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Immanuel Kant's Critical Philosophy
(Gale, 2023) Daniels, Paul; Rebecca Parks; Trinity College Theological School
Introductory essay on Immanuel Kant's Critical Philosophy, covering the reach of his thinking as it spanned epistemology, ethics, aesthetics and political thought. Accompanied by a list of Kant’s principal works and a new translation of Kant’s seminal essay “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”.
John Wesley's Catholic Spirit and the Fully Affirming Church of the Future
(2024) O'Brien, Glen; Matthew Seaman; Eva Burrows College
This paper argues that the inability of Wesleyan Christians to live together with difference over human sexuality represents a failure to live out of John Wesley’s catholic spirit. As a result of this failure, and in elevating views on human sexuality to a church-dividing principle, the Gospel as a revelation of God’s reconciling work for the world has been displaced from the centre of the church’s discourse, an action that will result in exclusionary harm for LGBTQI+ believers. John Wesley’s method of narrowing disputes among Methodists by shifting from debates about the faith to faith itself and its consequences provides a phenomenological and experiential basis for a fully affirming Christianity. As The Salvation Army consider what it means ‘to serve the present age’, an opportunity is given to reconsider its approach to its Queer members. To silence, to repress, and to discriminate against them are decidedly un-Wesleyan approaches. John Wesley’s catholic spirit ideal will help The Army allow for difference over sexuality, opening up a space to demonstrate that the salvation offered in the Gospel of Christ really is ‘boundless’, and that ‘Queer blood and fire’ is a real thing. Furthermore, a fully affirming Salvation Army is the only viable alternative to an ugly schism that would invalidate the message of holiness as perfect love.
Responding to the Yoorrook Justice Commission
(Evangelical Alliance, 2024) O'Brien, Glen; Eva Burrows College
The earliest Methodist engagement with First Nations people was in keeping with the broader attitude of the colonising powers, and Methodists carry their share of responsibility for the dispossession that occurred. At the same time Methodist missionaries often advocated for the rights of Aboriginal people. In a later stage of missionary activity, especially in the Northern Territory, Methodists were at the forefront of the study of Indigenous languages and culture, which led to advocacy and support for Indigenous rights. This observation is in no way designed to obscure the very real damage done through missionary work. In 1838, the Methodist George Augustus Robinson was appointed Chief Protector of the Aborigines in the Port Philip District (Melbourne), assisted by Sub-Protectors who had been Methodist schoolmasters. This was a state body but became critical of the government and settlers (as well as the Protectorate itself). However, its settlements were run pretty much along the same lines as the missions, and Robinson had earlier been responsible for exiling First Nations people in Tasmania to islands in the Bass Strait. His journals have been edited by Ian D. Clark (The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, chief protector, Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate, 2000). Also in 1838, the Methodist Rev. Joseph Orton established the Buntingdale mission on the Barwon River southwest of Geelong, managed by the Cornishman, the Rev. Francis Tuckfield. Orton and Tuckfield seem to have acted out of a genuine, albeit paternalistic, motive of compassion in the midst of one of the most violent fields in the frontier wars. Their concern to ‘protect’ the Wadawurring people from the depredations of white influence was well-meaning but what they failed to see was that this could never compensate for the loss of culture.
Materially Dispossessing the Troubled Theologian, Or When Theology Does Matter
(2025-08) McDowell, John; Yarra Theological Union
Linn Tonstad’s paper, ‘(Un)wise Theologians’, identifies a theological approach that puts pressure on its ability to handle its materiality sufficiently in a number of ways. However, following the trajectory of Tonstad’s discovery of “the deformations to which theology is susceptible in the university” and elsewhere, a supplementation is required to specify where its thesis needs more rigorous development. Firstly, the paper’s argument locates what Tonstad describes as “self-securitization and self-assertion” in a form of a subjectivity characterisable as a docility making possessive form of divine givenness, and it draws the papal encyclical Fides et Ratio into Tonstad’s critique of the theology of John Webster to make this case. Secondly, Tonstad’s appeal to the reparative mode of contextualisation necessitates a differentiation to be made between modes of what is commonly called ‘contextual theology’ since there are forms that shelter under this umbrella term that echo the subjectivity of that which Tonstad uncompromisingly critiques. Thirdly, while ‘(Un)wise Theologians’ only lightly indexes a reparative direction properly “chastened” theology, a kenotically interrogative sensibility may prove to be sufficiently capacious for the critical conduct of “theological therapy”. If so, then it can function to constantly trouble the theological in an appropriate manner without flight into a premature dematerialised fixation point.
Deconstructing the Politics of Evil: The Radical Evil of Species-Violence in Lord of the Rings
(Lexington Books, 2024) McDowell, John; Douglas Estes; Yarra Theological Union