Table Of ContentIssues in Science and Religion: Publications of the European
Society for the Study of Science and Theology
Jennifer Baldwin Editor
Embracing
the Ivory Tower
and Stained Glass
Windows
A Festschrift in Honor of Archbishop
Antje Jackelén
Issues in Science and Religion: Publications
of the European Society for the Study
of Science and Theology
Volume 2
Series editor
Michael Fuller , University of Edinburgh , Edinburgh , United Kingdom
More information about this series at h ttp://www.springer.com/series/13495
Jennifer Baldwin
Editor
Embracing the Ivory Tower
and Stained Glass Windows
A Festschrift in Honor of
Archbishop Antje Jackelén
Editor
Jennifer Baldwin
Grounding Flight Wellness Center
Chicago, IL, USA
Elmhurst College
Elmhurst , IL , USA
ISSN 2364-5717 ISSN 2364-5725 (electronic)
Issues in Science and Religion: Publications of the European Society for the Study of
Science and Theology
ISBN 978-3-319-23942-2 ISBN 978-3-319-23944-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-23944-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015957438
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
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Dedicated to
Archbishop Antje Jackelén—
for her wisdom, gracious leadership,
and empowering and encouraging
mentorship
Pref ace
Embracing the Ivory Tower and Stained Glass Windows: A Festschrift in Honor of
Archbishop Antje Jackelén is a celebration of the important academic work of
Jackelén. This volume is intended to highlight and honor the theological writings of
Jackelén and offer further paths of theological refl ection and discovery. While her
faculty appointments and society leadership are at least on hiatus if not concluded
for ecclesial responsibilities, Jackelén continues to produce important theological
refl ection for the leadership of the church in an increasingly global society. While
this volume celebrates and focuses on the academic refl ection and production of
Jackelén, the fullness of her importance cannot be limited to her academic writings.
Her ecclesiastical work both prior to the conferral of her doctoral degree as a parish
priest and after during her tenure as bishop of Lund and as the fi rst female arch-
bishop of the Church of Sweden are monumental bookends that provide both sup-
port and meaning to her academic literature. It is through her ecclesiastical leadership
and writings that her academic work is most fully vivifi ed and vibrant.
T he title of this volume is intended to highlight the key arenas of Jackelén’s
vocational journey. The “ivory tower” is a common euphemism for the academy and
can be employed as a pejorative to indicate academic interests that are divested from
the concerns and needs of society. While accusation that the academy is discon-
nected from society can be true, it is certainly not the case in the scholarship of
Jackelén. In fact, the most urgent needs of society, including the AIDS crisis, cli-
mate change, and the impact of technology on society, stand at the forefront of her
writing, lecturing, and teaching. In many ways, Jackelén’s academic work repre-
sents the best of the ivory tower. The image of the “stained glass windows” is
intended to point to her ecclesiastical work. Jackelén, throughout her career, has
shown dedication to the vitality, relevancy, and health of the church. As a parish
priest in Sweden for sixteen years prior to her move into the academy, her preaching
as a seminary professor, and her ecclesial leadership, Jackelén has consistently kept
a caring and attentive touch on the pulse of the rhythms, practices, and needs of the
church. Additionally, within the religion/science dialogue, there is a perennial con-
versation on what images are best as a linking; the choice of “embracing” is to
highlight Antje’s insistence on a relational component that requires the ivory tower
vii
viii Preface
to attend to actual needs and sufferings at the same time that it calls the church to
step out from behind its stained glass windows into the world.
From her doctoral dissertation, through her leadership at the Zygon Center of
Religion and Science and European Society for the Study of Science and Theology,
and her shepherding roles as the bishop of Lund and now archbishop, Jackelén has
consistently demonstrated a dedication to intentional, meaningful, and robust theo-
logical thinking that embraces the traditions and history of the church and theologi-
cal integrity. While diligent and precise thought and communication is refl ective of
her internalized commitment to excellence, she is also aware of added external pres-
sure of being a female leader and scholar. In the current century, it would be nice to
believe that the gender of a scholar would not bear on the reception of their work;
however, as Jackelén is keenly cognizant, the sex of a scholar and leader continues
to infl uence the reception of their work. This is particularly true in fi elds that are
historically or currently occupied predominantly by men, including church leader-
ship and interdisciplinary scholarship. Jackelén’s awareness of the role her female-
ness plays has allowed her to graciously navigate instances in which she has been
inappropriately criticized (including attacks on her hairstyle and threats to her safety
during the election process and shortly after her election as primate of the Church
of Sweden) and misjudged (including the continued lambasting of her personal faith
and ecclesiastical leadership due to a misinterpretation of her bishop’s motto).
