Author: webmaster

Jay Newman Memorial Lecture, to be presented to the Canadian Theological Society at Congress in Regina, May 28, 2018. 1:55PM in CL130

A Clash of Fundamentalist Fantasies

SHADIA B. DRURY

In this lecture, Drury will argue that the conflict between the United States and Muslim extremists is not a “clash of civilizations” but a clash of fundamentalist fantasies that are mirror images of one another. Moreover, the political influence of the Evangelicals in American politics, and their support for Donald Trump, is bound to make America’s messianic nationalism more belligerent and the conflict more perilous.
Shadia B. Drury is former Canada Research Chair in Social Justice and now Professor Emerita at the University of Regina. Her books include Terror and Civilization (2004), Aquinas and Modernity (2008) and The Bleak Political Implications of Socratic Religion (2017).

2018 schedule full 

Canadian Theological Society Annual Meeting

Congress 2018

University of Regina

May 27 – May 28, 2018

 

Sunday, May 27
	First Nations FN 1011	First Nations FN 1012
11:50 a.m.	Welcome! Timothy Harvie, CTS President
12:00 – 12:40 p.m.	Jane BarterToward an Ethics Without Dignity: The Muselmann Beyond Anthropology	Graham McDonough Interculturalism, Pope Francis, and Catholic Education: The Remarkable Reform of Past and Present Church Teaching on Religious Pluralism
12:40  – 2:00 p.m.	Panel: Interfaith Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples
2:00 – 2:15 p.m.	Break
2:15 – 2:55 p.m.	Gordon Rixon Appreciating Cultural Diversity: Beyond Binaries to Embedded Narrative, Vulnerable Agency and Transforming Gift Exchange	Stephen MartinRowan Williams: Public Theology as Theology of Public Life
2:55 – 3:35 p.m.	Nicholas OlkovichSolidarity and the Possibility of Global Human Rights	Bill Millar Equipping the Church for Intercultural Ministry
3:35 – 3:50 p.m.	Break
3:50 – 4:30 p.m.	Timothy NyhofThe Secession of 1834 as a Dramatic Sequel to the Reformation	Kevin Guenther Trautwein Magic, Mutual Submission, and Influence in the Church
4:30 – 5:10 p.m.	Don SchweitzerJustification by Grace as a Spiritual Resource	Kris Hiuser A Community of Creatures: Theologically Understanding the Human/Nonhuman Animal Relationship
5:00 – 7:00 p.m.	President’s Reception: Centre for Kinesiology – CK 122

 

 

Monday, May 28
Time	CL 130 (Classroom 130)	CL 125 (Classroom 125)
9:00 – 9:40 a.m.	Robert WalkerWhat Hath San Francisco to do with Azusa Street? A Yongian Call for Queer and Pentecostal Discernment	Jean-Pierre Fortin Finding Joy and Forming Community in Pain: Moltmann and Balthasar on Christian Freedom and Discipleship
9:40 – 10:20 a.m.	Maria PowerUnderstanding Diversities of Experience and Need: Unearthing a Catholic Public Theology for the UK.	Darren Dahl Matter and Meaning—Phenomenology, Neuroscience, and Language about God in Rowan Williams’ Gifford Lectures”
10:20 -10:35 a.m.	Break
10:30 – 12:00 p.m.	Panel: Respecting Indigenous Spirituality in its Own Right
12:00 – 1:15 p.m.	Networking Lunch
1:15 – 1:55 p.m	Chris HrynkowAn Emerging Incarnation of Inter-Faith Encounter as Reconciliation	Kerry KrobergKenosis as a Spirituality and an Ethic: The Church and Secularity
1:55 –3:25 p.m	Jay Newman Lecture: Shadia B. Drury, “A Clash of Fundamentalist Fantasies”
3:25 – 3:40 p.m	Break
3:40 – 4:40 p.m.	Presidential Address: Tim Harvie
4:40 – 6:00 p.m.	AGM
7:00 p.m.	CTS Banquet Place: TBA.

Papers 

1. Robert Walker, Trinity College

What Hath San Francisco to do with Azusa Street?
A Yongian Call for Queer and Pentecostal Discernment

Amos Yong is an Asian-American Pentecostal scholar who teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He has written extensively on the science-religion conversation, disability, and interfaith relations and discernment, particularly between Christianity and Buddhism. In Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions, he suggests a framework for Christian discernment of interfaith realities that can, with only minor adaptations, extend fruitfully to intrafaith conversations with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer/questioning, and two-spirit peoples (shorthanded as ‘queer’) about our lives, sexual relationships, and ongoing social realities, and about how they do (or don’t) reflect ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom’ and robust Christian formation.

Wise Pentecostal ‘discernment of spirits,’ for Yong, is not only a charismatic gift but a life-long practice of wisdom, which is only possible in a formational community. Yong suggests, in conversation with philosophers Charles Pierce and Phillip Clayton, that Pentecostals must connect discernment not only to the Holy Spirit and the Bible, but also to assumptions about reality that will allow the natural and social sciences to be key discourses in any discernment process—perhaps especially if we are to conclude that a given ‘thing’ is demonic (which is often the go-to assumption about queerness for many Pentecostals). In discerning a given ‘thing’ such as queerness or equal marriage, Pentecostals must discern the Spirit/spirits well by attending to a ‘thing’ in its materiality and ‘inner life’—including deep, and methodologically pluralistic, description. In substantial agreement with Yong, I propose that such wise ‘thick description’ must also consider the Christian testimonies of queer Pentecostals.

 

2. Graham McDonough, Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, University of Victoria

Interculturalism, Pope Francis, and Catholic Education:
The Remarkable Reform of Past and Present Church Teaching on Religious Pluralism

This presentation demonstrates how Pope Francis’s (2013) exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (EG) represents a major change in Catholic teaching on religious Others because it departs from John Paul II’s (1990) and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s (2000) post-Vatican II reassertions of Catholic Christian primacy. This is the reform of “past” teaching. It then shows how EG also contrasts with the Congregation for Catholic Education’s (2013) document Educating to Intercultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools (EIDCS ). That document is problematic not only because it upholds Catholic primacy – which makes it conceptually incompatible with philosophically adequate interculturalism – but because it is inconsistent with EG, even though they were published almost concurrently. The penultimate section therefore shows how EG immediately reforms this “present” teaching in EIDCS by moving the topic of dialogue with religious Others away from talk of salvation and religious primacy, and instead toward a concern for peace and social justice in a religiously plural world. The final section suggests that, since Catholic schools emphasize respect for students’ religious freedom and hence have all along seemed unconcerned with talk of religious primacy, that with EG Francis moves papal teaching into alignment with current practice, rather than the reverse.

 

3. Gordon Rixon, Regis College

Appreciating Cultural Diversity: Beyond Binaries to Embedded Narrative, Vulnerable Agency and Transforming Gift Exchange

My presentation appreciates the theological significance of cultural diversity in the context of a larger project that explores the proportionality of the outer word of social discourse with the inner word of spiritual converse.

I relate cultural diversity to the word of discourse by discussing the work of Paul Ricoeur and Judith Butler. Drawing on Ricoeur’s The Course of Recognition (2004), I relieve the binary between self and the other—associated by Ricoeur with Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of the perceiving self and Levinas’ ethical analysis of duty to the other—by exploring the emergence of responsible, autonomous agency through the construction of narratives of perpetration, resistance and liberation, and self- (and-species-) transcending participation in non-instrumentalized gift exchange. The reconciliation of agency shaped by particular cultural affordances and engagement in a cosmic project focused beyond human self-interest, at least, begins to replace enervating, competitive struggles for social recognition with energizing, collaborative efforts for social (and ecological) well-being.

Turning to Butler’s “Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance” (2016), I parse the contention between investing in particular, embedded narratives and engaging a project of cosmic scale. Butler’s analysis of language and social infrastructure brings the relation of receptivity and resistance—vulnerability and agency—into relief and suggests norming criteria for evaluating diverse cultural spaces. Observing that resistance may promote violent, entropic mastery over biological and social vulnerability or mobilize vulnerability itself as the locus of liberating social cooperation, Butler presents the resonance among human embodiment, social solidarity and political agency as a normative guide for liberating action.

Anticipating the fuller treatment of my larger project, I refine this evaluative criterion by addressing the further proportionalities among particular social discourses, an open aesthetic and a kenotic spiritual disposition. Here I reflect on the notion of representation developed in Rowan Williams’ The Edge of Words (2014) in a preliminary effort to retrieve/transpose the meaning of Augustinian and Thomist notions of a finite created participation in an uncreated divine light and the relation of the outer word of social discourse with the inner word of spiritual converse.

 

4. Stephen Martin, The King’s University
Rowan Williams: Public Theology as Theology of Public Life

Charles Mathewes has criticized “public theology” as it currently is done as theologically thin and “self-destructively accommodationist.” It seeks to accommodate theology and the church to a conversation already taking place and presupposes given understandings both of the human and the political. Taking his cues from St. Augustine Mathewes argues for a “theology of public life.” Such a theology attends to the fundamental theo-anthropological idea that humans are constituted as creatures of desire, a desire only satisfied eschatologically in the City of God. The political is therefore propelled beyond the immediate needs of the present. At the same time, such “common objects of desire” shape common life in the present by transforming diversities (the problem of politics) into gifts (the possibility of politics) to benefit the good of the whole. But Mathewes’ examples are focused on the political in the United States, and focus on conversation rather than action. After exegeting Mathewes’ theology of public life, the paper extends it through the work of Rowan Williams during his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury. The contextual differences of Williams’ ministry (the established Church of England) open up new possibilities for thinking and applying such a theology. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on a theology of public life as gathering and transforming diversities in the Canadian context.

 

5. Nicholas Olkovich, St. Mark’s College
Solidarity and the Possibility of Global Human Rights

Communitarian and post-colonial opponents of classical liberalism often deny the possibility of providing universally compelling or tradition-independent foundations for human rights. Post-modern critiques of Enlightenment individualism and rationalism characterize the global promotion of Western-style human rights as a form of economic and cultural imperialism that inculcates a partisan conception of the human person as homo economicus. Some regard the deconstruction of liberal neutrality as a justification for rejecting cosmopolitan ideals tout court. Resentment against neoliberal globalization has contributed to a particular form of resentment that finds expression in the contemporary proliferation of cultural and religious exclusivisms. Others argue that the communitarian critique makes possible a more inclusive discussion about the nature and future of global interdependence and human rights. Forced to rethink the meaning of solidarity, authors such as Richard Rorty have developed post-metaphysical forms of cosmopolitanism that combine a commitment to human rights and the common good with a deeper respect for cultural and religious diversity. Rorty’s ‘postmodernist bourgeois liberalism’ or ‘liberal ironism’ conceives democratic norms such as human rights as ‘social constructions,’ culture-specific ‘we-intentions’ that combine respect for private self-perfection with a commitment to and hope for a ‘classless society.’ Solidarity is not a ‘fact’ that is ‘discovered’ by human reason but rather a ‘goal to be achieved’ via sentimental education, an enlargement of biologically-grounded sensitivity that allows humans to see ‘strange people as fellow sufferers.’

