James Callahan
Dedicated iconoclast with a Ph.D. in religious studies from Marquette University in the history of (Christian) theology, James practices a generous orthodoxy in faith-related research and service.
Address: Oak Park I’m, Illinois, United States
Address: Oak Park I’m, Illinois, United States
less
InterestsView All (12)
Uploads
Papers by James Callahan
He is credited with more creativity than deserved as he simply reasserted conservative Anglican (Augustinian) Protestant doctrines as 'themes' and 'messages' in his sermons and published versions of the same. His insistence on an evangelical version of the substitutionary atonement, rejection of global charismatic influences, and populist insistence on preaching as the core of Christian communication were his way of owning the Anglican evangelical tradition thought lost to modernity's liberalism. In this way, he buttressed the conservative reaction among global Anglicans in their own version of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy (just 50 years later).
This theological biography was published in Walter Elwell's 2d edition of the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology and revised subsequently. Instead of a typical hagiographic puff-piece on Stott (read almost every single evangelical assessment since Stott's death in 2011), this piece gives some context and legacy to Stott's undeniable significance.
This theological biography first appeared in Walter Elwell's 2d edition of his Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, and as noted, made no one happy - especially at places such as Wheaton College (where the cool-factor of quoting Barth has never lost its appeal and Barth's traditional Reformed confessionalism have made him an example of opposition to postmodernity's antipathy toward the school's warmed-over modernistic response to all challenges.
Either way, Walvoord is still winning as populist conversionism spreads in the underdeveloped world. Schools and seminaries are in burgeoning evangelical communities still rely heavily on Walvoord's writings or at least his model of literalistic prophecy reading.
Love him, hate him - you still need to reckon with him if you hope to understand the rise of Protestant apocalyptic fundamentalism and populist dispensationalism in global evangelical circles.
Appreciation for Lindbeck's pedagogy outshines his influence in wider theological circles, but this short theological biography was part of Walter Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology.
This piece is a brief theological biography that appeared in Walter Elwell's 2d edition of The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (it tested the editorial policy of this evangelical work but survived against the protestations of editors at Baker who didn't understand the reason why Frei was such a threat to modernity's Christian theology).
And, like so many other attempts to do what is obvious and needful in evangelical circles, this contribution was roundly ignored.
"Historical Theology" is a piece published as part of Walter Elwell's 2001 revised edition of The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker)
"The Social Implications of the Gospel" is a piece published as part of Walter Elwell's 2001 revised edition of The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker).
"Narrative Theology" is a piece published as part of Walter Elwell's 2001 revised edition of The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker).
Where does the belief that Scripture is clear come from? It comes from the union of Scripture read by Christians after a certain (that is, Christian) fashion; this seems to be the most common explanation within earliest Christianity. The focus moves from Scripture to Christian reading because the text is said to be clear, and not the other way from something separable or beyond Scripture back toward the text in order to clarify. In large part this movement is defended inasmuch as Christians wish to say that Scripture’s clarity is not forced upon or used as an excuse to disguise obscurity. And this type of response certainly seems to fit the subject matter. That is, if Scripture is clear it would be appropriate to demonstrate as much from Scripture (and as such it is characteristically argumentative in nature). This approach also tends to be pragmatic and deliberate: Scripture gives every indication that it is to be taken as clear.
This material serves as a commonplace demonstration of how defenders of perspicuity go about their business. It is NOT properly a study in patristics, not a healthy historical conversation, and not a reason to embrace clarity as a watchword to defend the Bible from any and all critics. It is a healthy introduction to the sometimes strange and often pious effort among early Christian theologians to make a way for their own credibility.
The serious effort to tackle such simplistic assertions might offer a way to engage in helpful conversations that salvage notions such as Bible reading and biblicism - hallmarks of evangelical affection for the Bible.
This essay proposes to re-commend the practice of Bible reading, coupled with a rejuvenated biblicism, as an essential means for the evangelical community to remain faithful to its own identity as biblicists.
He is credited with more creativity than deserved as he simply reasserted conservative Anglican (Augustinian) Protestant doctrines as 'themes' and 'messages' in his sermons and published versions of the same. His insistence on an evangelical version of the substitutionary atonement, rejection of global charismatic influences, and populist insistence on preaching as the core of Christian communication were his way of owning the Anglican evangelical tradition thought lost to modernity's liberalism. In this way, he buttressed the conservative reaction among global Anglicans in their own version of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy (just 50 years later).
This theological biography was published in Walter Elwell's 2d edition of the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology and revised subsequently. Instead of a typical hagiographic puff-piece on Stott (read almost every single evangelical assessment since Stott's death in 2011), this piece gives some context and legacy to Stott's undeniable significance.
