Ragnar Misje Bergem – Page 11

Ethico-political imagination in Luther, Kant, and Løgstrup

Article by Svend Andersen in Studia Theologica.

Today, imagination is related to the classical concepts φρόνησις and ἐπιϵίκϵια, which both are about taking right action in particular situations. Some regard imagination as an essential requirement of the Golden Rule (GR). The role of imagination according to three thinkers is discussed here: Martin Luther, Immanuel Kant, and K. E. Løgstrup. In Kant’s ethics, the basic problem is the agent’s relation to practical reason. The two others regard ethics as rooted in the agent’s relation to the other. With Kant, imagination (Einbildungskraft) hardly plays an ethical role, but does so via aesthetic judgment. The GR needs “improvement” through adjustment to the categorical imperative. Luther empha sizes ἐπιϵίκϵια: taking the right action in a particular situation, getting free from general rules. The same is true of acting in accordance with GR, which for Luther is a summary of natural law. Løgstrup’s ethics is a reconstruction of Luther’s theory of natural law, philosophically based on existential phenomenology. In The Ethical Demand, imagination is central for the ability to take care of the other. Later, Løgstrup states that GR underlines the importance of imagination and the ability to place oneself in the other’s position. The article concludes by sketching Løgstrup’s view of imagination in political ethics.

Da Gud forlot Gud: Jesu vei til døden og dens betydning for oss

Article by Knut Alfsvåg in Teologisk Tidsskrift.

According to the NT, the Father and the Son are one, but still the Father leaves the Son on the cross. What are the implications of considering this as the essence of divinity? In the Bible, humans are placed under the wrath of God because they have sinned against their neighbours. Jesus accepts this as the truth even of his own life, but is still carried through death to the resurrection. This could lead to a doctrine of apocatastasis, but the ambiguity in the image of God is retained through the idea of an eternal judgment with two different outcomes.

Ifølge NT er Faderen og Sønnen ett, samtidig som Faderen forlater Sønnen på korset. Hvordan blir vår gudsforståelse om vi antar at denne motsetningen uttrykker kjernen i Guds vesen? Ifølge Bibelen står mennesker under Guds vrede fordi de har gjort urett mot sitt medmenneske. Jesus identifiserer seg med denne plasseringen, men bæres likevel gjennom døden til oppstandelsen. Heller ikke under Guds vrede faller en ut av det frelsende gudsforhold. Dette betinger isolert sett en verdensrettferdiggjørelse, men tvetydigheten i gudsbildet fastholdes ved at frelse formidles i form av en utvelgelseslære som fastholder dommens to utganger.

Resonans seminar 7 Sept: ‘I Will Shake All Nations’: Theological Perspectives on Nationalism and Universalism

7 September 16.16-18.00 (CET)

Joint seminar with the “Christianity and Nationalism” project at Centrum för teologi och religionsvetenskap, Lunds Universitet.

Since the beginning of Christianity, Christian theology has struggled to articulate the difference of the Christian message and practice in relationship to the universal visions of political communities. With the crisis of representation and the heightened tensions between apparently ‘particularist’ nationalism and ‘abstract’ cosmopolitanism, how can theology formulate anew a universalism that is neither irreducibly particularist nor without place, context, or identity? And how can such an approach shed light on contemporary debates about nationalism?

Ragnar Misje Bergem is a postdoctoral fellow in systematic theology at the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society.

Mårten Björk is a postdoctoral researcher in systematic theology at CTR, Lund University.

Chaired by Jayne Svenungsson (Lund).

Zoom-URL: https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/69542595209

See also https://resonans.mf.no/seminars/

Velfærdsstatens religiøse rødder

PhD thesis by Hanne Puk Dahl at Aalborg University.

The Religious Roots of the Welfare State

Searching for the religious roots of the welfare state is the subject of this PhD dissertation.

The aim has been to conduct a comparative study of Denmark and Germany. The idea is to determine the influence of the reformation in the view of fighting poverty.

The analyses are based on three studies of microcosmic character. The studies are based on historical empiric material found describing the nature of institutions fighting poverty from the middle age until 18th. Century.

I have chosen three cities. They are Aalborg in Denmark and Lübeck and Passau in Germany. The cities all have a monastery of The Holy Ghost, which still is functioning. This has been a reason for choosing these cities as historic micro cosmos. The idea is to make a comparison based on almost similar institutions. Monasteries of The Holy Ghost are institutions founded by citizens who gave a large donation in order to help fight poverty. The institutions had various functions as hospitals, orphanages, elder homes and almshouses for poor people. The monasteries have been founded before the reformation. This gives a possibility to investigate which changes the reformation led to in everyday life for poor people.

The comparison will also cover the general outline of the way poverty has been addressed in the three cities.

For Germany, the timespan is from the foundation of the monasteries until 1803/06. 1803 is the year of secularization, which in Germany means that all property of the church is taken over by the state in order to pay reparations to France after having lost the Napoleon Wars. 1806 is the year where “Code Napoleon” is implemented in Germany as the new way of legislating.

