PEACE THEOLOGY 101

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

LECTURE

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PEACE THEOLOGY 101

PEACE THEOLOGY 101Introduction to Peace Theology.

This course will help the students to appreciate and to evaluate a biblical understanding and contemporary practice of Peace Theology. Such evaluation will be done within the framework of social sciences and informed from the perspective of biblical theology.

The students will be intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally involved in the current discussions on the meanings, proposals, and tasks of Peace Theology.

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

CRITICAL NT ISSUES & HISTORICAL JESUS

SCHOLARSHIP:A BRIEF OVERVIEW

Alienation from God (Spiritual Separation)

ALIENATION OF HUMANITYSIN = MISSING THE MARK OF SHALOM

Alienation from Others (Social-Political Corruption)

Alienation from the Creation (Economic-Ecological Disintegration)

Alienation from the Self (Psycho-Social Despair)

SELFEXALTING=UNSHALOMEXISTENCE

Harmony with God(Spiritual Transformation)

PEACE OF GODHEBREW SHALOM; GREEK IRENE

Harmony with Others (Social-Political Transformation)

Harmony with the Creation(Economic-Ecological Transformation)

Harmony with the Self(Psycho-Social Transformation)

PEACEBUILDING=SHALOMLIVING

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

CRITIQUE OF THE HISTORICAL-CRITICALNEW TESTAMENT SCHOLARSHIP

The modern historical-critical scholars—and their claim to scientific, value-neutral, disinterested or disengaged approaches to historiography—need to be called into question.

Does an extra-discursive, raceless, disinterested, genderless observer really exist?

At the outset, the researcher's subjectivity shapes and influences the questions asked and the identification of problems. In any historical reconstruction, the socio-cultural location and experience of every researcher is a variable—a heuristically-valuable variable.

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

CRITIQUE OF THE HISTORICAL-CRITICALNEW TESTAMENT SCHOLARSHIP

The modern historical-critical scholars—and their claim to scientific, value-neutral, disinterested or disengaged approaches to historiography—need to be called into question.

Does an extra-discursive, raceless, disinterested, genderless observer really exist?

At the outset, the researcher's subjectivity shapes and influences the questions asked and the identification of problems. In any historical reconstruction, the socio-cultural location and experience of every researcher is a variable—a heuristically-valuable variable.

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

ISSUES SURROUNDING HISTORICAL JESUS SCHOLARSHIP CANNOT BE AVOIDED

We are faced with the challenges of political-economic injustices, ecological crises, and pluralism in the context of globalization.

This is the context where historians are called to struggle with the reconstruction of the history of Jesus of Nazareth.

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

AN EVANGELICAL JESUS SCHOLARSHIP WITHOUT BIAS?

The subjectivity of the Historical-Jesus researchers and scholars, even if they are labeled as Evangelicals, must be acknowledged as a significant variable in the language, concepts and theories employed in classifying and explaining evidences.

A number of oppressive structures in our world today have been supported, wittingly or unwittingly, by Evangelicals, in the name of Jesus!

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

NEUTRAL VIEW OF HISTORICAL JESUS?

Historical-Jesus research cannot be neutral about the issues of injustice, sufferings, and oppression.

Because of this we have to take notice of the "epistemic challenge of marginalized perspective"—that is, the way in which women, the poor, blacks and oppressed peoples are systematically written out of the historical record by, and because of, supposedly neutral and 'scientific' historiography.

William E. Arnal and Michel Desjardins, eds. Whose Historical Jesus? (Studies in Christianity and Judaism, 7; Ontario, Canada: Canadian Corporation for the Studies in Religion, 1997), p. 3.

 

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

BRIEF HISTORY OF HISTORICAL JESUS RESEARCH

First Quest or The Old Quest: 1778 –1906.

HERMANN SAMUEL REIMARUS

DAVID FREIDRICH STRAUSS

ERNEST RENAN

WILLIAM WREDE

The philosophical presupposition of "The First Quest" was that of the Enlightenment epistemology.

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

BRIEF HISTORY OF HISTORICAL JESUS RESEARCH

No Quest: 1906-1953.

