Development of Early Christian Theology
Program Unit Type: Section
Accepting Papers? Yes
Call For Papers: In 2024, we are sponsoring three sessions, including two co-sponsored panels:
1. This panel, organized by the joint efforts of the Inventing Christianity and Development of Early Christian Theology Sections, invites papers on the theme of “Beyond Orthodoxy/Heresy,” with a focus on the second and third centuries. For this session, we welcome papers that propose alternative paradigms for reconstructing early Christian culture and theology, and which trouble, nuance, or reconsider the models of “orthodoxy”, “heresy,” and the orthodoxy/heresy binary. Papers are especially welcome that consider the role of textual practices and interpretation (e.g., competing claims about biblical interpretation, the nature of revelation, reading practices, emerging concepts of “canon”) or specific biblical episodes that served as intensive sites in the defining of early Christian culture and theology.
2. “Reflecting our unit’s commitment to exploring the interplay between the formation of the Christian scriptures, early Christian practices of scriptural interpretation, and their role in the articulation of Christian doctrine from the apostolic period through the end of late antiquity, we are seeking proposals for papers dealing with the historical development of Christian doctrine and its inextricable connection to biblical exegesis. The unit is also committed to exploration of how early Christian authors presented their ideas, rhetorically, and polemically, and how, in so doing, they participated in the broader Greco-Roman intellectual world. We welcome proposals dealing with themes such as (but not limited to) Trinitarian, pneumatological, ascetic, or Christological theology. In addition to this open call, we especially encourage proposals dealing with these themes in early Christian authors from North Africa for one co-sponsored panel with the Contextualizing North African Christianity Section.
Program Unit Chairs
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