Paul S. Chung’s Interview with Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
Meet Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
In this publication, Paul Chung interviews Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Professor of Systematic Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena. He is an ordained minister of Evangelical Lutheran Church and a well-known outstanding ecumenical theologian. With a Finnish background, he specializes in comparative and interdisciplinary constructive theology, He is also an expert on Pentecost-charismatic churches. He is the Docent of Ecumenics at the University of Helsinki.
Kärkkäinen is a renowned scholar who offers an ecumenical worldwide introduction to Christian doctrines such as pneumatology, Trinity, ecclesiology, and Christology. Remarkably, he has published the five-volume systematic theology series: Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World (Eerdmans, 2013-17) and the ensuing academic textbooks, including Christian Theology in the Pluralistic World and Doing the Work of Christian Theology summarizing this remarkable academic achievement.
It puts Christian theology in its historical and contemporary global diversity in a sympathetic and critical dialogue with natural and behavioral sciences as well as four living faiths, namely Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity. This is the first time in the history of religions that such a work has been published. Differently from many comparative theology academicians, he also has the field-experience in living with his family and working in a multireligious environment, Thailand where—in Thai—he taught Thai pastors, ministers, and church leaders—for many years.
His contributions to Christian constructive theology and comparative religions are featured in Eerdmans Author Interview Series. The constructive theology is a substantial aspect of public theology, engaging in science-religion relations, comparative theology, and interreligious dialogue, among other topics. We at Forum-Center are pleased to work with Kärkkäinen and contribute to worldwide public theology, particularly in terms of comparative theology in a pluralistic environment.
The current situation has made our collaboration even more vital. To be more explicit, in the shadow conflict between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, Abrahamic dialogue has emerged as the most important agenda for peace, love, and mutual recognition. Comparative theology is essential in doing public theology.
Public role of religion is becoming more widely recognized in sociology and political philosophy. Christian revelation is enlarged and elaborated by encounters with Buddhists or Hindus or Muslims, understanding other religious traditions within the universal history. Wolfhart Pannenberg and Jűrgen Moltmann remain mentors and interlocutors for Kärkkäinen to pursue his own intellectual journey.
Religious construction of social cultural reality allows us to see a broader spectrum of public religion and its critical function in shaping moral ethical understanding of human beings; it fosters constitutional democracy and civil society while safeguarding the integrity of life-world. This feature contradicts the sociobiological resurgence of old social Darwinism which finds its impetus in Richard Dawkin’s selfish gene and Edward Wilson’s genetic determinism.
Public theology must urgently investigate a new type of social integration of late modern society. It is focused with defining the relationship between religion and democracy in the public realm. In such a relationship, religious beliefs must to be translated into secular language in order to facilitate effective communication.
Appreciation
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen is dedicated to representing Christian constructive theology and demonstrating the importance of interreligious dialogue through the lens of comparative theology. His areas of interest include systematic theology within a global-ecumenical framework, reclaim recognition model, and lays the groundwork for ethically responsible life and Christian hope in a pluralistic environment.
In his Christian constructive theology he comes across as a multilingual theologian. He has a thorough understanding of the dynamic interplay between the contextual thinking and the intercontextual constellations. The universal horizon of the Gospel can be enlarged and carried out by addressing God’s reconciliation with the world through Jesus Christ.
He is qualified to discuss the multilingual nature of public theology which contributes the church’s mission for civil society, politics of recognition, and justice for common good. His contribution consists in reinvigorating a public theology through the lens of comparative theology and interreligious engagement.
A small sample of his other recent publications, covering over 30 books published in English and hundreds of essays and book chapters, are the following:
The End of All Things is at Hand: A Christian Eschatology in Conversation with Science and Islam (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022)
Theological Renewal for the Third Millennium. A Kärkkäinen Compendium, ed. Andrew Ray Williams and Patrick Oden (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022)
I Believe—Help My Unbelief! Christian Beliefs for Religiously Pluralistic and Secular World (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2024).
