Another great model of a being "black and Reformed" is my old friend Vince Bacote, who now teaches theology at Wheaton College. A Neo-Calvinist, he is seeking to build on the ideas of Abraham Kuyper as he engages in the theological issues of the 21st Century (I have his paper, "A Neo-Kuyperian Assist to the Emergent Church" published here at VanguardChurch).
His latest article, "What is to be done in Theology?" is found at the Comment online magazine website. In it, he offers four items for an emerging 21st Century theological agenda:
- The further development of what it means to live as God's people in God's world--focusing on the Cultural Mandate of Genesis 1 as the "first Great Commission."
- The challenge of the commodification of our church experience--where people are discipled more by a mall-mentality than by the Christian understanding of "church."
- A rediscovery of the importance of the Holy Spirit--transforming a church that is functionally "binitarian" into a truly Trinitarian church.
- The rectification of deficiencies related to race and ethnicity in our theology--where Vince spells out some of his plans to engage with "liberation theology" as an acceptable theological category, and to employ Kuyperian sensibilities to the task.
Good stuff; check it out.
3 comments:
I've enjoyed Carter and I really like John Perkins. I haven't heard of Bacote until now. Thanks!
The only modification I would make is to that my
advocacy of the category of "liberation" doesn't mean an engagement with
liberation theology in the sense that I feel a need to do what Cone et al
have done, but instead to make a claim on liberation as a vital category
for the way that we think of the way salvation plays out in the here and
now. To put it differently, I think we can use the term without having to
carry the baggage of baptized Marxism or socialism that often goes with
other liberation theologies.
great clarification, Vince.
It sounds more like Christus Victor than 20th Century Liberation Theology.
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