Global Institute of Theology (2010)
By rad | January 26, 2010
John Calvin
I have been selected to attend the second Global Institute of Theology (GIT) in June 2010. I will be representing the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ).
“The GIT will be a place of exposure to the local context and of reflection through a series of courses. It is also a great opportunity to build up an ecumenical leadership for the future,” said Douwe Visser, executive secretary for Theology and Ecumenical Engagement for the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC).
GIT is organized by the Office for Theology and Ecumenical Engagement of the WARC. This will most likley be the last thing they do as they are forming a new body, combining with the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC) to form a new body called the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). This will represent more than 80 million Reformed Christians worldwide. I will be at the Uniting General Council to witness the merger.
The GIT will be held in Chicago and Grand Rapids in June 2010. The academic partners will be McCormick Seminary in Chicago and Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids. I will be the only Kiwi going and only one of two from the South Pacific. I’m also one of two from Scotland. In total 70 students from member churches will be there with more than half from the “Global South”.
The GIT will be run by an international faculty of renowned academic theologians. The core course will on the theme of the Uniting General Council: “Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”. And there will be the following four elective courses:
- Intercultural Theology
- New Directions in Mission for the 21st century
- Reading the Bible in Context
- Theology and Mission of the Church in the Americas
This fantastic opportunity doesn’t come cheap, however. I have no funding for this event, except for a slight discount from the organisers. The PCANZ hadn’t budgeted for this and neither did I. So, if you know of any people or organisations that wish to support young theologians, Reformed theology, and ecumenism, then let me know.
Readers can of course support me for this, and my studies in general, in the usual ways listed here:
http://www.rad.net.nz/886.0.html
If you are wondering who I am, or have forgotten, I’m doing a PhD in political theology at the University of Edinburgh. I’m a PCANZ-supported scholar, with funding primarily from the Council of World Mission and PCANZ. I’m also an Elder of the PCANZ, and a member of St Andrew’s on The Terrace, Wellington. When in Edinburgh I attend Greyfriars Kirk.
Some Links for Further Information:
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Books read in 2009
By rad | December 29, 2009
Here is a list of the 59 books I read in 2009 (although there are a few pages left on one or two, which should keep me busy for the next couple of days). This time last year I aimed to read a book related to my thesis each and every week for the year. I easily passed this target, but some books are quite short and easy reads, only taking a sitting or two. Others I reviewed for academic journals and required more attention. This list excludes books of which I only read part or a chapter, and of course journal articles aren’t listed.
It is interesting to look back and see how my reading has changed since the start of my PhD and also worrying what remains to be read and reread. There are over 100 items on my Amazon Wish List alone!
This is my list:
- Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, trans. Kevin Attell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
- Hannah Arendt, On Violence (London: A Harvest/HBJ book, 1970).
- Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (London: Penguin, 2006).
- Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Cultural memory in the present (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).
- Naim Stifan Ateek, Justice, and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989).
- Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, trans. Ray Brassier, Cultural Memory in the Present (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).
- Karl Barth and Johannes Hamel, How to Serve God in a Marxist Land (New York: Association Press, 1959).
- Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1977).
- Pope Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Trans?guration, 1st ed. in the U.S. (New York: Doubleday, 2007).
- Thomas Bohache, Christology from the Margins (London: SCM Press, 2008).
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall: A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1–3, ed. Martin Ruter, Ilse Todt, and John W. de Gruchy, trans. Douglas Stephen Bax (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004).
- Martin Buber, Ich und du (Stuttgart: P. Reclam, 1995).
- Will D. Campbell and James Y. Holloway, Up to Our Steeples in Politics (New York: Paulist Press, 1970).
- Dante, Monarchy, ed. and trans. Pru Shaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
- Jacques Ellul, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972).
- Jacques Ellul, The New Demons (London & Oxford: Mowbrays, 1975).
- Jacques Ellul, Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation (New York: Seabury Press, 1977).
- Jacques Ellul, Perspectives on Our Age: Jacques Ellul Speaks on His Life and Work, ed. William H. Vanderburg, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Seabury Press, 1981).
