MEET Ted Peters

카테고리 없음

MEET Ted Peters

Paul Chung 2025. 5. 11. 02:10

Paul S. Chung’s Interview with Prof. Ted Peters

Paul Chung takes the chance to interview Ted Peters, Emeritus Professor of systematic theology and ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Ted co-edits the journal Theology and Science at the Center for Theology and Natural sciences. He is author of The Voice of Public Theology: Addressing Politics, Science, and Technology (ATF 2023). Visit his website, Ted’s Timely Take, and his two blog sites at Patheos and Substack. And his “Best books for listening to new voices in public theology.”

Here is the starting point for Ted: “public theology is conceived in the church, critically reasoned in the academy and offered to the wider culture for the sake of the global common good.”

Our International Public Theology in Forum-Center (IPTFC) is a member of the Global Network for Public Theology. We are excited to collaborate with Ted Peters to promote the links between public theology, civil society, and common good justice by focusing on practices that foster democracy, interreligious engagement, and science-religion dialogue.

I am thrilled to introduce Prof. Ted Peters, a world-renowned scholar and the leading public theologian in the science-religion dialogue and common good politics. He also serves on the faculty committee, IPTFC, Berkeley, when it comes to certificate program in public theology and civil society at Seoul extension, S. Korea.

Ted Peters: Public Theology, Common Good Governance, and Natural Science

Clarification: Public Theology and Prolepsis

You are an expert in systematic theology and science-religion dialogue, with a focus on prolepsis and evolutionary dynamism. Could you tell us more about the interdisciplinary nature of your public theology in terms of prolepsis and evolutionary theory?

Answer

Reality is temporal. Things change. Buddhists are right: nothing is permanent. Because things change over time, the future could become better than the present or the past. This is true of evolution in nature. It’s also true of culture in history.

God’s promise for the future is that God will make all things new (Isaiah 43:19; 65:17). I begin with God’s promised future transformation symbolized by the Peaceable Kingdom (Isaiah 11) and the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21-22). From these visions of God’s eschatological new creation I work retrodictively back to the present moment and our yearning to fix what is broken, heal what is wounded, and replace dissonance with harmony.

Ethics, then, consists of lifting up a vision of a redeemed future and then setting an agenda to transform the present in conformity with that future.

When God raised Jesus from the dead on the first Easter, it was a proleptic act. Jesus’s resurrection was the first fruit of all those falling asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20). God promises that you and I will rise into the new creation just as Jesus did. Jesus’ resurrection is a proleptic anticipation of the new creation.

Similarly, your and my acts of love and justice incarnate God’s future new creation ahead of time, in the present moment. That’s what I mean by prolepsis. The public theologian encourages proleptic action to anticipate the perfect society God has planned.

Proleptic thinking contributes to one strategy of the public theologian, namely, worldview construction. The public theologian lifts up for the public a vision of the global if not cosmic common good. Worldview construction draws a holistic picture of a just, sustainable, participatory, and planetary society. This worldview has a built-in magnet that draws consciences in the present toward this envisioned future.

Relevance: Public Theology and Natural Science

IPTFC strives to advance public theology’s viewpoint on natural and life sciences, as well as its social and technical implications. While respecting theology of nature, public theology of science employs a social scientific framework to critically examine sociobiology or a broadly deterministic perspective of human life (Richard Dawkin and E. Wilson). How do you engage with these problems in terms of public theology, proleptic praxis, and science-religion dialogue?

Answer

Nothing is more public than natural science. You can visit a research laboratory on any continent and find scientists, regardless of the language they speak, conducting experiments with the same assumptions, methods, and goals. Co-authored scientific publications are readily understood and evaluated in every clime and culture. The natural world – the subject matter of science – is accessible everywhere because we all live in nature. The public theologian begins with this de facto observation.

Science along with the arts and humanities slakes the intellectual thirst of the human soul. This makes science, along with its sister, technology, a cultural force. It is the responsibility of the public theologian to engage in discourse clarification to identify the specific role science is playing in culture at any given moment. The sub-culture of science is so torrential that it could easily overflow its banks and inundate education, health care, politics, and even religious life.

Sociobiologists, whom you mentioned, have sought imperiously to explain all the complexities and nuances of the wider culture by reducing everything to material causation found in the evolution of our genes. Scientized materialism pollutes the human community with an intellectual oil slick that de-oxygenates the environment within which human character can refine itself. One of the public theologian’s strategies is to construct a damn to limit science’s domination and permit the downstream growth of spiritual and moral creativity.

Interaction: Local and Global Context

How do you see the dialectical relationship between local or contextual obligations for public theology and contribute to the larger context of global political, economic, and communication forces? How would you address the significance of certificate program in public theology and civil society at our Seoul extension in the face of fascist surge among younger generations and Christian nationalism?

Answer

Local is global and vice versa. The theme for the 1979 annual conference of the World Future Society was: “Think Globally. Act Locally.” I like that.

In our imaginations lurks a partially choate vision of the whole, a whole which includes our soul as an indispensable part. Already within our operative worldview there is a microcosm-macrocosm correlation; and the health of each is determined by the health of its counterpart. The pursuit of personal virtue is simultaneously our contribution to healing the world.

In discourse clarification and worldview construction, the public theologian lifts a holistic vision of a just, sustainable, participatory, and planetary society. After inviting each of us locally to think globally, the public theologian seeks communicative connections with multiple locals.

One of the most portentous threats to global holism today is the rise of numerous nationalisms. Nationalism is a form of localism which is willing to sacrifice the good of the whole for the triumph of one part. As valuable as ethnocentrism and patriotism are for local empowerment, brute nationalism threatens the common good of the entire planet. If the planet suffers sufficiently, so does every locality. The public theologian is tasked with reminding the world of this.

