Sketch of Contemporary Theology

This is a partial, prejudiced, personal list of some of things going on in theology today. It’s very much limited by my own knowledge and interests. It is in no particular order.

I. Theology: Movements and Trends.

A. Political theology
1. Players: William Cavanagh, Oliver O’Donovan.
2. Agenda: Opposition to the modern nation-state; rethink political categories theologically; recover tradition of Christian political thought.

B. Aesthetics
1. Players: Hans Urs van Balthasar, Jeremy Begbie, David Bentley Hart.
2. Agenda: Raise the profile of aesthetics; rethink aesthetics in theological, usually Trinitarian, categories.

C. Radical Orthodoxy
1. Players: John Milbank, Graham Ward, Catherine Pickstock.
2. Agenda: Theology as queen of the sciences; overcome modern theology’s false humility; participationist ontology as key to alternative modernity.

D. Postliberalism
1. Players: George Lindbeck, Hans Frei.
2. Agenda: Emphasizes uniqueness of Christianity; positive rather than critical approach to orthodoxy; cultural-linguistic idea of doctrine; practice.

E. Theological ethics
1. Players: Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre.
2. Agenda: Virtue ethics; narrative theology.

F. Science and theology
1. Players: Ralph Wendell Burhoe, Alister McGrath, Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne, Stanley Jaki, T. F. Torrance, Vern Poythress.
2. Agenda: Theological critique of science; attempt to show continuity of science and theology.

G. Trinitarian Theology
1. Players: Karl Barth, Robert Jenson, Colin Gunton, Jurgen Moltmann, Karl Rahner, Catherine Lacugna, T. F. Torrance, Ralph Smith, John Zizioulas.
2. Agenda: Overcome modern subordination of the doctrine of the Trinity; push Trinitarian categories into ontology and other areas; relational ontology.

H. Eastern Orthodoxy
1. Players: Alexander Schmemann, John Zizioulas, Vladimir Lossky, Georges Florovsky, Sergius Bulgakov, John Meyendorff
2. Agenda: West’s growing appreciation for and exposure to Orthodoxy.

I. Roman Catholicism
1. Players: Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict, Hans Urs van Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, Jean Danielou, Fergus Kerr, Karl Rahner.
2. Agenda: Recover patristic vision; revised Thomism; open windows of church to modern world; renewal in ecclesiology.

J. Global Theology (Africa).
1. Players: John Mbiti, Kwame Bediako, Lamin Saneh.
2. Agenda: Develop theology relevant to African setting; biblical interpretation in third-world setting; relation of Christianity to traditional African religions.

K. Postmodernism and philosophical theology
1. Players: Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Mark Taylor, John Caputo, Jean-Luc Marion, John Franke, James K. A. Smith.
2. Agenda: Assess postmodernism from theological viewpoint; use postmodern tools to undermine modernity’s mastery of theology.

L. Feminist Theology
1. Players: Elizabeth Schussler Firoenza, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Mary Daly.
2. Agenda: Overcome theology’s patriarchal bias; give the other half of humanity a chance to talk theology; at extremes, revise or abandon Christian orthodoxy.

M. Reconstructionist and post-Reconstructionist
1. Players: R.J. Rushdoony, Gary North.
2. Agenda: Reconstruct areas of life and knowledge in accord with biblical revelation; apply Scripture, particularly Old Testament, to contemporary social and political issues; postmillennialism.

N. Presuppositionalist
1. Players: Cornelius Van Til, John Frame, Vern Poythress.
2. Agenda: Work out presuppositionalist apologetic method; apply presuppositionalist modes of thought to theology, hermeneutics, and other areas.

II. Biblical Theology: Movements and Trends.

A. Third Quest for Historical Jesus
1. Players: John Dominic Crossan, N. T. Wright, Marcus Borg.
2. Agenda: Renewed effort to understand Jesus in Jewish context.

B. Politics of the New Testament
1. Players: Richard Horsley.
2. Agenda: Highlight political dimensions of New Testament theology.

C. New Perspective on Paul
1. Players: E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, N. T. Wright.
2. Agenda: Re-examine Paul in light of advances in understanding of Judaism; Paul in his first-century Jewish setting.

D. Hermeneutics
1. Players: R. R. Reno, Kevin Vanhoozer, Henri de Lubac.
2. Agenda: Restore legitimacy of premodern exegesis; theological interpretation of the Bible; connect biblical and systematic theology; respond to contemporary literary theory and linguistic philosophy.

E. Literary studies of the Bible
1. Players: Robert Alter, Meir Sternberg, Richard Hays, John Breck, James Jordan.
2. Agenda: Attends to the literary and structural features of the Bible; reads Bible in context of ancient literary conventions.