NEW AND ENLARGED
HANDBOOK
OF CHRISTIAN
THEOLOGY
NEW AND ENLARGED
HANDBOOK
OF CHRISTIAN
THEOLOGY
Donald W. Musser AND Joseph L. Price, EDITORS
NEW AND ENLARGED HANDBOOK OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
Copyright © 1992, 2003 by Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801, or [email protected].
This book is printed on recycled, acid-free, elemental-chlorine–free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
New and enlarged handbook of Christian theology / Donald W. Musser and Joseph L. Price, editors.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: A new handbook of Christian theology. c1992.
ISBN 0-687-09112-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Theology—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Musser, Donald W., 1942- II. Price, Joseph L., 1949- III. New handbook of Christian theology.
BR95.N393 2003
230—dc21
2003005147
ISBN 13: 978-0-687-09112-6
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Mujerista Theology, pp. 332-34, by Ada María Isasi-Díaz. Reproduced from DICTIONARY OF FEMINIST THEOLOGIES. © 1996 Letty M. Russell and Shannon Clarkson. Used by permission of Westminster John Knox Press.
08 09 10 11 12—109 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To The Memory of Our Fathers
CLARENCE W. MUSSER (1904–1983)
G. NORMAN PRICE (1912–1980)
And In Honor of Our Mothers
THELMA MARGARET MUSSER (1914–)
ELIZABETH ANNE PRICE (1917–)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Collaborating on this expanded and revised edition of A New Handbook of Christian Theology has once again humbled and surprised us. Life’s vicissitudes and challenges disrupted what, at first, we thought would be what Peter Gomes, the chaplain at Harvard University, might call “polishing the silver.”
Our authors, especially the twenty-two fresh authors for new articles, have been graciously patient with us. We are very grateful to them.
We are particularly mindful of the foundation in theology and contemporary Christianity laid for us by our teachers at The University of Chicago Divinity School, especially Langdon Gilkey and Martin E. Marty. Several of our students, now themselves engaged in theological teaching and research, have cheered us on to completion. Don’s colleague, D. Dixon Sutherland, has had fermentive influence on our work. Lisa Guenther, secretary in the Religious Studies Department at Stetson University, has persistently moved the project along with her diligent work. Abington Press’s editorial staff has supported us all along the way.
Our work is dedicated in memory of our fathers and in honor of our mothers.
PREFACE TO THE ENLARGED AND REVISED EDITION
This edition of the New and Enlarged Handbook of Christian Theology is both expanded and updated. It contains twenty-six new articles, almost a 20 percent increase. Most essays from the first edition, published a decade ago, have been retained and revised. In many instances, their content has been updated to reflect the strong currents of theology in the last decade, and their bibliographies have been freshened.
The additions and revisions have been prompted by the ever-reforming nature of Christian theology. New theologies and movements have emerged, new topics have surfaced, and classic notions have been reframed. Along with more than 150 collaborators in this project, we are pleased to provide this volume as a resource for charting and navigating the theological currents at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Donald W. Musser
Joseph L. Price
June 2002
PREFACE (original)
In 1958 Marvin Halverson and Arthur A. Cohen jointly edited A Handbook of Christian Theology, a volume of 101 essays that served admirably to introduce students and interested laity to a basic understanding of theological terms, concepts, and trends. The volume went through more than twenty printings and helped four generations of students, including the co-editors and many of the contributors to the present work, to become fluent in the field. But because the cultural and religious situation has changed dramatically since the 1950s, the time has come for A New Handbook of Christian Theology, a compendium of 148 fresh articles to map the contours of a changed theological terrain.
The earlier Handbook appeared in a cultural and religious situation defined in the wake of World War II and the Korean War and in the initial gusts of the chilling winds of the cold war. Distinctly Protestant in focus, it bore the imprint of the neoorthodox (or neo-Reformation) theology and existential philosophy that characterized that era. Its bibliographies make frequent reference to the European giants of neoorthodox thought (Karl Barth, Donald and John Baillie, Emil Brunner, Rudolf Bultmann, Martin Buber, and Nicholas Berdyaev) and the progenitor of modern existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard. The voices of Roman Catholics, women, and minorities are barely audible in its pages.
More than three decades have passed since the initial publication of Cohen and Halverson’s Handbook, and theology has entered a revolutionary period in light of a new cultural situation. Theologians now work in the wake of the knowledge of the Holocaust, which has called for reappraisal of the doctrines of God and human being and suffering; the civil rights movement, which raised issues about the theological meaning of economics and justice and led to black theology; the Vietnam War, which brought fresh thought about peace and idolatry; the Second Vatican Council, which engaged Roman Catholicism with modern thought; the dialogue between the principal religious traditions in the world, which made pluralism a household word; the rise of feminism, which engendered alternative readings of the Bible and the history of doctrine and has led to proposals to rethink radically the content of the principal doctrines; and ecological threats to the future of the planet, which brought issues about science into the mainstream of theology. Classic theological topics in method and ethics boldly came to the forefront; new subjects such as the liberation theologies burst into view.
Although Catholic and Protestant theologians now collaborate more than ever because of the influence of the ecumenical movement, theology today claims no established method, no unified doctrine of revelation, and no common approach to appropriate the history of theology. Consequently, theologies have proliferated in