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Philosophy Web Research
Once upon a Time...There was Art and Literature in America
3/15/2010
Redeeming the Sixties: Herbert Marcuse and the Formation of Political Language
3/10/2010
Rule by a Capitalist Minority is Not Much Different from Rule by a Communist Minority
11/10/2009
Kierkegaard in Contemporary Philosophy
5/31/2009
John Rawls: Secularized Calvinism, Moralized Protestant Vocationalism
3/19/2009
The Religion of John Rawls: An Anti-meritocratic, Egalitarian Conception of Distributive Justice
3/19/2009
Unbridgeable Gaps: Habermas on Religion and Critical Theory
3/8/2009
A Proper Role for Religion in the Public Sphere
3/8/2009
Multitude: Philosophy for the Future?
3/15/2005
Governing Citizens: Genealogy, Critique, Politics
12/22/2004
Robert Kennedy on Aeschylus
10/4/2004
Does Society Need God?
10/2/2004
A New Focus on Public Sociology
4/5/2004
Transcending the Liberal-Conservative Divide
1/14/2004
Max Weber and National Socialism
5/28/2003
Leo Strauss and Neoconservatism
4/21/2003
THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
4/1/2003
George Will Promotes Ideology Not Policy
7/15/2002
What is Enlightenment?
6/29/2002
The Unrest is Growing: Habermas in Iran
6/22/2002
American National Pride
10/19/2001
Violence and Justice in a Global Age
10/18/2001
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Philosophy Section
In every age Christian faith must be articulated into the real world at the time. Contemporary theology chooses, explicitly or implicitly, some way of thinking in the world which, it is thought, best describes the conditions of the times. When the Apostle Paul preached the gospel into the Greek world he had to do so through the language and ways of thinking which characterized that world. This greatly affected the message coming from Jewish sources and this has been a major issue in contemporary biblical studies. Another example is the current religious right. It emerged from the late 19th and early 20th century battles between the church and the views of science prevalent at that time. The so-called Christian right continues to be locked into that framework for its faith understanding and articulation. In the meantime science has changed very considerably and has had large impacts through the professions on modern economies and societies creating serious conflicts and issues which the religious right can barely see let alone help in constructive theological understanding. At this website we will explore various philosophical and scientific approaches to understanding the world. The disciplines of sociology, anthropology, political theory and, especially, history, are important for both biblical and theological research.  The phrase "Public Theology" has been used to refer to efforts to relect on the relation of theology and the philosophy of the German thinker Jurgen Habermas (right photo) who has emerged from the school of thought known as critical social theory. This theory began in the era of Hitler's Germany and examines the fundamental presuppositions of Enlightenment thought, its central belief in the efficacy of reason, and how modern socities under the influence of science have created conditions threatening fundamental human meanings, structures, and relationships.One of the original members of the Frankfurt School of critical social theory is Walter Benjamin (photo at top), who continues to be widely read today. One primary resource for a contemporary Protestant Public Theology is his writing about messianic history, "Theses On the Concept of History," in contrast with the political philosophy of the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.  At this site we also are interested in the philosophical orientation known as postmodernism because it too examines the ways human life has changed with the implementation of Enlightenment thought through the several "Enlightenment institutions." So we are interested in persons such as the French philosopher Michel Foucault who, though he died in 1984, continues to be widely read. He studied the history of specific modern institutions such as the clinic, the prison, and government. He believed that the "pastoral power" of the church in the middle ages has been taken over by modern governments which have become concerned with the whole life of each member of the population. The critiques of modernity by social critical theory and postmodernism run much deeper than those of the contemporary religious right which trivializes key moral and sexual issues and makes it seem that theology has nothing to contribute to serious thought about these issues. We want to provide a place for deeper reflection about these matters and invite inquiries from pastors and scholars about how to proceed.
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