Christian Conscience Research Articles

"Heart-Rending Ambivalence": Jacques Maritain and the Complexity of Postwar Catholic Philosemitism

Philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) embraced a quest for sanctity at the core of his vocation as a French Catholic intellectual. Known as an exponent of the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, he also devoted considerable energies to the promotion of democracy and human rights, as well as the combat against antisemitism. Maritain has been lauded for his sometimes courageous attempts to eradicate anti-Jewish prejudice from the Christian conscience, though some prevailing interpretations oversimplify this thinker's motivations and ideas. Keeping in mind the historically-contingent and often ambivalent nature of philosemitism, this article analyzes Maritain's postwar writings on the Jewish Question and his interactions with Popes Pius XII and Paul VI, Anglican theologian James Parkes, Jewish historians Leon Poliakov and Jules Isaac, and fellow Catholic writers Paul Claudel and Francois Mauriac.

Critical Consciousness and the Christian Conscience: Making the Necessary Connections Between Faith-Based Learning and Critical Pedagogy

Critical pedagogy is a by product of postmodernism, which argues that reality is always subjective, and truth is identified through each person's experiences and environment. Can critical pedagogy be applied to faith-based education? The authors claim that it can. First, the theories and practices of critical pedagogy have strengthened faith-based education by emphasizing self-directed students, the teacher as facilitator, and well-organized learning experiences. In fact, Jesus knew that learning required an active knowledge-creating process through one's full participation in the class. He always encouraged his disciples to transcend superficial understanding. Jesus knew that learning was not simply memorizing facts or reciting the Law of Moses. His beliefs challenged the passive learning paradigm of memorizing content established by the Jewish leaders. This article concludes that both critical pedagogists and Christian teachers would endorse problem-posing methods to encourage full engagement and effective teachers' dispositions in the classroom.

Раскольников, Ставрогин, Верховенский, Иван Карамазов – старец Зосима: атеистическая идея в свете христианского сознания

The system of features of Dostojevsky’s characters having atheistic ideas is studied in the article as testifying their subjection to the evil. The situation is shown from the point of view of elder Zosima’s Christian consciousness through which Dostojevsky gives his own answer to the atheistic idea.

Antichristian Basis of “Maidan Theology”

The article is devoted to the study of the so-called “Maidan Theology” phenomenon as the pseudo religious ideological phenomenon and the newest Russophobia variety. The author reveals the true goals of this ideology creation, – Church schism and Christian conscience destruction, its substitution with secular simulacrum. The Ukrainian version of “Maidan Theology” constitutes one of the primary basic features of the neo-Nazi regime in the Ukraine. In Russia their own version of “Maidan Theology” will be used as an instrument for the state destruction under the pretext of the “struggle against the regime”. The author analyzes several examples of the “Maidan Theology” ideologists and some of their representative texts. The author shows the deception principles that serve as the basis of this ideology, as well as the antichristian psychological features of its disciples.

Christian Conscience, Catholic Teaching and Lay Participation in Public Life

AbstractVatican II left Catholicism with some unresolved tensions: on the one hand between the authority of conscience and the teaching authority of the church and, on the other hand, concerning the proper relationship between the hierarchy and the laity. Such unfinished business continues to play itself out in public and political life. This article traces developments in the Catholic understanding of conscientious participation in public life, stretching from John F. Kennedy’s presidential candidature in 1960 up to the present writings of Pope Benedict XVI. In the post-Vatican II era, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have emphasized the strong correspondence that should exist between church teaching and the Christian conscience.

