Daily Archives: July 28, 2008

Some New Intellectual Disciplines

Posted by on July 28, 2008 12 comments

The plasticity of the English language, particularly its academic jargon never ceases to make for some good entertainment. Recently, a friend and I had occasion to speculate about possible ways of expressing different intellectual pursuits through the standard ways of nominating fields of study. So, here are some of the things we came up with:

  • Theography: the study of where God is
  • Theophotography: taking pictures of God (i.e. Mega-Iconography)
  • Theocartography: the art of making maps that lead to God
  • Philography: the love of words
  • Ecclesiography: the search for where the church is
My personal favorite is theography. I think if I worked hard enough I could actually make that into an actual term in theological discourse regarding the location of Christ’s body or something. Anyways, perhaps this is all just further proof that theology is, in fact, nothing more than a role-playing game. But hell, at least its fun.

Bonhoeffer Blog Conference Update

Posted by on July 28, 2008 1 comment

I’m pleased to announce that all slots have now been filled for the upcoming Bonhoeffer Blog Conference. I am also especially pleased to report that internationally-known Bonhoeffer scholar Geffrey B. Kelly will be offering a concluding reflection and response to the entire conference. Professor Kelly is the author such books as Liberating Faith: Bonhoeffer’s Message for Today, The Cost of Moral Leadership (With F. Burton Nelson), and the forthcoming Reading Bonhoeffer: A Guide to his Spiritual Classics and Selected Writings on Peace (From Cascade Books). He has also been instrumental in the editing and translation of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series, and is active in the International Dietrich Bonhoeffer Society. I am definitely excited about his participation in the upcoming conference.

Here is the list of participants with their paper titles:

  • Day 1: Introduction to the Conference by Halden
  • Day 2: ‘Christ my Conscience’: Bonhoeffer on Identity, Moral Integrity, and Christian Community by Chris Green
  • Day 3: ‘Being Made in Human Likeness’: ‘Ethics as Formation’ and Von Balthasar’s Concrete Universal by Eric Meyer
  • Day 4: Salvation as Humanification: Bonhoeffer’s Ethical Soteriology by Adam McInturf
  • Day 5: Bonhoeffer and Levinas (Title TBA) by Eric Roorback
  • Day 6: The Ethics of Justification: Bonhoeffer and Jüngel on the Implications of the Doctrine of Justification for Christian Ethics by D.W. Congdon
  • Day 7: Final Reflections and Response to Conference by Geffrey B. Kelly
We are still in need of respondents to the various plenary papers that are set to be presented. So far we only have one volunteered for David Congdon’s paper. If you are interested in responding to the other, please let me know. Responses should be 500-750 words and offer constructive engagement with the plenary in question. If you wish to write a response, please let me know, either by email at halden-at-wipfandstock-dot-com or leave a comment on this post.

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