Articles varia
- KASUMA Esdras Muhindo - Penser la foi dans son fondement théologique. Pour une spiritualité chrétienne authentique en contexte congolais actuel
Thinking faith in its theological foundation. For an authentic Christian spirituality in today’s Congolese context
On the horizon of thirty years of war, misery and insecurity, the author sets out to rethink Christian soteriology, between Christianity inherited from the missions, a return to the divinities of the ancestors against the background of a trial of the Christian God deemed to have failed, and the “theology of prosperity” of American evangelical soil. It does so in terms of a spirituality that incorporates a reality of absence and an expectation of something other than fulfilment in terms of having and power. The question of God and the question of “life in abundance” are reformulated, in tension with a dominant note in the Church of Eastern DR Congo.
Keywords: DR Congo, Christianity, traditional religions, evangelicalism, wazalendo, spirituality, soteriology, God, human, incarnate
Dossier
- - Liminaire
- DE SOUSA Rodrigo - Foi chrétienne ou libéralisme : termes et enjeux d’une polémique américaine
- KIRSCHLEGER Pierre-Yves - Évangélique vs libéral : aux origines d’un clivage structurant pour le protestantisme français
- GISEL Pierre - Les nouvelles configurations du débat évangéliques-libéraux en fonction des évolutions du paysage religieux contemporain
Christianity or liberalism: terms and stakes of an American controversy
This article proposes an approach to the controversy between evangelical Protestants and liberals based on the book Christianity and Liberalism (1923) by J. Gresham Machen. Its recent publication for the first time in French (2023) is part of a polemical tradition that sees this book and the events surrounding its original publication as symbols of a conflict between a “biblical faith” and a modern theology that threatens this faith. The article offers an analysis of the book’s original cultural and religious framework, as well as some considerations concerning its author’s academic background and approach to biblical hermeneutics. It is proposed that the importance of this book lies in the way it bears witness to the epistemic and religious stakes of the conflict between the evangelical and liberal traditions, and that these traditions represent two distinct, but equally modern, responses to the articulation between “believing” and “knowing”.
Keywords: evangelical Protestantism, liberal Protestantism, Presbyterianism, hermeneutics, biblical exegesis, controversy, religious thought, beliefs, scientific knowledge
Evangelical vs. liberal: the origins of a structural divide in French Protestantism
This article traces the emergence of the divide between liberal and evangelical Protestants within French Reformed Protestantism during the nineteenth century. It highlights the theological, anthropological, and methodological distinctions between the two movements. The Protestant Revival intensified this polarization, leading to institutional tensions, and an unofficial schism within the Reformed Church. Despite a reunification in 1938, these divergences persist, reaffirming the structural nature of this divide in the history of French Protestantism.
Keywords: Protestantism, liberalism, evangelicalism, Revival, theology, free inquiry, dogmatics, schism, synod, Modernity
The new configuration of the evangelical-liberal debate in the light of changes in the contemporary religious landscape
This article examines the shifts that are reconfiguring the terms of confrontation between evangelical and liberal positions today. He opens up a perspective in which the propositions of Christianity are not seen for themselves, nor in relation to a foundation, but as the assumption of responsibility for anthropological motives. This will enable us to rethink the way in which a religious tradition takes shape, as well as its social relevance. The article goes on to list a series of fundamental points that need to be explored in greater depth. On the horizon is the question of what can and should happen to the Churches and other religious communities in contemporary society.
Keywords: evangelicalism, liberalism, Christianity, history, tradition, symbolism, religion, acculturation, mediation, aggiornamento
Position de thèse
- DAVID Gonzalo - Une justice vers le shalom. Les traces d’une eschatologie dans la philosophie politique de Nicholas Wolterstorff
Justice towards shalom. Traces of eschatology in the political philosophy of Nicholas Wolterstorff
This study seeks to identify traces of eschatology in Nicholas Wolterstorff’s political philosophy, particularly in his theory of justice. The study begins by presenting Wolterstorff and his interactions with other philosophers in the Anglo-American world, particularly with regard to the place of religion in the public sphere of liberal democracies. This context is fundamental to understanding Wolterstorff’s relevance to English-language moral and political philosophy in recent decades. We then present the school of thought to which he belongs, neo-Calvinism, showing its Dutch origins as well as its development in North America, South Africa and France. Thirdly, the type of eschatology that developed in the American Protestant milieu is highlighted, articulated principally in the different positions on the interpretation of Revelation 20, and how this serves as a theological framework for presenting, subsequently, the traces of an eschatology in Wolterstorff’s exegesis of the biblical scriptures. The thesis builds a bridge between this exegesis and the articulation of a theistic proposal on natural rights, which is broken down into human rights and the rights of non-human entities; it also gives an account of the critical reactions to this theory. In the seventh chapter, the interaction of his theoretical framework with practical issues is presented through four themes on which Wolterstorff has written and in which he has more or less assumed a militant commitment; particular emphasis is placed on his defence of marriage between same-sex couples, which represents a major break with his tradition, and on the reactions it has provoked in his milieu. We conclude with some critical remarks, mainly concerning his theory of justice and its application to the practical issues discussed in the last chapter.
Keywords: theory of justice, shalom, eschatology, political philosophy, Nicholas Wolterstorff, liberal democracy, neo-Calvinism, Revelation 20, law