New Quests for God - PTHU · This presentation will explore ... a revelation that does not open our eyes to God’s ... Review of the Literature on God in African Philosophical

International Conference 2017New Quests for God

Welcome!

On behalf of the Board and the entire community of researchers and supporting staff

I am delighted and honored to welcome you to the International Conference 2017 of the Protestants Theological

University. With our 10th anniversary coming up next year, we are a young university with centuries of theological research flowing

through our veins, yielding ever new inspiration and reflection. We hope to run this conference in that spirit of open communication which deepens

scientific insight, widens cooperation, and finds wisdom.

The organizing committee has succeeded in attracting many scholars with widely differing views on the conference theme New Quests for God - Contributions of Theology to a Resilient Society. We will welcome thought provoking keynote speakers as well as many young talented presenters. Our working sessions will be lively with the input of all participants invited. We express our gratitude to all who have submitted meaningful papers and proposals on one of the three main questions: What is going on with God? How do we arrive at a resilience promoting God? And how to redefine the

academic statute of theology?

We are very much looking forward to receiving you in the beautiful old city of Groningen. Please enjoy your stay with us, enjoy Groningen, the Netherlands. Our venue in walking distance of the train station is the Puddingfabriek - the

Pudding Factory - and remember: the Proof of the Pudding is in the eating.

Prof. dr. Mechteld Jansen, professor of Missiology and rector of the Protestant Theological University

Index

2. Welcome

3. Index

4. Keynote Speakers

5. Keynote Speakers

6. Title of papers

7. Schedule April 24, 2017

8. Program April 24, 2017




12 Schedule April 25, 2017






Map Groningen

18. Schedule April 26, 2017




22. Organizing committee

23 To eat & drink

Important phone numbers / addresses

32

‘Signs of Life: Resilience as Promise and Problem in Theologies of Multiplicity.’

Laurel C. Schneider, professor of Religious Studies, Religion, and Culture at Vanderbilt University (USA)

The concept of resilience holds a growing place of importance in many fields of study

from biology to urban planning to theology. What we mean by the term makes all the

difference in its effects (and affective power) especially in thinking about God and

society. This talk will take up the question “what are the marks of divine life in a frame

of social resilience?” and sketch an answer.

‘From The Postmodern Turn and A New Kind of Christian to the Death of God and A New

Kind of Atheist: Resisting the Resilience of God.’

Katharine Sarah Moody, research Associate, Philosophy of Religion at University of Liverpool (UK)

This lecture introduces the Emerging Church as a religious orientation and discursive milieu organised around

the sociological and sometimes philosophical deconstruction of inherited forms of Christianity. Emerging Church

publications like Brian McLaren’s (2001) A New Kind of Christian explore what Christianity might look like after

social and intellectual life has taken a postmodern turn. But figures like Peter Rollins and Kester Brewin provoke

this religious orientation to fuller engagements with continental philosophy and radical

theology, pushing the Emerging Church conversation from merely superficial nods to

postmodernism towards post-theistic, even atheistic, death-of-God theologies. It is from

this more radical theological and philosophical vantage point that I propose a new kind

of Christian to be also a new kind of atheist, for whom God is not simply dead but living

on after death. I address the question of the resilience of God, asking whether the God

resurrected after the death of God is, therefore, a resilient God, or whether (and how) this risen

God might resist resilience.

‘The Courage to Hope: Resilience in the Context of Migration.’

Gemma Tulud Cruz Senior Lecturer in Theology at Australian Catholic University

This presentation will explore resilience in the context of migration. More specifically, the presentation will discuss

the images of God that migrants refer, or turn to, to build and nurture resilience in view of

reflecting on theologies that we need to understand to overcome the fear of migration.

Images of God that will be discussed include the Crucified God (theologies on justice

and solidarity), God as host (theologies on hospitality), God of the Eucharist (theologies

on community and relationality), and the Risen Christ (theologies of hope).

‘From The Postmodern Turn and A New Kind of Christian to the Death of God and A New Kind of Atheist:

Resisting the Resilience of God.’

Gerd Theissen, professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies at University of Heidelberg (Germany)

In earlier times, creation was a readable book, written by God, interpreted by the Bible as a second book. Today,

a hermeneutic conflict splits the interpretation of both books: Both books are read without God and at the same

time as the echo of God. Some interpret the natural laws as God’s thoughts, while they think that the Bible is

a mere human product. Others think that the world can be interpreted without God, and that only the Bible is

His revelation. Both books are ambiguous voices of God. The lecture points to a reciprocal

relationship: faith is supported by the meaningful structure of the world in many

experiences of resonance, but faith is crushed by the absurdity of the world. A faithful or

resilient faith therefore needs the Bible to deal with suffering. But the Bible also contains

a theology of creation: a revelation that does not open our eyes to God’s creation and all

experiences of resonance is not consistent with the Bible.

‘The Experience of God and the world: On the reasons Christian theology has for considering

Panentheism a viable option.’

Jan-Olav Henriksen, professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion/Dean of Research at

Norwegian School of Theology (Oslo)

What reasons and resources can Christian theology find for developing a panentheist position that is also able to

engage with contemporary science? By taking its point of departure in basic human experiences, Christian

theology can, even in a Trinitarian fashion, be developed as a way to understand God’s pre-

sence in the world as a presence where the actual occurrences points towards God’s

own work. This point is especially related to the experience of love. Furthermore, God’s

presence can be understood as sacramental in the Augustinian sense. Moreover, the

contributions of the Danish philosopher of religion, K.E. Løgstrup on God’s presence and

transcendence, as well as Niels Gregersen’s elaborations on deep incarnation prove to offer

important reasons for considering panentheism as viable option for the articulation of Christian

theology.

Keynote Speakers The organizing committee is pleased to announce the following keynote speakers to you.

