Blessed are the Undone: Testimonies of the Quiet Deconstruction of Faith in Canada,

Blessed are the Undone: Testimonies of the Quiet Deconstruction of Faith in Canada, Angela Reitsma Bick & Peter Schuurman. Foreword by Neal DeRoo. New Leaf Press, 2024.

Available at: New Leaf Press

Publisher's Overview:

Canadian Christians frustrated with the Church have come ‘Undone’ and are leaving politely, almost apologetically, in what this book dubs a Quiet Deconstruction. Blessed are the Undone asks: what aspects of faith are being questioned, and why?

Weaving in church history, cultural analysis and their personal stories, Bick and Schuurman use canoe camping to illustrate the twists and turns of the spiritual journey. Whether you feel like you’re up the creek without a paddle when it comes to faith, or if people you love have lost their bearings, this book is for you.

This book neither condemns nor condones the trend of those deconstructing their faith. It seeks to describe and document the Canadian “deconstructing faith” scene while also providing a theological and sociological frame through which to understand it. Provocative, critical, fair, and focused on Canadian concerns, this book opens a window of well-researched appraisal.

Nature and Grace: The Spirituality of Existence

Nicholas Ansell, Nature and Grace: The Spirituality of Existence" (Chapter 22), in T&T Clark Handbook of the Doctrine of Creation. Jason Goroncy, ed. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.

Available at: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc.


Publisher's Overview:

The T&T Clark Handbook of the Doctrine of Creation provides an expansive range of resources introducing the doctrine of creation as understood in Christian traditions. It offers an examination of: how the Bible and various Christian traditions have imagined creation; how the doctrine of creation informs and is informed by various dogmatic commitments; and how the doctrine of creation relates to a range of human concerns and activities.

The Handbook represents a celebration of, fascination with, bewilderment at, lament about, and hope for all that is, and serves as a scholarly, innovative, and constructive reference for those interested in attending to what Christian belief has to contribute to thinking about and living with the mysterious existence named 'creation'.

"Knowing" in Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God

"Knowing," chapter by Calvin G. Seerveld, in Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God. Edited by Ned Bustard (Baltimore: Square Halo Books, Inc., 2023) pp. 71-74.

[231 pages, ISBN 9781941106297]

Find it on: Square Halo Books

Over forty writers celebrate Square Halo’s twenty-fifth anniversary with essays on such topics as knitting, home repair, juggling, traffic, pipes, chronic pain, pretzels, and naps.

Philosophies of Liturgy: Explorations of Embodied Religious Practice

Philosophies of Liturgy: Explorations of Embodied Religious Practice. Edited by J. Aaron Simmons, Bruce Ellis Benson, Neal DeRoo. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.

Available at: Bloomsbury Academic

Publisher's Overview:

Mainstream philosophy of religion has primarily focused on the truth and justification of religious beliefs even though belief is only one small facet of religious life. This collection remedies this by taking practice and embodied action seriously as fundamental elements of any philosophy of religion.

Emerging and established voices across different philosophical traditions come together to consider religious actions, including public worship, from perspectives such as trauma and social ontology, sound and silence, and knowledge and hope. Embodied religious practice is viewed through the lens of liturgy, intrinsically connecting religious rituals to human existence to show clearly that, no matter where one finds oneself in terms of the so-called 'analytic-continental' divide, philosophy of religion must be concerned with more than just beliefs if it is to adequately deal with the subject matter of 'religion.'

The purpose of these studies is not to reject what has gone before but to expand the focus of philosophy of religion. This approach lays the groundwork for investigations into how beliefs are situated in our theological, moral, and social frameworks. For any philosophy of religion student or scholar interested in how thinking and living well are intimately related, this is a go-to resource. It takes seriously the importance of historical religious traditions and communities, opening the space for cross-cultural and interdisciplinary debates.


Table of Contents

Part I: On Spiritual Practice

1. Clare Carlisle – “What is Spiritual Practice”

2. Christina M. Gschwandtner – “Why Philosophy Should Concern Itself with Liturgy: Philosophical Examination of Religion and Ritual Practice''

