Jens Zimmermann (philosopher)

Last updated
Dr. Jens Zimmermann
Born
Jens Michael Zimmermann

1965 (age 58–59)
Germany
NationalityGerman, Canadian
Alma mater University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC, Canada) University of Mainz (Mainz, Germany)
Occupation(s)Philosopher, linguist, professor
Known forIncarnational humanism
Notable workIncarnational Humanism: A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World (2012)

Re-Envisioning Christian Humanism: Education and the Restoration of Humanity (2016)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christian Humanism (2019)

Contents

Dr. Jens Michael Zimmermann [1] (born 1965) is a German-Canadian Christian philosopher, theologian, and professor who specializes in hermeneutics and the philosophical and theological roots of humanism.

Zimmermann is a longtime educator in Vancouver. He is currently the J.I. Packer Chair of Theology at Regent College. and the professor of philosophy and theology at Trinity Western University. [2]

He is considered the inventor of "incarnational humanism", a social philosophy combining modern humanism and Christian humanism based in incarnation. [3]

Early life and education

Zimmermann was born in 1965 in Germany, where he was raised. He began studying Music in Düsseldorf in 1988 before moving to Canada in 1990, where he attended University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He graduated with a B.A. in English in 1992. He would receive an M.A. in Comparative Literature in 1993, and a PhD in the same field in 1997. [4]

Career

Zimmermann began his teaching career at University of British Columbia in 1995 as a sessional instructor in English and German. He left University of British Columbia in 1998.

He started working at Langley campus of Trinity Western University in British Columbia where he was an assistant professor of English literature and language, German literature and language, and philosophy. In 2002, he was promoted to associate professor of English and Cultural Studies and philosophy. In 2006, he became Trinity Western's Canada Research Chair for Interpretation, Religion, and Culture, a position that he held until 2016.

Also in 2006, Zimmermann began studying a PhD in Philosophy at University of Mainz (known in Germany as Johannes Gutenberg University) in Mainz, Germany. He specialized in philosophical and theological anthropology and his dissertation was called Humanism and Religion: A Philosophical Examination. He received the PhD in June 2010. After the reception of his second PhD in 2010, he was promoted again to become the professor of Philosophy & Theology at Trinity Western.

Between 2016 and 2019, Zimmermann was involved with theology education in England. He served as a Visiting Research Fellow of theology to Trinity Hall at University of Cambridge from September 2016 to June 2017. He then served as a British Academy Visiting Research Fellow in philosophical theology to University of Oxford from August 2019 to February 2019.

In 2017, while still employed by both Trinity Western and Cambridge universities, he was invited to serve as a visiting professor of philosophy, literature, and theology at Regent College in Vancouver. He served as a visiting professor until 2019, and a year later he was brought into Regent University full time as the J.I. Packer Chair of Theology which he still holds as of March 2023. [1]

Philosophy and works

Zimmermann's studies originally focused on linguistics as his first degrees and professorial jobs were in the fields of English and German. He studied early American literature, the Victorian novel, and English poet John Milton while attaining his bachelor's degree. His shift into Comparative Literature saw him study more philosophy and theology through his studies of hermeneutics, iconoclasm, Reformation, English Puritanism, literary theory, and Middle Ages religious literature in Germany and England. [1] His 1997 PhD dissertation was entitled English Puritans and German Pietists: A Re- Examination of Pre-Critical Hermeneutics in Light of the Anthropocentric Turn in Hermeneutics. [5]

Zimmermann wrote his first book in 2004 entitled Recovering Theological Hermeneutics. He published a second edition in 2012. [6] In 2006, Zimmermann co-wrote the book The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education with Norman Klassen, the associate professor of English at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo, Ontario. [7] He published his only German-language work in October 2007, which was titled Theologische Hermeneutik: Ein Trinitarisch-Christologischer Entwur (in English: Theological Hermeneutics A Trinitarian Christological Draft). [8]