4 5

Name Title of paper

Havenga A ‘culturally engaged’ systematic theology? Insights from the ressourcement movement and present-day systematic theologian, Graham Ward

Asamoah-Gyadu God Does not Die and I will Never Die’: Review of the Literature on God in African Philosophical Thought and Experience

BanguraHolding my Anchor in Turbulent Waters: God, Pentecostalism and the African Diaspora in Belgium

Batenburg Following the Good Shepherd into Communion. On Recognizing a Resilience-Promoting God

Benjamins Derrida’s two sources of religion: Wilhelm Herrmann and John Caputo

Beurmanjer Dance as a Quest for God

Boer God is Going Global

Bosman In Search for the Deus Incognitus

Brouwer Stolen Space

Bruning“Can God save Human Rights?” – Advantage and threat of introducing a transcendental dimen-sion in international human rights discourses

Budwey‘God is the Creator of all Life and the Energy of the World’: German Intersex Christians’ Reflecti-on on the Image of God and Being Created in God’s Image

Buitendag ‘The idea of the University’ and the ‘Pretoria Model’ Apologia pro statu Facultatis Theologicae Universitatis Pretoriensis ad secundum saeculum

Claassens Not Being Content With God: Contestation and Contradiction in Communities under Duress

Compaijen Christ as moral beacon. Some reflections on what is involved in recognizing exemplars

De Haardt Visions of cosmopolitan convivality. Practices of resilient divine presence

Deketelaere A Religious Critique of Religious Extremism: Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Luc Nancy on the Her-meneuticity of Religious Truth

Gur-Klein Feminist and Goddess Theologies Kick the Hebrew God to Antithetic Gates

Habarurema God, Wealth Provider and Healer: Experiences from Pentecostal Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa

Hartog (Re-)Inventing Religion in a Globalised World: Jews, Greeks, and Romans in Philo’s Embassy to Gaius

Hof Resistance as Public Theology: K.H. Miskotte’s (1894-1976) prophetic indictment of Nazism

Klinken Theology, education and resilient society: the case of Devotio Moderna

Klomp After God, But Behind the Cross: The Procession As a Way to Re-encounter God in a Culture Beyond Classical Liturgy

Lange Pilgrims without God. The Pilgrim 2.0 as a Paradigm of New Faith

Meulen/Klomp The ontology of methodology: how to discover what’s going on with God

Nagy God Undocumented: Exploring Migration God Talk for Systematic Theology

Neulinger The relational God. Theo-Logical steps towards a “political theology of vulnerability” in an age of crisis

Roest Ordianry Ecclesiologies Shaping the Ecclesial Response to Vulnerability

RondaijThe War is Never Over – ‘Chaos’ in Primo Levi’s The Reawakening as an Indicative for a Theology of Becoming

Shuchat The Controversy over Theology Among Jewish thinkers in the Middle Ages and Its Meaning for the Understanding of Faith

Spijkerboer A Suffering God. God as seen by Berlinde de Bruyckere and Paloma Varga

Szczerba The concept Imago Dei and the refugee crisis. A Polish/Central European Perspective

Tanis “Loving Me As I Am: The Appearance of God in Transgender Biography”

Waarde The Iconic View: A Faith-based Contribution to a Resilient Society through Working with the Exposure Approach

Walt Silence is a sound. In pursuit of restorative silence when sound betrays

Wepener/Meylahn (Practical) Theology in (Pretoria) Tshwane: Towards a Postcolonial African Pneumapraxis

Zorgdrager God in Transition: How Transgender People Make Sense of Their Lives

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6 7

10.00-10.30 Ciska StarkMarcel Barnard

PThU, The Netherlands

Welcoming participants Graduate School

10.30-12.30

Ciska StarkMarcel Barnard


You aim to graduate and get your PhD-certificate. But how do you get there? And what happens next? Two academic life stories.

Each time, we invite women and men in our Graduate School who graduated in theology shorter or longer ago. We ask them to tell how they have experienced the time they were working on their PhD project, and how the doctoral degree has subsequently influenced their careers and lives. At the request of some students, this time we have invited two of our own staff members, so people who eventually have ended up as scientific professionals, working in the university: the Director of Education and the head of the Graduate School and chair of the Research Committee of PThU.

Both will tell in about 20 minutes about their way through university, after which there will be plenty time for questions and answers about do’s and don’ts, recommendations and things to avoid.

Ciska Stark, PhD Theological Faculty, Practical Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2005: Proeven van de preek’. Een praktisch-theologisch onderzoek naar de preek als Woord van God.

Ciska Stark (Texel, 26 March 1963) is assistant Professor of Liturgy and Homiletics at PThU Amsterdam. Her research topics are the development of methods on sermon analysis, contemporary preaching practices and laypreaching. She has been working as a minister in the Protestant Church in the Nether-lands and as lecturer and rector of the Mennonite Seminary in Amsterdam. She is currently Director of Education at PThU.

In her spare time, Ciska loves sporting, especially cycling and skating.

Marcel Barnard, PhD Theological Faculty, Dogmatics, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1987: Een weemoedi-ge tint. Agnosticisme en Estheticisme bij Allard Pierson (1831 – 1896)

Marcel Barnard (Leiden, 17 May 1957) is professor of Practical Theology at PThU Amsterdam, professor of Liturgical Studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Professor Extraordinary of Practical Theology at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). He is research leader of Practical Theology at the Protestant Theological University. Before, he has served the (predecessors of) the Protestant Church in the Nether-lands as minister.

In his spare time Marcel Barnard loves painting and drawing, as well as Mediterranean cooking and wining (Professional Diploma Wine Knowledge) and running (10k. and half marathons).

13.30-13.45

Mechteld Jansen


Opening address

13.45-14.30

Marcel Barnard


Introduction

14.30-15.30

Gerd Theissen

University of Heidelberg, Germany

How to read God’s traces in two books: in creation and the holy scripture.

In earlier times, creation was a readable book, written by God, interpreted by the Bible as a second book. Today, a hermeneutic conflict splits the interpretation of both books: Both books are read without God and at the same time as the echo of God. Some interpret the natural laws as God’s thoughts, while they think that the Bible is a mere human product. Others think that the world can be interpreted without God, and that only the Bible is His revelation. Both books are ambiguous voices of God. The lecture points to a reciprocal relationship: faith is supported by the meaningful structure of the world in many experiences of resonance, but faith is crushed by the absurdity of the world. A faithful or resilient faith therefore needs the Bible to deal with suffering. But the Bible also contains a theology of creati-on: a revelation that does not open our eyes to God’s creation and all experiences of resonance is not consistent with the Bible.

