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Document Details :

Title: Het woord is lichaam geworden
Subtitle: Geschiedenis en traditie in de theologie van Rowan Williams
Author(s): BERLIS, Angela , VAN ERP, Stephan
Journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie
Volume: 54    Issue: 2   Date: 2014   
Pages: 115-126
DOI: 10.2143/TVT.54.2.3200474

Abstract :
In dit nummer van Tijdschrift voor Theologie staat een bewerking van de tweede Edward Schillebeeckxlezing, uitgesproken door Rowan Williams op 13 december 2013 te Nijmegen. De theoloog, bisschop en dichter Rowan Williams, geboren in 1950 in Swansea, studeerde theologie in Cambridge en Oxford, alwaar hij ook zijn academische loopbaan begon. Die verruilde hij in 1991 voor een kerkelijke toen hij werd verkozen tot bisschop van Monmouth in Wales. In 1999 werd hij vervolgens aartsbisschop van de Kerk van Wales. Tussen 2002 en 2012 was hij de honderdenvierde aartsbisschop van Canterbury, de hoogste positie (als primus inter pares) binnen de wereldwijde Anglicaanse gemeenschap. Tegenwoordig is hij Master van Magdalene college aan de Universiteit van Cambridge en lid van het Britse Hogerhuis. Zijn geschreven werk bevat een veelheid aan genres, van poëzie en preken tot hoogstaande wetenschappelijke theologie. Als aartsbisschop liet hij zich uit over actuele kwesties, zoals kerk en homoseksualiteit, bisschoppelijke autoriteit van vrouwen, religie en wetgeving, oorlog en vrede, en de economische crisis. Hij schreef talloze boeken, onder andere over kunst en spiritualiteit, oosters-orthodoxe filosofie en theologie, Russische literatuur, dogmatiek, en over politiek en geschiedenis. Op 15 mei 2014 ontving Rowan Williams een eredoctoraat van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.



This contribution discusses the historical, theological and ecclesiastical backgrounds of Rowan Williams’ interest in language and serves as an introduction to the text of his Schillebeeckx-lecture. The authors, a church historian and a systematic theologian, discuss the role and importance of (Church) history and tradition in Rowan Williams’ opinion. History and tradition are a good place to look for the language of faith and for linguistic and symbolic practices. Williams believes that a proper history of theology and of the Church should be theologically sensitive. It is an exercise in listening to what the historically other can tell us. In his books Arius (1987) and Why Study the Past (2005) Williams argues for an approach to Church history that cannot easily be appropriated for contemporary issues and purposes. Williams’ approach to a theologian like Arius, for example, does not regard him as the heretic par excellence. The Arian problem has nevertheless been formative for what is nowadays regarded as orthodoxy. By looking for a balance between, on the one hand, respect for the dissidents in history, and on the other, the freedom of interpretation we enjoy today, Williams bridges the gap to current issues. Moreover, he instigates a reflection on what ‘orthodoxy’ actually means. He believes that a listening and interpreting Church will discover that it has not formed itself and that it is not the result of human attempts at finding meaning or ideals. From its own dealings with Scripture, it has experienced that holy texts are not merely informative or instructive, but also a form of communication in which the Church regards itself as a gathering of people, listening to the One that has gathered them, in the language of Scripture. Williams’ theology of language shows that, to be able to understand how God reveals Himself in our daily lives, we need an acquired and collective practice that allows the past to become manifest in the present. This will become impossible, however, if we are preoccupied with the time in which we think we are living, and with whatever is possible or necessary in that time. This would entail the subservience of Scripture and tradition to the worries of today, and their appreciation by means of the same criteria we use to determine usefulness or meaningfulness. As a result, anything handed down to us by history would be categorized as either suitable or unsuitable for our current situation, as a result of a lack of historical imagination. Such a form of critical theology is not merely a-historical, it also presumes an idea of language by which it is merely the carrier of meanings, instead of regarding language as the carrier of a tradition that expropriates itself to be able to hear the Word of God.

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