Polydoxy: Theology of Multiplicty and Relation

[Edward theurj Berge]

A relatively new book edited by Catherine Keller and Laurel C. Schneider (Taylor and Francis, 2010). See sneak preview at Google Books. From their Introduction:

"In recent years a discernible movement within theology has emerged around a triune intuition: the daunting differences of multiplicity, the evolutionary uncertainty it unfolds, and the relationality that it implies are not problems to be overcome in religious thought. They are starting points for it. Divinity understood in terms of multiplicity, open-endedness, and relationality now forms a matrix of revelation rather than a distortion, or evidence of its lack. The challenges and passions of theological creativity blossoming at the edges of tradition and at the margins of power have show themselves, far from being distractions from doctrinal or doxological integrity, to be indispensable to its life. And this vitality belies at once the dreary prophesies or pure secularism and the hard grip of credulous certainties."

 

[DavidM58]

Quite comprehensive, except I see nothing on the specific role of energy, (apart from the effects of fossil energy on our biosphere).  Nothing on peak oil/energy depletion.

I do see that, in addition to Catherine Keller, and many other presenters, Nick Hedlund-DeWitt and Sean Kelly are both on the roster.

The 66 page pdf of the program (!) is here.

Ambo Suno said:

Uuhhmm - that's moving, B & DM. And the wheel of concerns at a glance seems quite comprehensive.





Balder said:

This looks like it might be interesting.

"I have two of the most beautiful, intelligent, and lovable great-grandchildren in the world. At 89 years of age, I know I won’t have the chance to see them much longer.

What saddens me is that I’m not leaving them a world nearly as hospitable as the one I was born into, or with such promising prospects.

So I’ve decided there’s one thing I want to do before I go: help lay the foundations, not just for an environmentally sustainable fix here or there, but for an ecological civilization.

Toward this end, I’m organizing with others the largest transdisciplinary conference ever held on behalf of the planet. We’re bringing together more than 700 presenters to discuss some 80 different topics, all focused on the foundations needed for a civilization radically different than what we’re living in – an ecological one.

Why are we doing this? I realize that we have already passed the point where changes in our behavior will prevent extensive decay. Now it is just a matter of how bad it will be. But “how bad” is still a very important matter. It is too late to prevent extensive suffering. But it is not too late to make some difference.

I am convinced that we won’t change direction until we change the way we think. We can’t solve the problems of environmental and social decay while employing the very ideas that have caused it...."

[DavidM58]

theurj,

I'm still trying to figure out what she's trying to say in the quote below. Can you translate? Is she encouraging theology to take on deconstruction and pluralism, or arguing for a more constructive approach instead?

theurj said:

Common Goods: Economy, Ecology, and Political Theology (Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia (FUP)) Paperback – September 1, 2015 by Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre (Editor), Catherine Keller (Editor), Elias Ortega-Aponte (Editor)

Also recall this article, "Theopoetic/Theopolitic" by Keller and Caputo. An excerpt:

Keller: "Progressive theopolitics [...] does need concurrence on the formal criteria of progress: the actualization of social, ecological and planetary relations of justice with sustainability. [...] The more theology absorbs the methods of deconstruction and pluralism, the more the opposition between secularism and religion can itself be deconstructed. [...] Indeed ironically it may have been Hardt and Negri, those radically democratic and secular socialists, who kicked me into the evangelical register."

[Balder]

A good review of The Cloud of the Impossible in The Christian Century.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Some of the review reminded me of the commentary on the ITC, like this:

"To borrow a phrase from John Caputo, for Keller this dream theology is 'not what we say about God but how we DO God.'”

And this on the current system:

"In its primary meaning, Keller argues, globalization 'signifies the neoliberal corporate economics' of oil and is leaving in its wake an interconnected world that is suffocating and strangling the shared life of creatures. For many in this relational globalized world, it is becoming impossible to breath."

And on Cameron's critique of IT:

"For Keller, Nicholas of Cusa’s negative theology and its continual repetition 'God is not' offers not 'mastery over the mystery' of God but an intensification of mystery. And this intensification be­comes an opening of our relations with God to the mystery of infinite possibility, to the mysterious possibility that all things are possible."

[Edward theurj Berge]

One can download a copy of Polydoxy here. And Cloud of the Impossible here.