The year of secularization is the year of major changes in Passau, since Passau is not affected by the reformation. It stays catholic and so does its social institutions.

For Lübeck 1531 is the year of major changes. This is the year where it adapts a new constitution for the city because of the reformation.

Of Aalborg, the important year of change is 1537/39 where the Lutheran constitution for the church is adapted. For Aalborg, the timespan for the historic microstudy continues until 1708 where a nationwide legislation considering how to deal with poor people is passed. The law from 1708 ordains the first assessment tax on income with the purpose of paying for the need of poor people. I have studied the tax lists from Aalborg as a primary source of information, which has never been investigated before.

https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/files/429773423/PHD_HPD_E_pdf.pdf

Call for Papers: October Symposium – NSU Summer Session 2021

Solidarity and the Political
–
Feminist thinking and the needs of today
Topic

What are the political aspects concerning solidarity? Solidarity is one of the six principles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. But what is solidarity and how does it foster or hinder cooperation between oneself and the other? The Oxford dictionary tells us that solidarity describes a state of physical and political organisation, as well as a feeling.

British philosopher Timothy Morton works on solidarity and climate change. According to him, solidarity goes against the fundamental and traumatic fissure between reality and the real, and as such it proposes an ontological basis that goes against dominant Western philosophy. How to create a solidarity that does not violate the other? How can we think the openness of hospitality, without losing the identity of the one that invites? And how are we to invite the other, what kind of relationship do we presuppose in that invitation? How do we create the political in solidarity?

What does solidarity mean when teaching? Is solidarity possible in Hannah Arendt’s ‘political realm’? How does this relate to the black feminist movement, and the call for solidarity on ”mainstream” feminism: what is the critique and how is solidarity achieved? And with regard to nature and in bioethics: how does solidarity function in the discourse of climate change?

The symposium will take place online. There will be a two-day symposium, plus several satellite events, organised by our study circle. There will also be many more events and symposia organised during the whole month of October by the Nordic Summer University

Circle 3: Hospitality and Solidarity: Feminist Philosophy in Thought, History and Action

Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrifts pris för bästa vetenskapliga artikel

Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift utlyser härmed ett pris för bästa vetenskapliga artikel för 2021. Priset, som uppgår till 50 000 SEK, tilldelas den nydisputerade forskare som på bästa sätt författar en artikel som redogör för och självständigt utvecklar sitt avhandlingsämne eller annat relevant ämne inom religionsvetenskap och teologi. Artikeln ska vara författad på svenska, danska eller norska. För att komma i fråga för priset ska författaren ha disputerat under perioden 2018–2021. Bidraget ska inte överstiga 40 000 tecken (inkl. blanksteg och fotnoter) och ska skrivas i enlighet med tidskriftens riktlinjer för manuskript (https://journals.lub.lu.se/STK/about/submissions). Den vinnande artikeln publiceras i tidskriften under 2022. Flera av de inkomna artiklarna kan bli aktuella för publicering. Redaktionen förbehåller sig rätten att avstå utseende av vinnare om inget bidrag möter de krav som ställs på artikelns kvalitet. Bidragen skickas senast den 31december 2021 till tidskriftens redaktionssekreterare, stk.red@ctr.lu.se.

Saints in public Holy lives and the function of theological speech in the political theology of Rowan Williams

Article by Patrik Hagman in Studia Theologica.

This article explores the way Rowan Williams understands saints as theo-politically significant. By surveying a number of key texts by Williams in different genres, the author argues that the saints for Williams are highly important for his political theology. For him, the saints make a political theology possible, since they witness to the world as rooted in Gods will. This, in turn, is significant for understanding how theological language works, since it goes beyond the limits of “realistic” discourse, bound by a certain secular understanding of the way the world “is”. The significance of this feature of theological language is demonstrated by discussing texts by Martin Hägglund and Theo Hobson.

Between Kant and Hegel: Alexandre Kojève and the End of Law

Law, Theology & Culture & The End of Law Seminar 1/6, 16:00: Between Kant and Hegel: Alexandre Kojève and the End of Law.

We are happy to announce the second Law, Theology and Culture lecture (organized together with the project End of Law) on Tuesday 1^st of June 16.00 to 18.00.

Our guest is Jeff Love, Research Professor of German and Russian at Clemson University and translator from German, Russian, and Portuguese.

Alexandre Kojève is best known for the influential lectures he gave on Hegel to an enthralled audience of French intellectuals including Raymond Aron, Henry Corbin, Jacques Lacan, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Aside from these lectures, published in 1947 as Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, Kojéve published relatively little before his death in 1968. Yet, he left over 26 boxes of unpublished material on a variety of topics, from quantum physics and the continuum hypothesis to a major treatise on law called Outline of a Phenomenology of Right (Esquisse d’une phénoménologie du droit). Kojève wrote this treatise (586 pages in the French book edition) in 1943 while living in Vichy France. He expounds in it a comprehensive theory of justice and the universal homogeneous state that promises to usher in the end of history and perhaps of law itself. In my talk, I shall examine some of the central legal features of Kojève’s universal and homogeneous state and consider whether Kojève actually affirms that history can be brought to an end through a final legal regime or not. In this respect, Kojève reprises his end of history thesis from the Hegel lectures as well as putting it in question, opposing Hegelian finality to what Kojeve terms Kantian “skepticism” about final ends.

