Derek C Hatch

Over the centuries, Baptists have labored to follow Christ in faithful devotion and service. More recently, they have occasionally partnered with fellow Christians from other traditions in these efforts while learning from each other along the way. In Thinking With the Church, Derek Hatch argues that Baptists need to follow the same pattern when it comes to their theological reflection, engaging the wisdom of all Christian pilgrims across time. This will require a new theological method--ressourcement--that embraces Baptists' place within the Great Tradition of the Christian faith. Such work will not abandon long-held Baptist convictions but offers resources for renewing Baptists' theological vision as they participate in the fullness of the mystical body of Christ.

Concerned to think intentionally about liturgy in Baptist life and thought, this book aims to address the practices of Christian worship in a theological light, examining how each brings individual Christian believers and communities of faith to a greater understanding and embodiment of the gospel. In this mode, worship becomes a seamless garment that forms disciples of Christ and opens out toward the world. In short, theology, worship, and mission all intersect in the liturgical life of the body of Christ. In addition to theological engagement with liturgical practices, Gathering Together links reflection to praxis by offering sample patterns as a guide for reenvisioning the shape of Baptist (and other free church) worship.

Recent years have seen a rise in nationalistic and even xenophobic rhetoric as well as actions animated by fears of the other and the foreigner. In light of these recent displays of xenophobia, this article theologically examines the category of otherness in conversation with the work of Nicholas of Cusa, specifically his De Li Non Aliud (On the Not-Other). This fifteenth-century German theologian offers insights not only for reading God’s difference in relation to the world, but also for conceiving of how God’s alterity transforms creaturely otherness from the impetus for violence and repression to the basis for genuine reconciliation and relationship.

Many writers have commented on the theological elements within the strange world of Flannery O'Connor's stories. In this essay, Derek C. Hatch asserts that O'Connor's work has deep theological resonances with twentieth-century Catholic ressourcement thought, especially that of French Jesuit Henri de Lubac. While there is no genealogical link between them, O'Connor's fiction evidences an overwhelming emphasis on the Incarnation, along with several other characteristics, that mark de Lubac and other ressourcement thinkers as the most fitting background for understanding the theological landscape of O'Connor's literature.