Hans Boersma Violence Hospitality and the Cross Review
Hans Boersma: Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross
| November 30, 2006 | no comments
Hans Boersma takes a serious look at the traditional theories of atonement and investigates the role of violence in Christ's saving work. To speak of violence in the context of God's piece of work of salvation is both obvious and bold. It is obvious that the violent execution of Jesus stands at the center of the amende. At the same time, it is bold to speak of this violence as an attribute of God'due south nature. The cross stands at the centre of this tension between God's hospitality and the violent nature of salvation history. Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross unfolds on the footing of the paradox that all acts of hospitality in cosmos crave some degree of violence. Boersma challenges the reader to carry this language as well into an understanding of God.
Originally trained in the Netherlands, the Reformed theologian Hans Boersma now serves every bit the J. I. Packer Chair of Theology at Regent College. He takes seriously the challenges of Reformed theology in full general, and Calvin's view on election and predestination, in item. Nonetheless, Calvin is not the starting indicate for this book but rather a sounding board that allows Boersma to develop more fully his own theology of the atonement in the terms of hospitality.
The book consists of three parts addressing questions of violence in the context of divine hospitality. Part one sets the tone by introducing the possibility of speaking about God'due south hospitality in the face of violence. Part two focuses on the place of the cross in the amende tradition. Part three draws conclusions from the previous word for Christian life and the Church building as a community of hospitality. A short epilogue suggests the possibility for the end of all violence in the arrival of God'due south unconditional, eschatological hospitality.
The volume engages an impressive range of theological, biblical and philosophical sources. The starting point for the discussion is formed by questions of divine hospitality. The late modern contend has framed these questions largely in the context of the necessity and possibility of an unconditional and unlimited hospitality. Boersma suggests that all hospitality is embedded in a context of violence and therefore shaped by the atmospheric condition of human being. Nonetheless, he does not view the boundaries and limitations of creation as negative but suggests, instead, that a positive perspective on violence could redefine our understanding of the atonement and, in plough, of the divine hospitality. Primal to this attempt is Boersma'southward definition of violence as harm or injury.
Boersma argues that God's hospitality requires a passionate acrimony toward anything that violates this relationship of love. The Calvinist emphasis on ballot tends to emphasize the limited graphic symbol of God's hospitality and draws the violence confronting the not-elect into the middle of God, thereby blurring the possibility of an unconditional and unlimited divine hospitality. In dissimilarity, Boersma speaks of God'southward "preferential hospitality" that serves a missiological purpose past embracing potentially all nations. On this basis, the volume unfolds the implications of the various atonement theories for an understanding of God'south hospitality.
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Category: Fall 2006, In Depth
About the Author: Wolfgang Vondey, Ph.D. (Marquette University) and M.Div. (Church of God Theological Seminary), is Professor of Christian Theology and Pentecostal Studies at the Academy of Birmingham, UK. He is an ordained minister with the Church of God (Cleveland, TN). His research focuses on ecclesiology, pneumatology, theological method, and the intersection of theology and science.
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