Although Rorty’s post-modern account of human rights and solidarity successfully sidesteps many of classical liberalism’s deficiencies, it is not without its own limitations. On the one hand, I contend that Rorty seeks and fails to avoid metaphysical controversy, a conclusion that stands in tension with his stated commitment to freedom and diversity. On the other hand, I argue that his own implicit particular conception of the human person stands in tension with his commitment to the common good. Drawing on the work of Catholic authors David Hollenbach and Bernard Lonergan in this paper’s final section, I will articulate an alternative ethic of ‘intellectual’ and ‘social solidarity’ that aims to integrate many of Rorty’s strongest insights. Hollenbach’s account of human nature and the common good take seriously Rorty’s critique of rationalism and essentialism as well as his emphasis on sentimental education. Lonergan’s work may highlight the limitations associated with Rorty’s exclusive humanism but it also highlights the role that God’s love plays in the lives of all who are committed to solidarity.

 

6. Bill Millar, Knox United Church, Winnipeg

This presentation will highlight current research in the pragmatics of creating intercultural communities of faith, drawing on the lived experience of one congregation that, over the period of twelve years, made this transformation. Many denominations, motivated by changing societal demographics, declining attendance, and a renewed sense of the Christ’s call to “the nations” have identified goals/visions of opening to cultural diversity.

Material presented will draw from existing research in cross-cultural interaction, intercultural pragmatics, international marketing, etc. as backdrop, but the heart of the material will grow out of qualitative research at Knox United in Winnipeg. For over twelve years, this congregation reinvented itself as a global community, an intentionally intercultural church. Once the embodiment of the colonial church, Knox emerged as the most intercultural church in Canada – from 80% white/Euro/dominant culture to 20%. About 75% are newcomer (refugee/immigrant), from 25+ countries. Age demographics also reversed. As did the percent of people with denominational roots—from over 90% to less than 15%. This is creating a new form of UC, with different cultural bases. With no instruction manual, not even guidelines, how did they do this? What created commonality? How did they reshape worship? Plan? Share power? Make decisions? More than a tweak of current practice, authentic intercultural ministry requires a radical reconceptualization of every dimension of congregational life.
7. Timothy Nyhof, Independent Scholar
The Secession of 1834 as a Dramatic Sequel to the Reformation:
A Historical Case Study of Vanhoozer’s Theo-dramatic Triangulation

The secession (afscheiding) of 1834 was a watershed moment within Dutch Protestantism that resulted in the establishment of a number of conservative denominations which had seceded from the protestant state church. The primary motivation in seceding was to remain faithful to the principles of the 16th century reformation. The centenary celebrations in 1934 in the Netherlands provided an opportunity for the leaders to set out their understanding of the significance of the secession and their claims of being true to the principles of the reformation. The published texts of the leaders of the various seceded Churches in the Netherlands, its sister churches in the United States and South Africa as well as the Prime Minister of the Netherlands provides a cohesive body of works composed at a single moment in time from a variety of important perspectives for our historical case study.

Contemporary American Theologian, Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s work on the drama of doctrine and his notion of theodramatic triangulation between “words, God’s word and the world” provides the framework and hermeneutic for this historical case study. Vanhoozer, while having actively engaged postmodernist thought and interpretations, provides an approach to theology which ultimately seeks truth through participation and performance in a covenantal theo-drama. The ‘post-conservative’ approach that Vanhoozer has developed will be applied to the main ‘actors’ of the secession to assess the subject matter of their theology and their doctrinal stance in relation to the reformation. This case study will also allow for some insights to other religions that are navigating the waters of post-modernity.

 

8. Kevin Guenter Trautwein, Conrad Grebel University College
Magic, Mutual Submission, and Influence in the Church

The label “magic” carries pejorative connotations of a “primitive” picture of reality, of an insufficiently scientific understanding of causes and effects, a superstitious religiosity, or even the worship of evil spirits. In their paper, “The Importance of Magic to Social Relationships,”(Zygon 45: 317-337), Craig T. Palmer, Lyle B. Steadman, Chris Cassidy, and Kathryn Coe suggest an understanding of magic as communication rather than belief (false or otherwise). Theaims of practitioners of magic are not the same as those of the anthropologists who observe.

Magic communicates the acceptance of influence, and it accomplishes the social functions of enhancing group solidarity and communicating group values. Participation in magic “communicates a willingness to accept nonskeptically the influence of the person making [a supernatural] claim.”

Within churches with a “flat” authority structure, and the Mennonite Church in particular, power dynamics are (in principle if not in fact) governed by an ethic of mutual submission. As a result, power dynamics and flows exist, but they are often hidden. A unique potential for abuses of authority arise from the “unspeakable” nature of power in these communities.
This paper argues that the theological value of mutual submission should be understood as having the same purpose as magic, specifically, to produce group cohesiveness through the non-skeptical acceptance of another’s influence. The concept of magic, as understood by Palmer, et al., helps to expose both the possibilities and the risks of mutual submission in a worshiping community.

 

9. Don Schweitzer, St. Andrew’s College
Justification by grace as a spiritual resource for non-Indigenous Christians adopting UNDRIP as a framework for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada.

On May 30, 2016, eight Canadian churches adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a framework for reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Canada. The Declaration sets high moral standards for most non-indigenous Canadians, as living up to it will involve far reaching changes in their worldviews and a far greater sharing of resources and identity space with indigenous peoples. People need strong moral sources to live up to high moral standards. This presentation will argue that justification by grace can be this kind of moral source for churches that have adopted the Declaration as a framework for reconciliation. It will first briefly examine some of the apologies offered by these churches, and how the Declaration requires greater autonomy for and sharing of resources and cultural space with indigenous peoples in Canada. This will show that these churches need spiritual resources that address living with spoiled identities, provide hope for a different future despite past failures, and that will sustain non-indigenous Christians in a much greater sharing of identity space with indigenous peoples. It will then show how justification by grace addresses these issues. It can empower Christians to undertake the risks of moral action despite their spoiled identities. It conveys a sense of ultimate hope for a different future that can sustain non-indigenous Christians in working towards reconciliation with indigenous peoples. As it facilitates living with cultural, ethnic and religious differences, it can help non-indigenous Canadians enter into a greater sharing of identity space with indigenous peoples in Canada.

 

10. Kris Hiuser, Independent Scholar
A Community of Creatures: Theologically Understanding the Human/Nonhuman – Animal Relationship

This paper will examine a range of proposals which have been put forward with respect to a theological understanding how humans ought to relate to nonhuman animals. The rise in animal theology in general has brought with it a range of ways of articulating and understanding this relationship. In line with the 2018 theme, understanding how we ought to relate to nonhuman animals has direct implications for how we then (if we then!) attempt to build community with other creatures. The following paper seeks to examine a range of proposals in terms of their biblical roots and theological strengths, as well as proposing a new model.

While the way in which humans relate to nonhuman animals has rarely been a topic of significant debate through the Christian tradition, with the rise of animal theology, such a topic is one which is growing in interest. Not only are there ethical inquiries into how we ought to relate to animals (a major part of animal theology), but there are even some who suggest our relationship with animals makes up a core part of who we are, and how we are called to live as. So if animal theologians are correct in suggesting that this relationship is indeed an important one, the question still remains as to just how we understand and articulate it. In the past 20 years there have been a number of suggestions put forward, each of which expresses the ideal understanding somewhat differently. Hobgood-Oster suggests a hospitality model, with nonhuman animals almost as ‘friends’, an idea she shares with Deane-Drummond. Daniel Weiss, based on Genesis 1-2, suggests a model of nonhuman animals as political subjects, with humans as their rulers, and Daniel Miller, making use of the parable of the Good Samaritan, suggests a model based around the idea of nonhuman animals as neighbours. Each of these has some strengths as well as some weaknesses. I propose another model which entails understanding animals as part of the family unit of the humans, and will engage with a number of biblical texts to make this case. Ultimately I will suggest that these varied approaches all have something to contribute to our understanding of the ideal relationship between humans and other animals (albeit, some approaches more than others), and that this is a topic worthy of further consideration.
11. Jane Barter, The University of Winnipeg
Toward an Ethics without Dignity: The Muselmann beyond Anthropology

In his unforgettable Remnants of Auschwitz, Giorgio Agamben reflects upon the figures of the so-called Muselmänner, the name given to those prisoners so ill and malnourished that they hovered between life and death. The figure of the Muselmann compels us, according to Agamben, to rethink the human fundamentally. And therefore we must also re-think any ethics based upon human capacities or attributes. Specifically, moral philosophy must abandon notions of human dignity as a category after Auschwitz. This paper seeks to go beyond dignity as a foundational principle for thinking the human. In its stead, it seeks to follow Agamben to those boundaries between life and death, between human and non-human, so that a new ethic of the human may emerge. This paper is indirectly theological. In so far as theological anthropology and ethics ground themselves in concepts such dignity, life, human exceptionalism and Imago Dei, theology is also haunted by the specter of the Muselmann. In the final portion of this paper, I will suggest the precisely theological implications of Agamben’s a-anthropology for Christian ethics.

 

12. Jean-Pierre Fortin, Loyola University
Finding Joy and Forming Community in Pain: Moltmann and Balthasar on Christian Freedom and Discipleship

Living in a globalized world marred with social-political tension and conflict, twenty-first century westerners are eager to learn how to perceive and reflect on a joy taking hold of the human heart amidst relentless suffering. One of the best ways to create and foster community therefore seems to lie in exploring the conditions under which the experience and reality of suffering become the medium/element within which true and lasting joy can be accessed and experienced. Building on the work of Jürgen Moltmann and Hans Urs von Balthasar, in this communication I will demonstrate that it is both possible and essential for Christians to find joy in the context of suffering. Christian joy is a joy taking hold of the human heart despite and amidst relentless physical suffering and spiritual desolation. This joy is the joy of being intimate with Christ, of experiencing Christ’s redeeming power at work effectively transforming one’s whole person; the joy of being loved despite human sinfulness and empowered to heal the world’s woundedness.

In Theology and Joy, Jürgen Moltmann argues that true joy can only be experienced by the person who responsibly assumes her own vulnerability and need. Human freedom and agency exist as awareness of and response to suffering (pathein) the action of the other and reality upon oneself. Such acts of self-transcendence are not the product of human nature and agency, for no creature can transcend itself (and/or anything else) by itself, but rather received from God as a gift. The feelings of pain and suffering thus constitute concrete manifestations of the liberating power of God at work within the human person. In “Joy and the Cross,” Hans Urs von Balthasar takes this basic idea further, arguing that in the person of Jesus God actually frees human beings by suffering the human condition to the end and invites them to have a share in Jesus’ experience. The gracious assimilation of the suffering of the human person into the suffering of Jesus Christ so transforms the human person and her experience of suffering that the latter becomes a source of joy. Human endurance is made to bespeak of and enable the tasting of the eschatological joy in the present life. God’s joy finds expression and translates into the effective liberation of bonded human beings and the progressive transformation of the world. Hence, joy experienced in God is the fount of true communion.

