Brad Harper reviews Jon Coutts’ analysis of True Grit. Harper appreciates Coutts asking about what happens when men and women submit to one another in Christ. This is a crucial question, especially for the time we live in, that Coutts explores through this classic western. While Harper is intrigued by the movie’s placement of “grit” in both men and women, he is more intrigued by the Christological implications of grit when it is redefined by one of the character’s redemption. Harper then pushes Coutts to go further in his answer to the original question both biblically and theologically.
Rejoinder
Responding to Brad Harper’s request for delineating theological ramifications of his essay Relative Grit, Jon Coutts asks this question: what happens in a church where men and women come together “in Christ” to “get their man”? The author argues that there is in the Body of Christ a newborn freedom for male and female to find themselves in an interactive and mutual self-giving that is forwarded in the fellowship and truth of the Holy Spirit. In this, there is neither a denial nor an essentializing of gender roles and cultural norms, but the submission of these relative constructs to a greater defining factor and a greater common cause. The film True Grit will serve well as a modern parable as we seek the culturally subversive gospel idea of mutual submission in our own contexts.
Can Public Theology and Missional Theology Talk to Each Other? Imagination and Nuance For the Church’s Public Practices
This essay explores the question of whether or not public theology and missional theology can talk to each other. While the short answer is a resounding “yes,” the author goes much further to suggest how a dialogue should start. The author begins with two stories that demonstrate the ideal union of public theology and missional theology. He then paints some broad characterizations of each discipline’s view of the other. This is helpful in understanding why it can be so difficult for the two theologies to work together. Even more helpful, though, is the bulk of the essay. This is a brief look at some recent trajectories of both public theology and missional theology. This is followed by some concerns for both. The essay ends as it starts, on a positive note, urging the reader for an imagination that thinks into a partnership of public theology and missional theology.
It Takes Three to Talk: A Response to George R. Hunsberger
In this brief essay, the author welcomes George Hunsberger’s call for public theology and missional theology to talk to one another, and secondly responds to it. He appreciates the proposed dialogue, but wishes to add another party to the conversation: the stranger. He even goes as far to write that no stranger means no missional theology and no public theology. Both theologies are defined by the stranger in our midst. Therefore, a better dialogue would enlist the stranger from the beginning. In light of all this, the essay finishes with two practical ways to do so. First, he calls for the church to be a mainstream minority, and secondly, for collaboration.