16.00-17.00 Katharine Sarah Moody

University of Liverpool, UK

From The Postmodern Turn and A New Kind of Christian to the Death of God and A New Kind of Atheist: Resisting the Resilience of God.

This lecture introduces the Emerging Church as a religious orientation and discursive milieu organised around the sociological and sometimes philosophical deconstruction of inherited forms of Christiani-ty. Emerging Church publications like Brian McLaren’s (2001) A New Kind of Christian explore what Christianity might look like after social and intellectual life has taken a postmodern turn. But figures like Peter Rollins and Kester Brewin provoke this religious orientation to fuller engagements with continen-tal philosophy and radical theology, pushing the Emerging Church conversation from merely superficial nods to postmodernism towards post-theistic, even atheistic, death-of-God theologies. It is from this more radical theological and philosophical vantage point that I propose a new kind of Christian to be also a new kind of atheist, for whom God is not simply dead but living on after death. Moody addresses the question of the resilience of God, asking whether the God resurrected after the death of God is, therefore, a resilient God, or whether (and how) this risen God might resist resilience.

17.00-17.40 Frank Bosman

Tilburg University, The Netherlands

In search for the Deus Incognitus

God seems mostly absent in or cultural domain, with the possible exception of worldwide religion-inspi-red violence and terrorism. The ‘ default mode’ of our Western culture is atheistic or agnostic. At the same time, traces, notions, words and symbols of the Christian tradition can be found in a multitude of different culture artifacts, among which films, literature, pop songs and digital games. More theologi-cally, one could say that the creational God of the Christian tradition is still omnipresence in his created world, but is hardly recognized as such. This is what I would call ‘ the Deus Incognitus’ , the hidden God of Christian tradition in our culture.

In his lecture, Frank Bosman wants to focus on the relatively new medium of digital (or video) games, as one of the fastest emerging and most influential cultural domains of our time.

17.00-17.40 Mirella Klomp


After God, But Behind the Cross: The Procession As a Way to Re-encounter God in a Culture Beyond Classical Liturgy

To the majority of people today in the Netherlands, Christian liturgy, or even the God of the Christian tradition, appears to be no (longer) a topic of interest. Yet, since 2011, every year a large number of people have walked behind a large neon-lit cross, as part of a popular multimedia performance The Pas-sion that annually stages the passion narrative of Jesus Christ. This is a fascinating paradox, particularly because The Passions popularity by no means indicates a massive return to Christianity.

As a theologian, Mirella Klomp identifies the issue at stake as the sacramental quality of the procession: the encounter with God through, with, and in the ritual. This leads to the central question of this paper: how do, in a 21st century secularized society, participants in the processional shapes of The Passion encounter God?

April 24, 2017 April 24, 2017

8 9

17.00-17.40

Johan Buitendag

University of Pretoria, South Africa

‘The idea of the University’ and the ‘Pretoria Model’ Apologia pro statu Facultatis Theologicae Universitatis Pretoriensis ad secundum saeculum

The exposition of the paper is unfolded on the basis of Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis of prefiguration, configuration and reconfiguration. The earliest decisive statement with regard to the nature of the Faculty, and which is eagerly pursued, was made by the Rev. M.J. Goddefroy in 1888, epitomising theological training as of academic deference, that is as a Faculty at a university and not a seminary. This has been the fibre of Theology at the University of Pretoria and intellectual inquiry is an uncompromised value. The lecture is a critical reflection on the past century and an orientation towards the next hund-red years, identifying the essence of what a real Pretoria Model could and should be and looking ahead to the next century.

17.00-17.40

Thalia Gur-Klein

Leiden Universi-ty / Amsterdam University, The Netherlands

Feminist and Goddess Theologies Kick the Hebrew God to Antithetic Gates

The rise of feminist and neo-goddess theologies has revolutionised our time, but also precipitated propensities to corroborate self-identity by foiling on the Hebrew Bible, its society, culture and God. As an antithesis of the neo-pagan goddess and feminism, the Hebrew God emerges as a divinized model of androcentric patriarchy. So described, the biblical God is reconfigured as a cruel deity. Such fe-minist theology attributes to Judaism and its deity the birth of patriarchy and a contingent cruelty that had been ramifying from the Hebrew Bible to the bloody crusades, medieval witch hunting and western colonialism, eventually bringing the Holocaust upon the Jews themselves.

The presentation will highlight missing components, and accordingly will develop according to the following: a) Abraham’s deity; b) the Patriarchs’ God; c) the Feminine Divine; d) relationality through and by the Hebrew Deity; and e) what all this means for a Jewish woman in our time. As alluded abo-ve, the methodology relies on Jewish sources and exegesis, warranted biblical research and emic reading.

17.00-17.40 Tjeerd de Boer

Lutheran Theo-logical Seminary, Hong Kong

God is going global.

With the globalization of religion(s) God is going global. Going beyond historically and geographically defined borders, religions are unstoppably becoming world religions. Simultaneously however, being contextualized within the limits of national, ethnic or social identities, God is going local also. Based on the presupposition and definitions offered by Bert Hoedemaker, this paper describes and compares discourses about God and religious traditions, in the context of recent developments, experienced and perceived in China, (with its religious minorities), the Philippines and Brazil (with their religious majori-ties), where localist, populist-nationalist, ideologies and movements are increasingly threatening reli-gious plurality. Stating that limiting God to local identities is a dead end, the globalization of God will be formulated in terms of a public, dialogical and contextual theology in which faith builds the bridges between religion and society.

17.50-18.30 Riette Beurmanjer

Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Dance as a quest for God.

Since the eighties of the twentieth century many Christian believers have found that dance serves their quest for God. Borrowing dance-styles from surrounding cultures they develop dance-practices for liturgy, pastoral care or spiritual guidance. In this paper Beurmanjer focuses on Christian dance-practices in the Netherlands: evangelical dance, sacred dance, ‘dans!kerk’ and bibliodance.

Beurmanjer maps out the characteristics of the dance-styles: movement vocabulary, use of music, the way they stimulate dancers to relate to each other, the Christian tradition and God. She sketches how they oscillate between the ‘bodily longing for the divine’ in holistic spiritual dance-practices and the age-old enmity towards bodily practices in churches.