 

13. Maria Power, University of Liverpool
Understanding Diversities of Experience and Need: Unearthing a Catholic Public Theology for the UK.
The Roman Catholic Church is often described as fortunate to have the pre-packaged and unified body of social and political ethics which is commonly known as Catholic Social Teaching (CST). As Malcolm Brown argues ‘Catholics, it is implied know why they do what they do and can locate their actions within a developed tradition that both guides engagement and justifies it to others.’ According to this reasoning then, there should be a flourishing body of Catholic public theology in the UK. However, despite popular conceptions, CST and Catholic public theology are not the same thing. Whilst it is true that CST should feed into the development of a Catholic public theology, it cannot and should not be its only source. Merely falling back on CST as an uncontextualised body of teaching is not enough and it could be argued that it is such attitudes mean that a Catholic public theology in any meaningful sense of the term does not exist within UK Catholicism.

So what should a Catholic public theology look like and what role should it take in these increasingly uncertain times? In this paper, by introducing some of the ideas taken from my current research project entitled Justice, Not Politics: A Catholic Public Theology for Uncertain Times, I will argue that it should be drawn from the following sources: the Gospels and tradition, empirical research, and crucially dialogue. It will suggest that the combination of such factors can provide faith-based actors with an understanding of what they are working towards and the nourishment needed for the journey, in essence a public theology that takes into account the diversity of experiences and needs present in a multi-cultural society. By combining the trinity of the Gospels and tradition, empirical research, and dialogue, Catholic public theology can provide a vision of a society which is grounded in both theory and lived experience. In doing so, it has the potential to create a dialectical model and pathway not built upon middle axioms, but on trust and mutual respect.

In order to illustrate this argument, I will use my work on peace-building to demonstrate the power and purpose of a Catholic public theology. This it is hoped will start the process of systematically creating a Catholic public theology which will lead to a renewed confidence in the Church’s resources for addressing the issues facing contemporary society.

 

14. Darren Dahl, St. Thomas More College
Matter and Meaning—Phenomenology, Neuroscience, and Language about God in Rowan Williams’ Gifford Lectures”

Abstract: This paper examines Rowan Williams’ innovative proposal for a new natural theology in his recent Gifford Lectures (published as The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language [Bloomsbury, 2014]) with particular attention to how the contemporary dialogue between phenomenology and neuroscience can place theological discourse in the midst of dynamic and diverse fields of investigation that express ‘the new context in which we find ourselves’. This paper focuses specifically on Williams’ use of the work of Iain McGilchrist and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in order to explore the connection between theological language and its corporeal conditions. It asks: what difference does it make that our language about God is irreducibly embodied? What sort of model can we use to best understand this fundamental corporeal dimension? How might such a new model reinvigorate theological investigations open to dialogue with philosophy and the natural sciences? What role, in particular, can phenomenology play in this dialogue?

Contribution to Scholarship: In recent years a body of scholarship has emerged that focuses on the dialogue between theology and the neurosciences. Within this new work, Rowan Williams’ Gifford Lectures provide a rigorous and yet highly accessible example of the fruitfulness of this dialogue and its potential to generate new models of theological inquiry. However, the brevity and suggestive power of the lectures open space for further exploration, particularly in reference to two figures important to the dialogue: Iain McGilchrist and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This paper will contribute to scholarship by explicating the importance of Williams new proposals
and exploring them beyond his own analysis in reference to (1) establishing a deeper connection between neuroscience and a phenomenology of the body in order (2) to suggest how this connection can revitalize an older theological ‘metaphysics’ in which ‘matter and meaning do not necessarily belong in different universes’ (Williams, x).
15. Chris Hrynkow, St. Thomas More College
An Emerging Incarnation of Inter-Faith Encounter as Reconciliation:
A Critical Reading of Catholic Settler Efforts to Foster More Positive Indigenous-Christian Relationships in Treaty Six Territory

Treaty Six Territory encompasses the homelands of several First Nations and Métis communities on the Prairies. This land is now the site of two major cities, Saskatoon and Edmonton, along with prime agricultural sites, oil wells, and potash mines. These and other pull factors have attracted a now dominant and multicultural settler population, who have displaced Indigenous people to what are too often the social and geographic margins. The recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) addressed the legacy and continuing manifestations of settler colonialism. The TRC concluded that, as a result of governmental policy enacted with the assitance of Christians and their churches, Indigenous people have suffered cultural genocide. This is a telling conclusion in light of the often inextricable conjoining of Indigenous cultures and religiosity. In response, the TRC further articulates calls to action, including some addressed specifically to Christians, whom the commissioners call upon to actively work for reconciliation.

This paper enters the matrix of complex and multi-layered Christian-Indigenous relationships on the Canadian prairies through reading Catholic efforts for reconciliation in light of inter-faith encounter centred on a deep respect for diversity. The principle focus will be the interaction between (1) traditional Indigenous religious systems, frequently marginalised as a result of violent evangelisation and other continuing manifestation of settler colonialism, and (2) Catholic belief and practice in Treaty Six Territory. In light of that interaction, three overlapping responses will be critically surveyed that predate the TRC but have been given new resonances and momentum as result of the commission’s work: (1) approaches that respectfully see Catholicism and Indigenous traditions each as distinct dialogue partners, (2) inculturated religious praxis that actively seeks to fruitfully couple what is often framed as Indigenous spirituality with mainline Catholicism, and (3) ecumenical and inter-religious efforts, where Catholics work jointly with members of other faith traditions with a goal of healing the legacy of settler colonialist institutions, such as the Church-State partnerships manifest in the Indian Residential School system, which sought, as part of their programming, to eradicate traditional Indigenous religion. The confluence of these three approaches represent a noteworthy example of an emergent expression of inter-faith encounter focused upon reconciliation. Acknowledging key points of resistance emanating from both settlers and Indigenous communities, this paper will critically assess this emergent, Catholic incarnation of inter-faith encounter for its efficacy in fostering mutually-enhancing relationships between Christian settlers and Indigenous people in Treaty Six Territory.

 

16. Kerry Kronberg, St. Paul’s University
Kenosis as a Spirituality and an Ethic: The Church and Secularity

In the latter half of the twentieth century, the kenotic conversation made a
pronounced shift from ontological speculation about the Incarnation of Christ to using kenosis as a metaphor for God’s existence. God is kenotic – self-emptying, self-giving, self-limiting – as revealed through creation and, most authentically, through the crucified Christ. From a Christian perspective, who God is has implications for genuine human identity.

In Western secular culture where a primary question centres on what it means to be the
most genuine version of oneself, contemporary people, religious and otherwise, have come up with some answers. As Charles Taylor argues in A Secular Age, the contemporary Western church is grounded in the same philosophical and historical milieu as secular culture, therefore the church and culture are likely to view the situation and solutions in similar categories providing common ground for conversation. The attribute of kenosis as manifest in the God of Jesus Christ offers a way for the church to articulate and embody a faithful and relevant response to questions about authentic humanity.
Panels

1. Panel: Interfaith Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples
Chair: Benjamin Lujan, University of St. Michael’s College

In light of CTS’ theme, Gathering Diversity, and its special focus on Indigenous issues, this panel will explore possibilities of carrying out the TRC’s Calls to Action 48 and 60. The panel will invite a conversation about the need to expand ecumenical and interfaith relations in the work of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. It will also address the need to explore creative ways in which theological schools and faith communities can be key contributors toward a spiritually grounded solidarity with our marginalized Indigenous brothers and sisters.

In addition, the panel will invite the audience to reflect about the importance of their role in reconciliation and what we could all do together to encourage Christian churches and faith communities to build bridges with each other and with Indigenous peoples to foster a broad, all-inclusive solidarity with Native communities. This focus on a type of broad, all-inclusive perspective to practice solidarity with Indigenous peoples is itself part of traditional Indigenous spiritualties, which seek to establish “relations with all our relations,” perhaps especially those most at risk of being overlooked. This is part of a spirituality of sacred interrelatedness, which roots the effort to live in balance, harmony and reciprocity, in all areas of our lives. In this way, we can learn from Call to action 60 to respect Indigenous Spirituality in its own right, while seeking together to fulfill Call to action 48 to engage in ongoing public dialogue and action in keeping with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In today’s context, such spirituality will include, in line with the TRC’s Calls to Action 48 and 60, the collaborative participation of the various Christian churches and faith communities. In this way, the call for justice outlined by the TRC is at the same time a call or an invitation to embrace a radical diversity that is rooted in a spiritual basis and whose purpose is actions of solidarity with the excluded. The panel will be composed of Indigenous persons and persons from other faiths and minority groups.

 

2. “Respecting Indigenous Spirituality in its Own Right”
Chair: Allen Jorgenson, Waterloo Lutheran Seminary

In this panel we address steps being taken by our theological school in response to the 60th Call to Action from the TRC. This call to action specifically summons theological schools et al “in collaboration with Indigenous spiritual leaders” to develop and implement theological curricula that respects “Indigenous spirituality in its own right.” Each panelist will address this challenge from their own discipline. The panel will include two systematic theologians, one New Testament scholar and one practical theologian. Panelists will each speak to the narrative of their theological/spiritual journey in relationship to this call to action, and the manner in which responding to the call has challenged and shaped their scholarship, pedagogy and engagement with various publics.

 

The Canadian Theological Society invites expressions of interest from members willing to serve on the CTS Executive. CTS is an entirely volunteer-run organization. These are opportunities to serve fellow members primarily through the planning and hosting of the annual meetings at Congress, to implement new initiatives, and to advance the study of theology in Canada. The following positions will be vacant.

1. Vice-President/President-Elect – The Vice-President coordinates the Student Networking Lunch and/or Student Essay Contest. After a one-year term, the Vice-President becomes President. The President convenes and presides at Executive meetings, presides at the annual general meeting, delivers a Presidential Address as part of the annual meeting program, and receives and replies as necessary to correspondence from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (CFHSS), the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion (CCSR), and other organizations. Collaborating with the Program Chair, the President prepares the annual Call for Papers. After a one-year term, the President becomes Past-President. The Past-President serves as chair of the Nominating Committee. The Vice-President, President, and Past-President often serve as voting representatives of CTS to CCSR and CFHSS. The total commitment to the Executive is for three years.

2. Treasurer – The Treasurer maintains all financial records for the society, executes all financial transactions (e.g., pays expenses and receives and deposits income from various sources), makes regular financial reports to the Executive and prepares and presents annual budgets and financial reports to the Annual General Meeting. The Treasurer serves a three-year term, which is renewable.

