Christian Insights Research Articles

The First Apocalypse of James in a Socio-Linguistic Perspective: Three Greek and Coptic Versions from Ancient Monastic Egypt

The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices (NHC) in 1945 rates as one of the two most profound occurrences for Biblical archaeology and interpretation during the last hundred years, along with the Dead Sea Scrolls (1946–1956). The codices allow us to document Christian monastic culture, gnostic Christianity and gnostic offshoots in the desert climate of Late Ancient Egypt. The recovery of the related Codex Tchacos (CT) brought further excitement for contemporary readers by 2006, it being sensational that narratives of “Judas the betrayer” and “doubting Thomas” were found in the whole collection of writings. The text named the [First] Apocalypse of James, significantly, was found to be in both NHC and CT in different Coptic versions (from near the sacred sites of Chenoboskion and El Minya), but yet another more fragmentary version in Greek had turned up much earlier among the huge cache of papyri found at Oxyrhynchus (also, like the other places, on the banks of the Nile). Given the opportunity for comparison, what distinguishes the three versions? Does comparative analysis better tell us what this ancient text is about? Does the strong presence of Gnostic Christian insights in the Coptic texts still imply a historical Jamesian community is being honoured? This paper concentrates on three comparable passages in the three versions that apparently contain historical memories of James and his followers. It works on the reasonable hypothesis that the Greek version of Oxyrhynchus Papyri (P.Oxy. 5533) (hereafter = PO) is prior and read with different purposes than the two Coptic translated versions of CT (CT 2.10–30) and NHC (NHC V,3. 24–44). When a critical approach, involving a socio-linguistic comparison, is applied, we will see that the three versions of the text were not directly related to each other, but that narratives about James the Just were available to desert monastics from the second century CE. The paper argues for a literal transmission of traditions from a Jewish Christian community around James into Egypt, that the textual figure of James in the Oxyrhynchus fragments points to a ‘mutual familiarity’ between PO and CT, while the NHC tradition of James has been further elaborated by processes of compilation and addition.

The Prolonged Path of Indigenization: A Study on German Protestant Missionary Ernst Faber’s Chinese Literary Works

Ernst Faber’s 34 years of literary missionary works reveal his commitment to refining his approach to indigenizing Christianity in China. Employing three linguistic and cultural adaptation strategies—translation and commentary of the Bible, examination and analysis of missionary practical outcomes in Western society, and the revision and reinterpretation of Chinese classics incorporating Christian insights—Faber adapted his methods gradually into China’s specific conditions, indicating a prolonged path of indigenization. Despite expressing appreciation for Chinese culture, a critical examination reveals the preservation of his cultural biases and an unwavering commitment to Christianity as a means of purifying and enriching the spirit of the Chinese people. Rooted in the political context of his time and confidence in European historical world missions, Faber’s indigenization strategy in his Chinese literary works represents an interplay of cultural adaptation and resistance.

God So Loved the World

AbstractThe account of the near sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22, often referred to as the Aqedah, has been profoundly influential, both directly and indirectly, in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theological reflection. This article seeks to explore some Christian insights into the use of the motif of the sacrifice of Isaac, suggesting that its use is fundamental to understanding the theme of Christ’s love in the Gospel of John, in particular the link between love, sacrifice, and unity. With a brief exploration of two artworks by Marc Chagall, The Sacrifice of Isaac and the White Crucifixion, it will also raise questions as to what this might mean for the relationship between Christianity and Judaism.

Reciprocal Inclusivism: A Methodology for Understanding the Faiths of the World

Based on John Hick's pluralistic hypothesis that Reality is ineffable and beyond adequate comprehension, but the presence of this Reality can be experienced through the linguistic systems and spiritual practices offered by the various religious traditions, this essay explores the place of such a hypothesis in the face of contemporary understandings of religious pluralism, in particular perennialist assumptions about religious differences. The essay aims to place the criticisms and strengths of traditional perennialism in the context of the thinking of two schools of theological thought. The first is embodied in the work of Vladimir Lossky (1903–58) whose understanding of apophaticism is based on patristic Christian insights and remains influential within the Eastern Orthodox Church. The second is the school of thought associated with the names of René Guénon (1886–1951) and Fritzjof Schuon (1907–98), which is referred to sometimes as the Traditionalist school or as perennial traditionalism.