The Conscience of Vincent Van Gogh

The Conscience of Vincent Van Gogh

‘Guided By God’ beyond the Chilean frontier: the travelling early modern European conscience

This essay describes the journey of conscience of a sixteen‐year‐old Spaniard on the seventeenth‐century Chilean frontier as, while captive, he travelled deep into enemy territory, learned to live amongst the Mapuche, to speak their language fluently, made close friends and, to a point, shared their lives and customs whilst still endeavouring to remain Spanish and Christian. The essay analyses how the youth's conscience developed as he travelled around the indigenous Chilean landscape but also as he progressed through life and witnessed injustice and bad government causing continued suffering to those who lived near to the frontier. The boy's experience confirmed to himself and the contemporary reader the validity of Catholic notions of conscience – especially that of the innate knowledge of goodness – across cultural frontiers and throughout humanity. At the same time, the moral struggles described in Happy Captivity show the many difficulties he encountered as he realised the Mapuche's humanity whilst still trying to preserve his own individual Spanish identity. In the end, what he perceived as the universality of the innate principles of the Christian conscience took him to the point where he was able to transcend his own culture, inviting the dissolution of seemingly insoluble boundaries.

On religion and cultural policy: notes on the Roman Catholic Church

This paper argues that religious institutions have largely been neglected within the study of cultural policy. This is attributed to the inherently secular tendency of most modern social sciences. Despite the predominance of the ‘secularisation paradigm’, the paper notes that religion continues to promote powerful attachments and denunciations. Arguments between the ‘new atheists’, in particular, Richard Dawkins, and their opponents are discussed, as is Habermas’ conciliatory encounter with Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). The paper then moves to a consideration of the Roman Catholic Church as an agent of cultural policy, whose overriding aim is the promotion of ‘Christian consciousness’. Discussion focuses on the contested meanings of this, with reference to (1) the deliberations of Vatican II, and (2) the exercise of theological and cultural authority by the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is argued that these doctrinal disputes intersect with secular notions of social and cultural policy and warrant attention outside the specialist realm of theological discourse.

Chosen Among Women: Mary and Fatima in Medieval Christianity and Shi'ite Islam * BY MARY F. THURLKILL

This is a highly suitable title and subject for a publication by Notre Dame, and can help to expand Christian consciousness to include Islamic parallels if only between minority schisms. By and large it is a scholarly book. With only one or two slips (p. 121), the author is careful to distinguish Shiʿi Islam from Sunni Islam, mentioning here and there the Sunni position, though its main focus is on Safavi Shiʿism. For example there is reference to Sunni Islam's emphasis on direct access to God, with no need for saints (pp. 31–2) and a fairly substantial account of early ḥadīth scholarship (pp. 33–7). The text is supplemented with copious notes and 20–page bibliography, bearing witness to wide reading but with the surprising exception of any mention of the Qurʾān, although there are some Qurʾānic quotations in the text (eight are listed in the Index). In fact the book starts with one about Mary, paralleled by one from St Luke's Gospel, but no translation is credited. Most of the listed sources are in English translation, even primary ones like Bukhārī, Tirmidhī, Ibn Hishām, but al-Majlisī, al-Qummā, Shaykh al-Mufīd, Ibn Bābawayh and al-Ṭūsī are in Arabic. She also lists sources in Latin. The scholarly apparatus includes a Shiʿi genealogy of the ahl al-bayt, a glossary and a short index. In her acknowledgements, Ms. Thurlkill makes clear that the study was held together over several years and job changes.

Torture and the Christian conscience: a response to Jeremy Waldron

AbstractIn remarks offered in 2006 at a conference at Princeton Theological Seminary, inaugurating a National Religious Campaign against Torture, the legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron observed that Christian leaders have contributed relatively little to the recent debate over the use of torture. This is regrettable, in his view, because secular morality does not have resources sufficient to address the question of torture, and a Christian perspective emphasising the absoluteness and divine character of the relevant moral norms would represent an important contribution to our reflections on this question. This article offers a response to Waldron's timely and important challenge, setting forth a Christian theological argument that the practice of torture is categorically prohibited. The basis for this prohibition does not rest, however, on the absoluteness of moral norms as such – rather, it rests on the distinctive character of torture as an egregious assault on the human person regarded as image of God.