3. Secretary – The Secretary records and distributes the minutes of meetings of the Executive and the annual general meeting, receives membership forms and payments, deposits membership payments into the society’s bank account, and receives and replies to membership correspondence. With the assistance of the Communications Officer, the Secretary also maintains the online membership database hosted on the website for the private use of the Executive. The Secretary serves a three-year term, which is renewable.

4. Program Chair – The Program Chair works with the other members of the Executive to plan the program for the CTS annual meeting. Specifically, the Program Chair drafts the Call for Papers, receives all proposals, coordinates the vetting process, prepares the schedule for the annual meeting program, works with the Local Arrangements Coordinator about rooms and other program logistics, submits information to Congress organizers about CTS needs. The Program Chair serves a three-year term, which is renewable.

Process:

• Send a message to Jeremy Bergen, CTS Past President and Chair of Nominating Committee. You may indicate your own interest, or suggest that another member should be considered for a particular role. Deadline: April 3, 2018.
• The Nominating Committee will assemble a slate with one nominee per position for presentation at the CTS AGM at Congress, May 27-29, in Regina.
• Further nominations may be received from the floor at the AGM.

2017 schedule final 

Canadian Theological Society Annual Meeting

Congress 2017

Ryerson University

May 28 – May 30, 2017

 

 

Sunday, May 28
	SHE Sally Horsfall 662	SHE Sally Horsfall 664
12:00 p.m.	Welcome!
12:10 – 12:50 p.m.	David Clark, “Psalm 74 and November 1938: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Kristallnacht Annotation in Interpretive Context”	Graham Brown, “Theology, Aboriginal Rights and Reconciliation”
12:50  – 2:10 p.m.	Panel: “Decolonial Theological Encounters: Los Saberes del Sur Global Confronting the Epistemology of the Global North”	Panel: “Marching as to War: Children and Battle Imagery in Healthcare”
2:10 – 2:30 p.m.	Break
2:30 – 3:10 p.m.	Connor Steele, “Carter v Canada, Political Martyrology, and the Repudiation of His Dominion”	Jessie Hyejung Yum, Emmanuel College “Church, A Rehumanizing Place of Hospitality: In Search of the Human Dignity of Migrant Workers”
3:10 – 3:50	Gordon Rixon, “Restraint and Resurgence: Accompanying Social Reconciliation in Canada”	Samantha Cavanaugh, “Stranger Love: Critical-Mystical Encounters”
3:50 – 4:10	Break
4:10– 4:50 p.m.	Joëlle Morgan, “The Mountain to Climb is but a Symptom: Restorying Indigenous-Settler Relations”	Paul Heidebrecht, “Wrestling with Innovation: How Can We Make Space(s) for the Spirit to Move?”
5:00 – 7:00 p.m.	President’s Reception: Mattamy Athletic Centre, the historic Maple Leaf Gardens
7:00 p.m.	Craigie Lecture (Sponsored by CSBS) Dr. Stanley Stowers, “What was the Goal of Paul’s Religious Program?” Ted Rogers School of Management 1-149

 

 

Monday, May 29
Time	SHE Sally Horsfall 662	SHE Sally Horsfalll 554
9:00 a.m. – 9:40 a.m.	Alison Hari-Singh “Thinking Ecclesiologically about Two TRC Recommendations: Toward an Anglican Retrieval”	David Csinos, “Transforming a Vision: Theologies of Children and the United Church’s Quest to Become Intercultural”
9:40 – 10:20	Don Phillips, “A Canadian Christology?  Communicating Jesus Christ in 21st Century Canada”	Graham McDonough “How do you teach it (In our day)? Confronting simplistic portrayals of Jews and Judaism in Catholic school curriculum”
10:20 -10:40	Break
10:40 – 11:20	Steve Harris, “Will I Be Canadian in the Resurrection? Nationality, Identity and Christian Eschatology”	Jean-Pierre Fortin “Truth as Gift and Vocation: New Perspectives on Revelation”
11:20 – 12:00 p.m.	Stephen Martin, “The church and the reassertion of the political in post-apartheid South Africa”	Don Schweitzer, “A Role for People in Jesus’ Resurrection”
12:00 – 1:30 p.m.	Lunch
1:30 – 3:00	Jay Newman Lecture Dr. Karolina Hübner “Pantheism and thought in Spinoza’s Philosophy” Sally Horsfall 662
3:00 – 4:00	Presidential Address: Jeremy Bergen “How are we Canadian? Theological? A Society?  Reflections on CTS Presidential Addresses, 1990-2016” Sally Horsfall 662
4:00 – 4:15	Break
4:15 – 5:30	AGM Sally Horsfall 662
6:30 p.m.	CTS Banquet Place: Astoria, 390 Danforth Ave.

 

 

Tuesday, May 30
	IMA Image Arts 307	TRSM 3-147
9:00 – 9:40	Engin Sezen “Sohbet as a Sacred Learning Place”	Stan Chu Ilo, “Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Canada”
9:40 a.m. – 10:20 a.m.	Frank Emanuel and Robert Walker, “A Better Welcome for LGBTQ+ Evangelicals”	Nathan Gibbard, “The Possibility and Promise of a Catholic Theology of Adoption”
10:20 – 10:40	Break
10:40 – 11:20	Shannon Wylie, “Dialogue of Life and Death: Christian de Cherge? on Christian-Muslim Friendship”	Martha Downey, “The Role of Theology: Superpower or Well-Kept Secret?”
11:20 – 12:00 p.m.	Robert Timmins, “A Movement of Spirits: Exploring the Political- Theological Significance of the Annual Women’s March”	Mark Novak, “‘Yes, yes’ with/out ‘No, no’: Understanding (apparent) Equivocation in Derrida”
12:00 – 1:30 p.m.	Networking Lunch Sally Horsfall 662
1:30 – 2:50	Panel: “Our Voices are Needs in the Midst of Diversity”	Panel: “Women and Theology in Canada: the Past, the Present, and the Future”
2:50 p.m.	Closing

Papers and Panels

 

 

1. David Clark, Wycliffe College. “Psalm 74 and November 1938: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Kristallnacht Annotation in Interpretive Context”

In November 1938, following the eruption of anti-Jewish Nazi brutality known as Kristallnacht, Dietrich Bonhoeffer offered no public comment. Instead, in his personal Bible, Bonhoeffer made an annotation in the margin of the Psalms: he wrote the date of Kristallnacht, followed by an exclamation mark. The verse he marked, Psalm 74:8, reads: “They said in their hearts, let us plunder their goods! They burn all the houses of God in the land.” In the absence of more explicit responses by Bonhoeffer to the crimes of Kristallnacht, scholarship has devoted considerable attention to the meaning of his marginal annotation.

However, as I argue, while scholars have helpfully recognized possible political or historical implications of associating this psalm text with Kristallnacht, the discourse has yet to examine this annotation more thoroughly in the context of Bonhoeffer’s then-burgeoning commitment to figural interpretation of the Psalter. Accordingly, this paper will establish the context of Bonhoeffer’s figural engagement with the Psalms in this period, especially in Life Together (1938) and Prayerbook of the Bible (1940), in order to address the question: by connecting Psalm 74:8 with Kristallnacht, what theological claim might Bonhoeffer have been making about the events of November 1938? In his interpretive work during this period, Bonhoeffer discerned Christological presence amid contemporary events that echoed the psalms of suffering. As I will argue, this conviction suggests that Bonhoeffer’s association of Psalm 74 with Kristallnacht may have entailed not only a sense of historical correlation, but indeed a theological construal of the divine presence amid the Jewish victims of Kristallnacht.

I will situate this argument within the context of scholarship on Bonhoeffer’s Kristallnacht annotation, which includes discussions by Eberhard Bethge, Geffrey Kelly, Martin Rumscheidt, Jeremy Worthen, and Patrick D. Miller. More broadly, I will frame this argument within the discourse on Bonhoeffer’s interpretive approaches to the Old Testament, including work by Martin Kuske and Barry Harvey. Building on this scholarship, I hope to propose a reading of the Kristallnacht annotation that adequately coheres with Bonhoeffer’s interpretation of the Psalms during this period

 

2. Graham Brown, St. Paul’s University College at the University of Waterloo.

 “Theology, Aboriginal Rights and Reconciliation.”

The TRC’s definition of reconciliation as the “[restoration of] respectful nation-to-nation relationships within a viable Canadian sovereignty” requires us to consider the normative approach to legal reconciliation because it asks us to interpret the meaning of Aboriginal “nation” and if, or to what extent, a “viable” Canadian sovereignty means being limited by Aboriginal sovereignty. Recently, some Canadian anthropologists, jurists and political philosophers (Asch, Macklem, and Tully, respectively) have argued versions of the “prior occupancy” principle as the morally correct approach to determining Aboriginal rights under the Constitution. Asch argues “temporal priority” of occupancy, Macklem argues “prior sovereignty” and Tully prior sui generis rights.  But establishing temporal priority, if it means first occupancy, is difficult and, even if established, is insufficient as a normative principle; it is unclear why a group should retain sovereignty merely because it has continuity over time as a group; and to say Aboriginal rights are unique is self-defeating for a fruitful conversation and debate by the relevant parties. I point out that all of these concerns are implications of the Indigenous and Settler theological teachings that land is entrusted from the Creator, not owned by human groups, and that sovereignty is not about continuity of a group that was once sovereign but about the justice of arrangements under current circumstances. This perspective is congruent with the normative principles of legal reconciliation found in the work of Jeremy Waldron, viz., the principles of “proximity” and “established order” and “supersession”. I explain what these imply for interpreting TRC-style reconciliation.

 

3. Panel: Lee Cormie, Faculty of Theology, University of St. Michael’s College and Michel Andraos, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, IL, Néstor Medina, Emmanuel College, Becca Whitlaw, Emmanuel College.

“Decolonial Theological Encounters: Los Saberes del Sur Global Confronting the Epistemology of the Global North”

We think that the new ‘decolonial’ wave of Latin American critical thinking is full of promise for the next generation of ‘liberation’–social and economic justice, gender justice, indigenous, anti-racist, LGBTQ, ecological, peace, intercultural and interfaith–movements and theologies. It is inspired by the great breakthroughs of earlier generations of activism and scholarship since the 1960s, with deepening awareness of roots / antecedents / precursors / parallels, especially in Latin American (Abya Yala), US, and Canadian (Turtle Island) indigenous worldviews, African-American and other cultural/civilizational traditions (e.g., diverse Islamic liberation theologies). At the same time, this perspective reflects growing awareness of the limits and deepening crises of established expressions of critical scholarship and activism, including earlier generations of ‘liberationist’ thinking.