Communitas: belonging and the order of being

ABSTRACTHuman existence is intrinsically community-oriented. Persons find themselves as responsible in community. This is a classical and Christian insight that is supported by significant contemporary philosophers such as Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Levinas. This article makes the claim that to thrive as a person is to belong; indeed, that it is the experience of belonging that satisfies the human need for meaning, value, and purpose. The article proceeds by considering the term ‘community.’ In itself, ‘community’ is a common sense term. However, it is also a symbol with dimensions of meaning beyond common sense implicit within it. For the sake of a richer understanding of belonging, this article proposes to discuss some of those dimensions under three headings: Dynamism; Communion; and Consummation. ‘Dynamism’ relates to the members of a community whose mutual participation constitutes the characteristics of that community. ‘Communion’ considers the emergence of genuine community, as opposed to general association, from the prior mutual will to accommodate the Other(s) in the self. ‘Consummation’ considers the significance of communion as both the goal and fulfilment of each person and community. Put another way, consummation is the perfection of belonging.

Christian insights into Plotinus’ Metaphysics and his Concept of Αptitude (Ἐπιτηδειότης)

Modern scholarship on Late Antique philosophy seems to be more interested than ever before in examining in depth convergences and divergences between Platonism and Early Christian thought. Plotinus is a key figure in such an examination. This paper aims at shedding light to certain aspects of Plotinian metaphysics that bring Plotinus into dialogue with the thought of Church fathers by means either of similarities or differences between Neoplatonist and Christian thought. It proposes a preliminary study of the Plotinian concept of aptitude, as it emerges throughout the Enneads, and seeks to argue that this concept is crucial as it involves the relation between the One and the many, the reality of participation, the relation of the cosmos with, and its dependence on, the superior spheres of being, the bestowal of divine gifts upon beings, and the possibility of the deification of the human being.

‘Anglicanism in a Bottle?’ Theological Implications of Sexualities Education for Anglican Ordinands

This article develops the initial findings of the small-scale research project Mind the Gap to ask what theological insights might be drawn from this enquiry into contemporary theological education for ordinands concerning sexualities. Three areas are suggested: the relationship between theology and other disciplines in the interrogation of human behaviour (including the theological understanding of lived experience); a further investigation of identity, authority and power; a response to the concept of ‘theological capital’ in terms of sexualities. The authors conclude that embodied theologies of desire may connect more healthily the abstract and the (sexually) concrete, as well as renewing tired secular concepts with new Christian insights. Ordinands are encouraged to engage cognitively at a meta-level in analysing and appreciating differences, of which they are already aware from their pastoral practice.

The Real Mystery of Positive Business: A Response from Christian Faith

I ask why an increasing number of business scholars today are drawn to an idea of “positive business” that they cannot account for scientifically. I answer that it is because they are attracted to the real mystery of positive business which is its incomprehensible and unspeakable divinity. I begin by asking why the research literature has yet to speak of positive business plainly and with one voice. I find that it lacks for the right words because it comes to human being in business as a science attuned to its objects rather than as a religion attuned to its spirit. Next, I say what I can about the real mystery of business, keeping in mind that we can say about it only what we can say about God. This brings me at last to the Christian insight that human being, in business and everywhere else, is the mystery of Jesus Christ in whom we are reconciled to God. Business is positively human as it invites us to be as Christ, to be a fully human person in joyful communion with others in God. This, in sum, is how to speak plainly and with one voice of the positive business that our hearts desire but our science cannot say.

Comment on Ralph Hancock, The Responsibility of Reason: Theory and Practice in a Liberal-Democratic Age

Ralph Hancock's Responsibility of Reason distinguishes two “axes of transcendence,” vertical and horizontal, characteristic of ancient and modern philosophy, respectively, and settles for a mixed regime in which both can stake their claim. Praising Tocqueville and Heidegger for their trenchant analyses of the modern problem, Hancock criticizes the effort by Leo Strauss and his “High Straussian” disciples to restore classical political philosophy as post-Christian, that is, denying rather than acknowledging Christian insight. Regarding Strauss, I think the criticism misfires, for Strauss's adage to understand authors as they understood themselves allows Christianity, too, to appear as fresh as the classical authors to whom the early Christians responded. Moreover, to settle the responsibility of reason in our time requires coming to terms with the achievements as well as the limits of modern science, the epitome of reason to most modern men. Heidegger's critique of technology does not exhaust this responsibility, nor ensure that political liberty can be recovered in its wake.

