Contemporary Theologies - Outline

UNDERSTANDING THIS AGE

Modern Period (19th & Early 20th Centuries)
Post-Modern Period (Late 20th Century)
Post-Postmodern Period (21st Century)

MODERN PERIOD (19TH & EARLY 20TH CENTURIES)

1. Rationalism
2. Scientific Temper
3. Utopianism
4. Secularism
5. Skepticism
6. Liberalism

POST-MODERN PERIOD (LATE 20TH CENTURY)

1. Mood Against Truth (No Absolutes)
2. Rejection of Reason
3. Emphasis on Style over Substance
4. Privatization of Morals (Morals are personal)
5. Pluralism
6. Image or Virtual Culture
7. Rejection of Metanarratives

POST-POSTMODERN AGE (21ST C)

1. Intense Globalization and Trans-nationalism
2. Intense Fundamentalism
3. Return to Modernism
4. Between Modernism and Post-modernism
5. Neo-romanticism (Attempting to turn finite into infinite)
6. Pseudo-modernism (Internet Culture of Clicks, Likes, and Downloads)

LIBERALISM
Friedrich Schliermacher, Harold De Wolf

1. Rationalism and Scientific Temper
2. Genesis 1-11 as Mythological. Not Literal. No Original Sin.
3. Hyper Contextualization of Theology
4. Emphasis on Natural Theology (Natural Religion)
5. Anti-orthodoxy, Anti-traditionalism
6. Scientific Method
7. Emphasis on Experience or Empirical Research
8. Undermining of Sin
9. Division of Jesus of History from Christ of Faith
10. Rejection of Fundamentals such as Trinity, Original Sin, Virgin Birth, Inerrancy of Bible, Atonement, Second Coming

NEO-ORTHODOXY
Karl Barth, Emil Brunner

1. Emphasis on Biblical Encounter Revelation (Barth called natural theology as demonic; Brunner accepted it)
2. Emphasis on the Transcendence of God. God is the “wholly other”
3. Emphasis on Regeneration by Grace from Original Sin
4. Personal Revelation, Not Propositional Revelation. Encountering Christ as the Word.
5. Christo-centric Theology

PROCESS THEOLOGY
A.N.Whitehead, Teilhard De Chardin, Charles Hartshorne

1. God is mutable, temporal, and passible (i.e. affected by the world)
2. Everything, including God, is in process
3. Everything in nature has value, every living being is equally important. Eco-centric Theology
4. The world is in some sense part of God (Panentheism)
5. God is in some sense a physical or material being.
6. Emphasis on freewill
7. God feels how we feel without feeling as we feel (e.g. God feels our fear of death but He doesn’t fear death)

EXISTENTIAL THEOLOGY
Soren Kierkegaard, Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann

1. Existence precedes essence
2. Emphasis on Being
3. God as the Ground of Being (God Above God)
4. Christ is the manifestation of the New Being
5. Authentic Existence
6. Anthropo-centric Theology
7. Demythologization

SECULAR THEOLOGY
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Harvey Cox

1. Secularization as a Biblical Process in History
2. Emancipation of Church from State
3. Religionless Christianity
4. Church as Witness
5. Church as Transforming Factor

DEATH OF GOD SCHOOL
Gabriel Vahanian, Paul Van Buren, William Hamilton, John A.T. Robinson, Thomas J. J. Altizer, John D. Caputo

1. Contemporary culture is godless
2. God is Dead Vs There is No God
3. Do-It-Yourself Religion (Don’t wait for God)
4. Anti-Traditional
5. Engagement with (not isolation from) the World
6. Churchless Christianity

LIBERATION THEOLOGY
Martin Luther Jr. King, Desmond Tutu, Arvind Nirmal, V. Devasahayam, Mary Daly, Rosemary Radford Ruether.

1. Social Christianity
2. Justice & Equality
3. Black Liberation Theology
4. Feminist Liberation Theology
5. Dalit Liberation Theology
6. Palestinian Liberation Theology

DOMINION THEOLOGY
R. J. Rushdoony, Gary North, Peter Wagner

1. Christian Reconstructionism: Calvinism, Cessationism, Post-millenialism, Biblical Law
2. Kingdom Now Theology: Apostolic and Prophetic Movement, Restoration, Spiritual Warfare
3. 7 Spheres: Mild Dominionism. Christians must ascend peaks of the mountains of cultural influence: Arts, Business, Church (Religion), Development and Media, Education, Family, Government, (Health).