- Jacques Ellul, Money and Power (Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering, 1986).
- Jacques Ellul, Jesus and Marx: From Gospel to Ideology, trans. Joyce Main Hanks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988).
- Jacques Ellul, Reason for Being: A Meditation on Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990).
- Jacques Ellul, Sources and Trajectories: Eight Early Articles by Jacques Ellul That Set the Stage, trans. Marva J. Dawn (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).
- Jacques Ellul and Patrick Troude-Chastenet, Jacques Ellul on Religion, Technology, and Politics, trans. Joan Mendès France, South Florida-Rochester-Saint Louis Studies on Religion and the Social Order (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998).
- Danna Nolan Fewell, Circle of Sovereignty: Plotting Politics in the Book of Daniel, 2nd. ed., rev. and extended (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991).
- Duncan B. Forrester and Danus Skene, eds., Just Sharing: A Christian Approach to the Distribution of Wealth, Income and Bene?ts (London: Epworth, 1988).
- Robert C. Fuller, Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
- David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, Paradigm 14 (Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004), 105.
- S. L. Greenslade, The Church and the Social Order: A Historical Sketch (London: SCM Press, 1948).
- Barry Harvey, Can These Bones Live?: A Catholic Baptist Engagement with Ecclesiology, Hermeneutics, and Social Theory (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008).
- Stanley Hauerwas and Romand Coles, Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary: Conversations Between a Radical Democrat and a Christian, Theopolitical Visions (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2008).
- Yoram Hazony, The Dawn: Political Teachings of the Book of Esther, Rev. ed. (Jerusalem: Shalem Press, 2000).
- Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (New York: Dover Publications, 1988).
- Nathan R. Kerr, Christ, History and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission (London: SCM Press, 2008).
- Peter Kropotkin, The State: Its Historic Role, Revised, trans. Vernon Richards and Freedom Press, Anarchist Classics (London: Freedom, 1987).
- Hans Küng, Was ich glaube (München: Piper, 2009).
- Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (New York: Vintage Books, 2008).
- Daniel S. Malachuk, Perfection, the State, and Victorian Liberalism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
- Pierre Manent, A World beyond Politics?: A Defense of the Nation-State, trans. Marc LePain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
- J. Gordon McConville, God and Earthly Power: An Old Testament Political Theology, Genesis–Kings (London: T&T Clark, 2006).
- Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000).
- J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005).
- John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concerning the Supernatural (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).
- John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, 2nd ed (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
- John Milbank, The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology (London: SCM Press, 2009).
- Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society (London: Quartet Books, 1973).
- Scott R. Paeth, Exodus Church and Civil Society: Public Theology and Social Theory in the Work of Jürgen Moltmann (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).
- Gianfranco Poggi, The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978).
- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Jürgen Habermas, Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion, ed., with a foreword by Florian Schuller, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).
- John H. Redekop, Politics Under God (Waterloo: Herald Press, 2007).
- Rosemary Radford Ruether and Marion Grau, eds., Interpreting the Postmodern: Responses to “Radical Orthodoxy” (New York: T & T Clark, 2006).
- Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
- Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need (New York: HarperPerennial, 1999).
- Hagen Schulze, States, Nations and Nationalism: From the Middle Ages to the Present (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
- Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Westport: Praeger, 2002).
- William Stringfellow, An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (Waco: Word Books, 1973).
- Peter Stuhlmacher, Historical Criticism and Theological Interpretation of Scripture, trans. Roy A. Harrisville (London: S.P.C.K. 1979).
- Jason E. Vickers, Invocation and Assent: The Making and Remaking of Trinitarian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008).
- Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985).
- Tripp York, Living on Hope While Living in Babylon: The Christian Anarchists of the Twentieth Century (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Technical Note: This list was created from BibDesk using a custom export template. The .txt file was saved as .tex and then run through TexShop to produce a PDF, which was exported to Word, then an Apple script replaced the italics with the matching HTML tags. Cool huh!
