Postmodern Theologies

An introduction and evaluation of contemporary approaches to theology, 'Postmodern Theologies' sets out to discern movements shaping the postmodern study of religion in a unique collaborative venture born of a postgraduate seminar at Florida State University. While some might say that theology after the death of God is like biology after the end of life - a discipline without a subject - 'Postmodern Theologies' identifies four general patterns of postmodernisms in theology today: constructive theologies (with Helmut Peukert, David Ray Griffin, and David Tracy cited as examples); postmodernisms of dissolution (Thomas J. J. Altizer, Mark C. Taylor, and Edith Wyschogrod); postliberal theologies (George Lindbeck); and communal praxis (exemplified by Gustavo Gutierrez and other Latin American theologians, and James Wm. McClendon and Sharon Welch among North Americans). These theologies eschew debates on traditional religious foundations to define true religion as the result of - rather than the impetus to - living one's beliefs. As these disparate approaches to theology are not directly comparable, the final chapter of 'Postmodern Theologies' instead analyzes how each one accounts for the plurality of religions. Exploring the postmodern strategies for coping with one of the most difficult questions in any theological age offers a fascinating way to assess their inherent strengths and weaknesses.

This introductory 2003 guide offers examples of different types of contemporary theology and Christian doctrine in relationship to postmodernity.

This book sorts out the confusion created by the use of the term “postmodern” in relation to widely divergent theological positions. Four different types of postmodern theology are distinguished in the preface: constructive, deconstructive, liberationist, and conservative. Two forms of each type are discussed in the book. Writing from a constructive, postmodern perspective, the authors enter into dialogue with the deconstructive postmodernism of Mark C. Taylor and Jean-François Lyotard, with the liberationist postmodernism of Harvey Cox and Cornel West, and with the conservative postmodernism of George William Rutler and John Paul II.

John Riggs argues for a common ground between postmodernism and Christianity, focusing on how this applies to issues such as reproductive rights and the ordination of women, gay men, and lesbians, and suggest that Christianity avoid the extreme positions of either completely accommodating itself to or completely rejecting postmodern culture.

This book sorts out the confusion created by the use of the term "postmodern" in relation to widely divergent theological positions. Four different types of postmodern theology are distinguished in the preface: constructive, deconstructive, liberationist, and conservative. Two forms of each type are discussed in the book. Writing from a constructive, postmodern perspective, the authors enter into dialogue with the deconstructive postmodernism of Mark C. Taylor and Jean-François Lyotard, with the liberationist postmodernism of Harvey Cox and Cornel West, and with the conservative postmodernism of George William Rutler and John Paul II.

This Companion provides a definitive collection of essays on postmodern theology, drawing on the work of those individuals who have made a distinctive contribution to the field, and whose work will be significant for the theologies written in the new millennium. The definitive collection of essays on postmodern theology, drawing on the work of those individuals who have made a distinctive contribution to the field. Each essay is introduced with a short account of the writer's previous work, enabling the reader to view it in context. Discusses the following desciplines: Aesthetics, Ethics, Gender, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Heideggerians, and Derrideans. Edited by Graham Ward, one of the most outstanding and original theologians working in the field today.

Postmodern Theology consists in a sharp-edged retrospective and reflection on the forty-year history of the most important movement in contemporary religious thought that is only now passing from the scene. The author, Dr. Carl Raschke, is generally credited with having sparked the movement, even if he did not always happen to be its leading spokesperson. Not only has a comprehensive survey of postmodern theology in all its different phases and complexity not been published prior to the appearance of this book, but it is even more remarkable for someone who both “launched” it and had a central role in shepherding it along to offer what may be termed a “movement memoir.” Postmodern Theology surveys and summarizes the major figures and trends that have given currency to such familiar expressions as “deconstruction,” “deconstructive theology,” “radical theology,” “a/theology,” “God is dead,” and of course, “postmodernism” itself. Dr. Raschke also contextualizes the emergence of these catchy phrases from a frothy soup of new intellectual theories and philosophical innovations, which were international in scope but customized for both academic and popular religious writers—mainly in Britain and America—from the late 1960s onward.

This book explores the relationship between postmodernism and Christianity. Whereas deconstructionists claim all religious discourses can be radically undermined, Ingraffia argues that the version of Christianity constructed by Nietzsche, Heidegger and especially Derrida ignores Christianity's unique ontological status. This truth, Ingraffia claims, is an unacknowledged influence on leading postmodernist thinkers, thereby demonstrating the priority of the Judaeo-Christian tradition over secular attempts to displace it.