N. Ansell, Faculty Home Page

Theology is notoriously hard to define because differing views of the sacred or the divine, and of how this is related to life as a whole—as a higher or future world, as the depth or ultimate horizon of present existence, as an avoidance or displacement of our true humanity, as the hope or heartbeat of the universe, as the revelation of God, self, world, and other—lead to differing views of what constitutes theological discourse at its most authentic and meaningful. But the interplay between the descriptive and prescriptive in theology has been part of its conversation for more than 2500 years.

I believe that theology as an academic enterprise includes reflection on a number of key meta-theological issues that frame the discipline. Some may call this kind of reflection foundational theology, philosophical theology or phenomenology of religion. Such issues include: (a) the nature of faith and hope and the correlation between faith/hope and the phenomenon of revelation—in which what is (rightly or wrongly) held to be sacred gives direction to the one who exercises religious trust and (b) the relationship between faith/hope and belief(s). Theology proper (so to speak) explores our web of beliefs as we think through different aspects of the God/world/self/other relationship. But ongoing attention (both tacit and explicit) to the phenomenology of revelation and to the distinction and relationship between faith and belief prevents theological discourse from becoming denatured and losing its connection to lived experience. So too does consideration of the third fundamental issue: (c) the relationship between faith/hope and love—or desire—which constitutes Life in its deepest, most expansive, and most biblical sense.

My own way of attending to our web of beliefs as we negotiate the interplay between our ultimate convinctions, the contours of our world, and the changing needs of our time, may be best conveyed in the course descriptions below. I would situate such work of exploration and re-conception 'between' the two quotations above. Talk of "infinite mystery" is meaningful, I believe, if we are talking about the mystery of our existence, our world, our experience of God; in brief, the mystery we know, though it (thankfully) exceeds our grasp and keeps our understanding in motion. Mystery is not mystification. Transcendence and immanence both need to be redefined and rediscovered. Because, in God's grace, we do not need to travel beyond "heavy metal, morality and beauty" to find the spirituality of existence.

Books

The Woman Will Overcome The Warrior: A Dialogue with the Christian/ Feminist Theology of Rosemary Radford Ruether (Lanham MD/London: University Press of America, 1994) [383 + xi pp.].

The Annihilation Of Hell: Universal Salvation and the Redemption of Time in the Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann. Under contract with Paternoster Press

Selected articles, book chapters

“Trees, Forestry, and the Responsiveness of Creation” (Co-authored with Brian J. Walsh and Marianne B. Karsh) in Cross Currents 44/2 (Summer, 1994): 149-162 [the lead article in a theme issue on eco-theology]
Available online at:
http://www.crosscurrents.org/trees.htm
Reprinted in:
(i) Roger S. Gottlieb, ed., This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (New York/London: Routledge, 1996), 423-435.
(ii) The Other Journal 8 (October 2, 2006)
Available online at:
http://theotherjournal.com/article.php?id=206
(iii) David Clowney and Patricia Mosto, eds., Earthcare: An Anthology in Environmental Ethics (Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield, 2009), [find pp.]

“The Call of Wisdom/The Voice of the Serpent: A Canonical Approach to the Tree of Knowledge.” Christian Scholar's Review 31/1 (Fall, 2001), 31-58. Winner of the Charles J. Miller award for Christian Scholar's Review 31.
Available online at:
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Ansell-Serpent-CSR.pdf

“Foundational and Transcendental Time: An Essay” In Ronald A. Kuipers and Janet Catherina Wesselius, eds., Philosophy As Responsibility: A Celebration of Hendrik Hart's Contribution to the Discipline (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002), chapter 5, 63-79.

“Creational Man/Eschatological Woman: A Future for Theology” ICS inaugural address, 2006
Available online at:
http://www.icscanada.edu/events/20060526cn/inaugural_may2006.pdf

“Jesus On The Offensive” in The Banner (October 2008): 44-46
Available online at:
http://www.thebanner.org/magazine/issue.cfm?id=173

“Hell: The Nemesis of Hope?” in The Other Journal 14 (April 20, 2009)
Available online at:
http://theotherjournal.com/print.php?id=746
Revised version in:
Bradley Jersak, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hell, Hope, and the New Jerusalem (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2009), 191-210.

Third Way commentaries:

“Commentary: Job 1:1ff and 42:12-15.” In Third Way 19/7 (September 1996): 20.

“Commentary: Mark 12:38-13:2.” In Third Way 20/4 (May 1997): 20.

“Commentary: Romans 1:26f.” In Third Way 20/7 (September 1997): 20.

“Commentary: Colossians 3:1f.” In Third Way 22/1 (February 1999): 22.

“Commentary: Luke 20:27-36.” In Third Way 22/2 (March 1999): 22.

“Commentary: Revelation 17:3.” In Third Way 22/6 (July 1999): 22.

“Commentary: Revelation 12:1-6.” In Third Way 22/8 (October 1999): 23.

“Commentary: Revelation 20:1-6.” In Third Way 23/1 (March 2000): 22

“Commentary: Revelation 20:11-15.” In Third Way 23/10 (December 2000): 20

“Commentary: Revelation 1:7.” In Third Way 24/1 (February 20001): 22

“Commentary: Genesis 1:27f., Daniel 2:35 and Ephesians 1:22f.” In Third Way 25/1 (February 2002): 24

“Commentary: Genesis 27:29, Isaiah 60:14-16 and Genesis 32:27-30.” In Third Way 25/6 (August 2002): 16

“Commentary: Exodus 19:5-6” in Third Way (November 2002): 22

“Commentary: John 2.15-16, 18-19, 10:30-39 and 14:2a, 3.” In Third Way 26/6 (Summer 2003): 15

“Commentary: Genesis 22” in Third Way (April 2004): 16

“Commentary: Genesis 11:4 & 22.15-17a” in Third Way (Summer 2004): 15

“Commentary: Daniel 7.13-14, 27” in Third Way (June 2006): 26