This theological biography first appeared in Walter Elwell's 2d edition of his Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, and as noted, made no one happy - especially at places such as Wheaton College (where the cool-factor of quoting Barth has never lost its appeal and Barth's traditional Reformed confessionalism have made him an example of opposition to postmodernity's antipathy toward the school's warmed-over modernistic response to all challenges.
Either way, Walvoord is still winning as populist conversionism spreads in the underdeveloped world. Schools and seminaries are in burgeoning evangelical communities still rely heavily on Walvoord's writings or at least his model of literalistic prophecy reading.
Love him, hate him - you still need to reckon with him if you hope to understand the rise of Protestant apocalyptic fundamentalism and populist dispensationalism in global evangelical circles.
Appreciation for Lindbeck's pedagogy outshines his influence in wider theological circles, but this short theological biography was part of Walter Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology.
This piece is a brief theological biography that appeared in Walter Elwell's 2d edition of The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (it tested the editorial policy of this evangelical work but survived against the protestations of editors at Baker who didn't understand the reason why Frei was such a threat to modernity's Christian theology).
And, like so many other attempts to do what is obvious and needful in evangelical circles, this contribution was roundly ignored.
"Historical Theology" is a piece published as part of Walter Elwell's 2001 revised edition of The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker)
"The Social Implications of the Gospel" is a piece published as part of Walter Elwell's 2001 revised edition of The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker).
"Narrative Theology" is a piece published as part of Walter Elwell's 2001 revised edition of The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker).
Where does the belief that Scripture is clear come from? It comes from the union of Scripture read by Christians after a certain (that is, Christian) fashion; this seems to be the most common explanation within earliest Christianity. The focus moves from Scripture to Christian reading because the text is said to be clear, and not the other way from something separable or beyond Scripture back toward the text in order to clarify. In large part this movement is defended inasmuch as Christians wish to say that Scripture’s clarity is not forced upon or used as an excuse to disguise obscurity. And this type of response certainly seems to fit the subject matter. That is, if Scripture is clear it would be appropriate to demonstrate as much from Scripture (and as such it is characteristically argumentative in nature). This approach also tends to be pragmatic and deliberate: Scripture gives every indication that it is to be taken as clear.
This material serves as a commonplace demonstration of how defenders of perspicuity go about their business. It is NOT properly a study in patristics, not a healthy historical conversation, and not a reason to embrace clarity as a watchword to defend the Bible from any and all critics. It is a healthy introduction to the sometimes strange and often pious effort among early Christian theologians to make a way for their own credibility.
The serious effort to tackle such simplistic assertions might offer a way to engage in helpful conversations that salvage notions such as Bible reading and biblicism - hallmarks of evangelical affection for the Bible.
This essay proposes to re-commend the practice of Bible reading, coupled with a rejuvenated biblicism, as an essential means for the evangelical community to remain faithful to its own identity as biblicists.
Using the notions of chaplaincy, ministry, and missional assertions to justify "the church" this conversation offers a glimpse of our alternatives as we observe the obvious - "the church" must add value or suffer irrelevancy.
"Michael Sattler shall be committed to the executioner. The latter shall take him to the square and there first cut out his tongue, and then forge him fast to a wagon and there with glowing iron tongs twice tear pieces from his body, then on the way to the site of execution five times more as above and then burn his body to powder as an arch-heretic."
Why Christians of a sort would execute Sattler for being another kind of Christian (specifically, a radical, baptizer - anabaptist, or simply, a heretic) is not a matter worth adjudicating. The story of Christianity is replete with such self-righteous transgressions and they have yet to undo its justification – that some deserve to die at the hands or to protect or purify Christendom. Simple enough.
This is the draft of a developing project on the topic of an ethic of martyrdom - something for which I've coined the term martyrism. And, yes, it is something sought after, celebrated and narrated.
The following summaries move from the most idiosyncratic to more historic accounts, but all share the conviction that reading rightly (believingly) is just not possible without practicing pneumatic self-awareness and means.
At schools like Wheaton College, Northern Seminary and several guest lectureships at institutions I promised I'd never advertise I was invited to contribute my thoughts, I taught coursework and graduate seminars on the subject of theology. This introduction to the task of theology was just another hand-out serious students would pretend to read and colleagues would use to raise suspicions about 'fit' and statements of faith to Provosts and Deans. So I share this with you in hopes of steering you away from criticism and you, like so many others, will learn to 'just blame Callahan' for this or that.
Impolite thoughts on Augustine's God... is this in practice - an exercise of theological education too impolite for most. But it's certainly NOT just a catalog of criticisms... it's a plea of anger and passion.