This panel does not offer a study of Latin American decolonial thinkers per se. Rather, the panelists offer brief introductions to ongoing experiments with the modernity / coloniality framework in addressing specific aspects of doing theology and religious studies in Canada and US today in solidarity and dialogue with ‘others’ among us and around the world:

• different experiences of indigenous peoples in different countries, and of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and their aftermaths;
• the challenges of the TRC in Canada to ‘mainstream’ churches, theologies, and modes of theological education;
• the contradictory ways familiar religious practices like hymn-singing reflect in some instances the dynamics of colonization and in others the dynamics of resistance and hope for liberation;
• the epistemological dead-ends of modernist Euro- Amero-centric modes of knowledge, including positivist ‘science’, their continuing power to distort critical discourses too, and new epistemological space for hope and faith in every struggle for ‘another world’.

Subsequent discussion will be open to all, eliciting participants’ questions, insights, criticisms, challenges concerning evolving ‘decolonial’ projects, and identifying possibilities for collaboration and next steps.

 

4. Panel: Robyn Boeré, Regis College; Michael Buttrey, Regis College; Rebecca Sletten, Hospital for Sick Children. “Marching as to War: Children and Battle Imagery in Healthcare.”

In October 2016, The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto released the first advertisement in their new fundraising campaign. Titled “Anthem” and set to Donny Daydream’s “Undeniable,” the video presents a stirring montage of children donning face paint and combative outfits before they enter battlefields and boxing rings. The campaign garnered significant attention – and controversy: while many praised the message of empowerment, others were concerned about the implications for children with chronic and congenital diseases that are not easily cured, or conditions such as deafness and autism whose disease status is contested. Another common concern was the potential implication that children who die have been defeated, or even are losers. As Globe and Mail Health Columnist André Picard wrote, “After all, who doesn’t want to back a winner?” But to date, few have questioned the openly militant imagery used in the video, which places children on the front lines beside medieval knights and colonial soldiers, in the ring with boxers and wrestlers, and in the fantastical worlds of anime and superhero characters.

In our panel, we will develop a critique of battle imagery in healthcare and explore alternative models for understanding children and disease. In developing this critique, we will discuss the moral lives of children and potential conflicts in imagining children in warfare, even as a metaphor. We will consider whether fighting imagery in sports and superhero stories is significantly different than military metaphors. In order to accomplish this, we will consider the experiences of sick children and their ability to conceptualize and understand their lives and disease, drawing on available empirical research to consider the impact of this battle metaphor on the children. Finally, throughout our discussion we will draw on insights from theological discussions of war, pacifism, and martyrdom in the Christian tradition.

The view of children promoted by our hospitals, especially a hospital as influential as SickKids and other institutions in our publically funded healthcare system, is our collective responsibility, and these views help shape our moral imagination not only in health care but in our families and our society. Each of our presenters will take on a different methodological and theoretical aspect of our presentation. Our presenters include specialists in child health, Catholic moral theology, and moral issues surrounding children. Our panel will conclude with a series of ideas for further research and discussion that we hope will foster dialogue and engagement.

 

5. Connor Steele. “Carter v Canada, Political Martyrology, and the Repudiation of His Dominion”

Building on the work of Stuart Chambers, Sarah Trick, John Van Hacking, Eric Voegelin, Gianni Vattimo and John Milbank, I shall trace the discursive shifts in the Canadian Supreme Court’s two post-Charter assisted dying cases — Rodriguez (1993) and Carter (2016) — in order to expose transformations in the Court’s political (a)theology. While both decisions recruit putatively secular language, the Rodriguez case utilizes two fundamental Christian tropes. Along with Stuart Chambers, I believe that the slippery-slope argument is invoked to simultaneously provide a nontheological justification for the sacredness of human life and construct persons with disabilities as vulnerable lambs. These potential sacrificial lambs, at risk of being killed on the altar of historical progress, require protection from the good shepherds of the Constitution. Ironically, however, martyrdom discourse takes a strange turn. Ms. Rodriguez becomes a Christlike victim of the state, who must sacrifice herself, by not receiving assistance with her death, so that others may live. In short, the Court still recognizes a week metaphysic beyond positive law, even if it attempts to harmonize heaven and earth in a (dis)avowedly Christian manner.

Conversely, Carter offers no such metaphysic. Consistent with Michel Foucault’s and John Milbank’s observations about the biopolitical character of contemporary social governance, the case was decided on the right to live for as long as one is able (protection from unnecessary early suicide, a choice those possessing full physical and or mental capacity do not have to make), with the ancillary issues being avoidance of inhumane emotional distress and pain. The decision does not rest on the right to die as such, nor does it place strict limitations on access to assisted dying. Analysis of this judicial discourse, therefore, is important for Christian theology as it looks towards the future, because we are increasingly faced with a utilitarian intellectual culture that immanentizes and absolutizes political sovereignty. At the same time, however, when carefully read, the Carter decision offers some salutary points of dialogical engagement for theologians. Persons with disabilities are not represented as victims, and the decision is suffused with compassion and humility. These virtues often disappear in ethical disagreements, especially as these debates interact with political theology and multicultural difference.

 

6. Jessie Hyejung Yum, Emmanuel College, “Church, A Rehumanizing Place of Hospitality: In Search of the Human Dignity of Migrant Workers”

Many migrant workers, especially those with temporary legal status, or non-dominant race and non-native language speaking migrants, might live with their lost, weak and incomplete dignity in a newly arrived place. The visible difference from the dominant people such as their limited language skills, awkward social manners and temporary or undocumented status directly affects their working conditions, which often leads them to be exposed to a dehumanizing working place. They are easily exploited, abused and endangered in their workplace. They need

a concrete place to be accepted as fully human in order to recover their dignity in the newly

arrived society.

With this understanding, this paper will argue that with regard to the reality of migrant workers who are exposed to dehumanization in their workplace and whose rights to human dignity are also violated in Canada today, the church should be a place embodying practices that uphold dignity in them as created in the image of God through hospitality. To support this thesis, I will first delve into the dehumanizing environment of Canadian migrant workers in terms of

insecurity, objectification, and exploitation. Second, I will argue that the dignity of human beings in the image of God is embodied in a concrete place where creative relationships can be established. In this respect, objectification and exploitation harm human dignity through distorted relationships. Lastly, I will claim that the Church is the body of Jesus Christ who has initiated new creation that challenges the social exclusion of the vulnerable and the strangers and

built new relationships with them. Thus, the church should a concrete place, that is a society, that embodies the dignity of the people at the margin through hospitality, and join in the ongoing creation of God by resistance to unjust structures in solidarity with them.

 

7. Gordon Rixon, Regis College. “Restraint and Resurgence: Accompanying Social Reconciliation in Canada”

In The Course of Recognition (2004), Paul Ricoeur locates the emergence of personal and cultural agency within a discussion of identity, self-recognition and mutual gift exchange. In Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (2014), Glen Sean Coulthard identifies the ecological, social and political conditions for a resurgence of indigenous peoples and cultures. Coulthard rejects recognition theory as an implicit mediator of a colonizing worldview that un­dermines the autonomy of indigenous resurgence. In my paper, I propose to trace Coulthard’s engagement of recognition theory guided by the question: “What does a person of Christian faith have to learn from these authors in the development of a theology of accompaniment and the advancement of social reconciliation for the next 150 years in Canada.

In my discussion, I notice that Coulthard principally engages recognition theory through the pivotal exchange between Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth in Redistribution or Recognition? A Political Philosophical Exchange (2003). I acknowledge Ricoeur’s subsequent appreciation of the strengths and limitations of Honneth’s approach to recognition theory; taking particular note of Ricoeur’s criticism of Honneth’s approach to social esteem and elucidation of the distinction be­tween market exchange and gift exchange. From this perspective, I pursue my faith focused ques­tion about how to receive and accompany aspirations for cultural resurgence. I conclude by re­locating my comments in the Canadian context with a brief discussion of the proposal for balanc­ing ju­dicial restraint and activism by Benjamin Berger in Law’s Religion: Religious Difference and the Claims of Constitutionalism (2015).

 

8. Samantha Cavanaugh, Emmanuel College. “Stranger Love: Critical-Mystical Encounters”

In this paper, I explore Jesus’ Second Great Commandment (Mark 12:28-34). What does loving our neighbours as ourselves entail, if, as Cynthia Moe-Lobeda argues, our neighbours include all of those human and non-human lives with whom our own is bound up through the multiple ecological and social systems which hold our bodies in relation? If our neighbours include people and other-than-human creatures and life-systems who are strangers to us, what does this love look like, feel like, and motivate?

I construct a feminist theo-ethical vision of neighbour love as stranger love by centring on the affectual phenomenon of feeling love for strangers in urban public encounters. I explore the experience, both my own as well as that of Thomas Merton at the corner of Fourth and Walnut in Louisville, of being momentarily flooded by the felt-insight of love for the strangers with whom a city is shared.

I look to this embodied experience of stranger love as a site for both transformative moral formation, as well as an experience rife with potentially problematic constructions. To do so, I engage Sara Ahmed’s post-colonial critique of the notion of strangers. Ahmed argues that there are no actual unfamiliars, as every seeming stranger is already positioned within various interweaving social forces and relations. The love I experience for someone I do not intimately know is coded by collective and personal histories, which contribute to building my reading and naming of another’s body as strange in particular ways.

Taking this evaluation seriously, I develop a critical-mystical understanding of what it means to love strangers as neighbours. In dialogue with Moe-Lobeda, I argue that love is both God’s indwelling presence in the world, as well as a disposition that disciples must cultivate and exercise; the feeling of love for one we do not intimately know is both mystical gift as well as ethical call. The experience of loving strangers as neighbours is at once a projection of strangeness onto another’s person, as well as a mystical encounter with the Love that invites us to practice love by undermining all of those systems and ways of relating that participate in positioning other bodies as strange.

 

9. Joëlle Morgan, St. Paul University. “The Mountain to Climb is but a Symptom: Restorying Indigenous-Settler Relations in the Canadian Colonial Difference”

In 2015, Justice Murray Sinclair famously described the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the gift of the Calls to Action (CTA), as a mountain that they challenged Canadian society to climb. The CTA’s engage us in facing the settler colonial story, but if we pay close enough attention they move us beyond the residential schools history and into a deep un/settling of the Canadian narrative. They unlock the potential to restory Indigenous-settler relations through a conscientisation journey. This paper will briefly explore the comfort of Canadian society, churches and theological voices in settler coloniality and the opportunity unsettling these narrative patterns has for creating a settler transformation, conscious of the Canadian colonial difference.

I root this theological reflection in local experiences of one primarily settler group of Christians in the Ottawa Presbytery on unceded Algonquin lands, and thus draw out themes and concepts that point toward a settler theology of liberation. Un-settling theology requires listening deeply to the challenge of Indigenous scholars who are offering ways to liberate theology and for theology to be liberating in light of coloniality. Drawing on theology, peacebuilding and decolonial research, I will explore the concept of liberation as that of salvation that can be understood as and rooted in social healing. The healing requires both sides of speaking and hearing, the oral and the aural, Indigenous and settler peoples together engaged in the possibility of just and fertile relations in, on and with this land.

