Weekly Roundup #6
January 12, 2024
We are already two weeks into the new year, and for some reason, January always feels like the longest month of the year. In the midst of this long and odd month following the holidays, I hope you might find the short reflections posted on our blog this week to be interesting and thought provoking. Jason Evans offers a beautiful engagement with Barth’s understanding of God’s humanity in Jesus Christ; Sara Mannen bravely names the imposter syndrome that we all have felt or currently feel as PhD students (and beyond); and Ed Watson probes the utility of being a theologian in his usual style with grace and wisdom.
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Thanks for reading,
— Kait Dugan
God Here & Now is the online magazine of the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary
Jason Oliver Evans, God’s Humanism: To adequately speak of God’s humanism…is the struggle to faithfully proclaim God’s free, electing grace in Jesus Christ to humankind, especially in urgent times. Christians in every generation are challenged to both speak adequately of God’s humanism and to seriously examine their speech—and themselves—in light of the gospel. This is our struggle.
Sara Mannen, Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: Throughout my Ph.D., I learned that when I was questioning if I was good enough, at the heart, I was questioning if God was good. Although my decision to pursue a Ph.D. and move across the world was undertaken with great care—immersed in prayer and the wise counsel of trusted friends, mentors, and family—I had lingering doubts that maybe what I thought was God’s calling was just what I wanted to hear. I needed to be “good enough” because I did not trust that God was.
Ed Watson, What Use Are Theologians?: Whether our reflection on the shared life of God and creature takes place in the academy, the church, or any other stream of life, whether this reflection involves academic study or not, theologians do learn. We gain knowledge, and if we are lucky, this knowledge brings us closer to God. Before this knowledge empowers us to speak, however, it should empower us to listen. It should empower us to listen to the depths and the density of what our neighbor is saying, to hear how the body’s words express the spirit’s life. Theological learning can help to form a sensitivity to the truths one’s neighbor already has, to the truth being created out of those truths, to how these truths compel movement through life and its vicissitudes.
Have you already (like me) broken your New Years resolution(s)? Don’t worry, make a small change instead. Check out this free online event with the 2023 Holberg Prize Laureate Joan Martinez-Allier and other speakers. “What Is Antiracism? And Why It Means Anticapitalism.” Are you a prospective student and want to learn more about the Barth Center? Join this virtual event next week. An incredible essay on the theology of creation and the Tabernacle. An Israeli student and a Palestinian student hosted a public discussion at their college campus to display a “desire to connect and care for one another.” Submit a proposal to present a paper or lead a workshop at the 2024 Theology & Disability Institute conference, which will be hosted this upcoming June at Boston College. The Cairn Theology Project Ireland is launching a new eJournal dedicated to exploring ‘live’ issues in theology. The war the world forgot. Burned out? Listen to this.
God Here and Now is an online magazine and newsletter from the Center for Barth Studies. If you would like to support our work, you can donate to the center here. All donations are tax-deductible. Questions? Ideas? Email us: barth.center@ptsem.edu