3. John Cottingham – “Engagement, Immersion, and Enactment: The Role of Spiritual Practice in Religious Belief”

4. John Sanders – “Liturgical Jellyfish”

Part II: Liturgy and Social Existence

5. Michelle Panchuk – “Power and Protest: A Christian Liturgical Response to Religious Trauma”

6. Bruce Ellis Benson – “Religion as a Way of Life: On Being a Believer”

7. Terence Cuneo – “Blessing Things”

8. Kevin Schilbrack – “Liturgical Groups, Religions, and Social Ontology”

Part III: Materiality and Religiosity

9. Neal DeRoo – “Material Spirituality and the Expressive Nature of Liturgy”

10. Wendy Farley – “Dark Times and Liturgies of Truth: The Uses and Abuses of Reason”

11. Sharon L. Baker Putt – “Compassionate Action: Taking Eckhart, Farley, and the Beguines to Bethany”

12. Emmanuel Falque – “After Metaphysics?: The 'Weight of Life' According to Saint Augustine”

Part IV: Knowledge, Sound, and Hope

13. Nicholas Wolterstorff – “Knowing God by Liturgically Addressing God”

14. Sarah Coakley – “Beyond Belief: Liturgy and Cognitive Apprehension of God”

15. Joshua Cockayne – “Corporate Liturgical Silence”

16. Brian A. Butcher – “'You Have Given Us the Grace to Pray Together in Harmony':

Orthodox Liturgical Singing as a Criterion for (Philosophical? Theological?) Aesthetics"

17. J. Aaron Simmons and Eli Simmons – “Liturgy and Eschatological Hope”

Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings: Scholarly and Artistic Comment on Art, Truth, and Society in Honour of Lambert Zuidervaart

Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings: Scholarly and Artistic Comment on Art, Truth, and Society in Honour of Lambert Zuidervaart. Currents in Reformational Thought series. Edited by Héctor Acero Ferrer, Michael DeMoor, Peter Enneson and Matthew Klaassen. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2021.

Available at: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Publisher's Overview:

Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings pays tribute to Lambert Zuidervaart, one of the most productive Reformational philosophers of the present generation, by picking up the central concerns of his philosophical work--art, truth, and society--and working with the legacy of his published concern to see what more can be understood about our world in light of that legacy. Zuidervaart is an internationally recognized expert in critical theory, especially the work of Theodor Adorno, and a leading systematic philosopher in the reformational tradition. His research and teaching range across continental philosophy, epistemology, social philosophy, and philosophy of art, with an emphasis on Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Habermas. He is currently developing a new conception of truth for an allegedly post-truth society. At the Institute for Christian Studies (2002-2016), Zuidervaart held the Herman Dooyeweerd Chair in Social and Political Philosophy and served as founding Director of the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics. He was also an Associate Member of the Graduate Faculty and Full Professor, status only, in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, and a member of the Advanced Degree Faculty at the Toronto School of Theology. Zuidervaart is currently a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings seeks to promote new scholarship emerging from the rich and dynamic tradition of reformational intellectual inquiry. Believing that all scholarly endeavor is rooted in and oriented by deep spiritual commitments, reformational scholarship seeks to add its unique Christian voice to discussions about leading questions of life and society. From this source, it seeks to contribute to the redemptive transformation and renewal of the various aspects of contemporary society, developing currents of thought that open human imagination to alternative future possibilities that may helpfully address the damage we find in present reality. 

As part of this work, Currents in Reformational Thought will bring to light the inter-and multi-disciplinary dimensions of this intellectual tradition, and promote reformational scholarship that intentionally invites dialogue with other traditions or streams of thought.

Contributors:

Ronald A. Kuipers

Robert Sweetman

Janet Wesselius

Hendrik Hart

Calvin Seerveld

Joshua Lee Harris

Michael J. DeMoor

Shannon Hoff

Allyson Carr

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin

Rebekah Smick

Henry Luttikhuizen

Lauren Bialystok

Karen Nisenbaum

Martin Jay

Clarence Joldersma

Jonathan Chaplin

Artistic Contributors:

Joyce Recker

Michaeleen Kelly

Linda Nemec Foster

Sue Sinclair

Diane Zeeuw

Deborah Rockman

Jay Constantine

Ron and Miriam Pederson

Janet Read

Kunst D.V. (Neo)calvinistische perspectieven op esthetica, kunstgeschiedenis en kunsttheologie

Kunst D.V. (Neo)calvinistische perspectieven op esthetica, kunstgeschiedenis en kunsttheologie, eds. Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker and Roger D. Henderson. Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn Motief, 2020. ISBN 978-94-6369-070-6 [Dutch]

Selected Chapter Titles:

"Verbeelding, kunst en civil society: een nieuwe kijk op neocalvinistische esthetica" (pp. 223-46), and "Verlossende kunstkritiek: Earth’s Lament van Joyce A. Recker"(pp. 247-52) [Dutch translation by Arend Smilde and Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker] by Lambert Zuidervaart

"De aureool van de menselijke verbeelding" (pp. 169-192), and "De betekenis van de kruisiging: Grünewald en Perugino" (pp. 193-7) by Calvin G. Seerveld