 

10. Paul Heidebrecht, Conrad Grebel University College, “Wrestling with Innovation: How Can We Make Space(s) for the Spirit to Move?”

We are marking the 150^th anniversary of Confederation in a context increasingly enamored with innovation. It seems as though political, business, and civic leaders everywhere are in a race to embrace change, to disrupt the economic status quo, and to create new identities for communities that can no longer count on old ways to face contemporary challenges. Indeed, even this year’s Congress is encouraging us to look ahead, focusing our expertise on the next 150 years. This presentation will explore the theological implications of this context, and will argue that it presents both challenges and opportunities for ecclesial communities. In particular, I will articulate several instructive and even inspirational insights for the mission of churches in Canada based on my engagement with university and community-based programs in social innovation and entrepreneurship.

 

11. Alison Hari-Singh, Toronto School of Theology. “Thinking Ecclesiologically about Two TRC Recommendations: Toward an Anglican Retrieval”

This paper looks at constructing a way forward in light of recommendations 59 and 60 directed at the churches put forward by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action – that Christian clerics and institutions need to “respect Indigenous spirituality in its own right, the history and legacy of residential schools and the roles of the church parties in that system, the history and legacy of religious conflict in Aboriginal families and communities, and the responsibility that churches have to mitigate such conflicts and prevent spiritual violence.”

Most conversations today concerning the missionization of Indigenous peoples in Canada historically is overwhelmingly, and appropriately, negative.  However, colonial and systemic oppression was not invariably the original vision set forth by some organizations that sent missionaries to this land to spread the gospel to the original inhabitants.  For example, the initial directive of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) of the Church of England in the 19^th century did not officially condone this strategy.

Henry Venn Jr., mission strategist and the director of the CSM for much of the 19^th century, had a very specific vision and approach for mission.  This included the development of a national or “native” church in which those who already inhabited the land who would develop their own leaders and evangelize their own people.  Mission, for Venn, meant the eventual exit of Western missionaries from the field, because a self-governing, self-sustaining and self-propagating “native” church would have been established.

In retrospect, the Anglican Church in Canada does exhibit these three marks, but not in the way Venn would have expected.  Through a long series of events and deeply held patronizing and racist views toward non-European peoples, most CMS missionaries did not follow Venn’s directive and return home.  The colonial church became the “native” church.  This national church acted in conjunction with the aims of the Canadian government – to cement the settler as the intended inhabitants of the land through commerce and “civilization.”

This paper hopes to explore what the churches, especially the Anglican Church of Canada, might do to take seriously the recommendations of the TRC.  Short of settlers leaving this land, I contend that a thoughtful reconsideration of Venn’s vision may help settlers encounter Indigenous peoples in Canada with contrition, but also solidarity in the face of the Canadian government’s continued failure to recognize Indigenous land rights, autonomy, and ways of being.  I argue that ceremony and ritual mark and unite both Indigenous communities and the churches as alternative socially embodied traditions vis-à-vis the nation-state.  Our hope should be the reconciliation of all traditioned peoples so that both communities may govern, sustain and propagate themselves.

 

12. Dave Csinos, Atlantic School of Theology. “Transforming a Vision: Theologies of Children and the United Church’s Quest to Become Intercultural”

In 2006, the United Church of Canada put forward a vision for becoming intercultural. This vision painted a picture of a church moving away from shallow tolerance common among Canadian discourses surrounding diversity and toward respect, appreciation, and mutual encounters among people of diverse cultural backgrounds. But is this vision as transformative as it intends to be? To answer this question, I analyze qualitative research into the theological meaning-making of children among United Church congregations that self-identify culturally in different ways. The theological lives of these children and their congregations affirm and challenge core assumptions of the United Church’s vision for becoming intercultural, casting alternative visions grounded in the lived theological realities of individuals and communities within this denomination.

 

13. Don Phillips, Diocese of Rupert’s Land. “A Canadian Christology? Communicating Jesus Christ in 21^st Century Canada”

Based on a reflexive understanding of the interaction between theology and culture, I will propose a local Christology in response to the local (post-modern) culture of Canadian society in an attempt to strengthen the proclamation and reception of Christ in our day.  Given the fact that our language is part of the sign-system that makes up our culture, even the way we speak and hear about the person and work of Christ is culturally-dependent. I believe that our lack of awareness of this fundamental reality has contributed to the decline of many churches in Canadian society, as potential new members are not able to be “introduced” to the person and work of Jesus Christ in a way that evokes a genuine response; and our present membership is not equipped to communicate this Gospel in effective ways that can be heard by those for whom it is an entirely new proclamation.

This situation presents several challenges. The first is the need to appreciate the importance of being able to identify and describe a local culture. I will be utilizing the work of Clifford Geertz and Kathryn Tanner.  Secondly, it requires an understanding of the tradition of interaction between the proclamation of the Gospel and culture. I will use the foundational work of H. Richard Niebuhr as a springboard.  Thirdly, it requires the development of an orthodox Christology that is as free as possible from an interpretive cultural frame. I will draw this out from the work of Has Frei.  And finally, contemporary Christians need to be immersed in this new vocabulary in order to be able to employ it in their conversations and relationships.  Being a member of the Anglican Church of Canada with its liturgical tradition, I will briefly illustrate the application of this local Christology in a Eucharistic Prayer.

 

14. Graham McDonough, University of Victoria. “Confronting simplistic portrayals of Jews and Judaism in Catholic School Curriculum”

Today, more than 50 years after the Second Vatican Council issued Dei Verbum (DV) and Nostra Aetate (NA), important questions remain about how Catholic school curriculum presents Jews and Judaism.  If, when teaching certain lessons, teachers are not prepared to attend to biblical exegesis and the Church’s troubled history of relations with Jews, they may – even unwittingly – reinforce the conditions that enable simplistic and distorted views of Jews and Judaism.  Specifically, this presentation examines the consequences of combining “The Greatest Commandment” (Matthew 22:36-40) and “The Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37) stories for the purpose of teaching about God’s universal love.  This presentation offers a normative argument that these stories should be maintained in curriculum on the condition that they are taught with a concurrent purpose of directly confronting Catholicism’s history of distorting Judaism and oppressing Jews, and lead toward the hope of greater inter-religious encounter.

 

15. Steve Harris “Will I Be Canadian in the Resurrection? Nationality, Identity and Christian Eschatology”

This paper explores what aspects of human identity should be thought to be restored and/or transformed in Christian theology on the resurrection, with nationality as a particular test case. Augustine, for instance, believed that resurrection bodies will be sexed. Peter Lombard (c.1096-1160) held that the resurrected will have memories of their mortal life, though in a purified way. As a preserver of identity, memory raises questions about historical and social, as well as physical, continuity in the eschaton. Drawing on the role of the “nations” in Revelation, the paper queries whether the transformation Lombard ascribes to memory can be similarly thought to apply to national identity in the resurrection. It then concludes with some brief pastoral and political-theological reflections.

 

16. Don Schweitzer, St. Andrew’s College. “A Role for People in Jesus’ Resurrection”

This presentation argues that while Jesus’ resurrection has objective dimensions, people also have a role to play in it, and that in the present, part of that role can be described as taking the crucified people down from the cross. It begins by examining some recent discussions of Jesus’ resurrection which understand it as an eschatological event in which people have a role to play. It then examines 1 Timothy 3:16 and other resurrection traditions to show that Jesus’ resurrection is understood in the New Testament as an objective event that remains incomplete without peoples’ participation in it. Augustine will then be shown to have continued this way of understanding Jesus’ resurrection with his notion of the “whole Christ.” The arguments of Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino will then be used to show that a significant part of this role in the present and foreseeable future consists in working to take the crucified people down from the cross. Finally, the notion that God’s goodness is inherently self-diffusive will be used to help explain how Jesus’ resurrection can be at once objectively real and yet still incomplete without people’s participation in it.

 

Jay Newman Lecture: Karolina Hübner, University of Toronto. “Pantheism and thought in Spinoza’s Philosophy”

One of the consequences of pantheism – the identification of God and nature – is the problem of understanding if and how human beings can be distinguished from God on such an account. The lecture tackles this problem by looking at a key component of Spinoza’s pantheism, his commitment to viewing human minds as mere “parts” of God’s own intellect. One of the problems this commitment generates is that it renders unclear who exactly is thinking the ideas that constitute human minds. That is, who exactly is the thinking ‘subject’ in Spinoza’s philosophy? Some scholars propose that for Spinoza only God can think the ideas that make up human minds. Others reject this solution on the grounds that surely it must be we, human beings, who think these ideas, not God, if Spinoza has any right to regard these minds as ‘human’ and to distinguish them from the divine intellect. In my talk I propose that Spinoza in fact endorses a third position, according to which both human beings and God are the simultaneous thinking subjects of ideas that constitute human minds, though in different ways. In this twofold account of the subject of thought, Spinoza seems to be staking out an original position in the history of the philosophy of mind.

 

17. Engin Senzen, Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. “Sohbet Group Experiences of Three Turkish Canadian Muslim Men”

Sohbet is one of the most common cultural, spiritual, and religious practices amongst Turkish Canadian Muslims. In this qualitative phenomenological study as the researcher, I interviewed three Turkish Canadian Muslim men to develop a better understanding their lived-experiences in their participation in a Sohbet in Montreal. This study’s overarching research question was: “How do newcomer Turkish Muslim men experience Sohbet in Canadian settings?”  I examined spiritual, social, and psychological aspects of the Sohbet experience by focusing on the feelings and thoughts of its three participants.

As a reading and conversational circle, Sohbet brings Muslims together with their faithful companions on a regular basis, usually weekly. Open-ended conversations in Sohbets’ intimate settings provide context and capacity to transform people’s lives. Turkish Muslims in Canada regularly attend Sohbet groups at mosques, cultural centres, and houses to expand their religious knowledge, to practice religious rituals, and experience spiritual healing. Some of these newcomers read Fethullah Gülen’s teachings in their Sohbet groups. Gülen, a contemporary Muslim scholar, authored a number of Quranic exegesis and his followers strive to maintain a vital spiritual life by reading and discussing his writings in group settings. He defines Sohbet as one of the most effective ways to reach God and he often emphasizes the importance of the relationships between a Muslim’s spiritual growth and his/her regular attendance to a Sohbet group

This paper suggests that the Sohbet is more than a simple religious gathering in the lives of its participants, but it is a sacred space for their personal growth, sense of belonging, and spirituality. It functions as a kind of social glue which fostered its three participant’s strong sense of belonging, solidarity, companionship, and learning in a sacred atmosphere. As a popular learning, praying, and socialising environment, Sohbet is a significant alterative space for Muslims’ growth, sense of belonging, and spirituality in Canada.

