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Gabriel Fackre

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The Sobriety of Hope

What is it about Reinhold Niebuhr that makes him a thinker of "promise" for President Obama? The president's appreciation of Niebuhr may go back to his earlier days as a community organizer on Chicago's south side. Saul Alinsky, the inspiration and interpreter of the community organization movement, regarded Niebuhr as one of his mentors and may have led the president to Niebuhr's works.1 My speculations on an Obama-Niebuhr connection are based not only on learning from Alinsky's Reveille for Radicals…
Gabriel Fackre
June 1, 2010
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A Discussion of the Atonement: Abuse, Violence, Sacrifice, and the Cross

Three Reformed theologians--Gabriel Fackre, George Hunsinger, and Leanne Van Dyk--recently joined together to discuss, via a telephone conference call, Christ's atoning work and some of the current criticisms and challenges to traditional understandings of it. Perspectives editor Steve Mathonnet-Vander Well posed the questions. The responses of the three theologians are indicated by their initials.Just by way of introduction, what particularly interests you or seems important for a discussion of the atonement? Gabriel Fackre (GF): How come there's no ecumenical consensus…
Leanne Van Dyk, Gabriel Fackre and George Hunsinger
February 1, 2009
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Anguish and the Almighty: Theodicy 2007

The governor of Virginia had it right when he alluded to Job at the memorial gathering for the victims of the shootings at Virginia Tech. How could such things happen in the world of an almighty and all-good God? For the Reformed tradition, which accents the divine sovereignty over histor y, such a question is particularly insistent. As with Job's struggle, we are dealing with theodicy, "the justification of God in the face of evil." In the wake of a…
Gabriel Fackre
June 1, 2007