Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, Vancouver, BC, 2007. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-105).

This thesis centers on Lutheran theologian Paul Althaus (1888–1966), one of the most contentious figures of twentieth-century Protestant theology and an architect of the Erlangen Opinion on the Aryan Paragraph. Althaus has been the object of a polarising scholarly debate on account of his ambiguous relationship to National Socialism and his ambivalent views on the so-called ‘Jewish Question.’ The investigation of the latter of these two points is the chief research objective of the thesis. That is, how did Althaus understand the ‘Jewish Question,’ especially in its theological dimension, and what did he envision as its solution? In the following pages, I suggest that Althaus fits together two separate but coherent strands of thought—inclusion and exclusion—into a paradoxical socio-theological vision for the Jews. The predominance of the scholarly literature falters on his theology of Jews and Judaism because it interprets the evidence more or less according to a binary model (philosemitism/antisemitism or inclusion/exclusion). But on this point Althaus resists facile classification because his approach to the ‘Jewish Question’ is dialectical. As such, it requires a dialectical interpretive approach to account for the function of ‘Jews’ within the wider logic of his theological system, including his doctrines of creation, the church, and the state. The study’s ultimate conclusion is that Althaus comes to interpret Jewish existence according to a dialectic of pathology and performance (according to which Jews are both a danger to and an indispensable factor for the life of the German Volk), resulting in an inclusive quarantine of Jewish persons within both civil and ecclesial communities. The argument proceeds along four movements. The first movement considers Althaus’ völkisch writings during the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) in order to uncover the basic categories—pathology and performance—through which Althaus interprets Jewish existence. Movement II surveys Althaus’ attitudes toward the Jews under National Socialism (1933–1945), with special reference to the Erlangen Opinion on the Aryan Paragraph, a document which recommended that Jewish men be restricted from pastoral office in the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche. Movement III demonstrates that, even in the knowledge of the Nazi regime’s crimes against the Jews, Althaus relinquished the dialectic of pathology and performance only gradually and incompletely in the postwar period (1945–Althaus’ death in 1966). The dissertation’s fourth movement approaches Althaus as a case study in the viability of Lutheran social ethics in light of his xenophobic articulation of the doctrine of the orders of creation. Insofar as Althaus brought this doctrine to bear on questions concerning the place of Jews in German society and in the German churches, his example raises broader dogmatic questions for a post-Shoah world. The thesis concludes with a proposal for doctrinal repair with resources found within the Lutheran tradition itself, with particular attention to the theologia crucis.

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In this thesis I argue for the centrality of moral discernment in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s vision of Christian ethics. I contend that a close reading of his understudied Ethics manuscript, ‘God’s Love and the Disintegration of the World’, not only reveals the importance of discernment, but also exposes a tension in his thinking between a simple, unreflective approach to God’s will and a rational, reflective mode of moral deliberation. At several points in the 1930s and early 1940s, his emphasis on simplicity seems to preclude the very idea of moral reflection; however, a closer inspection reveals that the two are not mutually exclusive. I argue that Bonhoeffer’s theology contains the necessary resources to incorporate, on Christological grounds, both simplicity and reflective moral deliberation into a coherent vision of moral discernment. Furthermore, I contend that this conceptual unity, premised on the relationship between Christ’s two natures, becomes efficacious in the lives of Christians through a process of conformation to the form of Christ, which includes as an essential element the disciplined practice of spiritual exercises. Finally, drawing on Bonhoeffer's entire corpus, I investigate the theme of God’s commandment, focusing in particular on simple obedience, and the concept of natural life, paying special attention to the shape of the created order. I conclude that simple obedience, while precluding self-centred moral reflection, nevertheless creates space for meditative reflection that understands reality through a Christological lens. In so doing, this meditative reflection finds its orientation in the natural, penultimate world, which serves as a crucial context and guide for those who want to become simple and wise.

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (l. 214-219).

Thesis (B.A.)--Wheaton College, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-219).

Thesis (B.A.)--Wheaton College, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

[pt] A presente dissertação intitulada: O Metodismo na Cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Uma abordagem teológico-pastoral a partir do pensamento eclesiológico de Dietrich Bonhoeffer foi desenvolvida estimulada pela realidade que o quadro sócio-religioso brasileiro reflete no metodismo carioca. Seu objetivo é abordar, em perspectiva pastoral, a atual situação em que o metodismo mantém sua presença na cidade do Rio de Janeiro, considerando as influências neopentecostais que recebe pela via do movimento carismático. O alcance desse objetivo é realizado através da análise do metodismo na cidade do Rio de Janeiro à luz da eclesiologia do teólogo alemão Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945). Em sua eclesiologia são evidenciadas três importantes dimensões: koinonia, cristocentrismo e diaconia que definem um modelo eclesial com contornos pastorais aplicáveis ao estudo pretendido. / [en] This dissertation was developed base on the reality that the Brazilian social and religion overview reflects on the Rio de Janeiro City Methodism. It objects to make a pastoral approach of current situation of the Methodism in the city of Rio de Janeiro considering the neopentecostal’s influences which are brought by the charismatic movement. This intent is done by the analysis of the Methodism in the city of Rio de Janeiro in light of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology. Three dimensions are pointed out in his ecclesiology: koinonia, Christ-centrism and diacony which define a ecclesial model with applicable pastoral aspects to the present study.

Thesis advisor: Richard Kearney / What does the word of the cross mean for philosophical anthropology? That is my question in this dissertation, which undertakes a philosophical engagement with a word that is both a scandal and folly for philosophical wisdom. My task is to give a hermeneutical description of what I call the cruciform self, and to examine the significance of the cross for several key themes of philosophical anthropology. Because my focus is thematic, I engage with several interlocutors--most prominently Paul Ricoeur and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but also Luther, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Levinas, and Charles Taylor. Given the pronounced theological aspects of this project, a recurring theme is the relation between philosophy and faith, reason and revelation. The word of the cross interrogates anthropology as well as philosophy, and so I present a hermeneutics of the cruciform self as well as a distinctly cruciform philosophy. Chapter 1 outlines the hermeneutical turn in philosophical anthropology, and argues that the self is constituted in being addressed by an external word. Chapter 2 then draws on Luther's theology of the cross to sketch an ontology of justification by faith, in which the self is constituted by eschatological possibility rather than achieved actuality, and stands outside of itself with its identity in another, in promise rather than presence. Chapter 3 interprets sin and evil according to the image of incurvature--i.e., the self curved in on itself, cut off from its true relations to God, others, and itself. Chapter 4 then argues that this incurvature must be broken open by an external word. There I draw on Bonhoeffer's phenomenological christology, which identifies this word as Christ, the Counter-Logos who reverses the intentionality and interrogation of the immanent human logos. The chapters in Part II then use Bonhoeffer's account of the ultimate and the penultimate to show how the word of the cross refigures philosophical thinking about the concreteness and continuity of faith (Ch.5), human capability, agency, and ethical responsibility (Ch.6), reflexivity, self-understanding, and intentionality (Ch.7), and the tension between faith and religion (Ch.8). / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.