Department/School
Theology
Date
2021
Document Type
Article
Keywords
Thomas Aquinas, conversation, Frederick Lawrence, Bernard Lonergan, psychological analogy, trinity, functional specialties, inner word, nonviolence, preaching
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/0040563920984466
Abstract
Recent scholarship uses the metaphor of language to articulate why, even with good intentions, we Christians can hand on meanings and values at odds with the Christian message. Our “native” languages foreground our worlds, readily conforming our minds to the very realm we are called to transform (Rom 12:2). Related to the problem of “languages” is the brokenness of our conversations, themselves. Conversation can become a tool of destruction rather than a means of transformation. We Christians need a “new foundational language” in which to communicate the kerygma. This language is capable not only of communicating meanings and values that are faithful to the Christian message, but it is also capable of healing the very conversations we have by healing “the conversation that we are.” This article suggests how we Christians can learn a new foundational language by unfolding the radical consequences of our Trinitarian belief.
Published in
Theological Studies
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Citation/Other Information
Sanders, Jennifer K. “Imitating the Divine Interruption of Deteriorating Human Conversations: Speaking the Gospel in a New Language.” Theological Studies 81, no. 4 (2020): 849–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040563920984466.