suddenly become politically correct? No, on all counts. Pick a topic, any topic -- abortion, euthanasia, welfare reform, military intervention in the Balkans -- and initiate discussion with a group of reasonable, well-educated people and observe the outcome. Chaos ensues. Of course the volume of the debate …


Defending Hauerwas, Brad Kallenberg, Terrence Tilley, M. Lysaught Aug 2015

Defending Hauerwas, Brad Kallenberg, Terrence Tilley, M. Lysaught

Brad J. Kallenberg

The commentary begins: Jeffrey Stout and Stanley Hauerwas have long been friends and conversation partners. One would not know that from reading Stout’s “Not of This World” (October 10). Nor does one emerge from Stout’s essay with an accurate sense of Hauerwas’s position. Stout’s presentation is incomplete in many ways. For example, he labels Hauerwas’s ethic as “perfectionist,” implying that it is, in the words of the article’s title, unrealistic or “not of this world.” However, Stout fails to mention Hauerwas’s untiring emphasis on human sinfulness and-most crucially- the subsequent centrality of the practices of forgiveness and reconciliation. This is …


The 'P'-Word: Conversion In A Postmodern Environment, Brad Kallenberg Aug 2015

The 'P'-Word: Conversion In A Postmodern Environment, Brad Kallenberg

Brad J. Kallenberg

Allow me to write frankly about the “P”-word. There is great concern about the proliferation of the “P”-word. In the past decade, over 1,500 articles and 2,000 books have come into print bearing the "P"-word in their titles. Nearly 1,000 of these books are still in print. Everywhere we turn we find that we have been inundated with the “P”-word. And so we have come to fear for our culture. The "P"-word? “Postmodernism.” Granted, postmodernism is a slippery concept; there are many versions, many postmodernisms. But should Christians fear postmodernism? To be sure, the modern era proved to be no …


The Theological Origins Of Engineering, Brad Kallenberg Aug 2015

The Theological Origins Of Engineering, Brad Kallenberg

Brad J. Kallenberg

Knowledge of our roots can sometimes help us figure out how we ought to proceed. Many claim that engineering began in ancient antiquity with the Egyptian pyramids, Archimedes' inventions, or the Roman aqueducts. Others give contemporary engineering a more recent history, tracing its origins to the Industrial Revolution or the Enlightenment. Yet what is often overlooked is the fact that contemporary engineering owes part of its identity to medieval monasticism. The advantage of remembering this history is the bearing it has on the questions "What is engineering for?" and "How ought engineering be practiced?" Michael Davis makes the claim that, …


Virtues And Practices In The Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics After Macintyre, Nancey Murphy, Brad Kallenberg, Mark Nation Aug 2015

Virtues And Practices In The Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics After Macintyre, Nancey Murphy, Brad Kallenberg, Mark Nation

Brad J. Kallenberg

Using Alasdair MacIntyre's work as a methodological guide for doing ethics in the Christian tradition, the contributors to this work offer essays on three subjects: description of MacIntyre's approach; reflections on moral issues; and selected essays on family, abortion, feminism and more.


Bewitched By Technopoly, Brad Kallenberg Feb 2015

Bewitched By Technopoly, Brad Kallenberg

Brad J. Kallenberg

No abstract provided.


What Christians Can Learn From Technologists, Brad Kallenberg Feb 2015

What Christians Can Learn From Technologists, Brad Kallenberg

Brad J. Kallenberg

No abstract provided.


Is Technology Good News?, Brad Kallenberg Feb 2015

Is Technology Good News?, Brad Kallenberg

Brad J. Kallenberg

No abstract provided.