Theology Quotes

cosmopolitan theology that longs for the Kindom of God seeks to recover its revolutionary universalizing ethos in terms of hospitality, neighbor-love, and multiple solidarities that one can see in Jesus' teaching and ministry, without any imperialist, kyriarchcal, hierarchical implications

~ Namsoon Kang

What does it mean to be human, to continue to live as human, to remain _faithful_ to the Divine while living in a cultural, sociogeopoltical, and religious world where power disparity between/among humans based on religious world where power disparity between/among humans based on their nationality, citizenship, gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, religion and so forth still prevails? The act of _theologizing_ for me involves responding to these questions and stimulating the practice of liberating and enlarging human possibility in our daily reality.

~ Namsoon Kang

It is because baptism is a real insertion of human beings into the ascended manhood of Christ that the Church is Christ's own body, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones.

~ E.l. Mascall

I fully recognize there is an urgent need for constructing the _strategic we-nes-in-sameness_ and promoting the _solidarity of sameness_. The sheer realization of the inextricable interconnectedness of I-ness/me-ness and we-ness/us-ness is the round for an authentic solidarity with one another in spite of and regardless of the difference.

~ Namsoon Kang

Cosmopolitanism emphasizes and is grounded in a _singular relationality between and among people

~ Namsoon Kang

Cosmopolitanism is a radical affirmation of the idea of neighbor/enemy-love-as-self love...Cosmopolitanism is about a cosmic scope of justice and hospitality––another name for _love_.

~ Namsoon Kang

Cosmopolitan theology affirms and radicalizes the belief that the Divine creates each and every human being as equal to every one else as a _citizen-of-the-cosmos and that no one is either superior or inferior to the other.

~ Namsoon Kang

The time and space in which I have been working on this cosmopolitan project have convinced me that the disparity between the ideal of cosmopolitan theology and the current sociopolitical configuration of hospitality, welcoming others, unconditional forgiveness, is itself a _prophetic call_ to which we all have to respond––as humans, as person of faith. The _real_ is always about calculation and conditionality, whereas the _ideal_ of cosmopolitan theology is about incalculability, unconditionality, and planetarity of the _world-as-it-ought-to-be_. Therefore, the disparity between the reality and the ideality is not a space for despair but a space where one's sense of prophetic call_ and passion for _the impossible_ must come in.

~ Namsoon Kang

I believe theology should be about one's way of life, a kind of gaze into onesself and others, and a mode of one's profound existence in the world.

~ Namsoon Kang

Cosmopolitan discourse...provides one with a _public gaze_ with which one can relate oneself to others in a different way.

~ Namsoon Kang

The question is not, therefore, _whether_ a theory is grand or small, or whether it is universal/global or particular/local, but _what function_ a theory plays and _whose interest_ it serves.

~ Namsoon Kang

I want to affirm that thinking and living, knowing and doing, theory and practice intersect.

~ Namsoon Kang

Cosmopolitanism has offered me an ethical perspective and a conceptual framework with which to read the _signs of our times_ as a theologian and intellectual who has a public responsibility for constantly offering a way to engage in this rapidly changing public world.

~ Namsoon Kang

Theological discourse can be, in and of itself, a form of identity and solidarity.

~ Namsoon Kang

How can one maintain a theological confidence in what one claims to be _true_ while acknowledging the existence of multiple religions that also claim to be _true_?

~ Namsoon Kang

Cosmopolitanism starts from the _singular_ individual rather than the _faceless_ collective

~ Namsoon Kang

I believe _cosmopolitanism_ can be an effective discourse with which to advocate a politics of _transidentity_ of overlapping interests and heterogeneous or hybrid subjects in order to challenge conventional notions of exclusive belonging, identity and citizenship.

~ Namsoon Kang

Religion is about hospitality and responsibility, and about neighbor/enemy-love-as-self-love in a Christian term that requires one to turn a new _gaze_ onto others––what I call a _cosmopolitan gaze_.

~ Namsoon Kang

The politics of trans-identity seeks to move from the _politics of singular identity_ to the _politics of multiple solidarities_ across various identities without abandoning one's personal attachments and commitments to the group that one finds significant.

~ Namsoon Kang

For what ends does one claim cosmopolitanism? _Whose interest_ does it serve?

~ Namsoon Kang

Religion is about hospitality, solidarity, and responsibility or it is nothing at all.

~ Namsoon Kang

the overall theme of theology can be twofold: the search for meaning and the responsibility one has to the others.