Try it of those you most appreciate and believe - pray - to be beyond detraction. Most of you won't be able to muster the honesty or empathy necessary to do the exercise justice. You'll just sound ignorant and mean.
Fare thee well...
So what really happens when those called Christian repeat the event called communion, the Lord's supper, Last Supper, the breaking of the bread, the remembrance (and so many other obscure ways to say the same thing)?
This outline of options (historical and contemporary) is a sort of taxonomy... a 'Where's Waldo' for you to find yourself or your tradition. So, can you?
This short reflection was offered for a discussion on the ends of modernity in religious reflection, and entertained generously by colleagues searching together for the end of theology (and Christendom) and the beginning of faith.
Intentional fallacies - especially authorial intent - is the most damaging, deluding and heretical fallacy for any who claim to honor the text as text and not just some portal or code to something beyond, beneath or behind the text. That is, for all the bluster from Christians, they treat the text of Scripture as a reference to something else and practically lose the text so respected.
The very premise allows for the defectability of Christianity. But this is something Christianity insists is impossible.
This paper was shared among graduate students in religious studies for a recent discussion of alternative forms of criticism directed against inherited forms of Christian faith. This alternative employs the early anabaptistic experiences and the Schleitheim statement, but shouldn't be read as an anabaptistic document (they wouldn't like it).
Is there faith without this kind of theology? Is there anything Christian in education or culture or public discourse without this kind of theology?
This paper was presented to a small gathering of professional religionists and educators. The invitation to share these thoughts was prompted by my reputation as an iconoclast without roots in Christendom, an educator without standing in the academy (or deriving a living from pleasing an institution of higher education), and a victim of both.
We seem to be stuck straddling a void separating passive-aggressiveness, hyperactivity, and nostalgia. Passive-aggressiveness and hand wringing over the loss of old, sure and certain ways of thought and knowing and certainty and faith (so we dig in and celebrate non-negotiables and other nonsensical abstractions). Hyperactivity and ego driving recklessly into novelty, technology, globalism and religionless faith (so we are hyper-sensitive to offense and willfully ignorant of identity).
Yes, eschatology with ethics is possible...
Instead of glibly insisting that there is nothing after theology, this paper attempts to plot a way that doesn't need to be anything more than a trail of breadcrumbs.
Delivered to a group of professional religion colleagues, we each risked saying something new with old things... and this was my contribution.
This paper was delivered in a series of presentations concerned with borrowing from contemporary philosophical influences in the practice of doing theology. The two influences under consideration were Bernstein and Rorty for this exercise.
At the risk of provoking professional theologians, I offer their task is undertaken without it's self-proclaimed object, God. Following Descartes and the Augustinian tradition, theology needs certainty, not God, to be theology.
In a piecemeal effort to return to faith (and return God to theology), this paper is a postcritical contribution to undoing what has been undertaken in the name of justifying itself (theology, that is).
No traditional notion of original sin, and there's no necessity of Christendom's traditional rationale. This story is the story of modern theology - fighting to justify its existence and necessity as late modernity simply allows theology to die under the weight of it's own making.
But there is an alternative.
This paper is the work product from a recent review of such things at a prominent Christian higher education institution. (The response was mixed - from faculty outside the Christian labeled departments it was lauded, from those within and from the administration's representatives it was not.)
This manuscript was prepared for an international organization to use as an introduction to the basic story of the (Christian) Bible.
The Truer Truth is an experiment that started in a 'callings' and nonprofit course I've led at Elmhurst University's (formerly Elmhurst College's) Niebuhr Center. We wanted to see how to create and self-publish a readable book on lifestyle with religious and philosophical undertones.
And we did it - here it is just for you - The Truer Truth: A How-To Book for Life (also available on Kindle - https://amzn.to/321jXyf)
When we speak of Scripture’s clarity we refer to the relationship of the text and the readers; we confess that the text’s relationship with Christian readers and Christian readers’ relationship with the text is described in terms of the light of the text and the enlightenment of the readers. We seek to occupy the landscape of the text’s vision—to live as those whose way in the world is created by the text itself. In this respect Christians have been interested in the ethics of the interpreter, not just the ethics of interpretation.
But using clarity as a weapon to break with traditions and their appeals to inherent authority is more typically Protestant - and that's what the larger figures of the early Reformation attempted.
This is a chapter from my 2001 publication from InterVarsity Press (they didn't offer much support to this book - publishing a how-to version of the topic soon after), but The Clarity of Scripture became required reading in a surprising number of professional schools/seminaries and finds its way into the footnotes of many volumes. Irony of ironies...
This short-hand taxonomy is a start to map the comparable elements of theological interest from a variety of acknowledged e/Evangelical self-proclaimed theologians (no, Joel Osteen is not included).