War and the Christian Conscience: Where Do You Stand?; Torture: Religious Ethics and National Security

War and the Christian Conscience: Where Do You Stand?; Torture: Religious Ethics and National Security

The Middle Belt Movement and the formation of Christian Consciousness in Colonial Northern Nigeria

This article looks at the connection between a political movement and the evolution of Christian consciousness. It seeks to answer a series of questions not often asked, in hopes of demonstrating that these questions deserve more attention than they have generated in the past. Historians and mission scholars rightly expend a good deal of effort studying the transition in mission-established churches from European to indigenous control. Missions did more than establish churches, however. They established local Christian cultures. Yet while there is some understanding of what indigenous peoples sought to do when they assumed direction of churches founded by missionaries, there is very little idea of what indigenous peoples have sought to do when they take over local Christian cultures. But, if it is the case that, as Lamin Sanneh has argued, Christianity “stimulated the vernacular,” then the local Christian cultures built upon the vernacular, perhaps more so than the churches missions founded, are the true legacy of the missionary enterprise.

Japanese Immigrants and their Christian Communities in North America: A Case Study of the Fukuinkai, 1877–1896

On 6 October 1877, several Christian students living in San Francisco gathered and organized the Fukuinkai (Gospel Society) for Bible study and to encourage mutual concern and support among members who shared similar difficulties and struggles. In addition to being the first organization established by in the United States, it was regarded as Japanese student's cradle society, which provided supportive environment that enabled migrant students to continue their studies and cope with the challenges of living in American society. A review of the literature indicates that the Fukuinkai has largely been studied from the standpoint of church history or in relation to missionary programs and been seen primarily as an agent of assimilation into American culture. This case study reveals more complicated picture and indicates that the established interpretation needs to be re-examined. An analysis of the educational programs of the Fukuinkai shows that it cultivated hybrid activities among its members. It provided the context for students to reconsider and appreciate their own cultural values and heritage, but also nurtured consciousness through its social, political, and cultural ties with Japan. At the same time, it helped to develop consciousness of rights among members in their relationship to and involvement with the host society. KEYWORDS: Christian immigrants - Fukuinkai - transnationalism - racial discrimination (ProQuest-CSA LLC: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) THE STUDY of Christianity in Japan has often focused on the history of various mission churches and institutions or biographical studies of significant missionaries and well-known Christian leaders. The encounter with Christianity has not been limited to these domestic experiences often mediated by foreign missionaries. An important but often overlooked dimension of Christianity-particularly in its Protestant forms-is related to the experience of immigrants and students outside of Japan. Overseas migration is one way in which Christian activities and consciousness expand beyond single nation-state or region. A transnational approach is needed in order to explain some early developments among Christian immigrants overseas.1 For our purposes here, I define transnational Christian activities and consciousness as the political loyalty and cultural identity of de-territorialized Christians looking to single national territory. These religious activities and consciousness serve to maintain and intensify social, political, and cultural ties with the home country. A study of the Fukuinkai ... (Gospel Society), an important organization among early immigrants in the United States, will illuminate the nature of Christian consciousness and its role in shaping the development of Protestant Christianity in both countries during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On 6 October 1877, several Christian students living in San Francisco gathered to form the Fukuinkai for Bible study and to encourage mutual support for life in America. The Fukuinkai was the first organization formed by living in America and can be considered a cradle society for students. It responded to the needs of migrant working students and provided supportive environment that enabled them to continue their studies in American society. The organization's activities and services included night classes, dormitories, meals, assistance in finding employment, and support for studying abroad. These programs were not just beneficial to Fukuinkai members. The various activities also nurtured vision and concern for the welfare of others outside of the organization. While the educational and missionary work by American Protestant churches among students during this time is often noted, it needs to be recognized that the Fukuinkai also played major role in the initial formation of the community. …

The Answers of Applied Islamology

The starting point of the article is the archive, characterized as a query about the future, and Foucault’s call for a discourse that provides a dual articulation of the history of individuals on the subconscious of culture and the historicity of the latter on individual subconsciousness. The archive has not been read as such either by exponents of the Islamic tradition or by modern scholarship in the Orientalist tradition, thus the first ambitious task of applied Islamology is to deconstructively analyse the foundational discourse of an imaginary that, since the Middle Ages, has opposed Arab-Islamic consciousness to a Jewish and Christian consciousness. Applied Islamology also explores the ‘universal values’ that were invented in the West and then seen as transferable to all cultures worldwide. The public is deprived of the conceptual tools necessary to explore both this imaginary and the West’s ‘universal’ values. The social frameworks of knowledge regarding Islamic studies are in operation as much in the West as in Muslim contexts.