For other publications, go to his Amazon page .
Interview with Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
Constructive Theology and Public Theology
Clarification: Constructive Theology
1. As a leading systematic theologian in Christian constructive theology, you have made significant contributions to the pluralistic world. Could you tell us more about your constructive theology with an interdisciplinary focus? How does the Christian constructive theology explain the public role of religion, or how religion constructs social and cultural reality?
Veli-Matti
Indeed, my journey over the many decades as a systematic and constructive theologian has not only taught me many lessons but also exposed many of my limitations. While it was natural for me to begin to teach and write theology in an ecumenical key as ecumenism was my major at the University of Helsinki doctoral and post-doctoral studies, it took me long time to learn more about the global diversity, including also the interfaith challenge. The years I lived with my family and taught theology in Thailand in the 1990s were a turning point in this regard. With joining Fuller Seminary in 2000—a theological seminary with three faculties, including also psychology and intercultural studies, alongside theology—further pushed me towards interdisciplinary theology. Particularly important has been the long-term dialogue between science and theology, including also fields such as neurosciences and brain study in relation to what theology is saying about the human person and human nature.
For contemporary theology—and thus: religion—to speak to the contemporary world, there needs to be a robust public orientation. We are not only dealing with inner-church and spiritual issues, as important as they are. We also deal with issues in society and the world.
Relevance: Constructive Theology and Comparative Religion
2. Describe your constructive theology in respect to comparative theology. How would you distinguish the social scientific spectrum of public theology from commentarial comparative theology, and what would you add to public theology through the constructive lens of comparative theology.
Veli-Matti
It seems to me that constructive theology can be done in many ways and one of them is decidedly oriented towards reflecting on issues in an interfaith environment. Just think about, for example, environmental issues or justice. While they can be considered within only one faith tradition—be it Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or any other—I see it very important to involve more than one’s own tradition. This kind of dialogical way of doing comparative theology both challenges Christian theology and also enriches it. After all, we all live in the same world whether we are followers of any religion or even if we are secular. To use a child-like illustration: We do not suffer from illness as Christians or Hindus or the secular; we suffer as human persons!
Interaction: Local and Global Contexts
3. How do you perceive the dialectical relationship between the local or contextual responsibilities and Christian constructive theology in an interreligious context? If you accept natural revelation, how can you safeguard the nonnegotiable position of Christian revelation in the Trinitarian sense?
Veli-Matti
As is often—and rightly—noted nowadays, only that which is “local” can be “global.” Or to be more precise: it is diverse local interpretations and viewpoints in mutual sympathetic and critical dialogue with each other that both preserves the local “colors” and “tastes” while also providing testimony to the richness of human experiences and perspectives. One way to highlight this local/global mutuality is to talk about “glocal”!
Natural revelation in Christian understanding does not compromise or water down, as it were, the programmatically trinitarian foundation of faith and theology: As Christians we believe that while in Christ the fullest revelation has come to us, that same revelation as an anticipation and at times in a fairly fragmentary form is to be found in all human cultures and religions. And all cultures and religions exist only as local manifestations.
Contribution
4. Our International Public Theology in Forum-Center aims to advance public theology and social scientific studies of civil democracy, politics of recognition, and integrity of life-world in order to engage in science-religion interaction and comparative religions. Could you clearly explain what kind of contributions you would make to help create public theology within social scientific framework of comparative religions?
Veli-Matti
One of my long-term interests intersecting with Public Theology—alongside comparative and constructive theology discussed above—has to do with the multifacted concept of “Recognition.” The concept of recognition seeks ways for diverse people, people groups, or followers of various religions, to both be “seen” and appreciated and also provide the same courtesy to the Other. This philosophical and sociological concept and theory has in recent decades been applied to for example ecumenism, a fertile soil for learning how to recognize the Other without leaving behind one’s own deepest convictions. Alongside ecumenism, one of the my tasks is to seek resources from the Recognition paradigm also to issues discussed in the public sphere and among various religious convictions.