Lectures
Upcoming Lectures by AST Resident Visiting Scholar Morgan Bell
Free and open to all | No registration required
Both lectures take place in person at AST’s St. Columba Chapel, 634 Francklyn Street, Halifax, NS
Thursday, April 4, 2024, at 7:00 pm
"Show Us the Father": The Absence of Patriology in Modern Theology
In the 20th century, the doctrine of the Trinity was taken up with great vigour by a wide range of theologians. Each year, scores of monographs are published on pneumatology and christology. Yet there exist next to no sustained theological treatments of patriology: the doctrine of the First Person of the Trinity. Why? This lecture will explore how dogmatic decisions made by 19th century theologians set the scene for the contemporary dearth in patriology before suggesting some ways in which the theology of Karl Barth may be engaged to articulate a substantive doctrine of the First Person.
Thursday, May 23, 2024, at 7:00 pm
Creaturely and Divine Paternities: The Analogy of Faith and Gender Performativity
To the extent that the doctrine of the First Person has been studied in recent decades, critical examination of the gendered/gendering dimensions of confessing God as 'Father' have proved the lion's share of this work. To name God as 'Father' seems to divinize masculinity and reinscribe the 'rule of the father.' Engaging queer scholarship on gender performativity, this lecture will examine how Karl Barth's understanding of the analogical relationship between divine and creaturely fathers can provide resources to fund a robust Christian confession of God as the Father of Jesus Christ while working consciously to destabilize cisheteropatriarchy.