On Relinquishing and Receiving

It is an ancient realization, always relearned in resistant, recalcitrant ways, that we cannot receive what is new without relinquishing something of what is old. The anniversary of Tikkun is a time to notice that Tikkun, from the outset, has advocated receiving what is new for Israel and the Palestinians.The Hebrew Bible is saturated with that learning. Abraham and Sarah had to “set out” in order to receive the new land. The Egyptian slaves had to “depart” to the risk of the wilderness to get to their new place. And Isaiah (43:18-19) reminded the generation of deportees that a “new thing,” a restored Judaism, required the relinquishment of old, treasured miracles:Do not remember the former things,or consider the things of old.I am about to do a new thing,now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?In sports parlance, it is “No pain, no gain.” In Christian confession, in popular summary, it is “No cross, no crown,” by which it is asserted that the Friday death of Jesus was essential to Easter newness in the world.Put in such poetic or theological ways, the cost of newness seems clear enough. It is less clear and less compelling when put to the test of real issues. And that is what Tikkun has been doing all this time, testing such hope against the unforgiving facts on the ground. The hope of Tikkun and its many readers is for a safe, peaceable, viable “Holy Land” with a guaranteed existence for the state of Israel. That is what we hope to “receive.” But we cannot, so it seems, get from here to there. We cannot because we variously cannot relinquish old claims and old imaginations, old claims for a “Greater Israel,” or old imaginations for a land without the nation of Israel. So we go round and round without relinquishing. And we learn, many times over, that there are no new gifts given in such resistance.We of course may know this, because the same truth is given in the great insight of Freud that has led to contemporary psychotherapy. The process to health is the acknowledgement and relinquishment of old patterns of self, and the embrace of new self, the incorporation of what has been denied and resisted. For the most part, consequently, we choose to remain our less-than-healed old selves, finding relinquishment too demanding.The same hard learning presses against imperial dimensions of the American dream. We are now, manifestly, at the end of the “American Century” (Henry Luce). We are finding our economy less than viable, with old extravagances now obsolete. We are finding (since Vietnam) that our military prowess is unable to meet local realities. We are finding our imperial policies less than effective; the sugar plums that have danced in our heads are no longer in full supply. It would of course be possible to “receive” a more realistic American dream. But old posturing and pretense die hard, and we keep imagining that more effort, more expenditure, or one more casualty will somehow let us be the way we were. We would like to embrace Tikkun magazine’s teaching that “homeland security” can no longer be achieved through domination of others, but rather through generosity based on a new understanding that must emerge in the West (an understanding that our well-being depends on the well-being of everyone else on the planet and the well-being of the planet itself). This message emerges from the holy scriptures not only of the Jews and Christians but also of most spiritual and religious traditions of the world. Yet the resistance to this new understanding is intense.It is a Christian insight, appropriated from Israel’s exilic experience, that Holy Saturday—just between Good Friday and Easter—is a null point that was (and is) reached in historical reality, in liturgic performance, and in risky imagination, from which may come new life. But of course we fear the null point when the old dies: we are left no longer in control and at the behest of what will be given next. That, however, is the only venue in which new gifts are given in the historical process. We live in hope, but mostly grudging and fearful, remembering the old “flesh pots” amid old enslavements.

Christian Insight Meditation: Following in the Footsteps of John of the Cross – By Mary Jo Meadow, Kevin Culligan and Daniel Chowning

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 36, Issue 4 p. 280-280 Christian Insight Meditation: Following in the Footsteps of John of the Cross – By Mary Jo Meadow, Kevin Culligan and Daniel Chowning Gina Messina-Dysert, Gina Messina-Dysert Claremont, CASearch for more papers by this author Gina Messina-Dysert, Gina Messina-Dysert Claremont, CASearch for more papers by this author First published: 02 December 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-0922.2010.01462_36.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume36, Issue4December 2010Pages 280-280 RelatedInformation