17.50-18.30 Rob van Waarde PThU, The Netherlands

The Iconic View: A Faith-based Contribution to a Resilient Society through Working with the Exposure Approach While many appear to thrive in our super-diverse globalizing society, others are excluded and suffer from social inequality. Establishing new relations – bridging capital – that include marginalized groups and allow for development of their subjectivity contributes to the resilience of society. Such a contribu-tion is made possible by the exposure approach, a part of which is integrated in the PThU ministeriale-ducation.

The exposure approach constitutes a faith-based iterative collective learning process involving religious professionals – ministers, youth or community workers – and marginalized local residents in so-called disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Thus exposure allows for new relations to emerge between persons from a wide range of religious, cultural and social backgrounds. In this paper Rob van Waarde will fo-cus on the specific view developed by religious professionals that contributes to positive transformation of local residents, in terms of their subjectivity and relations.

17.50-18.30 Mirella Klomp and Marten van der Meulen


The ontology of methodology: how to discover what’s going on with God

In this shifting age it is exceedingly difficult to find God with a proper practical-theological methodo-logy. Until recently God could be found with surveys having questions about adherence to articles of faith and practices of church attendance. With the liquidification processes associated with (late-)mo-dernity, God also becomes fluid. We as researchers noted this in our study of the Passion, the multime-dial show held during Easter time, featuring Dutch celebrities and well-known pop songs.

How can you find God if people use different words for the divine? While the old ways of speaking about God still holds way, others have found or are looking for different words. And while the secula-rization thesis states that the importance of religion diminishes, we found that whatever vague words people used, these words still have substantial relevance and salience, as these words are used in relati-on to important life events and moments of great effervescence. In this presentation we want to explore the methodological consequences for practical-theological research of this shift in belief in God.

17.50-18.30 Eleonora Hof


Resistance as Public Theology: K.H. Miskotte’s (1894-1976) prophetic indictment of Nazism

In light of the call for a theology in the public domain to discern the signs of the times and in light of the growing xenophobia and islamophobia both domestically and abroad, a resilience-promoting theology will attend to the possibility of resistance, especially where the life of people with marginalized identities is violated. In this paper, Eleonora Hof uses a narrative approach to uncover the meaning of resistance for K.H. Miskotte (1894-1976). The hypothesis is that Miskotte has insights to contribute for the development of public theology, because he assumed the role of spoke-person in the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk in matters of resisting the Nazi occupation. Two sets of sources will be employed: the new biography y Herman de Liagre Böhl, which couples description and analysis with a wealth of au-tobiographical texts. Primary sources include the Bijbels ABC, [Biblical ABC] because this work, written during the war, provides a foundational entry into his understanding of theology as resistance.

17.50-18.30 Rob Compaijen


Christ as exemplar and the question of God’s otherness.

Today many of those who consider themselves as Christians (as well as quite a number of those who do not (or no longer) consider themselves to be Christians) tend to view Christ as exemplar. Although there seems to be a certain unease with talking confidently about God, there seems to be little hesitation with conceiving Christ as the paradigm of what it means to live a (or: the) good life. Nonetheless, concep-tions of Christ as exemplar do imply certain ideas about (how we conceive of) God. In this lecture Rob Compaijen aims to illuminate the idea of Christ as exemplar and explore what our views about that idea imply with regard to how we think about God, and especially about God’s otherness.

21.00-22.00

Martin Waltonet al

Light with a Lustre of its Own. Resiliently requesting God

‘Light with a lustre of its own’ is a bricolage performance with storytelling and poetry, theatrical ele-ments and projections, songs and instrumental music. The performance circles around various manners of thinking and imagining God, pondering the theological production of propositions on God and enga-ging biblical figures in their responses to God’s absence and presence. The title is taken from a poem by Rajzel Zychlinsky. The duration of the performance is about one hour. PerformersMartin Walton, professor by special appointment in chaplaincy studies, PThU Groningen & part-time performer.Elisabeth Posthumus Meyjes, singing theologian & pastor of the Cloister Church in Ten Boer, in the province of Groningen.Mirek Walton, a multi-faceted musician as guitarist, pianist, composer, recorder, teacher & coordinator at the Amsterdam School of Music, with an ever growing repertoire in Tango ensembles and music theater.

April 24, 2017 April 24, 2017

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Gemma Tulud Cruz

Catholic University, Australia

The Courage to Hope: Resilience in the Context of Migration.

This presentation will explore resilience in the context of migration. More specifically, the presentation will discuss the images of God that migrants refer, or turn to, to build and nurture resilience in view of reflecting on theologies that we need to understand to overcome the fear of migration. Images of God that will be discussed include the Crucified God (theologies on justice and solidarity), God as host (theologies on hospitality), God of the Eucharist (theologies on community and relationality), and the Risen Christ (theologies of hope).

11.30-12.30

Dorottya Nagy


Corrie van der Ven

Kerk in Actie, The Netherlands

Helmer Roelofs

INLIA, Groningen, The Netherlands

From theory to practice: How to be an identity-based organization in every day life? Public session with societal partners

The theme of the conference is about the new quests for God. Can academic theology contribute to a meaningful and resilient society? From a societal perspective, it is interesting to think about the way re-ligion or identity-based organizations function in every-day life. Two representatives of societal partners will give a short presentation, followed by a reflection of Dorottya Nagy, the moderator of this session. There is room for discussion and interaction.

13.30-14.30

Jan-Olav Henriksen

Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo, Norway

The Experience of God and the world: On the reasons Christian theology has for considering Panentheism a viable option.

What reasons and resources can Christian theology find for developing a Panentheist position that is also able to engage with contemporary science? By taking its point of departure in basic human experi-ences, Christian theology can, even in a Trinitarian fashion, be developed as a way to understand God’s presence in the world as a presence where the actual occurrences points towards God’s own work. This point is especially related to the experience of love. Furthermore, God’s presence can be understood as sacramental in the Augustinian sense. Moreover, the contributions of the Danish philosopher of religion, K.E. Løgstrup on God’s presence and transcendence, as well as Niels Gregersen’s elaborations on deep incarnation prove to offer important reasons for considering panentheism as viable option for the articulation of Christian theology.