ALBERT SCHWEITZER

RUDOLF BULTMANN

Schweitzer’s and Bultmann's views of knowledge were still influenced by Immanuel Kant's noumena-phenomena construct of reality. Both of them have admitted that, on the phenomenological level, Jesus cannot be known. Both of them also affirmed that, on the level of the noumena, the Christ of Faith or Jesus the Word can be encountered.

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

BRIEF HISTORY OF HISTORICAL JESUS RESEARCH

Second Quest or The New Quest:1953-1988.

ERNST KÄSEMANN

GÜNTHER BORNKAMM

Both Käsemann and Bornkamm, during this period of the "New Quest," brought balance to the discussion on the epistemology behind the Historical-Jesus project. Historical knowledge is not an either-or proposition in terms of objectivism and subjectivism; it is a both-and relationship between the subject and the object.

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

BRIEF HISTORY OF HISTORICAL JESUS RESEARCH

Third Quest: 1988-Present.

N.T. WRIGHT :: MARCUS BORG :: GERD THEISSEN :: BERNARD B. SCOTT :: ROBERT FUNK :: DOMINIC CROSSAN :: WILLIAM R. HERZOG II

Despite these enormous body of research on the Historical Jesus, we are still confronted with more questions…as we face the 21st century search for the Historical Jesus: What criteria can be applied to ensure the historical reliability of the materials used to depict Jesus? What controls prevent the enterprise from degenerating into total subjectivity and arbitrary speculation? How does one move from the evaluation of the individual units of tradition to a larger gestalt? What is the relationship between the parts and the whole? William R. Herzog II, Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God: A Ministry of Liberation (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), pp. 35-36.

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

JESUS AND THE VICTORY OF GODVolume II of Christian Origins and the Question of God. London: SPCK, 1996

What was Jesus' message?

How did Jesus see Himself in relation to other Jewish leaders and groups of his time?

How does the work of Jesus relate to the rise of the church?

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

RECOVERING JESUS:THE WITNESS OF THENEW TESTAMENTThomas R. Yoder Neufeld

Which one is the Real Jesus?

Jesus as reconstructed on the basis of strict historical investigation?

Jesus as believed in the Christian community based on their creeds and statements of faith?

Look again at the NT both as a historical source and as a source of our creed.

YHWH

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

HEBREW UNDERSTANDING OFTHE TETRAGRAMMATON

hwhyhyh

From the verb “to be”

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

LOOKING AT PEACE IN SEVERAL LAYERS

SUPPRESSIONOF CONFLICT

MILITARYPOLITICALECONOMICRELIGIOUS

PAXROMANA

UNJUSTGLOBALISM

JUSTPEACE

THE HIGHESTFORM OF PEACE ACHIEVABLEBY HUMAN BEINGS

SALAMSHALOM

THE PEACEOF GOD --THE KIND THATTRANSCENDSUNDERSTANDING

TRANFORMATIVE ENGAGEMENT

INEVITABLE PRESENCE OF KOSMOS

MANAGING CONFLICT ENERGY

CONFLICT ENERGY

EXPRESSEDCONSTRUCTIVELY

EXPRESSEDDESTRUCTIVELY REPRESSEDSUPPRESSED

VIOLENCE CONFLICT CONTINUES

LOST OPPORTUNITY

FOR GOOD RESULT

PERSONAL, SOCIAL, AND

POLITICAL CHANGE

RESENTMENT AND INJUSTICES INCREASE

SYSTEM

SUB-SYSTEM

RELATIONSHIP

ISSUE

DESIGN OFSOCIAL

CHANGE5-10 yrs

DESIREDFUTURE

10-25+ yrs

LEV

EL O

F R

ES

PO

NS

E

TIME FRAME OF ACTIVITY

AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK FOR PEACEBUILDING

ROOT CAUSESWhat are the root

causes of the crisis?

VISIONWhat are the social structures and relationships we desire?

TRANSFORMATIONHow do we get from

crisis to desired change?

CRISIS MANAGEMENTHow do we manage

the immediate crisis?

PREVENTIONHow do we prevent thecrisis from recurring?

John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (USIP, Wash., DC, 1997, p. 80)

CRISISINTER-

VENTION6 wks-1 yr

PREPARATIONAND

TRAINING1-5 yrs