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Should I do a PhD? – Is it too late for me…
By rad | April 19, 2009
Here is the post that inspired me to post again:
AP in turn points to:
- http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/01/2009013001c.htm
- http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/03/2009031301c.htm
Who in turn mentions:
Invisible Adjunct
Of course this is an American analysis, but it may have flow on effects for NZ and UK, especially given the numbers of American PhD worldwide and willing to move to get jobs.
Back to my scholarship….
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Calvin’s Advice to PhD students…
By rad | February 2, 2009
Share Thisthey who have narrow and slender resources should know how to go without things patiently, lest they be troubled by an immoderate desire for them. If they keep this rule of moderation, they will make considerable progress in the Lord’s school. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, III, 10.5)
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Maurice Goldsmith (1933-2008)
By rad | November 8, 2008
I was sad to learn toady that Maurice Goldsmith has died. He was my supervisor for my honours dissertation in political philosophy. I liked him a lot and now that I’m reading Hobbes again I would have liked to chatted with him.
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/phil/staff/goldsmith.aspx
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“Jesus is my friend”
By rad | September 21, 2008
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LibraryThing -> Connotea
By rad | April 25, 2008
I’m trying to find a way to transfer book refs from my LibraryThing account to Connotea. If anyone knows a way then let me know.
I’m hoping to export the ISBN numbers from LT and then bulk convert into RIS and then upload them into Connotea. I’ll let y’all know if it works.
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WordPress a CMS?
By rad | February 22, 2008
Here are some links to pages that discuss using WordPress to manage websites beyond the simple blog, makes sense to me and I might try it out on a web project soon.
http://bavatuesdays.com/a-wordpress-website-with-static-front-page/
http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2006/12/your_static_web_site_on_steroi.html
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Conferences in Politics and Theology
By rad | February 20, 2008
There are two conferences coming up which look exciting:
The 2008 Conference on the Bible and Justice
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/bibs/bibleandjustice
29 May – 1 June, 2008
University of Sheffield
The 2008 Conference on Bible and Justice will bring together scholars from around the world to explore how the ancient texts of the Bible can play an active role in addressing twenty-first century social concerns. The purpose of the conference is to foster discussion about the relevance of the Bible to modern social issues, and promote bridges between the academic field of biblical studies and the various endeavours for a just world.
The Conference Will Focus On Three Main Areas:
- Human Rights
- Economic Justice
- Environmental Justice
Keynote Speakers Are:
- Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University
- Timothy Gorringe, University of Exeter
- John Rogerson, University of Sheffield (Emeritus)
Society for the Study of Theology Conference 2008: Theology and Politics
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/thrs/sst/booking.html
St John’s College, Durham
31 March – 3 April 2008
John Milbank: provisional paper title: Paul and Politics;
Oliver O’Donovan: Romulus’s City
György Geréby: provisional paper title: Medieval Political Theology;
Scott Thomas: provisional paper title: Religion and International Relations;
Tina Beattie: provisional paper title: Theology of Human Rights
Charles Matthewes: provisional paper title: On Political Theology After The End of History
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A view of NZ religion
By rad | February 11, 2008
Here is a posting from http://blog.prayers.org/?p=655 about NZ’s state of religion a prayer requests for Feb:
4 – 6 Pacific: New Zealand is a secular society; people see the church and Christianity as irrelevant. More and more people claim to be of ‘no religion’ and churches are rapidly shrinking and losing their young people. Churches need to understand how to reach out to these ‘post-modern’ generations.
New Zealand is ranked 4th in the world for the number of missionaries that it sends out.
Large numbers of Polynesians have immigrated to New Zealand to look for work. Auckland has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world. Many live in poorer areas, where unemployment and crime are commonplace.
The recent revival in Maori culture is changing New Zealand society. Throughout history Maoris have suffered; they lost rights to their land in the 19th century and now have higher levels of unemployment and poverty than European New Zealanders.
Pray that a new generation of Maoris would find cultural acceptance and freedom in Jesus.
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