Success and Failure in Conversion Narratives1

Introduction Debates about conversion and proselytism have been gaining momentum around the globe in recent years. This is happening for several reasons but especially because the number of new constitutional democracies that have been created in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America during the last two decades are more than matched by the number of civil wars that have shaken and destabilized states undergoing acute transition in the same period. The modern human rights revolution and the outburst of violent conflicts on religious grounds are taking place simultaneously; indeed, in many places they are interconnected. In other words, Human rights are as much the problem as they are the solution in a number of current religious and cultural conflicts, (2) and democratization and economic liberalization often provide the conditions for increased religious pluralization and proselytization activities. (3) Religions and obscure cults that authoritarian regimes have suppressed in the past have taken advantage of the religious freedom newly guaranteed in these states to develop a vigorous life. In addition, evangelicals and Pentecostals, as well as relatively new religious groups such as Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses, have entered the scene and contributed to the development of a climate of competition and strife. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, a veritable 'war for souls' was launched in Eastern Europe and other regions, and it provoked deep social and ideological conflicts. In this explosive atmosphere, rival religious communities have begun actively to defame and demonize each other, and to gather themselves into ever more dogmatic and fundamentalist strands. The ecumenical spirit of the previous decades is giving way to sharp new forms of religious balkanization. (4) Traditional religious communities and majority religions have frequently urged the state to pass anti-proselytism laws after a few years of such turmoil. In doing so, Eastern European, African and Latin American countries have developed a legal culture that tends to give protection to some religious communities and oppress others. (5) In India, anti-conversion laws have been passed mainly but not exclusively in states ruled by Hindu fundamentalists. (6) While it is not regarded as an offence in India to convert to Hinduism, leaving Hinduism for Buddhism, Islam or Christianity is severely controlled under such laws and is often hindered or even punished. Some converts come under scrutiny and have to prove that they have not been given material inducements to change their religious affiliation. (7) This situation has triggered a debate among members of different religious communities about the rights and wrongs of missionary outreach that aims at conversion. Opponents usually refer to missionary outreach in this sense by the pejorative term of proselytism, or proselytization. Urgent questions are arising. How can ethically acceptable means of missionary outreach be distinguished from unethical proselytization? (8) Should changes of religious affiliation be avoided altogether for the sake of religious peace? Such issues specifically challenge Christianity. What are the key Christian insights regarding human rights in general and, in particular, the right to make disciples (Matt. 28:19f) and seek adherents among members of other faith communities? How does the implementation of the Great Commission affect the objective and modalities of interreligious dialogue, and undermine the encounter with people of other faiths? There are also questions that can legitimately be posed to people on the other side of such confrontations. Are not many of the accusations that Christians proselytise with unethical means groundless insinuations and propaganda? If, for example, members of a specific Christian group dedicate themselves to care for the poor, the sick, prisoners and outcasts ignored by their co-religionists, is that really a case of inducement to conversion by unethical means? …

Defining Acts: Drama and the Politics of Interpretation in Late Medieval England by Ruth Nisse (review)

