Theologies in contemporary period

1. CONTEMPORARY
THEOLOGIES
Domenic Marbaniang
CENTRAL INDIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

2. UNDERSTANDING
THIS AGE
Modern Period (19th
& Early 20th
Centuries)
Post-Modern Period (Late 20th
Century)
Post-Postmodern Period (21st
Century)

3. MODERN PERIOD (19TH
& EARLY 20TH
CENTURIES)
Rationalism
Scientific Temper
Utopianism
Secularism
Skepticism
Liberalism

4. POST-MODERN PERIOD
(LATE 20TH
CENTURY)
Mood Against Truth (No Absolutes)
Rejection of Reason
Emphasis on Style over Substance
Privatization of Morals (Morals are personal)
Pluralism
Image or Virtual Culture
Rejection of Metanarratives

5. POST-POSTMODERN
AGE (21ST
C)
Intense Globalization and Trans-nationalism
Intense Fundamentalism
Return to Modernism
Between Modernism and Post-modernism
Neo-romanticism (Attempting to turn finite into infinite)
Pseudo-modernism (Internet Culture of Clicks, Likes, and
Downloads)

6. LIBERALISM
Friedrich Schliermacher, Harold De Wolf
1. Rationalism and Scientific Temper
2. Genesis 1-11 as Mythological. Not Literal. No Original Sin.
3. Hyper Contextualization of Theology
4. Emphasis on Natural Theology (Natural Religion)
5. Anti-orthodoxy, Anti-traditionalism
6. Scientific Method
7. Emphasis on Experience or Empirical Research
8. Undermining of Sin
9. Division of Jesus of History from Christ of Faith
10. Rejection of Fundamentals such as Trinity, Original Sin, Virgin
Birth, Inerrancy of Bible, Atonement, Second Coming

7. NEO-ORTHODOXY
Karl Barth, Emil Brunner
1. Emphasis on Biblical Encounter Revelation (Barth called
natural theology as demonic; Brunner accepted it)
2. Emphasis on the Transcendence of God. God is the
“wholly other”
3. Emphasis on Regeneration by Grace from Original Sin
4. Personal Revelation, Not Propositional Revelation.
Encountering Christ as the Word.
5. Christo-centric Theology

8. PROCESS THEOLOGY
A.N.Whitehead, Teilhard De Chardin, Charles Hartshorne
1. God is mutable, temporal, and passible (i.e. affected by
the world)
2. Everything, including God, is in process
3. Everything in nature has value, every living being is
equally important. Eco-centric Theology
4. The world is in some sense part of God (Panentheism)
5. God is in some sense a physical or material being.
6. Emphasis on freewill
7. God feels how we feel without feeling as we feel (e.g. God
feels our fear of death but He doesn’t fear death)

9. EXISTENTIAL THEOLOGY
Soren Kierkegaard, Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann
1. Existence precedes essence
2. Emphasis on Being
3. God as the Ground of Being (God Above God)
4. Christ is the manifestation of the New Being
5. Authentic Existence
6. Anthropo-centric Theology
7. Demythologization

10. SECULAR THEOLOGY
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Harvey Cox
1. Secularization as a Biblical Process in History
2. Emancipation of Church from State
3. Religionless Christianity
4. Church as Witness
5. Church as Transforming Factor

11. DEATH OF GOD SCHOOL
Gabriel Vahanian, Paul Van Buren, William Hamilton, John
A.T. Robinson, Thomas J. J. Altizer, John D. Caputo
1. Contemporary culture is godless
2. God is Dead Vs There is No God
3. Do-It-Yourself Religion (Don’t wait for God)
4. Anti-Traditional
5. Engagement with (not isolation from) the World
6. Churchless Christianity

12. LIBERATION THEOLOGY
Martin Luther Jr. King, Desmond Tutu, Arvind Nirmal, V.
Devasahayam, Mary Daly, Rosemary Radford Ruether.
1. Social Christianity
2. Justice & Equality
3. Black Liberation Theology
4. Feminist Liberation Theology
5. Dalit Liberation Theology
6. Palestinian Liberation Theology

13. DOMINION
THEOLOGY
R. J. Rushdoony, Gary North, Peter Wagner
1. Christian Reconstructionism: Calvinism, Cessationism,
Post-millenialism, Biblical Law
2. Kingdom Now Theology: Apostolic and Prophetic
Movement, Restoration, Spiritual Warfare
3. 7 Spheres: Mild Dominionism. Christians must ascend
peaks of the mountains of cultural influence: Arts,
Business, Church (Religion), Development and Media,
Education, Family, Government, (Health).