14.30-15.30 Academic debate session

15.30-16.10

Alfons Brüning


Can God save Human Rights?– Advantage and threat of introducing a transcendental dimen-sion in international human rights discourses

If we agree that the concept of Human Rights is mainly a secular one, then in the old reading a devout religious approach cannot but critically refer to many of its implications: Many recent events and the general problems touched upon (Charlie Hebdo and Pussy Riot, LGBT rights, Islam and the secular state) apparently testify for that ...

At the same time, these general problems also illustrate a number of dilemmas within the Human Rights concept itself: How can a turning into mere ideology of the Human Rights concept be pre-vented? What is human dignity ultimately grounded in? How to finally motivate tolerance in relation towards the intolerant, and towards the intolerable? How does the idea of the individual, as the clas-sical subject of Human Rights, relate to concepts of communality and collective rights in both theory and practice? The paper wants to explore issues that can be subsumed in the categories of dignity, reciprocity and communality and ask what a transcendent (and also, in some respects, a non-Western) perspective can add.

April 25, 2017

12 13

15.30-16.10

Gert van Klinken


Theology, education and resilient society: the case of Devotio Moderna

The Devotio Moderna of the 15th century belongs to the earlier strata of theological reflection in the Netherlands. When it comes to the question of the possibility of arriving at a resilience-promoting God, the approach of Johannes Cele (ca. 1350-1417), Thomas a Kempis (ca. 1380-1471), Wessel Gansfort (1419-1489) and others tends to stress a matrix in which faith (theology) and education (school) are mutually dependent.

While the importance of Biblical theology is clearly understood, the same can be said the other way round: education and school have lots to say that is relevant for the Church. A further point to be no-ted in Devotio Moderna is its Neoplatonism, and thus its restraint in advocating the use of violence.

The subject will be discussed during a reading of relevant chapters in De Imitatione Christi, focusing on the question how this particular quest for God might contribute to a resilient society in present society.

15.30-16.10

Stephanie Budwey

Kirchliche Hochschule in Wuppertal, Germany

God is the Creator of all Life and the Energy of the World’ : German Intersex Christians’ Re-flection on the Image of God and Being Created in God’s Image

Stephanie Budwey has conducted interviews with German intersex Christians for her post-doctoral project “Letting the Entire Body of Christ Speak: Practical Theological Reflections on Intersex Christian Narratives.” One of the themes found in the interviews is that they were told they were not human beings because they did not neatly fit into the categories of ‘female’ and ‘male.’ Christianity enforces this model of sexual dimorphism with the notion that to be a human being means to be created clearly ‘female’ or clearly ‘male’ in the image of God. Yet intersex individuals, and all who are non-binary conforming, challenge us to expand Christianity’s binary vision of what it means to be created in the image of God, requiring new or reclaimed metaphors, symbols, and narratives of God. Budwey will ex-plore how these individuals—categorized by some as those who are not made in the image of God—imagine God to be. Who or what is God for them?

15.30-16.10

Rein Brouwer


‘Stolen Space’

Few contemporary scholars have written more eloquently and entertaining on ‘What is going on with God?’, or, better, on ‘what is going on in the name of God’, than hybrid philosopher/theologian John D. Caputo. Caputo reminds us that the gospels are the poetics of the kingdom of God, and that the name of God harbors the insistent pressure of the event, of an unconditional call, of the promise/threat of the coming of what we cannot see coming.

Caputo’s radical theology reflects on the many ways to negotiate with the underlying eventiveness of life. One of these ways is art, which could be considered as a possible ‘itinerary to faith’ (Charles Tay-lor). One example of such an itinerary is the work of the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer (1931-2015). In this paper, Rein Brouwer will reflect on Tranströmer’s poetry from the perspective of Caputo’s ‘theo-logy of the event’, in order to explore potential new metaphors and narratives for the (re-)appearance of ‘God, perhaps’.

15.30-16.10

Anne Marijke Spijkerboer

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands

A suffering God. God as seen by Berlinde de Bruyckere and Paloma Varga

Starting point of a new quest for God in the 21th century is a crisis of shared stories, standards and beliefs, the loss of a prevailing Christian orientation grounded in Christian tradition and in generally accepted ways of reading the Bible.In recent decades new, non-traditional manners of speaking and thinking of God, and of experiences of God, have developed in western culture in the fields of litera-ture, visual arts and music.

Drawing from Richard Kearney (Anatheism, Returning to God after God), I would like to explore the extent to which works of art by the artists Berlinde de Bruyckere and Paloma Varga Weisz could contri-bute to a new understanding of God.

April 25, 2017

16.20-17.00

Wojciech Szczerba

Evangelical School of Theology, Warschau, Polen

The concept Imago Dei and the refugee crisis. A Polish/Central European Perspective.

There is no question that refugee crisis constitutes one of the major problems of XXI century, called so often ‘the age of migration’. According to the 2016 report of UNHCR, there are more than 65 million forcibly displaced people in the world. On average every minute there are 24 people displaced from their homes. 51% of them are children.

The countries of Central Europe, especially the Visegrad Group has openly criticized and recently re-jected the previously accepted EU policy toward refugees, establishing quotas ascribed to the member countries. Polish government, especially after the election in 2015, advocates the Visegrad perspective.

How theology can help in the assessment of the refugee crisis? How can it complement studies of other fields? The paper focuses mainly on the concept of Imago Dei in a broad theological perspective (both diachronic and synchronic) not restricted only to Christian thought (also referring to Judaistic, Islamic and Greek concepts).

16.20-17.00

Frits de Lange


Pilgrims without God. The Pilgrim 2.0 as a Paradigm of New Faith

The popularity of the ancient pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella is unprecedented. In 1989 only 6000 walked the Camino, in 2015 250.000. Many of the new pilgrims are not or no longer religious in the traditional sense. Their motives are various: they are in search of themselves, looking for new encounters, explore their physical limitations, wanting to experience unity with nature, or just have interest in medieval Christian culture. Still they consider themselves a pilgrim, that is: homines viatores on a holy, whole-making journey. ‘God’, however, is notably absent in their narratives. T

his pilgrimage in a new key represents a theologically intriguing practice, in which the frontiers bet-ween traditional religiosity and unbelief are blurred. The aim of the paper is to explore whether and how this pilgrim 2.0 can function as a paradigmatic metaphor for a new a/religious faith.

