SEMINAR DESCRIPTION

Selected interpretations of Luther’s theology of the cross and their implications for the mission of the church in a global context. Biblical texts, theological insights, and historical and contemporary perspectives are emphasized.

Learning As Conversation

Conversation is the central mode of learning in this seminar. The conversation is to be progressive, reflective, and open. Each seminar participant seeks to speak in one’s own voice and listen with an attentiveness and openness to the other in a way that includes a willingness to being changed by what one hears. This involves risking change in one’s self and views while remaining committed to the value of this process. This is a collaborative rather than an adversarial process.

The conversation is disciplined. It has purposeful continuity—not simply and casually declaring our views but engaging others in their response to our views. The purpose here is to move the conversation forward, moving from where it has been and toward where it seems to be going, by contributing to the determination of where it goes. We are seeking freedom within discipline in our conversation like a concert pianist who works within the limits of the instrument and the composition and tries to realize them in a new way that speaks to the experience of both the performer and the audience.

This view of the conversation of the seminary on which we are about to embark is one in which the activity of conversation is viewed as valuable in and of itself—it is how we constitute a community among ourselves. We may come to some settled judgments along the way, some of which are surprising to us in terms of who we have been, but that is not the primary purpose of our activity.

The seminar will follow the tradition of the German seminar style (as the instructor learned it in Heidelberg and Munich). Each session will include substantial presentations by seminar participants. Each presentation has one respondent. The respondent attends to opening up questions with the presenter and with the rest of the seminar (Cf. Sign up sheet).

REQUIREMENTS & EVALUATION: Each seminar participant is required to complete the following requirements with the relative values demonstrated (100 points). Multiple responses and journaling will be considered acts of supererogation that will be considered in many ways on the day of reckoning.

1. Seminar Participation (20 points)

2. Presenter (20 points)

3. Respondent (15 points)

4. Paper (45 points)

Seminar Paper

Students will write a seminar research paper on a topic of their choice. They will choose this topic with the approval of the instructor. In the paper they will critically examine a subject, scholarly work, figure, or line of argument of their choice related to the problems and issues related to their work as a doctoral student and teacher of the church. The final draft of the paper is due by 5:00 p.m. in the instructors’ faculty box in Gullixson Hall, on Tuesday, December 19, 2006. Students will be expected to carefully exposit a major subject, scholarly work, or figure from those surveyed in the course. This exposition should evidence ample attending and listening to the source materials before engaging in overt critique and integration into a line of argument. Papers shall be typed, single-spaced of 10-12 pages in length.

CLASS SCHEDULE

Date	Themes	Suggested Reading	Presenter	Respondent
November 2^nd	Introduction: Theology of the Cross and Cross-Cultural Mission	Garcia Kolb Sundermeier Hall
November 9^th	Biblical perspectives Early Church	Cousar Fretheim Harrisville
November 16^th	Luther’ s Theology of The Cross Western perspectives	Loewenich Forde Hall Moltmann Tomsen
November 30^th	Latin American Perspective Women’s Perspectives	Altman Boff Persaud Moltmann-Wendel Thompson
December 7^th	African &Afro-American Perspectives The Theology of the Cross and other Religions	Abate Cone Ela Featherstone Dickson Fry
December 14^th	Asian Perspectives & Conclusions	Ekka Kitamori Koyama Song

REQUIRED AND RECOMMENDED READING

Required Reading

Gerhard Forde, On being a Theologian of the Cross. Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518, Grand Rapids 1997

Mark W. Thomsen, Christ Crucified. A 21^st-Century Missiology of the Cross, Minneapolis 2004

Kosuke Koyama, Water Buffalo Theology, Maryknoll 2004

Juergen Moltmann, The Crucified God. The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, Minneapolis: Augsburg 1993

Bibliography

Eshetu Abate, “The Theology of the Cross in the African Context”, in: Alberto L. Garcia and A.R. Victor Raj, The Theology of the Cross for the 21^st Century, Saint Louis: 2002, 121-138

Walter Altmann, Luther and Liberation. A Latin American Perspective, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992, esp. Chapter 2 (“The Cross”), pp. 13-25

Walter Altmann, A Latin American perspective on the Cross and Suffering, in: Yacob Tesfai (ed.), Scandal of a Crucified World, Maryknoll: Orbis 1994, 75-86

Gustav Aulen, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, London 1950

Richard Bauckham, “Only the Suffering God can help: Divine Passibility in Modern Theology, Themelios 9, 1984

Leonardo Boff, Jesus Christus Liberator: A Critical Christology for our Time, 1979

James H. Cone, “An African-American Perspective on the Cross and Suffering”, in: Yacob Tesfai (ed.), Scandal of a Crucified World, Maryknoll: Orbis 1994, 48-60

Charles B. Cousar, A Theology of the Cross: The Death of Jesus in Pauline Letters, Minneapolis 1990

