Faculty in the News - April 2016

Prof. Najib Awad‘s review of God the Revealed – Christology has been published in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology. In it, he writes: “Welker’s starting point is that the classical statement that “God revealed God’s self in Jesus Christ” is the gospel, the central teaching, the dogma, and the confessional kernel of Christian faith. Yet the statement is conspicuously ambiguous because of the temporal connotations of the revelatory event. Is revelation merely a past event? How then does it express God’s sharing of God’s full divinity with us today? Is revelation totally expressive of God’s presence in contemporary life in Jesus and the Spirit? If this is the case, how can we still speak about God’s presence in Jesus’s earthly (human) life? The First Quest for the historical Jesus focused on Jesus of the past. The Second Quest focused on who Jesus is for us today. Welker endeavors to take Christology beyond these historical quests to develop a more coherent and balanced Christology that exceeds an “either-or” dichotomy.

Prof. Yehezkel Landau is one of the contributors for the campaign Our Muslim Neighbor, which its website describes as “a group of scholars, activists and religious leaders from various religious and cultural backgrounds, who possess a unique understanding and awareness of Islamophobia as it exists within the United States.”

The website further describes the campaign: “Our Muslim Neighbor is a national campaign of Religions for Peace USA that fosters grassroots community building efforts to build relationships of trust between Muslims and non-Muslims. OMN Voices takes the simple idea that Islamophobia is bad for everyone, and carries on the conversation online. Every month we’ll feature 2 articles by religious leaders and activists profiling important work they do, speaking out on an important topic, or participating in a co-facilitated dialogue with another member of OMN Voices. The point is that there needs to be a public space where this conversation can be hosted, and where everyday people can learn about this work, and how they can get involved.”