16.20-17.00

Justin Tanis

Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley (CA), USA

Loving Me As I Am: The Appearance of God in Transgender Biography

What does it mean when God unexpectedly appears, particularly to those on the margins of socie-ty, and how are we to interpret that revelation? In transgender biographies, there are often pivotal moments of epiphany in which the individual moves from a place of profound uncertainty to one of self-acceptance. Some of these occur in the midst of emotional upheaval, even the brink of suicide. The person may be deciding whether to disclose their gender identity to a loved one, take an impor-tant medical step, or simply go on living in the face of anti-transgender oppression. In a surprising number of the accounts, this crisis is resolved by the sudden appearance of God, experienced as an af-firming, loving presence, facilitating emotional healing and empowering the person to move forward. God is described as literally life-saving. In this paper, Justin Tanis will examine these divine interventions in transgender narratives.

16.20-17.00

Rick Benjamins


Derrida’s two sources of religion: Wilhelm Herrmann and John Caputo

In Faith and Knowledge, a notoriously difficult and important text on the nature of religion, Derrida points out that religion has two sources and consequently is an ambiguous, hybrid or ambivalent phe-nomenon. If that is correct, we can never simply defend or reject ‘religion’, because these unequivocal responses to religion are not appropriate to its complexity.

Derrida claims that both sources are related to each other because of a universal structure of the promise. Religion promises to keep life, the self or the community holy and pure, safeguarded and protected from the outside and the other. But in order to believe this promise and to witness its truth, believers are related to the outside or the other from which they want to protect themselves. The ambi-guity, hybridity or ambivalence of religion results from its two sources.

The text from Derrida will help us to compare the theologies of the liberal, modern German theologian Wilhelm Herrmann (1846-1922) and the radical, post-modern philosopher of religion John Caputo. It is Benjamins’ claim that each of them exemplifies one of the sources of religion that Derrida distinguis-hed.

April 25, 2017

14 15

16.20-17.00

J. Kwabena Asa-moah-Gyadu

Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Ghana

God Does not Die and I will Never Die: Review of the Literature on God in African Philosophical Thought and Experience.

In Europe there is talk of God ‘return’, but in Africa, as the Akan proverb used as the title of this proposal indicates, ‘God does not die.’ Precisely because God does not die the soul, which constitutes the divine in the human person does not also succumb to death. Reflections on the existence of God have been part of religious discourse in Africa for sometime. In 1944 J.B. Danquah a barrister and philosopher of the Gold Coast wrote The Akan Doctrine of God. One of the assumptions underlying Danquah’s thinking was that the Akan of Ghana had an understanding of God that gives the West no basis for a feeling of superiority. God as Supreme Being is an eternal reality in the African imagination. God is immortal and this reflects in the immortality of the soul. This paper discusses the resilience of God in African thought using the books written by African scholars.

17.10-17.50

Dorottya Nagy


God undocumented: Exploring migration God talk for systematic theology

Recent theological approaches of migration phenomena worldwide have been engaged in developing a migration terminology for (re)describing God for and in systematic theology. One of the major arguments in applying migration terminology for talking about God is that every day experiences of migration phenomena create contexts in which God explained through different migration metaphors can become meaningful for people puzzling with (the issue, questions on, notion of) God. Within this logic God is seen in the person of Jesus, the refugee, the migrant, the homeless, to name but a few examples.

The paper, while exploring and analysing identifications of God with the undocumented, addresses the question about the manner in which every day experiences are being transposed into coherent (syste-matic) talk on God.

17.10-17.50

Henk de Roest


Ordinary Ecclesiologies shaping the Ecclesial Respons to Vulnerability.

In his book Ordinary Theology (2002), Jeff Astley explores the philosophical, theological and educatio-nal dimensions of the concept of ordinary theology, its significance for the work of the theologian as well as for those engaged in the ministry of the church. Since 2002, empirical research has sprouted, inspired by this groundbreaking publication. In his earlier empirical research on the evangelical move-ment, Henk de Roest found that there is an intricate connection between one’s convictions about God, salvation, Christ, man and the church.

Theology and ecclesiology are closely related and the same goes for Christology, anthropology and soteriology. They form an amalgam. The same is likely to be true for ordinary theologies, ecclesiologies, soteriologies, etc. In this paper I will argue that ordinary theological convictions about a resilience-pro-moting God are likely to have consequences for local faith communities in both their missionary and their diaconal dimensions.

17.10-17.50

Heleen Zorgdrager

PThU, The Nether-lands

God in Transition: How Transgender People Make Sense of Their Lives

The central question of this lecture is: how do life stories of transgender people witness to the redemp-tive transformation of human nature – the narrative of fall and redemption, death and life, cross and resurrection - that is held central to Christian faith? What happens with “God” in transition? Heleen Zorgdrager will present the results of her qualitative empirical research among religious trans*peo-ple (from Protestant backgrounds) in the Netherlands. She will argue that the specific insights that trans*stories of healing reveal, shed new light on what it means to receive the “life in fullness” (John 10:10) for which human beings are destined. They face in unique ways the darkness of the night of the soul, and expose sinful structures of a religiously undergirded gender regime. They tell in their own voices and images about contemplative purgation as the necessary means of redemptive human transformation.

April 25, 2017

17.10-17.50

Charlene van der Walt

Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Silence is a sound. In pursuit of restorative silence when sound betrays.

The disillusioned retreat narrative encountered in 1 Kings 19 traces the flight of a traumatised Elijah from imminent danger to a mystic encounter in the silent whisper when the storm wind dies down. The encounter described in the narrative simultaneously serves for Elijah as a moment of restorati-on, disorientation and reorientation. The analysis of the narrative traces the arc from disillusionment through encounter to reintegration into community.

By engaging the narrative as a reflective surface the paper aims to engage with the notion of silence in the process of developing resilient communities of care in a time of great fragmentation, dehumaniza-tion and violence.

The paper aims at exploring that value, challenges and dangers involved when considering the sound of silence by drawing on the value added to the pursuit by employing insights from gender and queer scholarship.