Raising Christian Consciousness: Creating Place

This paper explores the role of place in raising Christian consciousness amongst young people. It is primarily based on qualitative data collected through a survey of young people's experiences of Christian youth work. The paper argues that for Christian youth work to be more effective in helping young people develop a Christian consciousness there needs to be a deliberate fostering of the significance of place.

Addressing Child Abuse in Southern Nigeria: The Role of the Church

Child abuse can be defined as 'an intentional or neglectful physical or emotional injury imposed on a child, including sexual molestation.' (Garner 1999:10) Child abuse violates the United Nation Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989 and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child. This evil, which is also considered offensive to any genuine Christian conscience, is becoming very common in many villages, towns and cities in Southern Nigeria. In this paper, using phenomenological and hermeneutical methods, attempt is made to highlight the major types of child abuses in Southern Nigeria, identify the factors encouraging the trend, examine generally the attitude of the churches in this regard and prescribe more child friendly attitudes and practices for the church in Nigeria.

War and the Christian Conscience: Where Do You Stand? – Joseph J. Fahey

Book reviewed: War and the Christian Conscience: Where Do You Stand?, Joseph J. Fahey, Orbis Press 2005 (1‐57075‐583‐3), xviii + 205 pp., pb $15.00

War and the Christian conscience: where do you stand?

War and the Christian conscience: where do you stand?

Paul and the Introspective Conscience of Martin Luther: The Impact of Luther's Anfechtungen on His Interpretation of Paul

AbstractAll his life Martin Luther experienced what he calls his Anfechtungen, his struggles with spiritual despair and guilt. As is well known, these struggles yielded his "Reformation Discovery" that the righteousness of God in Rom. 1:17 is not the punitive righteousness by which a wrathful God punishes sinners, but the gift of his own righteousness through faith in Christ to all who believe. In recent decades, following the influential lead given by the work of Krister Stendahl, Pauline scholars have often assumed that Luther is guilty of simple anachronism, projecting back onto Paul his own guilty conscience. This article subjects that assumption to careful scrutiny, tracing Luther's reading of Philippians 3 across various texts. Although Luther does not discuss Paul's conscience as an issue in its own right, he in fact repeatedly assumes that Paul's pre-conversion conscience was robust. The article moves on to consider how this finding coheres with Luther's overall reading of Paul, the manner in which he thinks about Paul's post-conversion Christian conscience, and the parallels that Luther does draw between his own biography and that of Paul. These parallels are significant, but do not include a guilty conscience. Luther does not project his own introspective struggles back onto Paul. The paper concludes with an exploration of the origins of the idea that Paul had an introspective conscience and a consideration of the implications of its findings for current "new perspective" debates.

Unsterblichkeit der Seele versus Ganztodthese? — Ein Grundproblem christlicher Eschatologie in ökumenischer Perspektive

In dealing with a central problem of Christian eschatology Protestant and Catholic theologians have proposed significantly different solutions in recent years: while we find a conscious distancing from the notion of the immortality of the soul in Protestant theology, this notion is largely reinterpreted but not discarded by Catholic theologians. How should we interpret these findings? Does the fact of the difference between the approaches point to different forms of expression of the Christian consciousness of faith? Or should we interpret the difference merely as different dogmatic interpretations of a shared Christian hope? In order to assess these findings this essay develops the theme in four parts. First of all, the background and the reasons for seeing the immortality of the soul as a problem in modernity are re-assessed. Secondly, the significance of the crisis of classical metaphysics for the dogmatic exposition of eschatology is examined. The third part offers a sketch of the main tenets and aporias of the Christain hope of resurrection. The fourth part presents an attempt at providing herme-neutic clarification on the problem of immortality of the soul in ecumenical perspective.