AAR-SE Constructive Theologies Call for Papers

The 2017 American Academy of Religion--Southeast Region Constructive Theologies Call for Papers is now available. See link following the section CFP below for new submission instructions this year (online form plus e-mail to section chairs).


AAR: Constructive Theologies

In keeping with the conference theme “Utopia and Dystopia,” the Constructive Theologies section invites proposals for presentations on the theme of eschatology, broadly construed. Topics for consideration might include the relationship between future-oriented and realized eschatology; visualizations of the Kingdom/Kin-dom of God; eschatology and ecology; eschatology and embodiment; etc. Constructive Theologies also invites proposals for three co-sponsored sessions: (1) “The Reformation, 500 Years Later” with History of Christianity; (2) “Theological Visions of Hope amidst Modern Dystopias” with Bible and Modern Culture; and (3) “Womanist Practical Theology” with Women, Gender and Religion. For the co-sponsored session on Womanist Practical Theology, we especially seek papers that explore how womanist theological approaches interrogate, disrupt, and enrich theological scholarship, pedagogy, or activism. Contact Steven R. Harmon, Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity (sharmon@gardner-webb.edu) and Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandolfo, Wake Forest University School of Divinity (gandoleo@wfu.edu) with any questions. http://secsor.org/uncategorized/2017-call-for-papers-available

Lutheran–Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017

Several media outlets have reported the announcement of the joint publication by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church of From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017. (Ecumenical News, for example, posted "Catholics, Lutherans launch historic joint document on Reformation" on July 18.) A PDF of the full 93-page document is available for free download on the Lutheran World Federation web site. I hope Christians of all communions will read, mark, and inwardly digest this publication and contemplate how they might receive these convergences beyond the sixteenth-century divisions of the church in the West.

While this is a most welcome ecumenical development, it is not unanticipated, for it represents the harvest and synthesis of almost fifty years of sustained Lutheran-Catholic ecumenical dialogue that involved rigorous mutual biblical, historical, and theological scholarship. The following documents issued by the Lutheran-Catholic joint commissions over the years (published among other places in the three-volume Growth in Agreement series issued by the World Council of Churches) represent the foundational work for this exciting publication:

Phase I (1967–1972)

The Gospel and the Church (Malta Report – 1972)

Phase II (1973–1984)

The Eucharist (1978)

All Under One Christ (1980)
Ways to Community (1980)
The Ministry in the Church (1981)
Martin Luther – Witness to Christ (1983)
Facing Unity – Models, Forms and Phases of Catholic-Lutheran Church Fellowship (1984)

Phase III (1986–1993)

Church and Justification (1993)

Phase IV (1995–2006)

Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (31 October 1999)
The Apostolicity of the Church (2006)