In 2012, Zimmermann published Incarnational Humanism: A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World. This book won the 2013 Book Prize from the Center for Christian-Evangelical Dialogue. [9] The book was regarded as the first book in the field of "incarnational humanism". The book explores Zimmermann's philosophy of a deeply faith-baith society. He drew inspiration from the works of Irenaeus, Augustine of Hippo, Henri de Lubac, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. [3]

Between 2012 and 2019, Zimmermann published three books for Oxford University via Oxford University Press. These books were Humanism and Religion: A Call for The Renewal of Western Culture (2012), Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction (2015), and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christian Humanism (2019). [10] He was nominated for the Louisville Grawemeyer Award from Oxford University in 2016 for Humanism and Religion. [1] During this time he also edited the four-volume book Re-Envisioning Christian Humanism: Education and the Restoration of Humanity (2016) which compiles analyses of Christianity and humanism. [11]

Aside from his seven published books, Zimmermann has also edited 18 books and written 33 book chapters, 12 journal articles, and 10 book reviews. [1]

Zimmermann is considered a leading scholar in contemporary Christian humanism and hermeneutics. [3] He is also considered a leading scholar of the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as many of his works involve Bonhoeffer's philosophy. [12] His works have also included influences from Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. [13]

Selected publications

Monographs

Edited Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans-Georg Gadamer</span> German philosopher (1900–2002)

Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 magnum opus on hermeneutics, Truth and Method.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hermeneutics</span> Theory and methodology of text interpretation

Hermeneutics is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. As necessary, hermeneutics may include the art of understanding and communication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dietrich Bonhoeffer</span> German theologian and dissident anti-Nazi (1906–1945)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer 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 become widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Adolf Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for 1½ years. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Schleiermacher</span> German theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar (1768–1834)

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. Because of his profound effect on subsequent Christian thought, he is often called the "Father of Modern Liberal Theology" and is considered an early leader in liberal Christianity. The neo-orthodoxy movement of the twentieth century, typically seen to be spearheaded by Karl Barth, was in many ways an attempt to challenge his influence. As a philosopher he was a leader of German Romanticism. Schleiermacher is considered the most important Protestant theologian between John Calvin and Karl Barth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian humanism</span> Type of humanism

Christian humanism regards humanist principles like universal human dignity, individual freedom, and the importance of happiness as essential and principal or even exclusive components of the teachings of Jesus. Proponents of the term trace the concept to the Renaissance or patristic period, linking their beliefs to the scholarly movement also called 'humanism'.

Georg Misch was a German philosopher.

George Linsley Pattison is a retired English theologian and Anglican priest. His last post prior to retirement was as Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. He was previously Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. From 2017–2019 he was a Senior Co-Fund Fellow at the Max Weber Center at the University of Erfurt. He has also been an Affiliate Professor in Systematic Theology at the University of Copenhagen (2011–) and an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Theology at the University of St Andrews (2021–).

Elliot R. Wolfson is a scholar of Jewish studies, comparative mysticism, and the philosophy of religion.

Gerhard Ebeling (1912–2001) was a German Lutheran theologian and with Ernst Fuchs a leading proponent of new hermeneutic theology in the 20th century.

Graham John Ward is an English theologian and Anglican priest who has been Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford since 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Malpas</span> Australian philosopher

Jeff Malpas is an Australian philosopher and emeritus distinguished professor at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. Known internationally for his work across the analytic and continental traditions, Malpas is also at the forefront of contemporary philosophical research on the concept of "place", as first and most comprehensively presented in his Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography—now in its second edition—and further developed in numerous subsequent works.

Ingolf Ulrich Dalferth is a philosopher of religion and theologian. His work is regarded as being on the methodological borderlines between analytic philosophy, hermeneutics and phenomenology, and he is a recognized expert in issues of contemporary philosophy, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of orientation.

The following is a bibliography of John D. Caputo's works. Caputo is an American philosopher closely associated with postmodern Christianity.