While the particularity of her embodiment as female has been scandalous to
some, her strength, resiliency, integrity, and gracious tenacity have been an empow-
ering encouragement to others. Throughout her academic career, Jackelén was
among the fi rst to blaze the trails that others now tread. She was only the second
woman to earn a Ph.D. from the theology department at Lund University; the fi rst
woman to serve as director of Zygon Center and president of ESSSAT; the third
female bishop in the Church of Sweden, among a small group of women infl uential
in religion and science discourse; and the fi rst female archbishop. As a trailblazer,
Jackelén has continually kept one hand clearing the brush and the other hand reach-
ing back to support those who follow. Her mentorship of women in the academy and
church, including myself, has been one of her greatest gifts. From female colleagues
and students to adolescent girls (L. Oveido offers “the youngest person attending
Assisi Conference last year was an adolescent girl, the granddaughter of a colleague
and friend from USA; she told us at the end of that meeting that she was deeply
impressed about Antje: “she is really a role-model for me”), Jackelén has been an
active mentor and representational model of how to negotiate the demands of con-
temporary leadership and scholarship.
T his celebratory volume is a labor of appreciation, recognition, and honor for the
gifts and talents Jackelén has offered to the scholarly community. It proceeds in four
movements: the fi rst grouping of essays, Expanding Time and Eternity, focuses on
Jackelén’s doctoral dissertation “Time and Eternity” which is currently published in
three languages. These chapters each provide a different melody of refl ection estab-
lished on the bass foundation of Jackelén’s inaugural academic monograph.
Throughout Jackelén’s academic and ecclesiastical work, she has always kept a dili-
gent eye on the implications and utility of theological refl ection and articulation on
Preface ix
society. The second movement of essays honors this commitment to the role of
religious thought and practice as critical supports for the good of community and
society. The third section highlights creative intersections in theology and science
that open creative spaces for renewed engagement. These essays honor the interdis-
ciplinary work that has largely, though not exclusively, marked Antje Jackelén’s
career thus far. In her interdisciplinary work, she explored creative tropes for
increasing the relationality among disciplinary communities and between the church
and society. The fi nal movement builds on increasingly more complex forms of
community in particular contexts, time, and place. Antje has and continues to play
a formative role in a variety of personal, local, national, and international
communities.
A s daughter, friend, scholar, wife, priest, mother, professor, advisor, colleague,
director, bishop, grandmother, and archbishop, Antje Jackelén has positively infl u-
enced individuals, communities, disciplines, organizations, and the church, local,
national, and global. Each of the contributors to this volume has been infl uenced,
collegially or personally, by Antje Jackelén and honors her contribution to their
thought, the academy, or the church through their essay. This volume is intended to
honor the work of Antje in the academy and celebrate the fi rst anniversary of her
historic instillation as archbishop of the Church of Sweden.
Contributors to the fi rst section each refl ect on and emerge from Jackelen’s text
Time and Eternity. Ted Peters authors the fi rst essay in the grouping and picks up the
theological loci of eschatology and delves into the proleptic ontology of the escha-
tology. He argues for the importance of retaining connection between the future as
the pull and hermeneutical frame of the present and past and highlights the impor-
tance of Trinitarian refl ection for illuminating time and the expansive openness of
eternity. V itor Westhelle explores Jackelen’s lament of modernity’s rendering of
time from eternity and the notion of the “god of the gaps” to problematically utilize
faith to fi ll in unknown dimensions of reality. He then discusses the limits of ratio-
nality and the power of inscription as a means of codifying experiences and protect-
ing against the fearful beauty of the messiness of life. A nne Runehov employs
philosophical inquiry to examine openings for Jackelen’s relational notion of time
by investigating Newtonian, Einsteinian, and quantum theories of time. By employ-
ing scientifi c and philosophical paradigms of time, Runehov opens up possibilities
for divine human relationality in the midst of divine eternity and historical tempo-
rality. H ubert Meisinger utilizes Jackelen’s understanding of the relationality and
phenomenology of time as a springboard for his inquires into the nature, resonances,
and experience of time. U lf Gorman’s essay honors the centrality of time in
Jackelen’s T ime and Eternity and refl ects of the relationships among the past, pres-
ent, and future in ethics.
T he second section centers on practical intersections between theological schol-
arship and tensions that exist in society. S igurd Bergmann represents a link between
the prior section’s focus on time and eschatology and the current section. He argues
for space as a necessary addition to time in eschatological thinking and the impor-
tance of claiming space for those who experience oppression. Additionally, he dis-
cusses the notion of “home” as an addition to theological discourses of time and