"Calvijn en kunst: zuivere visie of blinde vlek?" (pp. 51-60), "Kunst, lichaam en gevoel: Nieuwe wegen voorde calvinistische esthetica," (pp. 253-271), and "Chris Ofili: Hedendaagse kunst en de terugkeer van religie" (pp. 272-278) by Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin

Find it on: Buijten & Schipperheijn

Kunst D.V. is a handsome, hefty volume (374 pages, untranslated) in the Dutch language. After a succinct introduction there are four sections. The editors and Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin explicate the roots of the Calvinian faith-thought tradition toward the arts found in Jean Calvin, Abraham Kuyper, and Dooyeweerd. Then Hans Rookmaaker, E. John Walford and James Romaine exemplify how art history can be done in a perspective sensitive to a Christian world-and-life vision. Calvin Seerveld, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lambert Zuidervaart, and Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin show how their communal focus on aesthetic theory can contribute to understanding imaginative and artistic realities. Finally the "theology of art" tack is introduced by Wessel Stoker, William Edgar, and Victoria Emily Jones. The many colour reproductions are of excellent quality, the notes are substantial, and various of the authors take issue with the characteristic ideas of the other writers for a lively, open-ended, up to date introduction to the important contribution made by thinkers regarding art and aesthetics in the line of Reformational Christian philosophical reflection.

— Calvin G. Seerveld

Mystical Landscapes: From Vincent van Gogh to Emily Carr

"'The Second Book of God': Protestant Mysticism." Rebekah Smick. In Mystical Landscapes: From Vincent Van Gogh to Emily Carr Ed. Katharine Lochnan. Art Gallery of Ontario & Musée d'Orsay. DelMonico Books - Prestel. November 2016.

Find it at: Random House

Publisher's Overview:

This richly illustrated volume explores mystical themes in European, Scandinavian, and North American landscape paintings from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Beautifully illustrated with works by Emily Carr, Marc Chagall, Arthur Dove, Paul Gauguin, Lawren Harris, Gustav Klimt, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Georgia O’Keeffe, Vincent van Gogh and James McNeill Whistler, among others.

Common to their work is the expression of the spiritual crisis that arose in society and the arts in reaction to the disillusionments of the modern age, and against the malaise that resulted in the Great War. Many artists turned their backs on institutional religion, searching for truth in universal spiritual philosophies. This book includes essays investigating mystical landscape genres and their migration from Scandinavia to North America, with a focus upon the Group of Seven and their Canadian and American counterparts.

Accompanying an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Musée d’Orsay, this book offers a penetrating look at the Symbolist influence on the landscape genre.

Sin Has Its Place, But All Shall Be Well: The Universalism of Hope in Julian of Norwich

Sweetman, Robert. "Sin Has Its Place, But All Shall Be Well: the Universalism of Hope in Julian of Norwich (c. 1342-c. 1416)." In "All Shall Be Well": Explorations in Universalism and Christian Theology from Origen to Moltmann, pp. 66-92. Ed. Gregory MacDonald. Eugene OR: Cascade Books, 2011.

This study of the Shewings of Julian of Norwich explores the nature of the medieval anchoress’ “universalism.” It places the literary forms she used to contruct her text within the framework of medieval rhetorical theory. It does so in order to lay bear the fundamental dynamic of the text. She is not interested in providing our intellects a theodicy by which to fit all of the units of existence within a universal conceptual frame. Rather, she is interested in providing just that basis of plausibility which can ground and so enable hope’s characteristic motion. And Christian hope as she shows is universal in its extension even as graced will is measureless.

Faith Order Understanding: Natural Theology in the Augustinian Tradition - Foreword

Sweetman, Robert. "Foreword." In Faith Order Understanding: Natural Theology in the Augustinian Tradition, by Louis H. Mackey, pp. xi-xxiii. Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies Publications, 2011.

This piece attempts to locate the posthumously published study of natural theology in the Augustinian tradition which follows it within the life work of the American historian of philosophy Louis H. Mackey. It places the study within Mackey’s lifelong attraction to the Augustinian tradition both in its theological and philosophical expressions. It accounts for his attraction in terms of the light that tradition shines on the intersection of philosophy and literature in and through the self-consciously literary way it works with the relationship between language, meaning and reality. It is in this way that the tradition participates in the perennial dialectic of faith and reason. The study shows how Mackey uses the medieval chapters of the Augustinian tradition to identify an “anatomy” of the as yet unbroken tradition within Western philosophy, an anatomy that one finds again in his other philosophical interests: Kierkegaard and Derrida.