Kwesi Dickson, Theology in Africa, 1984

Jhakmak Neeraj Ekka, Luther’s Theology of the Cross and its Relevance for Contextual Theology in South Asia, Ph.D. thesis, Luther Seminary, 2005

Jean-Marc Ela, “The Memory of the African people and the Cross of Christ”, in: Yacob Tesfai (ed.), Scandal of a Crucified World, Maryknoll: Orbis 1994, 17 -35

Rudolph R. Featherstone, “The Theology of the Cross”, in: Albert Pero/Ambrose Moyo, Theology and the Black Experience. The Lutheran Heritage interpreted by African & African-American Theologians, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1988, 42-55

Gerhard Forde, On being a Theologian of the Cross. Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518, Grand Rapids 1997

C.G. Fry, “The Theology of the Cross and the Islamic Crescent”, in: Alberto L. Garcia and A.R. Victor Raj, The Theology of the Cross for the 21^st Century, Saint Louis: 2002, 83-102

Douglas John Hall, Lighten our Darkness. Towards an Indigenous Theology of the Cross, Ohio 2001

Douglas John Hall, God & Human Suffering. An Exercise in the Theology of the Cross, Minneapolis 1986

Roy Harrisville, Fracture. The Cross as Irreconcilable in the Language and Thought of the Biblical Writers, Grand Rapids, 2006.

Alberto L. Garcia, “Signposts for Global Witness in Luther’s Theology of the Cross”, in: Alberto L. Garcia and A.R. Victor Raj, The Theology of the Cross for the 21^st Century, Saint Louis: 2002, 15-36

Alberto L. Garcia, “The Witness of the Cross in Light of the Hispanic Experience”, in: Alberto L. Garcia and A.R. Victor Raj, The Theology of the Cross for the 21^st Century, Saint Louis: 2002, 189-216

Ernst Kaesemann, “The Pauline Theology of the Cross”, Interpretation 24, 1970

Kazoh Kitamori, Theology of the Pain of God, Richmond 1965

Robert A. Kolb, “ ‘Nothing But Christ Crucified’: The Autobiography of a Cross-Cultural Comminicator in: Alberto L. Garcia and A.R. Victor Raj, The Theology of the Cross for the 21^st Century, Saint Louis: 2002,

Kosuke Koyama, Water Buffalo theology, Maryknoll 2004

Walter von Loewenich, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, trans. Herbert J.A. Bouman, Augsburg 1967

Simon S. Maimela, “The Suffering of Human Divisions and the Cross”, in: Yacob Tesfai (ed.), Scandal of a Crucified World, Maryknoll: Orbis 1994, 36-47

Juergen Moltmann, The Crucified God. The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, Minneapolis: Augsburg 1993

Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, “Is there a Feminist theology of the Cross?”, in: Yacob Tesfai (ed.), Scandal of a Crucified World, Maryknoll: Orbis 1994, 87-99

John Nunes, “The African American Experience and the Theology of the Cross”, in: in: Alberto L. Garcia and A.R. Victor Raj, The Theology of the Cross for the 21^st Century, Saint Louis: 2002, 217-234

Winston D. Persaud, The Theology of the Cross and Marx’s Anthropology. A view from The Caribbean, New York: Peter Lang 1991

Albert Pero/Ambrose Moyo, Theology and the Black Experience. The Lutheran Heritage interpreted by African & African-American Theologians, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1988, esp. 264-270

Winston Persaud, “The Cross of Jesus Christ, the Unity of the Church and Human Suffering”, in: Yacob Tesfai (ed.), Scandal of a Crucified World, Maryknoll: Orbis 1994, 111-129

Aloysius Pieris, An Asian theology of Liberation, Maryknoll 1988.

A.R. Victor Raj, “The Theology of the Cross and Hindu Spirituality”, in: Alberto L. Garcia and A.R. Victor Raj, The Theology of the Cross for the 21^st Century, Saint Louis: 2002, 103-120.

Robert Scudieri, “A Missiology of the Cross”, in: Alberto L. Garcia and A.R. Victor Raj, The Theology of the Cross for the 21^st Century, Saint Louis: 2002, 55-68

Choan-Seng Song, Third Eye Theology, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1979

Choan-Seng Song, “Christian Mission Toward Abolition of the Cross”, Yacob Tesfai (ed.), Scandal of a Crucified World, Maryknoll: Orbis 1994, 130-148

Theo Sundermeier, “Contextualizing Luther’s Theology of The Cross”, in: Yacob Tesfai (ed.), Scandal of a Crucified World, Maryknoll: Orbis 1994, 99-110

Peter Stuhlmacher, Law and Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theology

Yacob Tesfai (ed.), Scandal of a Crucified World, Maryknoll: Orbis 1994

M.M. Thomas, Realization of the Cross, 1972

Deanne A. Thompson, Crossing the Divide. Luther, Feminism, and the Cross, Minneapolis: Fortress 2004