Johanne Stubbe Teglbjærg Kristensen

In this article, we describe and analyze the discussion of the celebration of the Lords Supper in the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church during the pandemic 2020-21. We notice that the Lutheran World Federation as well the Swedish and Norwegian bishops expressed or recommended a no to any attempts at a digital celebration of the Lords Supper. We also emphasize that most Danish pastors were spontaneously careful in their practice and hesitated towards the attempt at a digital celebration. Nonetheless, some Danish bishops seemed to assume that this was possible and their assumption became the beginning of a discussion in a few Danish media, primarily in Kristeligt Dagblad. In the article, we analyze this Danish discussion in the context of the confessional writings of the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church and argue for a hesitating position that calls for more research. This presupposes that the confessional writings were written in a different, non-digitalized, context, and it takes...

ABSTRACT Ted Peters constructs a Cosmic History that depicts the inextricable connection between the human and the natural plus its ethical consequences. Even though I might assent to some of Peters’ conclusions, I see three problems. First, Peters makes a shift from present philosophical subjectivity (chapter 1) to scientific objectivity (chapter 17) and back to present confessional subjectivity (conclusion and afterword). But this shift seems far more easy than it really is. Second, Peters’ list of alternative models for the divine do not fit, hermeneutically speaking, biblical language. Third, in his haste to incorporate naturalistic and apologetic alternatives into his own framework, I believe Peters thinks too little of Christian faith, and too much of non-Christian faith.

Against the temptation to seek a complete conceptual clarificationof the relationship between Naturalism and Christianity, this article argues from a dogmatic perspective that the relationship between Naturalism and Christianity demands an approach that takes into consideration the limits and complications of dogmatic conceptuality itself. This approach proceeds from the post-dialectical awareness of a highly dialectical relationship of the concepts of Naturalism and Christianity, which makes them impossible to synthesize dogmatically and yet, equally impossible to conceive of as irreconcilable. By moving from the post-dialectical understanding of Naturalism in relation to the notion of theology, revelation and faith to the history and appearance of the concept of Naturalism in its relation to Supernaturalism, it is argued that Naturalism and Christianity shares an ambiguous notion of human rationality, which according to post-dialectical theology is due to a deeper complication of ...

After posing several questions of major significance to my review of Time in Eternity: Pannenberg, Physics, and Eschatology in Creative Mutual Interaction (TIE), Robert J. Russell has generously invited me to write a response to his response. My review was restricted to issues in TIE that only concerned a single aspect of the book, namely its engagement with the theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg. My comments were few, and focused on issues debated in contemporary Pannenberg research. It is against the backdrop of Russell’s response that these issues can be explicated as questions regarding Pannenberg’s conception of the relation between subjectivity and objectivity and the consequences of this conception for eschatology. To briefly summarize the main issue: I understand Russell as seeking to develop the grounds for an objective eschatology that can correspond to objective creation theology. I read Russell as being concerned with human, natural and cosmic objectivity, and thus challenged by the human experience of being an object. This experience of objectivity has—in the continental philosophical and theological tradition that I draw on—been termed the experience of human passivity, and has been investigated as an experience marked by a deep ambiguity. In my view, this is also the context of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theology. Therefore, I understand Russell’s concern with the objective goodness of creation and eschaton as being conditioned by a present experience of negativity and hence altogether as an interest in the ambiguity of the human experience of passivity. I fully share this interest. My questions regard whether this interest or theological motive can be adequately dealt with by taking up human passivity and ambiguity in abstract, objectivistic or even scientific terms, rather than by turning to concrete history and to our experience of the ambiguity of this history as the place where subjectivity and objectivity meet. In my review of TIE, I noted that I do not read Pannenberg as himself developing an objective eschatology or as dealing with objectivity in an abstraction from human subjectivity and ambiguity. Instead, he interprets (he calls his theology a “hermeneutic”) objectivity through subjectivity. An investigation of subjectivity is, he says, indispensable for any interpretation of experience. In this regard, I suppose I need to underscore that I am well aware that Pannenberg has devoted his theology to arguing against the modern subjectivization,

In his major new book, Time in Eternity, Robert J. Russell explores with outstanding care and clarity the interdisciplinary issue of time and eternity. As early as on the very first pages, Russell describes his multilayered theological motivation as a wish “to respond aggressively to the direct challenge from physics to the topic of time and eternity” and to eschatologically address three distinct but connected issues of the theology of creation that he has developed in recent years, and until now communicated in numerous different works (Russell 2012: 2, 53, 56). Thus, this book shows from beginning to end the unique quality of being at the same time deeply integrated in a certain scholarly context that is already well established, and yet fully complete as a single piece of theology communicating new research. It is therefore not only a must-read for scholars who are already integrated in the dialogue between theology and science and eager to learn more about the eschatological consequences of Russell’s theology of creation; it can also be read and understood from completely different perspectives. It is divided into two clearly distinct parts, and has a long introduction with a comprehensive appendix that describes the background material and accounts for the division and structure. It is obviously the result of years of passionate engagement with the eschatological issues involved in the interaction between theology and science and with an impressive care in regard to explication and communication. In light of this exceptional achievement, my comments are few and my questions restricted to issues that only concern one single aspect of the book, namely its engagement with the theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg. To this I would add that in respect for – and accordance with – Russell’s own tradition for always taking up the most difficult theological challenges, I have chosen to focus on issues that I believe find the most traction in contemporary Pannenberg research and hence also believe find potential for a fruitful conversation. Russell’s primary motivation is to address what he calls the direct challenge of science to Christian eschatology (p. 2). In addition to that – or integrated in that – his motivation is to resolve three issues of his creation theology. The first issue springs from the context of a theology of creation that embraces the notion of an original creation ex nihilo. According to Russell, it consists of “the challenge raised by the ‘freeze or fry’ scenarios to Christian eschatology” (pp. 2–3, 32–34, 56–61). The second issue springs from a theology of creation that assumes the notion of a subsequent creation continua and unfolds this notion through the