Friday Session 2- Theological Landscape

Mark Achtenmeier- Dubuque Seminary – main speaker

Respondents- Andrew Purves- Pittsburgh Seminary, Dale Patterson-pastor, Daryl Fisher Ogden, most recently of Bel Air Pres and Fuller Seminary, and Steve Crocco, Princeton Seminary

3 main points

  1. There is an isolation of theology. There are too many books that analyze someone who is analyzing someone who is analyzing Barth, who is analyzing Scripture. Too many books are being written that are not about Scripture but are rather about other books.
  2. The Theological world is deeply insecure. The big bet, the truth of what we are saying depends on God showing up. (Wars have been fought over this stuff). Another example- The Age of Reason saw people trying to build something secure-and then Christians buy into this thinking and try to build a secure faith on reason, or worse, we try to build a secure faith on ethics that we all agree on anyway. Don’t kill, don’t steal. We then reduce faith to a set of rules that all of society agrees on. Enlightenment has failed.
  3. The theological task is indispensable- we no longer see the USA as us.

Followed by 6 bullets points-

  1. we are deeply burdened by disinterest in theology in the church
  2. we are very concerned about the loss of doctrinal theology
  3. signal marker- the recovery of the theology of the Trinity, this means we revisit how we speak about God. The doctrine of Fatherhood is important.
  4. We have been through an amazing liturgical renewal, the eucharist is being recovered ecumenically. We need Sacraments, not just the Word.
  5. There needs to be a reconnection of theologians to the church, as well as connections to piety. We cannot teach about God if we are not in a relationship with God.
  6. The emergence in seminaries of evangelical theologians. These theologicans are teaching confessional and classical theolgies in our seminaries.

Last thought, don’t be overly burdened by pragmatism. Not every part of theology has to be or should be immediately useful.

Repondees said Mark was right, and seemed hopeful about the future of theology in our seminaries and from there, in our denomination.