Jeff Love is Research Professor of German and Russian at Clemson University. He is the author of The Black Circle: A Life of Alexandre Kojève (Columbia University Press, 2018), Tolstoy: A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum, 2008), and The Overcoming of History in War and Peace (Brill, 2004). He has also published a translation of Alexandre Kojève’s Atheism (Columbia University Press, 2018), an annotated translation (with Johannes Schmidt) of F.W. J. Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (State University of New York Press, 2006), and recently a translation of António Lobo Antunes’s novel Until Stones Become Lighter Than Water (Yale University Press, 2019).

Time: Jun 1, 2021 16:00 Stockholm

Join Zoom Meeting

https://gu-se.zoom.us/j/65228108233?pwd=ckRvSWw5L1NvUFE3cFlXcjZ6VTJjdz09

Public Theologies in Vibrating Cities: Precious and Precarious, call for working groups

GLOBAL NETWORK FOR PUBLIC THEOLOGY
VII CONSULTATION CURITIBA, BRAZIL, 03-06 OCTOBER, 2022 Public Theologies in Vibrating Cities: Precious and Precarious
Call for Working Groups

Cities vibrate, shine, resonate. They are vibrant, tourist brochures tell us – lively, that is, interesting for those who seek for good food, nightlife, and entertainment. But much more than that, public life is vibrating. What do these vibrations mean? What kind of vibrations are we feeling? Which ones are we systematically closing our senses to? Cities are both precious and precarious. They represent the precious: creativity, mobility, sound, colour, construction, organization, interaction. But they also feature the precarious: poverty, traffic jams, noise, smog, destruction, chaos, exclusion. A diversity of publics, of interests, of beliefs, of needs, of longings and belongings emerge from the cities. Thus, by amplifying our understanding on publics and theologies, by appreciating the preciousness and discovering the precariousness, by realizing that there is preciousness in what is considered precarious, and that there is precarity in what is regarded as precious, we believe that there may be a more complete analysis of cities’ ambiguities and the critical and constructive role public theology can play in this context.

These are some of the issues the upcoming 7th Global Network for Public Theology (GNPT) Consultation intends to address. Alongside panels and lectures, our Working Groups will help us think through current challenges and possibilities for public theologies in vibrating cities. As a new development in the GNPT Consultations, we invite you to send us Working Group proposals first, and individual proposals per Working Group later, following a second call. This initiative follows the purpose of articulating continuous research and exchange of different groups connected to the network, beyond and in-between Consultations. Such Working Groups need not necessarily reflect the above-mentioned Consultation theme; however, they have to show a clear connection to public theology. There could be, for instance, a “Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Public Theology Working Group”, joining those for whom research on Bonhoeffer in this perspective ranks high in their interest, academic and practical engagement.

The call will be open for application till the end of June. Thereafter, the Executive shall analyse the proposals and decide either to accept, to ask for amendment (also asking for possible mergers of similar groups), or to reject the application. In a second call, in early 2022, for individual papers, the application will be directly sent to a specific Working Group whose leadership will be responsible for the acceptance, amendment, or rejection of the paper proposals. The Working Groups Call is open to different institutions, but there should be at least one representative of a GNPT Member Institution in each proposal.

The proposal must contain:

1. At least two and at most three proponents representing different institutions, preferentially from different countries. At least one proponent should be connected to a GNPT Member Institution.
2. A short academic biography of each proponent.
3. A Title.
4. An Abstract. The abstract, written in English, should be no longer than 250 words. It should give a succinct account of context, the objectives, and significance of the matter the Working Group is aiming to address. It should also mention previous collaboration within or beyond the GNPT on the proposed topic.
5. Keywords.

Proposals shall be sent to gnpt2022@pucpr.br by June 30, 2021, 18.00 hours BRT. The GNPT Executive will then proceed to analysis and make a decision by August 15, 2021, whereafter the proposers will be informed about the decision taken.

Islamsk rettstradisjon i europeisk lovgjeving: Sicilia, England, Kastilja og Noreg

Article by Torbjørn Kalberg in Kirke og kultur.

I vestleg idéhistorie har ein ikkje brydd seg stort om å drøfte islamsk påverknad på kristen europeisk kulturutvikling. Islam hadde nok ein viss påverknad når det galdt arkitektur og språk, og kan hende når det galdt formidling av gresk filosofi, arabarane hadde jo tilgang til dei klassiske skriftene før dei vart kjende i europeiske kjerneområde. Men når det gjeld lov og rett har tonen vore avvisande. Berre kristentrua skapte eit juridisk system med fridom for den einskilde. Den europeiske rettsstaten var noko eineståande, eit førebilete for alle andre kulturar. Dette synet er ikkje lenger einerådande. Forskarar viser no til samband mellom tidlege uttrykk for samlande lovgjeving i europeiske statar og den islamske rettshistoria.