2008 Balthasar Blog Conference: Update

Scripture ... is God speaking to man. It means a word that is not past but present, because eternal, a word spoken to me personally and not simply to others. Just as the eucharist is not merely a memorial of a past event but makes eternal and ever-present the single, living body and sacrifice of the Lord, so scripture is not mere history but the form and vehicle of God’s word addressing us here and now.

—Hans Urs von Balthasar, Explorations in Theology I: The Word Made Flesh (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989), 24.

I am pleased to announce the first annual Balthasar Blog Conference, scheduled for March 16 to March 25, 2008. (This is a change from the original dates of March 9-16. I have moved it back a week to give more time to the presenters.) The theme for this blog conference will be “Von Balthasar’s Theological Interpretation of Scripture.” We should have ten “plenary” posts from the following theo-bloggers:

• John L. Drury (Drulogion) on Balthasar’s reading of the resurrection texts in Mysterium Paschale and elsewhere;
  
• Halden Doerge (Inhabitatio Dei) on Balthasar’s use of the Old Testament in his theological aesthetics;
  
• Cynthia Nielsen (Per Caritatem) on Balthasar’s approach to biblical hermeneutics;
  
• Andrew Guffey (Seeing the Form) on Balthasar’s use of the Apocalypse;
  
• Joshua Ralston (Treasures Old and New) on Balthasar’s interpretation of the passages relating to the office of Peter and structure of the church;
  
• Heather Reichgott (Holy Vignettes) on Balthasar’s approach to “contradictory” material in the Gospel narratives;
  
• Daniel W. McClain (The Land of Unlikeness) on aesthetics, tradition, and Scripture in Balthasar’s theology;
  
• Francesca Murphy on Scripture, Church, and Mariology;
  
• Lois M. Miles on the influence of Adrienne von Speyr’s contemplative reading of Scripture on von Balthasar’s interpretation of the biblical text; and
  
• yours truly on Balthasar’s interpretation of the biblical texts relating to hell and apokatastasis in Dare We Hope?
  

The following people have also agreed to writes responses to the plenary posts:

• Andrew Guffey in response to Halden Doerge;
• W. Travis McMaken in response to John L. Drury;
  
• Patrick McManus in response to my post; and
  
• yours truly in response to Andrew Guffey.
  

In addition to these participants, the conference is open to anyone else who might like to participate by writing responses. While the essay-posts will be between 1500-2000 words, a response should be between 300-750 words and raise some critical questions in relation to one of the posts. If you are interested in writing a response, let me know which post you would like to interact with, and I will send it to you when it is available. For those presenting at the conference, please be aware of the following: All posts should be submitted by Saturday, March 1 in order to allow enough time for people to write responses. You can email all inquiries, posts, responses to dwcongdon-at-gmail.com (there is also an email link in my profile).

If you are a theo-blogger, please feel free to pass the word along. I look forward to an exciting blog conference in March, and hopefully the first of many!

Update: Fred Kaffenberger has had to drop out from the conference due to prior commitments. I have also added Lois M. Miles to the list. I mistakenly left her out of the original post.