April 25, 2017

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Inspiration

10.00-11.00

Laurel C. Schneider

Vanderbilt University, USA

Signs of Life: Resilience as Promise and Problem in Theologies of Multiplicity.

The concept of resilience holds a growing place of importance in many fields of study from biology to urban planning to theology. What we mean by the term makes all the difference in its effects (and affective power) especially in thinking about God and society. This talk will take up the question “what are the marks of divine life in a frame of social resilience?” and sketch an answer.

13.30-14.10

Cas Wepener and Johan Maylahn

University of Pretoria, South Africa

Practical Theology in (Pretoria) Tshwane: Towards a Postcolonial African Pneumapraxis.

The main aim of this paper will be to reflect on the discipline of Practical Theology with its Western background as it is practised in current day (South) Africa. In the paper Wepener and Maylahn will present examples of experiences whilst conducting qualitative ritual-liturgical research in different parts of South Africa in both traditional churches in Africa (previously known as mainline churches) and also African Independent and neo-Pentecostal churches. Based on these examples they will look towards the future and develop some initial ideas for the future of Practical Theology in Africa. The most basic question pertains to whether Practical Theology in South Africa is prepared to also embrace a bodily based epistemology and a pneumatological ontology which is essential for the study of faith practices in Africa, the continent of the Spirit and the spirits.

13.30-14.10

Julie Claassens

Stellenbosch Uni-versity, South Africa

Not Being Content With God: Contestation and Contradiction in Communities under Duress

The title of this paper is derived from John Caputo’s recent book The Folly of God: A Theology of the Unconditional (Polebridge Press, 2016). In this book, Caputo makes the claim that it is “in the best interest of theology not to be content with God” (p1). He shows the importance of challenging what he calls “weak theology that gives words to God, to what is going on in the name (of) God (p53).”

With this contemplation on new quests for God in mind, this paper proposes that it is exactly in com-munities under duress that new language for God emerges that forms a necessary aspect of survival. By drawing on recent insights from Trauma Hermeneutics, this paper seeks to investigate the contra-dictory images for God found in the story of Jeremiah in prison (Jeremiah 20), which reflects the deep paradox of faith experienced by the prophet that quite likely also belonged to the people during the time of the Babylonian Invasion and Exile.

13.30-14.10

Michaela Neulinger

Institute of Systematic Theology, Innsbruck, Austria

The Relational God. Theo-Logical steps towards a “political theology of vulnerability”

In an age of crisis Europe (and beyond) is at the crossroads. Facing the rise of populist and fundamen-talist actors both in the political and the religious arena (including alliances between these),we need to reflect the roots of these developments and draft a new, inclusive vision of what Europe can and should be. The paper will focus on the possible contribution of theology to this vision by enhancing the idea of a relational God and its consequences for a new political theology of vulnerability supporting peaceful coexistence and solidarity in a culturally and religiously plural Europe.

13.30-14.10

Raphael Shuchat

Bar-Ilan University, Israel

The Controversy over Theology Among Jewish thinkers in the Middle Ages and Its Meaning for the Understanding of Faith

Judaism claims to have brought Monotheism into the world but monotheism is a Greek word with no parallel in the Hebrew language? The answer to this puzzle seems to be that Jews in antiquity saw faith in God as a relationship and not a subject.

With the influence of Greek philosophy from the 11th to the 16th century, Jewish thinkers delved into issues of metaphysics concerning proofs of God and the soul but by and large stayed clear of the theological discussions about God. In his lecture Raphael Shuchat will discuss what he calls the Jewish approach to faith as a relationship. Shuchat will discuss the place of metaphysics in the discussion of God’s transcendence and the importance of an existential approach to the psychology of faith from the point of view of Divine immanence.

April 26, 2017

18 19

14.20-15.00

Joseph Bosco Bangura

North-West University, South Africa

Holding my anchor in turbulent waters: God, Pentecostalism and the African Diaspora in Belgium.

Pentecostalism has emerged as Africa’s most buoyant faiththat is reshaping Christianity. Described as the most powerful social movement to affect Africa and the African Diaspora, African Pentecostalism aims at re-inventing Christianity so that alternative discourses about God that appeals to the worldview needs of the African Diaspora can emerge.

The creative innovations of African Pentecostalism are expressed using a plethora of theological cate-gories about God which directly connects with the underlying currents of Africa’s traditional cosmo-logies. But while present academic research on African Pentecostalism among he African Diaspora in Europe is steadily expanding, such discourses hardly consider conceptions of God held by the African Diaspora in a secularized Europe. This paper responds to this gap.

14.20-15.00

Jacoline Batenburg


How does the Accra confession (2004) arrive at a resilience- promoting God for society?

From 1997 unto 2004 the member churches of the WARC committed themselves to a process of recognition, education and confession on the issues of global economical injustice and ecological destruction. The Accra confession (2004) is to be characterized as both result and invitation to the third part of this process. This paper displays how the confessional process theologically took shape and provides a program for further theological reflection on a resilience-promoting God in the context of a global church communion.

14.20-15.00

Marnus Havenga

Stellenbosch University, South Africa

A ‘culturally engaged’ systematic theology? Insights from the ressourcement movement and contemporary systematic theologian, Graham Ward.

In a spirited 1946 essay, Jean Daniélou – a prominent member of the ressourcement movement – la-mented what he called the ‘rupture between (modern) theology and life’. According to Daniélou, the academic theology of his day had become disconnected from the realm of creation, people’s every-day lives, and other academic disciplines, as it exclusively came to focus its attention, in somewhat neo-Gnostic fashion, on a God who is supposedly above and beyond created reality. Noting how this approach to theology stands in contradiction to the classical theological tradition that emerged in the patristic era, Daniélou goes on to call upon his contemporaries (and the theologians of tomorrow) to not merely participate in hollow ‘theoretical speculations’, but to do theology in such a way that it speaks to and engages with the real world and people’s everyday lived expereriences.

