Weekly Roundup #7
January 19, 2024
Thank you for reading this week’s roundup! Before I introduce the pieces below, I am excited to announce this year’s Graduate Student Colloquium! Interested in applying? Please click here for more information.
I am also excited to introduce the following pieces from the past week. First is a reflection I wrote on how a Chalcedonian Christology crucially informs our understanding of God’s entanglement with the earth. The next is Chris Boesel’s insightful discussion on the theologies of Karl Barth and James Cone, their intersections and divergences, and the importance of this comparative study amid what he calls a “racist USA.” And last but not least, Jason Evans’ invitation to discern “God’s humanism,” and thus be active witnesses of God’s “free electing grace in Jesus Christ” to be for humankind. I hope you enjoy this week’s offerings!
— Yanan Melo
God Here & Now is the online magazine of the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary
Yanan Rahim N. Melo, Jesus as the Gift of Creation: The scandal [of the incarnation] is that, when one looks upon [the child of Mary], the cosmic glories of God are disclosed fully (not partly) in the advent mystery of a dispossessed young woman and her newborn, whose bodies are variations of the soil’s life—the very land to which and from which God was born. In this regard, we could perhaps begin to know Jesus as just as much the gift of creation as he is the gift of God, born of Mary the mother of God.
Chris Boesel, The Word of God and the Human Word: The corrective remedy provided by Cone makes visible how white interpretations of Barth tend to emphasize the No of divine freedom from human words and actions. This emphasis can hide how, in the here and now of a racist USA, the goodness of the gospel news about God’s freedom for the creature in Jesus is not only enacted in and through black human words and actions resisting the sin of white supremacy, but is in itself, from all eternity, a black divine Word.
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.
Announcing: 2024 Graduate Student Colloquium
We are thrilled to announce the 2024 Barth Graduate Student Colloquium this upcoming June 11–14 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Barmen Declaration. The application deadline is March 29. This program is fully funded and includes travel stipends. Email applications to barth.center@ptsem.edu.
People are deifying Donald Trump? Read more about this strange phenomenon here. Eboo Patel argues that diversity initiatives have “encouraged an us-versus-them mentality.” Here’s how he hopes to offer solutions. Research finds that 63% of Asian Americans feel anti-Asian hate is often “ignored.” Here’s an intriguing story about a small city in Spain that is planning to build Europe’s biggest Buddha. What might it look like to speak of God without certainty, but faith?—asks theologian Amar Peterman. Publisher’s Weekly just released its longlist of most-anticipated spring releases in spirituality and religion.
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
