Not long after the terrible earthquakes and tsunamis that shook Japan in March 2011, the mayor of Tokyo made a public statement in which he said that, because ‘Japanese politics is tainted with egoism’, a tsunami had been needed ‘to wipe out egoism’. He thus described the disaster as ‘divine punishment’. As such, this political leader repeated a pattern frequently repeated in the wake of a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or other human tragedy. Such examples highlight the perils of reading meaning into situations of human suffering, as well as of speaking of God in an age when many suspect that religion is inherently violent. This lecture explores the work of theologians and philosophers who have wrestled with this challenge, including Karl Barth, Emil Fackenheim, Johann Baptist Metz, Jean-Luc Nancy and Rowan Williams. The discussion ways in which each of these thinkers display similar sensitivities to the problem of theological speech, and how each offers us instructive warnings to consider.

Christopher Craig Brittain is Professor of Social and Political Theology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He holds a B.A. in History (1992), a Master of Divinity (1996) and a Ph.D. in Theology (Theology and Social Theory 2002). He was previously Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Canada (2002-2006). In 2015-16 he was Visiting Professor of Theology at the University of Toronto (Trinity College & Regis College). Professor Brittain teaches Christian Ethics, Disaster Studies, Philosophy of Religion, Contemporary Christian Thought, Congregational Studies, Religion and Society, and Anglican Theology. His current research focuses on the transnational conflict in the global Anglican Communion, as well as on the critical reception of Søren Kierkegaard by Theodor W. Adorno. Professor Brittain is an ordained Anglican priest, currently serving in the Episcopal Church of Scotland. He lives in Aberdeen.