 

18. Stan Chu Ilo, De Paul University. “Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Canada: Challenges and Opportunities”

Since the introduction of a comprehensive equity and inclusive educational strategy (EIE) by the Ontario Ministry of Education in 2009, there has been a significant tension within Catholic school boards in Ontario. This tension has emerged because of internal contestations within the Catholic school boards, theological schools, and in the Catholic schools as to how to implement the EIE on one hand and on the other hand still maintain a distinctive faith-based Catholic identity for Catholic schools.

The dialectically opposed secular-religious and liberal-conservative frameworks for conceiving the philosophical, theological, and experiential bases for inclusive school culture and multicultural theological education for teachers in Catholic school offer a strong source of conflict.  The development of a Catholic Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy (CEIE), for example, has led to a shift in focus and mission for the faith-based priorities and practices of the Catholic schools. It has also opened a number of unanswered and unexamined questions as to how stakeholder in the Catholic school system and theological schools in Canada-who prepare teachers in the schools–understand Catholic educational identity and mission, and the place of the Catholic school in a pluralistic society like Canada. It also raises questions as to the lack of an evidence-based approach in developing practices of inclusive education and multicultural pedagogies in theological schools in Canada.

My presentation will examine the challenges and opportunities of implementing diversity and multicultural education in faith-based Catholic high schools in Ontario, Canada.  I will use the contestations within the Ontario separate school as a lens to examine the wider implications of diversity education in faith-based educational setting—theological schools, faith-formation in parishes, parish ministries etc.—in the fleeting pace of social change in a multicultural Canada. I will make some five proposals for a hermeneutics of multiplicity in understanding the diverse stories of a pluralistic Canadian population and pedagogies of inclusion in preparing teachers and theologians to meet these challenges with openness, and hope.

 

19. Frank Emanuel (St. Paul University) and Robert Walker (Trinity College), “A Better Welcome for LGBTQ+ Evangelicals”

The phrase “welcoming, but not affirming” coined by Canadian evangelical theologian Stanley Grenz is the language by which some evangelical traditions have attempted to frame their approach to LGBTQ+ inclusion in the life and ministry of their churches. In particular this is the language that the US Vineyard denomination has adopted through a recent position paper, “Pastoring LGBT Persons” (2014) as its approach to issues of belonging and participation.  The intention behind this language is to be inclusive, however the experience of this language is problematic for LGBTQ+ members who long to be more than just congregants. This paper will explore the role of language in the formation of Christian community. This paper is a collaborative effort and presentation by an evangelical who self-identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ demographic and an evangelical theologian who has worked on issues of inclusion in the Canadian Vineyard context. We will draw from our experiences as evangelicals, both queer and straight, to explore the ecclesial and relational implications of the language of “welcoming, but not affirming.” We will draw on the scholarship of Mark D. Jordan to analyse various evangelical resources for approaching LGBTQ+ inclusion. Our hope is that we might suggest language that helps evangelical communities truly meet their intention of building inclusive communities.

 

20. Nathan Gibbard, Ryerson University. “The Possibility and Promise of a Catholic Theology of Adoption”

This paper examines the possibility of a Catholic theology of adoption, and what that might look like given previous statements regarding life issues by the Holy See.  More precisely, it argues that a Catholic theology of adoption has historically been premised more on the idea of Johannine filiation.  Johannine filiation emphasizes the change in nature of the person bestowed on baptism, a change in the very nature of the person that adoption does not convey as fully.  But this notion of filiation, combined with arguments used for the Holy See’s position on contraception and fertility issues, privileges a biological rather that adoptive understanding of our relationship to God.  Crucial to understanding this position is Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, which linked God directly to the biological process as the author of the spark of life.  Linked to biological creation in such a way, contraception becomes a violation to one of the partners in the sexual act.  However, linked to biological creation, God cannot adopt; we can only, like the prodigal, return and recognize our original heritage.  Ultimately, this inability to link actual adoption with theological adoption helps to explain the disparity between Catholic and Protestant adoption practices.

My paper is part of a larger project to try and explore the implications of the difficulty of linking real adoption to theological adoption within the Catholic context, especially as it relates to reproductive issues.  While the idea of humans as primarily prodigals strengthens our relationship to God, it also has real pastoral consequences.  For example, the pastoral needs of infertile couples are rarely mentioned in Catholic Church documents, the most definitive statement coming from the 1994 Catechism; “Spouses who still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with the Lord’s cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity.”  Within this context is there a way to find alternative metaphors to structure Catholic thinking on adoption, or even the relationship between parents and children in general?  How could those alternative metaphors enrich current discussions regarding life issues?

 

21. Shannon Wylie, University of Toronto, “Dialogue of Life and Death: Christian de Chergé on Christian-Muslim Friendship”

In an increasingly multicultural Canada, what does it mean to encounter the “Other”? In particular, what does it mean to encounter Middle Eastern culture and religion as we welcome tens of thousands of refugees from war-torn countries? Canada is not the only country facing these questions of migration, and as such can look to where these questions and concerns have been faced elsewhere. This paper proposes to discuss these questions from the perspective of the Trappist monk Christian de Chergé, who lived the concern and drama of Christian-Muslim encounter in his daily life in the Atlas Abbey in the Tibhirine Mountains of Algeria during the latter half of the twentieth century.

Discerning a vocation to serve in Algeria, de Chergé devoted himself to studies of the Arabic language and the Quran. He lived for several decades in the Tibhirine Mountains, hosting meetings and discussions with Catholic and Muslim religious groups. Under the threat of death for all foreigners, de Chergé and his brother monks decided to stay and serve their local community. De Chergé recounts the insights he gained into Christian-Muslim relationships and his fear of death in several articles and letters compiled by Bruno Chen in L’Invincible Espérance [The Invincible Hope].

Drawn from my larger research project on post-Vatican II Christian-Muslim dialogue, the example of de Chergé provides themes of mercy, diversity, and martyrdom for us to consider the radicality of encounter. The majority of the research on de Chergé is biographical and in French. My research opens up the discussion to a wider audience and focuses on linking de Chergé’s thought to the wider context of post-Vatican II stance on inter-religious dialogue and the shared necessity of study and a lived encounter. It also reflects on the question of martyrdom within dialogue.

 

22. Martha Downey, Ryerson University, “The Role of Theology: Superpower or Well-Kept Secret?”

Theology, once queen of the sciences, is now often pitted against the formalised study of the physical world. In many places, religion has become marginalized and in some instances, vilified. As a result, the case for theology, especially within the university, must be reiterated time and again. Drawing on the writings of Swiss theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Ignatian spirituality, and recent movies (Dr. Strange and Silence), I put forth three reasons why theology is vital not only to the church, but to society as a whole.

First, theology gives us language to talk about greater things, in particular, Aristotle’s transcendentals (beauty, goodness, truth), all of which are personified in the person of Christ. In addition, theology provides a framework for developing a cohesive, overarching philosophy concerning the meaning of human life. In this way, the study of theology is, perhaps more than any other discipline, a humanitarian endeavour.

Second, theology demands that we embrace the small things, primarily because studying the Divine One necessitates a posture of humility. In theology, we are forced to acknowledge the limits of our knowledge and admit that we cannot fully comprehend the beginning or the ending of life. In Ignatian spirituality, embracing smallness translates into an invitation to become more attentive to the minute details of life and in doing so, find God in all things.

Finally, since theology’s central theme, God loves the world, is based on connection and encounter, theology has an inherent mandate to interact with other disciplines and practices. Instead of attempting to reclaim theology’s position as queen of the sciences, I posit that theology should take on the role of helpmate within the university, seeking to serve science and art. Informed by the incarnation of Christ, theologians embrace both the spiritual and the physical, both mystery and practicality, and they know that wisdom resides in joining these things together. At its best, theology is a connector, enabling us to find God in all things and all things in God.

23. Robert Timmins, Emmanuel College. “A Movement of Spirits: Exploring the Political-Theological Significance of the Annual Women’s Memorial March”

Each year, Vancouverites participate in the Annual Women’s Memorial March, an event that allows social justice-oriented individuals to remember, mourn, and express solidarity with the missing and murdered Indigenous women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Currently in its 27^th year, the annual march seeks to spread awareness of the plight of Vancouver’s most vulnerable citizens, and to generate public support for a community-led national inquiry into missing and murdered women.

The objective of this paper is to explore the political-theological significance of the march, primarily by drawing upon the formative work of political theologian Johann Baptist Metz. Over the past several decades, Metz has explored the relationship between memory and praxis, focusing on describing various methods by which politically-subversive memories might be communicated in ways capable of disrupting an unjust status-quo. Metz refers to these sorts of memories as, ‘dangerous memories,’ and his work is largely concerned with the archiving of practices that bear witness to the subversive power of remembering.

This paper considers the import of the Women’s Memorial March in light of Metz’s political theology, ultimately suggesting that the march constitutes an example par excellence of what ‘dangerous memory’ communication might look like in practice. At the same time, by exploring the march’s appeal to indigenous epistemologies, spiritual practices, and experiences of oppression and resistance, this paper argues that the Women’s Memorial March challenges some of the suppositions that lay at the heart of Metz’s own approach to memory and praxis. This paper sketches, then, both a political-theological reading of the Women’s Memorial March, and a uniquely Indigenous intervention into Johann Baptist Metz’s formative political-theological work.

 

24. Mark Novak, Institute for Christian Studies, “‘Yes, yes’ with/out ‘No, no’: Understanding (apparent) Equivocation in Derrida”

As we enter 2017, we are faced with a barrage of concerning situations—new ones that broach us, and old ones that continue to haunt us. Canada’s 150^th year, and the Reformation’s 500^th year, has made clearer the uncertain times that we live in, both in Canada and around the world. We may wonder: How are we to cope with this uncertainty? When, if ever, will we escape it? Philosopher Jacques Derrida hung his hat on dealing with such questions. Contributing to fields such as literary theory/criticism, law, philosophy, and theology, Derrida’s evaluation of texts and concepts, and the introduction of his own, is firmly engrained in academia. While there are those who would liken Derrida to an irrationalist, nihilist, and relativist, and so slough off his work as nonsense, it would seem that these individuals have not taken the time to truly understand him. While I lend a kinder ear to Derrida, there are a few reservations I have that need to be flushed out. I want to narrow in on one main one for this paper: an apparent equivocation in Derrida’s thinking, especially with regards to a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’.

