Anette Ejsing

The Power of One

Anette Ejsing

We do not like to talk about loneliness. We like even less to talk about the fact that the experience that faith does not automatically heal it. This is a problem, but what if it does not have to be that way? What if we can tap into loneliness as a source of personal empowerment? In The Power of One, Anette Ejsing makes exactly this case. Relying on personal stories, she first shows why romantic, spiritual, and social loneliness are particularly difficult to understand in the context of Christian faith. She then reflects theologically on these three kinds of loneliness, and describes it as a mystery that faith both does and does not heal them. In response to this mystery, she suggests thinking about loneliness as a privilege. Arguing from the perspective of a theology of suffering, she encourages each of us to tell our stories of loneliness from the perspective of the end God has in mind for us. This means accepting and embracing loneliness as a means through which God raises us up and strengthens us to persevere in joy and faith. Learning to do this is a privilege that gives us the opportunity to experience loneliness as a source of personal empowerment.

Theology of Anticipation

Anette Ejsing

Is hope an attitude of wishful thinking or is it a volitional appropriation of what is to come? What does it mean to believe in a divine promise, anticipating but not experiencing its fulfillment? Theology of Anticipation responds to these questions with a constructive study of C. S. Peirce's philosophy. It explores Peirce's strong but ambiguous links to the tradition of 19th century classical German philosophy and the unique way he resurrected this tradition's theoretical content in the American context. Then introducing Wolfhart Pannenberg's philosophical theology of anticipation in a discussion of Peirce's epistemological application of the theory of abduction, Anette Ejsing reads these two in light of each other, with the goal of proposing a Peircean theology of anticipation. With this proposal, she offers a new model for how both rational inquirers and believing theologians can take for real in the present what belongs permanently to the future. This model describes the human pursuit of cognitive as well as personal fulfillment (of understanding and meaning) as anchored in a promise of fulfillment, which makes it an expression of anticipatory hope. Considering Peirce's religious writings of systematic importance for his philosophy, Theology of Anticipation offers critical comments to two existing interpretations of Peirce's philosophy of religion: Michael L. Raposa's theosemiotic and Robert S. Corrington's Peircean theology of divine potentialities.