Faith as Praxis of Discipleship

How do you articulate the importance of faith as a praxis of discipleship for the public sphere in terms of discourse clarification in regard to self-justification, scapegoat, and Christian nationalism. In the American context, I believe it is important to develop public theology in order to address racial concerns, mechanism of purification toward politics of recognition. How would you approach these issues from the perspective of Christian public theology.

Answer

One important dimension of faith is trust. God calls us to trust the future because God is planning future redemption. When we trust, we gain inner peace, tranquility, and courage.

The temptation to sin arises when we fail to trust God. To assuage our anxiety, we pursue deluded schemes for stealing power from others. Because moral standards appear to have power in themselves, we cover our theft of someone else’s power through self-justification. We deceive ourselves into believing that victimizing someone else is morally justified. We turn our victim into a scapegoat while we fleece the goat in the name of something good such as justice. This is sin as the Christian systematic theologian understands it.

Antisemitism perpetrated by the dominant society is one form of classic scapegoating. In the present moment, national security has become the self-justification for scapegoating immigrants. Both forms of scapegoating have their roots in anxiety, in a failure to trust God. Both forms wreak injustice and violence on their victims.

Through discourse clarification, the public theologian tries to reveal sin operative in the larger society. Transparency is the way to expose sin and reduce the amount of damage sin can effectuate. The concept of sin is conceived in the church yet offered to the wider culture for the sake of the common good.

Contribution

Our International Public Theology in Forum-Center (a member of the Global Network for Public Theology) is based on global exchange and ecumenical relations, promoting public theology and social scientific studies of civil democracy and comparative religions to engage in science-religion dialogue and ecological sustainability. Could you explain what kind of contributions you would foster in this regard?

Answer

In Pacem in Terris (1963), Pope John XXIII called on all persons of “good will” to work together to establish universal peace in truth, justice, charity, and liberty. Our world today is blessed with people of good will within every religious tradition who are hearing the call to serve the global common good.

At the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago (2024), people from multiple religious traditions hugged one another while praying with one another for planetary peace. Sometimes praxis takes precedence over tradition.

Since the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), we can find persons within quite different classical religions affirming universal values such as human dignity, liberation for the oppressed, and ecological health. Alert public theologians should seek out like-minded spirits on every continent to present a united front when pursuing the global common good.

Expectation

Write your expectation on the goal and direction of IPTFC and on further development in Seoul extension via your Patheo writings and the Voice of Public Theology.

Answer

I strongly encourage the IPTFC to network with public theologians around the globe in various cultural and political contexts. Persistently keep before the wider public a vision of a just, sustainable, participatory, and planetary common good. This is what I do on my website, Ted’s Timely Take, and two blog sites, Patheos and Substack. I want the Voice of Public Theology to be heard. The IPTFC speaks.

PUBLICATIONS (recent selection)

BOOKS

Ted Peters, The Voice of Public Theology: Addressing Politics, Science, and Technology. ATF, 2023.

Ted Peters, God in Cosmic History: Where Science and History Meet Religion. Anselm Academic, 2017.

Ted Peters, Sin Boldly! Justifying Faith for Fragile and Broken Souls. Fortress, 2015.

Ted Peters, GOD the World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a Postmodern Era, Fortress Press, 3rd ed., 2015. Korean translation by Se-Hyoung Lee, 하나님--세계의 미래 Concordia-Sa, Seoul, Korea 2006.

Ted Peters & Martinez Hewlett, Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Abingdon, 2006.

Anniversary Edition 2009. Templeton Book of Distinction Award 2007. Korean: 하나님과 진화를 동시에 믿을 수 있는가? / 동연

Arvin Gouw and Ted Peters, eds., The CRISPR Revolution in Science, Religion, and Ethics, Bloomsbury, 2025.

Ted Peters, ed., The Promise and Peril of AI and IA: New Technology Meets Religion, Theology, and Ethics.

Adelaide: ATF Press, 2025.

Ted Peters, Brian Green, and Arvin Gouw, eds., Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics, Lexington Books 2022.

Ted Peters, ed., Science and Theology: The New Consonance, editor & contributor, Westview Press, 1998.

Korean translation by Heup Young Kim:

테드 피터스편, 김흡영외 역, 과학과 종교: 새로운 공명 (서울: 동연출판사, 2002)

ARTICLES

Ted Peters, “Theology and Science Update 2025,” Theology and Science 23:1 (2025) 1-11.

Ted Peters, “Public Theology, the Common Good, and Planetary Community,” MST Review 26:2 (2024) 88-110.

Ted Peters, “Theology of Nature belongs within Public Theology,” Theology and Science 19:4 (2021) 1-2.

Ted Peters, “Astrotheology’s contribution to public theology: From the extraterrestrial intelligence myth to astroethics,” HTS Teologiese Studies 77:3 (2021) 1-8.

Ted Peters, “Public Theology, Discourse Clarification, and Worldview Construction,” Theology and Science 19.1 (2021) 1-4.

Ted Peters, “Public Theology: Its Pastoral, Apologetic, Scientific, Political, and Prophetic Tasks,” International Journal of Public Theology 12:2 (2018) 153-177.

ONLINE

Public Theology Resources

What is Public Theology? (Video)

What is Public Theology? (Patheos Post)

Best books for listening to new voices in public theology

Patheos PT 5008. The Public Theology of Paul Chung

Patheos PT 3003 Public Theology for the Common Good

Patheos PT 3011 Politics vs Common Good Governing Part One

Patheos PT 3012 Economism vs Common Good Part Two

Patheos PT 3013 Economism vs Common Good Part Three