The Monthly Roundup
The Monthly Roundup
A recap of August-September 2024 from Hank Spaulding
August and September have been months of planning for the Center for Barth Studies. As many of you know, we took a break to reflect on this online magazine. When we started God: Here & Now, we hoped it would be a resource for the academy, church, and world, but the response far exceeded our expectations. This time allowed our team to streamline our processes to serve you, our reader, better. Thank you again for your patience as we carried out this necessary work.
As September draws to a close, the Center for Barth Studies welcomed notable scholars and guests to Princeton Theological Seminary for our conference titled The Church, the Pastor, and Resonance in an Accelerated Age: Theological Conversations with Hartmut Rosa. As described on the conference site,
Hartmut Rosa is considered one of the world's most important big-idea sociologists. Rosa particularly names how the acceleration of human life has alienated us from the world, keeping us from social connection in our most important relations and fraying our social fabric. Over the two days of this conference, participants are invited into a conversation with Rosa about the future of congregational life and pastoral identity through critical theological engagement with his ideas and their implications for ministry in the present. We believe this event will hearten and inspire all who care about the church's future by clarifying the challenge before us and directing our attention toward the ways God is leading in the here and now.
As this description makes obvious, this conference exists within and after the spirit of Karl Barth’s theology, namely a theology for the here and now. If you would like to read more on the connection between Barth and Rosa, read the essay by guest contributor Andrew Root here.
In case you missed it, I wanted to highlight Daniel L. Migliore's beautiful tribute to the late Jürgen Moltmann. Memory and remembering well are essential features of a healthy theological imagination. Moltmann's theological legacy must be remembered because, among other theological narratives, he gives a compelling narrative of God as a crucified God, leaving an indelible impact on all theological thinking.
As always, thank you for supporting the Center for Barth Studies. We wish you a wonderful fall and winter ahead!
— Hank Spaulding, Editorial Director
August and September Highlights
We had many engaging contributions in August and September. Here are a couple of highlights for you to read in case you missed them:
Some Words for Those Beginning Seminary
Reflecting on Divine Patience
The 2024 Chalmers Lectures will be delivered by Katie Cross next month, and you can register to attend virtually. Young men are more religious than young women? A hybrid conference to check out on Asian Americans and the Presidential election. A new theological work on pregnancy and birth. An autism and theology podcast worth checking out. A new online course called “Thinking Politically with Augustine.” The Unconfinable God: Toward an Open Ecclesiology. A Call to Christians: Look Towards Gaza.