David W Congdon
I completed my PhD in systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. My research is primarily in the fields of modern theology, hermeneutics, and missiology, with a special emphasis on Rudolf Bultmann.
Phone: 1-630-734-4033
Phone: 1-630-734-4033
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The work is additionally distinguished from other systematic approaches to Christian doctrine by the fact that the soteriology in question derives from a fresh hearing of the apocalyptic message of the New Testament, drawing constructively on the insights of Rudolf Bultmann, Ernst Käsemann, Eberhard Jüngel, and J. Louis Martyn. The God who saves is the God who invades and interrupts the cosmos in the death of Jesus. Human beings participate in salvation through their unconscious, existential cocrucifixion, in which each person is interrupted by God and placed outside of herself. This saving event, which embraces each person without remainder, is definitive for God’s identity as the triune Christ, Spirit, and Creator. The result is an account of theology that is postmetaphysical, existential, and hermeneutically critical.
Finally, The God Who Saves is a uniquely interdisciplinary work of theology, drawing on contemporary philosophy, history of religions, intercultural studies, hermeneutical theory, and popular culture. Here is a bold, constructive work of dogmatic theology for the twenty-first century.
Published Essays
The work is additionally distinguished from other systematic approaches to Christian doctrine by the fact that the soteriology in question derives from a fresh hearing of the apocalyptic message of the New Testament, drawing constructively on the insights of Rudolf Bultmann, Ernst Käsemann, Eberhard Jüngel, and J. Louis Martyn. The God who saves is the God who invades and interrupts the cosmos in the death of Jesus. Human beings participate in salvation through their unconscious, existential cocrucifixion, in which each person is interrupted by God and placed outside of herself. This saving event, which embraces each person without remainder, is definitive for God’s identity as the triune Christ, Spirit, and Creator. The result is an account of theology that is postmetaphysical, existential, and hermeneutically critical.
Finally, The God Who Saves is a uniquely interdisciplinary work of theology, drawing on contemporary philosophy, history of religions, intercultural studies, hermeneutical theory, and popular culture. Here is a bold, constructive work of dogmatic theology for the twenty-first century.
This paper proposes an apocalyptic hearing of Bultmann’s theology of perpetual advent. Thanks to the work of the later Käsemann, Martyn, and others, the category of apocalyptic is no longer associated strictly with the “imminent expectation” of the original apostolic community. Instead, the imminent expectation has been existentialized: we expect Christ’s arrival in each new moment. Once we see that Bultmann’s present eschatology is marked by a constant expectation of Christ’s arrival on the scene, it becomes clear that his theology of perpetual advent is a distinctively apocalyptic theology.