14.20-15.00

Joyce Rondaij


The War is Never Over –‘Chaos’ in Primo Levi’s The Reawakening as an Indicative for a Theology of Becoming

In the final chapter of his testimony of Auschwitz Primo Levi describes how the prisoners turned to life again by sharing bread after the Nazi’s evacuated the camp. His second work La Tregua (translated in English as The Reawakening) shows what comes after the joy of the liberation: while returning home he encounters new chaos in the form of suffering, the lack of language to testify of his experiences and the troubled border between right and wrong.

Joyce Rondaij wants to discuss the complex aftermath of human and divine ‘reawakening’ by perfor-ming a close reading of Levi’s La Tregua and link it to the book Face of the Deep by theologian Ca-therine Keller. Keller reacts on the tendency of theology to look away from the chaos of creation and performs a search for God at the edge of uncertainty.

April 26, 2017

15.10-15.50

Barry Hartog


(Re-)Inventing Religion in a Globalised World: Jews, Greeks, and Romans in Philo’s Embassy to Gaius

Philo of Alexandria was one of the most prolific Jewish writers in the Roman Empire. Perhaps best known for his biblical commentaries and philosophical treatises, Philo also composed several historical or political treatises. The Embassy to Gaius is one of them. It describes an embassy of Alexandrian Jews, headed by Philo, to the emperor Gaius Caligula.

The Embassy to Gaius is a complex work, in which Philo (re-)invents the intricate relations between Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Through a careful reading of the Embassy I intend to argue that Philo is not unequivocally positive or negative about the Romans. Whilst he criticises aspects of Roman behaviour, he also acknowledges the value of being a faithful Roman citizen and describes the Jews in those terms.

15.10-15.50

Maaike de Haardt

Radboud Universi-teit, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Visions of cosmopolitan conviviality, practices of resilient divine presence.

Already in 1994 the Indian theologian Felix Wilfred wrote an article titled ‘The Postmodern with Teeth: Opportunity for Creative Western Theology’ (Wilfred 1994) in which he challenged Western theology to take up the postmodern situation as an invitation to develop a living and creative –and really inter-cultural- theology. It is the postmodern, according to Wilfred, that has opened the door for genuine pluralism and contextuality. In his view modern Western theology has, by its own internal logic, left out two groups of people, the mystics and those who suffer. Only by including those voices, another view on (theological) rationality, on the complex cultural reality and on the mechanism of exclusion can come into being, and a creative, ethical and political relevant theology can emerge. In my paper Maai-ke de Haardt wants to discuss recent cosmopolitan philosophies and theologies as a type of reflection that took up Wilfred’s challenges.

15.10-15.50 Nikolaas Deketelaere

University of Oxford, UK

A Religious Critique of Religious Extremism: Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Luc Nancy on the Hermeneuticity of Religious Truth.

Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling is a rather controversial book. Some scholars detect a sense of religious fanaticism in it, since the book hails Abraham as the supreme example of faith because he was willing to sacrifice his son, suspend ethics, “in virtue of the absurd.” Their problem is that Abra-ham’s faith is not merely beyond reason, but directly opposed to it. Deketelaere uses this problem to frame and develop an ontology of religious truth, drawing on Kierkegaard’s Post script and Jean-Luc Nancy’s Being Singular Plural, in order to then return to Fear and Trembling with a more sophisticated understanding.

15.10-15.50

Viateur Habarurema

Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences (PIASS), Butare

God, Wealth Provider and Healer: Experiences from Pentecostal Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa

Although one can hardly speak of the re-appearance of God after his death and the waves of secula-rization in Africa, the vitality and rapid growth of contemporary Pentecostalism remains anastonishing phenomenon on the continent. It is increasingly reshaping the understanding of God as it integrates vital elements of African Traditional Religions especially with regard to healing and deliverance. Against the metaphor of the God for whom piety is often associated with material poverty and suffering, which was strongly emphasized in Western mission Churches in sub-Saharan Africa, contemporary Pentecostalism is proclaiming the God of power and success in all areas of life. In a sense, God appears like a business partner with whom one needs to make a financial transaction in order to access wealth and health. This paper will discuss traditional concepts of God in Africa and perceptions of God in Western mission Churches regarding wealth and health.

16.30-17.00

Mechteld Jansen


Closing Address

April 26, 2017

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Organizing Committee

Prof. dr. Marcel Barnard

Chair – Professor of Practical Theology

Drs. Albert Nijboer, international Officer

(issues regarding international travel)

+ 31 640939548 in case of emergency only

Drs. Sanne van Dijk, communication & events

(issues regarding accommodation, conference site,

transport and other practical issues)

+31 611784489 in case of emergency only

Dico Baars, research assistant

(issues regarding conference programme)

+31 648467062 in case of emergency only

To eat & to drink

Recommended by PThU colleagues and students!

Restaurant ‘De Branderij’ – Tasteful dishes from around the world – Poelestraat 55, Groningen

Grand Café-Restaurant ‘Land van Kokanje’ – Global biological kitchenOude Boteringestraat 9, Groningen

Grand Café-Restaurant ‘Mr. Mofongo’ – Global food & cocktails Oude Boteringestraat 26, Groningen

‘Humphrey’s Restaurant’ – Cosy dining!Vismarkt 42, Groningen

Grand Café-Restaurant ‘De Biechtstoel’ – Heavenly meals, heavenly decorations

‘Eetcafé Stadtlander’ – Easy food and special beers on the students’ favorite squarePoelestraat 35, Groningen

Grand Café ‘Time Out’ – From lunch to late drinksPoelestraat 34-36, Groningen

Asian bar & restaurant ‘Imono’ – Fresh, Asian tapasGelkingestraat 18, Groningen

‘Eetcafé Ugly Duck’ – Classic Dutch dinerZwanestraat 28, Groningen

Restaurant ‘Thai Jasmine’ – Authentic Thai FoodGedempte Zuiderdiep 19, Groningen

In case of emergency (ambulance, police, fire brigade): 112

Police (no emergency): 0900-8844

Taxi Groningen: +31 505494940 (payment with bank card possible)

Important Addresses

De PuddingfabriekViaductstraat 3-4 9725 BG Groningen

Protestantse Theologische Universiteit GroningenOude Ebbingestraat 259712 HA Groningen

22 23

Protestant Theological University

Documents

New Quests for God - PTHU · This presentation will explore ... a revelation that does not open our eyes to God’s ... Review of the Literature on God in African Philosophical