Jens Zimmermann

The Strategic Smorgasbord of Postmodernity: Literature and the Christian Critic. Ed. Deborah C. Bowen. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. 122–134.

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Meaning, Hermeneutics, and Ethics: Post-postmodern Subjectivity

October 4, 2018 Brian Dant

The Positive Psychology of Meaning & Spirituality: Selected Papers from Meaning Conferences. Eds. Paul T. P. Wong, Lilian C. J. Wong, Marvin J. McDonald, and Derrick W. Klaassen. Abbotsford, BC: INPM Press, 2007. 57–70.

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Quo Vadis?: Literary Theory beyond Postmodernism

February 24, 2014 Brian Dant

Christianity and Literature 53, no. 4 (2004): 495–519.

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Featured Books

Featured

Human Flourishing in a Technological World: A Theological Perspective

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christian Humanism provides a comprehensive introduction to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology based on all of his published works and letters. Well-known Bonhoeffer scholar, Jens Zimmermann presents Bonhoeffer’s theological ethos as a Christian humanism— that is, an understanding of the gospel rooted in apostolic and patristic writers who believed God to have renewed humanity in the incarnation. The essence of Bonhoeffer’s Christianity that unifies and motivates his theological writing, his preaching, and his political convictions, including his opposition to the Nazi regime, is the conviction that Christianity as participation in the new humanity established by Christ is all about becoming fully human by becoming Christlike.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christian Humanism

Acts of Interpretation: Scripture, Theology, and Culture

This book features essays by biblical scholars and theologians offering broad reflections on key interpretive issues, rich readings of challenging biblical texts, and interaction with the Christian exegetical tradition from Melito of Sardis to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The contributors to this volume are leading figures in the theological interpretation of Scripture. Mindful of the Bible’s role in relation to God’s purposes, people, and world, these essays together offer “acts of interpretation” that aim to advance the faithful and fruitful correlation of Scripture, theology, and culture.

Sources of the Christian Self: A Cultural History of Christian Identity

Using Charles Taylor’s magisterial Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity as a springboard, this interdisciplinary book explores lived Christian identity through the ages.

Beginning with such Old Testament figures as Abraham, Moses, and David and moving through the New Testament, the early church, the Middle Ages, and onward, the forty-two biographical chapters in Sources of the Christian Self illustrate how believers historically have defined their selfhood based on their relation to God/Jesus.

Among the many historical subjects are Justin Martyr, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Dante, John Calvin, Teresa of Ávila, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, Christina Rossetti, Blaise Pascal, Søren Kierkegaard, C. S. Lewis, and Flannery O’Connor—all of whom boldly lived out their Christian identities in their varied cultural contexts. In showing how Christian identity has evolved over time, Sources of the Christian Self offers deep insight into our own Christian selves today.

Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction

Hermeneutics is the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, a behaviour that is intrinsic to our daily lives. As humans, we decipher the meaning of newspaper articles, books, legal matters, religious texts, political speeches, emails, and even dinner conversations every day . But how is knowledge mediated through these forms? What constitutes the process of interpretation? And how do we draw meaning from the world around us so that we might understand our position in it?

In this Very Short Introduction Jens Zimmerman traces the history of hermeneutic theory, setting out its key elements, and demonstrating how they can be applied to a broad range of disciplines: theology; literature; law; and natural and social sciences. Demonstrating the longstanding and wide-ranging necessity of interpretation, Zimmerman reveals its significance in our current social and political landscape.

Recovering Theological Hermeneutics: An Incarnational–Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation

This book is a careful, historical demonstration of the way in which hermeneutics was secularized yet continues to borrow on the capital of Christian theology. By exposing the problems inherent in secular hermeneutics and correcting the histories of philosophical hermeneutics on record, Zimmerman points a way forward beyond secular hermeneutics. This is a bold project that should be read not only by theologians but, more especially, by those philosophers working in the wake of Heidegger, Gadamer, Derrida, and Levinas. This book is an excellent addition to any course in philosophical hermeneutics.

— James K. A. Smith, author of The Fall of Interpretation

Incarnational Humanism: A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World

Humanism and Religion: A Call for the Renewal of Western Culture