Hans Frei and David Tracy on the ordinary and the extraordinary in Christianity

© 1999 University of Chicago Press. Published version reproduced with the permission of the publisher

Kathryn Tanner and the Receptivity of Christ and the Church

In conversation with Kathryn Tanner’s Christology, I argue that Jesus’ receptivity matters. He is who he is, and his story goes the way it goes, only because of what he receives and goes on receiving from all that surrounds him. Similarly, Jesus’ church grows and learns by what it encounters in the world. These encounters can be occasions for the work of the Spirit upon it, drawing it into the life that God has established in the world in Jesus. Neither Jesus’ incarnate life nor the life of the church should be conceived as involving preservation from creaturely interaction and dependence

Religious Literacy in the Context of Theology and Religious Studies

‘Theology and Religious Studies’ has become, in the UK, a catch-all phrase for the academic study of religion. Several universities have a ‘Department of Theology and Religious Studies’ (Kings College London, Nottingham, Leeds, Chester, Glasgow, and several others), advocacy for the field is carried out by a body called ‘Theology and Religious Studies UK’ (TRS UK, formerly the Association of University Departments of Theology and Religious Studies, or AUDTRS), and in 2000 representatives of British university departments of divinity, theology, religion, religious studies, biblical studies and various combinations of those terms met under the auspices of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and agreed on a ‘benchmarking statement’ for the field using the phrase ‘Theology and Religious Studies’ as their heading