Throughout much of his work, Derrida spoke in positive terms. He sought to overcome ontology/metaphysics for its violent totalizing; sought to foster ethical relations in service of justice; and described an originary ‘yes’, pledge, and affirmation. However, there is another side of Derrida that seems to contradict this: one in which everything is negative and violent. Every attempt at interpretation, writing, and naming, is unequivocally tied to domination and violence. As he sees it, there is no genuine interaction that is possible because hierarchy will also ensue. Indeed, this hierarchical violence must ensue. Is the ‘yes’ for Derrida merely, or outweighed by, a ‘no’? Is there equivocation at the heart of Derrida? These questions will guide this paper to its tenuous conclusion: there is a necessary ‘yes’ with/out ‘no’ structure in Derrida’s conception of the world. However, what may appear as paradoxical non-sense—and non-comforting at that—Derrida’s conclusion seems to tap into something key to theology: as creatures, the originary structures will always be veiled and uncertain to us. As Bonhoeffer wrote, “where the beginning begins our thinking stops, it comes to an end.” As such, in uncertain times we must wager in faith that there is a Yes behind the veil.

 

25. Panel: “Our Voices are Needed in the Midst of Diversity: Interfaith Dialogue in a ‘Postnational’ Canada” – Convenor, Lindsay Ann Cox (Toronto School of Theology), Rabbi Emma Gottlieb (City Shul), Faisal Kamal (University of Toronto)

In the autumn of 2015, New York Times Magazine published an article entitled, “Trudeau’s Canada, Again,” which made a radical argument about Canada, one not based on our European history but on our embrace of multicultural

diversity. According to Prime Minister Trudeau, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada. There are shared values – openness, respect, compassion,willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and

justice. Those qualities are what make us the first postnational state.” Fifteen months later, after the ascension of the Drumpf administration, The Guardian published, “The Canadian experiment: is this the world’s first ‘postnational’ country?” Therein it argues Canadian postnationalism means that we do not share a ‘core identity’ based on ethnicities because Canada’s very own history – including thecolonial period – is one which forced us to learn how to “survive and thrive amid multiple identities and allegiances.” Living in the midst of such diversity created a “different lens to examine the challenges and precepts of an entire politics, economy and society,” which, in effect, transformed our lack of core identity into a strengthable to encourage the development of a plurality of identities and “a healthy flexibility and a receptivity to change. Once Canada moved away from privileging denizens of the former empire to practicing multiculturalism, it could become a place where ‘many faiths and histories and visions’ would co-exist.” The journalist ends the article urging his readers to understand that “the world needs more Canada” in order to lead the way to a “new model of belonging.” Canadian postnationalism is relevant to the ‘far and wide’ of Canada – past, present and future. But how does postnationalism function exactly? In what ways can these ‘many faiths and histories and visions’ contribute more effectively to Canadian multiculturalism? What are some of the implications of postnationalism? This panel will address these issues using an interdisciplinary approach to explore postnationalism as an opportunity for substantive interfaith contributions to the  public sphere.

 

26. Panel: Rachel Knight-Messenger, University of St. Michael’s College; Rev. Kathleen C. Buligan Wycliffe College; Jane Barter, University of Winnipeg; Kimberley Penner, Emmanuel College.

This panel seeks to be the first contribution of the Equity Committee (established May 2016) by bringing together three women theologians to discuss the role of women in theology in Canada. This panel will engage with the theme of the annual meeting this year, “From Far and Wide: The Next 150” by focusing on examining how the role of women in theology in Canada continues to evolve. The first speaker will provide a survey of Canadian women in theology in the 19^th C, including the voices of Eliza Lanesford Cushing, Helen Mar Johnson, Letitia Youmans, as well as some other Canadian women theologians who were engaging with biblical and theological studies during this time period. The second speaker will build from the first speaker’s work by focusing on the identity of women theologians in Canada today, with particular emphasis given to the challenges feminist theology in Canada faces in a period of declining enrolment in theological schools. The second paper will also look to the manner in which feminist theologians are challenging traditional theological studies by working at the intersections of church, university, seminary and political life.  The concluding paper will be offered by a graduate student (Ph.D. candidate), who will present her own work as an example of the future of women in theology in Canada. While her research focuses on feminist Mennonite theology, her approach contains both theology and ethics, which is an example of the interdisciplinary trend that is growing in academic research in Canada. Each of these panelists will be given ten minutes to present, and a ten minute discussion period will be held once each of the three panelists have completed their presentations.

The goal of this panel is twofold. First, to strengthen the voice of women theologians participating in the CTS annual meeting through the assistance of this Equity Committee, and second, to contribute a feminist response to the theme of this conference from the voices of active women in theology today. Furthermore, in order to foster dialogue, the conclusion of each panelist will involve a question or statement regarding the period of their paper and the status of women in theology in Canada. At the conclusion of all three papers, the moderator will then repeat these questions/statements as part of the question and discussion period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the fourth of my occasional messages to members and affiliates of the Canadian Theological Society.

1. REMINDER: Proposals for CTS annual meetings are due January 29.  See full CFP here.

2. Joint CTS or renew membership.  All those who present papers at the CTS annual meetings must be current members.

3. Registration for Congress is now open.

4. 2017 AAR regional events in Canada:

• Eastern International Region, April 28-29, Waterloo.  CFP deadline February 15.
• Pacific Northwest Region, May 5-7, Calgary.  CFP deadline has passed.

5. Call for Papers: Living Tradition: 500 Years of Re-Forming Christianity, a symposium at the Atlantic School of Theology, October 13-15, 2017.  CFP deadline March 1.

6. CTS is a member of the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, and a partner in the publication of the journal Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses (SR).  SR welcomes submissions in any area of theology. A new editorial team took over in June 2016.  Enquiries regarding book reviews should be directed to W. Rory Dickson (English language Book Review Editor).  Article submissions are done electronically (see “Submit Paper” tab on SR’s new SAGE webpage) but suggestions for Special Issues can be sent the co-editors, Géraldine Mossière (French articles) and Roxanne Marcotte (English articles).

7. Canadian Theological Review (CTR) has recently become Canadian-American Theological Review (CATR).  It is a refereed biannual journal that publishes scholarly articles and book reviews from across the spectrum of theological disciplines, including biblical studies, and historical, systematic, moral, and pastoral theology. Although grounded in the evangelical tradition, CATR does not represent any one particular theological stream, but seeks to engage in fruitful dialogue with a wide range of theological viewpoints. CATR is full text licensed on the ATLA database. The editors would like to extend an invitation to members of the Canadian Theological Society to submit an article or book review for potential publication. More information, including submission guidelines, can be found here.

 

Jeremy Bergen

President, Canadian Theological Society

jbergen@uwaterloo.ca

This is second of my occasional communication with members and affiliates of the Canadian Theological Society.

1. You will have already received an email message with this year’s CTS Call for Proposals.  It has also been posted online.  The deadline is January 29, 2017. Please distribute this widely to those who may have interest and encourage those who have not engaged with CTS before to become involved.  You will note that there is a change from previous years in the pattern of CTS meetings at Congress.  Meetings will begin on Sunday afternoon, May 28, and end Tuesday evening, May 30.

2. At our 2016 AGM, the membership approved the establishment of an ad hoc Equity Committee in order to address the issue of persons and groups that are underrepresented in CTS and the theology in Canada more generally.  The committee itself will refine its mandate and terms of reference in consultation with the CTS Executive.  Jane Barter, who is also CTS Program Chair, has agreed to serve as the Chair of the Equity Committee.  Nominations, including self-nominations, to serve on this committee are welcome.  Please contact Jane at: j.barter@uwinnipeg.ca

3. Some regional meetings of the AAR will be held this year in Canada

• The Pacific Northwest Region, which includes BC, Alberta, and Yukon, will be in Calgary, May 7-10, 2017
• The Eastern International Religion, which includes Ontario and Quebec, will be in Waterloo, April 28-29, 2017

The full list of regional meetings, along with CFPs, are here.

4. The Engaged Scholar Journal is looking for additional material for an upcoming Special Issue on Faith and Engagement. The deadline has been extended to October 15.  More information is available here.

5. A graduate student conference on the theme “Religion, Ideology, and Violence,” will be held at Concordia University, Montreal, January 19, 2017.   Call for Papers deadline is October 14.

I expect to send out a message like this one every 6 to 8 weeks or so.  Let me know if you have an announcement of broad interest to CTS members.

 

Jeremy Bergen

President, Canadian Theological Society

jbergen@uwaterloo.ca

You can download a pdf version of our current Call for Papers here: Call for Papers 2017.

Or follow the tab at the top of this page.

 

Greetings Canadian Theological Society members,

I want to introduce myself and give some updates on what is happening with CTS.

I am honored to begin my term as CTS president.  My faculty profile at Conrad Grebel University College gives some of the usual information about my education, teaching, scholarship, and other involvements.  I have been active in CTS for about the past 12 years or so and was on the executive as CTS program chair from 2008 to 2011.  I am active in CTS because it has been a very collegial environment in which to get to know new people working in areas of theology very similar to my own and in areas that are very different, and to reconnect with those I’ve known for some time.  I have learned a lot from the work others are doing.  And I’ve had great conversations with other CTS members over a glass of beer.  I hope you will encourage friends and colleagues who have not participated in CTS in the past to do so in the very near future.

One priority for the coming year is to increase communication from CTS executive to the membership, and among CTS members generally.  I intend to send out a brief message like this one (I expect it will usually be much briefer) every month or two.  In addition to CTS news and updates, these messages can include other brief announcements (in the form of links to website for more information) of interest to members—calls for papers, conferences, job postings, other news.  Please send this information to me, though I cannot promise in advance to circulate everything that I receive.

Forward this message to others.  Join the email list.  Visit our website regularly.

For those who were in Calgary at the end of May, you will know that our society held a very engaging series of meetings over two and half days.  Thirty-two people presented papers or participated on panels.  A highlight was the joint lecture (with the other Religion societies) by Mary Jo Leddy on the calling of Canadian to respond to refugees.

 

I want to highlight a few of items discussed or decided at the AGM:

• There will be modest increases to membership fees in all except students.  The new rates are posted here.
• The CTS constitution was amended to include procedures for the dissolution of the society.  This is a requirement for us as we seek to be officially incorporated.  Once that process is completed, we will be able to apply for charitable status and issue tax receipts to donors.
• An ad hoc CTS Equity Committee will be formed to address the lack of racial diversity and the underrepresentation of women in CTS.  You will hear more about this from us in the coming months.
• Christine Mitchell, editor of the book series Advancing Studies in Religion, explained the mandate of this new series and the process for submissions.  The series is sponsored by the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, of which CTS is a member, and published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.  More information is found here.

 

The CTS executive for 2016-17 is as follows:

Jeremy Bergen, president

Timothy Harvie, vice-president

Cristina Vanin, past president

Nick Olkovich, secretary

Will Sweet, treasurer

Jane Barter, program chair

Melanie Kampen, student representative

Frank Emanuel, communications coordinator

 

Though it is nearly a year away, do plan to participate in next year’s CTS meetings at Congress, at Ryerson University in Toronto.

 

Jeremy Bergen,

President, Canadian Theological Society

jbergen@uwaterloo.ca