~ Namsoon Kang

Cosmopolitan discourse emphasizes the _cosmic belonging_ of all individual human beings as the ground of our hospitality, solidarity, justice and neighbor-love. Cosmopolitan discourse is about turning a _compassionate gaze_ onto others regardless of one's nationality and citizenship, origin of birth, religion, gender; race and ethnicity, sexuality, or ability

~ Namsoon Kang

the cosmopolitan gaze of planetary love and hospitality _is_ what constitutes being _religious_.

~ Namsoon Kang

One should regard one's religious or denominational affiliation as a point of departure, a point of entry, not the point of arrival because on cannot confine God to a particular religion or faith tradition, and therefore should not claim one's exclusive ownership of God. Regarding one's religious or denominational affiliation as _accidentality_; not as _inevitability_, is important in religious discourse and practice because such a sense of _accidentality_ of one's affiliation allows a space of _alterity_ of reciprocal contestation and challenge, and a space of planetary gaze that sees others as fellow human beings, _regardless_.

~ Namsoon Kang

Theological discourses function in various ways as sites of contestation and resistance, of forming new religious and personal identities, and of building solidarities. Theological discourses that theologians produce, disseminate, and teach in academia are not simply objective interpretations and neutral reflections on the world and the church in it. Instead theological discourses are productions of and for the world and the church that we live in

~ Namsoon Kang

Didn't Chains tell you about the Golden Theological Principle?The what?The single congruent aspect of every known religion. The one shared, universal assumption about the human condition.What is it?He said that life boils down to standing in line to get shit dropped on your head. Everyone's got a place in the queue, you can't get out of it, and just when you start to congratulate yourself on surviving your dose of shit, you discover that line is actually circular.

~ Scott Lynch

The study of truth requires a considerable effort - which is why few are willing to undertake it out of love of knowledge - despite the fact that God has implanted a natural appetite for such knowledge in the minds of men.

~ Thomas Aquinas

An educated theologian: someone who's better at rationalizing what they're pretending to know.

~ Peter Boghossian

Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than any other name in the history of the world.

~ Gore Vidal

Modern science gives lectures on botany, to show there is no such thing as a flower; on humanity, to show there is no such thing as a man; and on theology, to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a man, but only a mechanism, No such thing as a God, but only a series of forces.

~ John Ruskin

Just as God's love entered the world, thereby submitting to the misunderstanding and ambiguity that characterize everything worldly, so also Christian love does not exist anywhere but in the worldly, in an infinite variety of concrete worldly action, and subject to misunderstanding and condemnation. Every attempt to portray a Christianity of 'pure' love purged of worldly 'impurities' is a false purism and perfectionism that scorns God's becoming human and falls prey to the fate of all ideologies. God was not too pure to enter the world.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Everybody has theology whether they admit it or not.

~ Jim Walker

I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music.

~ Igor Stravinsky

Without the hard we stay too soft, and heaven is reduced to myths like life. Theology aside, it’s plain to see that God forbids we get too comfortable.

~ Chila Woychik

Theology without proclamation is empty, proclamation without theology is blind.

~ Gerhard Ebeling

A covenant differs from a contract almost as much as marriage differs from prostitution.

~ Scott Hahn

We would do our theology better if more was at stake in what we said.

~ John Piper

To understand our faith -- to theologize in the Catholic tradition -- we need philosophy. We must use the philosophical language of God, person, creation, relationship, identity, natural law, virtues, conscience, moral norms if we are to think about religion and defend it. Theology has some terms and methods of its own, but its fundamental tools are borrowed from philosophy.The growth of religious fundamentalism and the collapse of religious education mean theology is more urgently needed in universities -- especially Catholic ones -- than ever before.

~ George Cardinal Pell

As well as being essential to theological study, philosophy is an indispensable tool for communicating theology, for evangelization and catechesis. A faith based on how warm and comfortable you feel and how affirmed you are by your community is pleasant, but there is no guarantee that it is true. Fides et ratio make clear that philosophy's central tasks are to justify our grasp of reality, of truth, and to make cogent suggestions as to life's true meaning. Being able to say something compelling on these topics -- reality, truth, and life's meaning -- is critical in winning young and old alike to the faith. A theology that incorporates philosophy's work in these areas will be faithful to the teaching of the Church and able to stand up to the most rigorous secular arguments and the ideologies of the age.

~ George Cardinal Pell