This Is Her Body: Judges 19 as Call to Discernment

Nik Ansell. “This Is Her Body . . . : Judges 19 as Call to Discernment” in Tamar’s Tears: Evangelical Engagements with Feminist Old Testament Hermeneutics, ed. Andrew Sloane (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011), chapter 5, 112–70

This study responds to Phyllis Trible’s claim that Judges 19 is a “Text of Terror” in a double sense because it not only portrays events that are truly horrifying, but does so in a way that adds to the betrayal of the unnamed woman. Consequently, in her view, God’s call to compassion comes to us by means of a text that is itself in need of redemption. Building on one of Trible’s underdeveloped insights, this essay explores the intra-textual relationship between Judg 19 and the Achsah-Caleb-Othniel paradigm of Judg 1 to see how Old Testament “wisdom thinking”––in which patriarchal gender symbolism is subtly yet powerfully undermined––can help us discern the redemptive-historical potential of this unnerving narrative.

Amor Mundi in a (Post)Liberal Era: The Relevance of an Arendtian Theme for Christian Self‐Understanding Today

Kuipers, Ronald A.. “Amor Mundi in a (Post)Liberal Era: The Relevance of an Arendtian Theme for Christian Self‐Understanding Today,” in Jerald D. Gort, et. al., eds., Crossroad Discourses Between Christianity and Culture. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2010: 85-106.

Privatization, the liberal political strategy for handling religious differences, has been criticized for hegemonically privileging a secularist worldview and for refusing to provide full public scope to the plurality of religious traditions that exist in contemporary democratic societies. For these and other reasons, it is important to explore alternatives to privatization that do not thereby neglect the importance of maintaining citizen solidarity in these societies. This essay explores the potential that amor mundi, a fundamental theme of Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy, has for addressing this vexing issue. In doing so, it also asks whether Arendt’s thematization of the human position between past and future, amidst the demise of tradition, holds any lessons for contemporary Christians. What would it mean for today’s Christian to love a world that has, for both good and ill, become what it is, from out of a past that remains to be discovered, in its full plurality and natal potentiality? Can Christian faith, at the end of the day, do without amor mundi?

New wineskins: Subverting the 'sacred story' of schooling.

Blomberg, Douglas Gordon. “New Wineskins: Subverting the ‘Sacred Story’ of Schooling.” In Christian Higher Education in the Global Context: Implications for Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Administration, pp. 119-214. Ed. N. Lantinga. Sioux Center, IA: Dordt Press, 2008.

If Christian elementary and secondary schools are better to reflect the primacy of experiential knowing as this typifies a biblical wisdom perspective, institutions of higher education need to change their practices. The way in which teachers are taught is one of the most significant influences on the way in which teachers teach. It is relatively futile to pour the new wine of Christian education (as education for discipleship) within the old wineskin of theory into practice (education for the disciplines).

Metaphysics after Auschwitz: Suffering and Hope in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics.

Zuidervaart, Lambert. “Metaphysics After Auschwitz: Suffering and Hope in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics.” In Adorno and the Need in Thinking: New Critical Essays, pp. 133-62. Ed. Donald Burke et al. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.

Adorno’s Negative Dialectics challenges the assumption that contemporary philosophy needs to be “postmetaphysical.” Philosophy must incorporate “metaphysical experience,” he argues. Otherwise it cannot engage in thorough social critique, remain unswervingly self-critical, and hold open historical possibilities for a different society. Revising Adorno’s famous claim about poetry after Auschwitz, I suggest that to write suffering and hope out of philosophy is barbaric. Contemporary philosophy cannot afford self-imposed silence in an age of global destruction. Much of this essay appears, lightly revised, in Chapters 1 and 2 of  Social Philosophy after Adorno (Cambridge UP, 2007).

The formation of character: spirituality seeking justice.

Blomberg, Douglas Gordon. “The Formation of Character: Spirituality Seeking Justice.” In Spirituality, Justice and Pedagogy, pp. 91-110. Eds. John Shortt Smith & John Sullivan. Nottingham, UK: The Stapleford Centre, 2006.

One’s perspective on humanness is a crucial determinant of one’s view of education. A Christian virtue ethics, honouring the creational, communal context in which the virtues develop, supports a conception of educational purposes as the getting of wisdom. Spirituality goes “all the way down,” to our fundamental choices concerning whom or what we will serve. Justice is a primary spiritual value; because full flourishing consists in persons standing in right relationships with God and all that God has made, the formation of virtuous character requires spirituality that seeks after justice.

Reconciling a Shattered Modernity: Habermas on the Enduring Relevance of the Judeo-Christian Ethical Tradition

Kuipers, Ronald A.. “Reconciling a Shattered Modernity: Habermas on the Enduring Relevance of the Judeo-Christian Ethical Tradition,” in Lieven Boeve, et. al., eds., Faith in the Enlightenment? The Critique of Enlightenment Revisited. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2006: 123-42.

