Christopher Ludwig Morse (born 1935) is an American Christian

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

. He is

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer (; 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have ...

Professor of Theology and Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Early life and education

Born in 1935 and raised in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

, Morse received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree in philosophy from

Randolph–Macon College Randolph–Macon College is a private liberal arts college in Ashland, Virginia. Founded in 1830, the college has an enrollment of more than 1,500 students. It is the second-oldest Methodist-run college in the country, and the oldest in continu ...

, a degree from

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

, and

Master of Sacred Theology The Master of Sacred Theology ( la, Sacrae Theologiae Magister; abbreviated STM) is a graduate-level, North American, academic degree in theology equivalent to ThM. The Roman Catholic equivalent is the Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL). An ...

and

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degrees from Union Theological Seminary. He is an ordained elder in the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelic ...

Viewpoints

Morse's areas of scholarly concentration are

dogma Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Isla ...

tics and

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

. He teaches extensively on the great systematic and dogmatic theologians, especially John Calvin, Karl Barth,

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...

, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. Prominent in his main work, ''Not Every Spirit'', is the notion of "faithful disbelief", a reference to

1 John 4 The First Epistle of John is the first of the Johannine epistles of the New Testament, and the fourth of the catholic epistles. There is no scholarly consensus as to the authorship of the Johannine works. The author of the First Epistle is term ...

:1. Essentially, Morse stands the older dogmatic traditions on their head. While most theologians argue for what Christians ''should'' believe, Morse argues for what people of faith ''should not'' believe, but rather actively "disbelieve". Some examples of Morse's "Christian Disbeliefs" are: * Refusal to equate the Word of God with an object, including the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

, turning

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

into a thing. * Refusal to believe that God's Word in scripture violates witness of God to the heart. * Refusal to believe that God's witness in the heart denies God's Word in scriptures. * Refusal to believe that love, as defined with reference to God, can be defeated. * Refusal to believe that God is other than Father, Son, and Spirit. * Refusal to believe that God is three gods. * Refusal to believe that any form of domination is from God that is not the dominion of love. * Refusal to believe that the life of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

Christ is not fully human. * Refusal to believe that the Jesus Christ is not fully God. * Refusal to believe that Jesus Christ is limited by time and space. * Refusal to believe that the risen Christ is somehow different from the incarnate Christ. * Refusal to believe that we can cause faith in another. * Refusal to believe that God the Holy Spirit is not life giving. * Refusal to believe that

evil Evil, in a general sense, is defined as the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good. It is general ...

is of equal status to

good In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...

. * Refusal to believe that the future belong to any but God, or that there is no future. * Refusal to believe that any situation is hopeless – ''any'' situation. * Refusal to believe that humans do not need saving. * Refusal to believe that Jesus Christ is too unlike humans to save them. * Refusal to believe that Jesus Christ is too like others to be able to save humans. * Refusal to believe that we are truly human apart from other humans. * Refusal to believe that God dishonors the human body and that we will be raised as disembodied spirits. * Refusal to believe that

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

members are more loved than non-church members. * Refusal to believe that the Church is limited by the successes and failures of its members. He has argued that there is a charge from God upon the Christian community to discern the will of God again in every generation, time, and place and to be watchful for those aspects of the tradition which are unfaithful to the will and Word of God. Morse's work shows that he has been deeply shaped by the theology of Karl Barth. However, he is clearly no Barthian, and is additionally influenced by the classical theologies of

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North A ...

, John Wesley,

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

, John Calvin, and

Huldrych Zwingli Huldrych or Ulrich Zwingli (1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531) was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system. He attended the Univ ...

. Among recent theologians, Morse has been deeply influenced by the work of Reformed theologians Jurgen Moltmann, H. Richard Niebuhr, and Paul Lehmann. Morse's work could be categorized as an example of the so-called Yale School theology.

References

Bibliography

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External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morse, Christopher 1935 births 20th-century American theologians American Christian theologians Living people Randolph–Macon College alumni Union Theological Seminary (New York City) faculty Yale Divinity School alumni