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Spirit(s) in Contemporary Christian Theology: An Interim Report of the Unbinding of Pneumatology

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Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World

Abstract

The contribution of the present chapter to this interdisciplinary, intercultural, and interreligious reflection on the loosing of the spirit(s) comes from the resources and perspective of systematic/constructive theology. The chapter seeks to discern and critically assess the state of Christian pneumatology in the beginning of the third millennium, in order to, first, diagnose its promise and omissions, and, second, help locate the current volume’s contributions in the wider matrix of theology. Two foundational insights guide my investigation. First, there are exciting and exhilarating developments under way that point to what can be regarded as nothing less than the transformation of Christian pneumatology. Second—here comes the bad news!—it seems to me that by and large “mainline” Christian pneumatologies are still imprisoned in what may be called a “unitive” pneumatology, that is, they only speak of one spirit, the Spirit of God, and leave out of consideration other spirits, powers, energies. What is needed could be called a “plural” pneumatology: it is mindful of the meaning, role, and effects of other spirits vis-à-vis, along with, and as opposed to the Spirit of God.

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Notes

  1. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), vol. 1 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1971), 132; the citation is from Shirley Jackson Case, The Origins of Christian Supernaturalism (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1946), 1.

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  2. My editorial colleague Kirsteen Kim speaks of the same distinction using the terms “one-spirit” and “many-spirit” pneumatologies and cosmologies. Kim, “The Potential of Pneumatology for Mission in Contemporary Europe,” International Review of Mission 95:378–79 (2006): 338.

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  3. For an important resource, see Kirsteen Kim, The Holy Spirit in the World: A Global Conversation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2007).

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  4. See Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, ed., The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).

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  5. See Phillip H. Wiebe, God and Other Spirits: Intimations of Transcendence in Christian Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

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  8. See, for example, Seyed Hossein Nasr, ed., Islamic Spirituality: Manifestations (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997).

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  10. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1964), 102–6. As is well known, in the first volume of his Systematic Theology, Tillich also speaks of the demonic in terms of archetypes of depth psychology and in reference to an awareness of the suprahuman power of the demonic in literature.

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  12. One reviewer of the Spirit of Life who obviously had studied the work in much detail reports that for Moltmann it suffices to refer to evil spirits in passing in a couple of footnotes! Mark W. G. Stibbe, “A British Appraisal,” review of Jürgen Moltmann’s “The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 4 (1994): 13.

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  14. See the chapter by Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu. For sample of representative texts with comments, see Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, ed., Holy Spirit and Salvation: The Sources of Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), chs. 15 (Africa), 16 (Asia), and 17 (Latin America).

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  24. See Mark I. Wallace’s chapter in this volume. Consider also the important emerging discussion of a program that has many intentions in common with what is called plural cosmologies here: Catherine Keller and Laurel C. Schneider, eds., Polydoxy: Theology of Multiplicity and Relation (New York: Routledge, 2011).

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  25. Also noteworthy are attempts by some Native people to create plural cosmologies, for example, Emily Cousins, “Mountains Made Alive: Native American Relationship with Sacred Land,” Cross Currents 46:4 (Winter 1996/97): 497–510.

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  27. See Joel Kovel, History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), and the chapter by Patrick Oden in this volume.

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  35. Grace Ji-Sun Kim, The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 2.

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  36. Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1984), 5.

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  37. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); see p. 44 for the chart contrasting the two systems.

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  39. Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 176.

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  40. For Spirit-Christologies and their implications, see V.-M. Kärkkäinen, Christ and Reconciliation: Constructive Christian Theology for the Church in the Pluralistic World, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), ch. 8.

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  41. See the important study by Caleb Oluremi Oladipo, The Development of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Yoruba (African) Indigenous Christian Movement (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1996).

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Authors
  1. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, Pasadena, California, USA

    Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (Professor of Systematic Theology and Docent of Ecumenics) (Professor of Systematic Theology and Docent of Ecumenics)

  2. University of Helsinki, Finland

    Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (Professor of Systematic Theology and Docent of Ecumenics) (Professor of Systematic Theology and Docent of Ecumenics)

  3. Leeds Trinity University, UK

    Kirsteen Kim (Professor of Theology and World Christianity) (Professor of Theology and World Christianity)

  4. School of Divinity, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA

    Amos Yong (Professor of Theology and dean) (Professor of Theology and dean)

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© 2013 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim, and Amos Yong

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Kärkkäinen, VM. (2013). Spirit(s) in Contemporary Christian Theology: An Interim Report of the Unbinding of Pneumatology. In: Kärkkäinen, VM., Kim, K., Yong, A. (eds) Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137268990_3

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