Jürgen Habermas readily owns the evidence his work portrays of an ongoing engagement with explicitly Judeo-Christian theological themes and religious sources of meaning. This engagement, evident throughout most of his career, may at first come as a surprise to those who think of him primarily as a staunch defender of the Enlightenment’s confidence in the liberating power of rational argument, as well as the historical processes of secularization that have tended to flow from that confidence. What may seem even more surprising to those who think of him in this way is the fact that his engagement with religion is not only or even predominantly critical in nature (although it definitely includes strong elements of that). In contrast, this engagement often reveals a willingness on Habermas’ part to treat his religious interlocutors on an equal footing, as dialogue partners from whom he might have something to learn. Their attendance to religious sources of meaning, he thinks, has proven capable of providing unique insights from which secular children of the Enlightenment like himself can still derive benefit. In this essay, I explore the respect Habermas’ shows for the ethical impulse he finds beating within differing manifestations of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition.

Ways of wisdom: multiple modes of meaning in pedagogy and andragogy.

Blomberg, Douglas Gordon. “Ways of Wisdom: Multiple Modes of Meaning in Pedagogy and Andragogy.” In Ways of Knowing: In Concert, pp. 123-146. Ed. J. Kok. Sioux Center, IA: Dordt Press, 2005.

This article is motivated by twin concerns. The first is with the talents of people that are often unrecognised in schools. The second is the Bible’s teaching on gifts, hand in hand with its central injunction to seek God’s justice. The shape of formal education is fundamentally an issue of justice: how may we deal equitably with the lives of young people compelled to submit to a regime that is supposed to do them good? I explore the understanding that knowing has many forms besides the analytical, that the love of wisdom rather than the acquisition of knowledge should be primary, and how an approach building on these themes would promote the goals of “quality schooling”.

Beryl Smalley, Thomas of Cantimpré, and the Performative Reading of Scripture: A Study in Two Exempla

Sweetman, Robert. "Beryl Smalley, Thomas of Cantimpré, and the Performative Reading of Scripture: a Study in Two Exempla." In With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, pp. 256-275. Eds. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W. Goering. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

This study uses a number of preaching stories included within Thomas of Cantimpré’s “Book of Bees” to examine Beryl Smalley’s account of the evolution of scholarly approaches to the Scriptures in the context of the rise of the universities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It expands historical understanding of the literal sense of scriptures to account for a performative mode of literal reading in which one’s subsequent living exegetes the scripture that one is or has been studying. The life of St. Francis of Assisi provides an exemplary case in point.

Thomas of Cantimpré: Performative Reading and Pastoral Care

Sweetman, Robert. "Thomas of Cantimpré: Performative Reading and Pastoral Care." In Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality, pp. 133-167. Eds. Mary A. Suydam and Joanna E. Ziegler. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.

This study uses a typology of reading modes to examine preaching stories included within the “Book of Bees” of Thomas of Cantimpré in order to identify contrasting modes of reading within Thomas of Cantimpré’s own practice. In so doing, it identifies a mode of reading, performative reading, that emerges from the spiritual orientation to existence implicit within “having faith” and its resulting religious practices, one that contrasts with what might be termed “scholarly reading,” that mode in which one reads for information rather than personal transformation.

Thomas of Cantimpré, Mulieres Religiosae, and Purgatorial Piety: Hagiographical Vitae and the Beguine 'Voice'

Sweetman, Robert. "Thomas of Cantimpré, Mulieres Religiosae, and Purgatorial Piety: Hagiographical Vitae and the Beguine 'Voice'." In A Distinct Voice: Medieval Studies in Honor of Leonard E. Boyle, O.P., pp. 606-628. Ed. Jacqueline Brown and William P. Stoneman. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996.

This study explores and identifies criteria by which one is able to establish what the thirteenth-century Dominican Thomas of Cantimpré learned from women religious whose spirituality he was attracted to, sought to serve as preacher and confessor, and whose sanctity he sought to promote as a writer of saints’ lives. In so doing it shows how the distinctive character of his interest in Purgatory and in suffrages on behalf of one’s beloved dead cannot be explained by the commonplaces of a person of his religious identity, sex and education, nor by modern psychological expectations, but rather by patterns of piety he discovered among beguines of the Southern Low Countries he ministered to or heard tell of in and around Liège. In so doing the study disputes the widespread assumption found within many feminist and Annales-school histories that male mediations of medieval female religious experience covered over that experience such that it has been lost to us, root and branch.