The Craft of Innovative Theology (eBook)

John Allan Knight is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Marist College, where he teaches courses in religion and the U.S. Constitution, philosophy of religion, religion and politics, and a number of other religious studies courses. He holds degrees from Southern Nazarene University, George Washington University Law School, and the University of Chicago. Knight is the author of Liberalism vs. Postliberalism: The Great Divide in Twentieth Century Theology (2012), and a number of articles in both scholarly and popular journals. He is currently working on a book on religious freedom and the nature of religious claims. Ian S. Markham is the Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and a priest in the Episcopal Church. He has degrees from King's College London, the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from the University of Exeter. He is the author of numerous books, including Against Atheism: Why Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris are Fundamentally Wrong (Wiley Blackwell, 2010), The New Apologetics (2020), A Theology of Engagement (Blackwell, 2003), Truth and the Reality of God (1998), and Plurality and Christian Ethics (1994).

The Acknowledgments ix

Contributors xi

Introduction xiii

Part I God and the Incarnation 1

1 Knowing God through Religious Pluralism 3
Tinu Ruparell

Research Level 2 3

2 Is It Possible for the Eternal Word to Be Made Manifest in a Person with Down's Syndrome? 19
Ian S. Markham

Research Level 1 19

Part II God and Church 31

3 Racial Stigma and Southern Baptist Public Discourse in the Twentieth Century 33
Pamela D. Jones

Research Level 1 33

4 The Plugged-in Church: Is it Appropriate to Baptize Artificial Intelligence 50
Ian S. Markham

Research Level 1 50

Part III God and the World 63

5 Humanity: Where on Earth Have We Come From and Where Are We Going To? 65
Celia Deane-Drummond

Research Level 3 65

6 What Challenges Does the Theory of Biological Evolution Pose to Christian Theology? 81
Christopher Southgate

Research Level 3 81

Part IV God and Ethics 97

7 Sin and the Faces of Responsibility 99
Leigh Vicens

Research Level 4 99

8 A Good Story: Human-Animal Friendship and Meat Eating 114
Trevor Bechtel

Research Level 2 114

9 Just Business: It's Not What You Think 127
Kathryn D. Blanchard

Research Level 2 127

Part V The End of the World 149

10 Relentless Love and the Afterlife 151
Thomas J. Oord

Research Level 1 151

11 Hell: Retributivism, Escapism, and Universal Reconciliation 164
Andrei A. Buckareff

Research Level 3 164

12 Christ Will Come Again 183
Keith Ward

Research Level 2 183

Part VI Method in Theology 195

13 Theological Language and Method in Liberal Theology: Schubert Ogden's Response to the Falsification Controversy 197
John Allan Knight

Research Level 4 197

14 Does Culture Determine Belief? The Relationship between the Social Sciences and Theology 212
Martyn Percy

Research Level 3 212

15 Theological Reference and Theological Creativity in Judaism 226
Cass Fisher

Research Level 4 226

16 Marshall's Slingshot: Truth Theory, Realism, and Liberal Theological Method 245
John Allan Knight

Research Level 4 245

Glossary 261

Index 266