This is a bibliography of works by and about the 19th-century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Schweiker</span> American theological ethicist

William Schweiker is an American theological ethicist. He is the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on globalization as an ethical problem, hermeneutic philosophy, theological humanism, the history of ethics, and comparative religious ethics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrzej Wierciński</span> Polish philosopher

Andrzej Wierciński is a hermeneutician, philosopher, and theologian. As the transdisciplinary thinker, he is Professor of Liberal Arts, Faculty of Artes Liberales at the University of Warsaw, President-Founder (2001) of the International Institute for Hermeneutics (IIH), and President of Agora Hermeneutica (IIH).

William Franke is an American academic and philosopher, professor of Comparative Literature at Vanderbilt University. A main exposition of his philosophical thinking is A Philosophy of the Unsayable (2014), a book which dwells on the limits of language in order to open thought to the inconceivable. On this basis, the discourses of myth, mysticism, metaphysics, and the arts take on new and previously unsuspected types of meaning. This book is the object of a Syndicate Forum and of a collective volume of essays by diverse hands in the series “Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion”: Contemporary Debates in Negative Theology and Philosophy. Franke's apophatic philosophy is based on his two-volume On What Cannot Be Said: Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts (2007), which reconstructs in the margins of philosophy a counter-tradition to the thought and culture of the Logos. Franke extends this philosophy in an intercultural direction, entering the field of comparative philosophy, with Apophatic Paths from Europe to China: Regions Without Borders. In On the Universality of What is Not: The Apophatic Turn in Critical Thinking, Franke argues for application of apophatic thinking in a variety of fields and across disciplines, from humanities to cognitive science, as key to reaching peaceful mutual understanding in a multicultural world riven by racial and gender conflict, religious antagonisms, and national and regional rivalries.

Philip G. Ziegler is a Canadian-born theologian who holds a personal chair as Professor in Christian Dogmatics at the University of Aberdeen. He is author of numerous scholarly articles, books, and has led various research projects within contemporary dogmatics, the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as theological reflection on New Testament apocalyptic. He maintains a personal website: Theologia Borealis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Mawson</span> Pākehā theologian and ethicist

Michael Mawson is the Maclaurin Goodfellow Associate Professor of Theological and Religious Studies at University of Auckland, a post that has previously been held by Elaine Wainwright and Joseph Bulbulia. He is an international expert on the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and has published widely in the area of Christian Ethics.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Jens Zimmermann Curriculum Vitae". Regent College.
  2. ↑ "Dr. Jens Zimmerman to speak at Tyndale". Tyndale University. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  3. 1 2 3 Moyer, Bruce Campbell. "Incarnational Humanism [review] / Zimmermann, Jens". Andrews University.
  4. ↑ "Jens Zimmerman, Ph.D." 2013-05-28. Archived from the original on 2013-05-28.
  5. ↑ Zimmermann, Jens (1996). English puritans and german pietists : a re-examination of precritical interpretation in light of the anthropocentric turn in hermeneutics (Thesis). University of British Columbia.
  6. ↑ "Recovering Theological Hermeneutics". Wipf and Stock Publishers.
  7. ↑ Klassen, Norman; Zimmermann, Jens (2009). "The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education". Taylor University.
  8. ↑ "Theologische Hermeneutik - Ein trinitarisch-christologischer Entwurf – CHOROS Online-Shop". thesaurus-religion.de.
  9. ↑ "Incarnational Humanism: A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World". Jens Zimmermann. 24 August 2012.
  10. ↑ Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. 2015-12-15. ISBN   978-0-19-968535-6.
  11. ↑ "Re-Envisioning Christian Humanism: Education and the Restoration of Humanity". Oxford Academic.
  12. ↑ Wüstenberg, Ralf K. (July 2020). "Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christian Humanism, JensZimmermann, Oxford University Press, 2019 (ISBN 978-0-198-83256-0), 400 pp., hb £75". Reviews in Religion & Theology. 27 (3): 435–437. doi: 10.1111/rirt.13872 . ISSN   1350-7303. S2CID   225611680.
  13. ↑ "Jens Zimmermann". Regent College Summer Programs.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.