REVIEWS 267 Italian edition of the Dialogues, but it documents the Jewish-Spanish interest in Leone Ebreo’s texts. The fifth part, “La edición veneciana de traducción de los Diálogos de amor y su recepción,” comprises six chapters. The first chapter, “La edición veneciana de los Diálogos de amor y de las Opiniones sacadas de los más auténticos philósopofos que sobre la alma escrivieron y sus definiciones de 1569,” deals with the first Spanish translation published in 1560 in Venice and attributed to Guedallah ben Yosef ibn Yahia; Nelson Novoa relates it to the work of Aron Afia. Chapter 2, “El opúscolo filosófico las Opiniones sacada de los más auténticos y antiguos philósofos que sobre la alma escrivieron y sus definiciones ,” focuses on the work of Aron Afia, emphasizing the important interrelation between West and East and Christian insights into Jewish intellectual activities. Chapter 3, “Aspectos lingüísticos de la edición de 1568,” analyses the first Spanish translation of the Dialogues. Chapter 4, “La emissión de los Dialogos de amor en 1598 y su relación con la edición de 1568,” deals with the reprinting of the first translation in Spanish of the Dialogues. Chapter 5, “La edición de la traducción de Yahia en el encuadramiento de los mecanismos de la imprenta y de la censura en Venecia durante el Quinientos,” underlines important issues connected to sixteenth-century printing, most of all in connection to the inquisition and the index of forbidden books, which included the Dialogues. Chapter 6, “La suerte de la traducción de Guedallah Yahia,” deals with the distribution and the reception of the first Spanish translation of the Dialogues in Italy and in Spain and Spanish territories, i.e., the new colonies in America. The sixth part, “Problemas textuales, comparación de las traducciones españolas con el texto italiano de los Diálogos de amor y conclusiones globales,” includes three chapters. Chapter 1, “Consideraciones textuales acerca del texto italiano y los dos testimonios de la traducción en lengua española,” deals with interesting philological problems related to the original text of the Dialogues and discusses what text or texts the Spanish translator or translators could have used for the Spanish translation of 1568 and the translation into Aljamiado. Chapter 2, “Reflexión global sobre los dos testimonios,” relates the two translations to a common Italian text. Chapter 3, “Los Diálogos de amor de Léon Hebreo y su recepción como retrato del mundo sefardí del siglo XVI,” contains interesting insights into the importance of the Dialogues among the Sefardic communities and Jewish intellectuals during the sixteenth century. Nelson Novoa’s study is an outstanding and accurate work that helps to contextualize Leone Ebreo and his Dialogues. Providing new archival documentation and a vast bibliography, Nelson Novoa’s book is an excellent reference for further studies of the many aspects of the Dialogues of Love and its times; it is very useful for scholars interested in Jewish, Italian, and Iberian studies. ROSSELLA PESCATORI, Italian, UCLA Ruth Nisse, Defining Acts: Drama and the Politics of Interpretation in Late Medieval England (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 2004 ) x + 226 pp. REVIEWS 268 Ruth Nisse’s exceptional study of the political implications of interpretation both represented in, and occasioned by various dramatic enactments of religious texts offers a fascinating glimpse into not only the performance history of her dramatic texts, but also the interweaving of the great intellectual and cultural threads which produce the unique texture of the period: the identification with regional localities, the relationship of the individual to the corporate or civic bodies of communities defined by church, state, or guild, and, most importantly, what she terms the “politics of interpretation,” or “the process by which poet-playwrights, players, and spectators brought specifically hermeneutic problems to a public stage in order to negotiate their potential communal consequences” (5). Nisse’s own interpretive project locates paradoxical, interpretive fissures in the “vernacular theatrical language” of late medieval England in the “hermeneutic methods of scholastic biblical commentaries and dialectics” (2), carefully tracing the often dizzying derivative...

Sustainable and responsible design from a christian worldview

Many aspects of design require engineers to make choices based on non-quantifiable personal perspectives. These decisions touch issues in aesthetics, ethics, social impact, and responsibility and sustainability. Part of Baylor University's mission is to provide a learning community in which Christian life values and worldviews might be integrated into academic disciplines. In view of this institutional commitment, members of the Engineering faculty are investigating how Christian worldviews might interact with elements of engineering design in such a way as to produce uniquely Christian insights and inform the non-quantifiable aspects of the engineering process.

Changing Patterns of Church College Identity and Mission

This article, presented at the conference on ‘The Church Dimension of Higher Education’ held at Canterbury, 4‐6 September 2000, suggests that church sponsored colleges in the UK are currently experiencing a problem in surviving as distinctly ‘Christian’ bodies. Secularisation, the desire to be inclusive and pluralist, as well as other factors, such as merging with larger institutions, have distanced some colleges from their original aims. Survival has often driven secularisation. After examining some of the claims that church colleges make about their religious identities, the article argues in favour of a continued role for such colleges as rigorous academic institutions whose programmes are informed by Christian insights and values. Church related colleges need to continually redefine how their mission is best expressed in the light of changed circumstances and agendas.

Christian Insight Meditation: A Test Case on Interreligious Spirituality

Two years before Cardinal Ratzinger's letter, Mary Jo Meadow and Kevin Culligan co-authored an analysis of what they saw as remarkable similarities between the spirituality of the Catholic Carmelite John of the Cross and the Theravadan Buddhist vipassana (or insight) tradition.2 They went on, with the help of Daniel Chowning, to develop a spiritual practice that seeks to assimilate traditional Buddhist vipassana meditation into the spirituality of John of the Cross. The impetus was to supplement John's rather general instructions on method with the very detailed methodological program of Theravadan insight practice.3 They have designated this approach Christian Insight Meditation and maintain that the Buddhist vipassana practice which is its basis can be assimilated to the spirituality of John because, . .. although it originates in Theravadan Buddhism, insight meditation itself does not demand belief in the tenets of Buddhist religion.4 In fact:

Ucko, Hans (ed) 1997 - The jubilee challenge: Utopia or possibility? Jewish and Christian insights.

Ucko, Hans (ed) 1997 - The jubilee challenge: Utopia or possibility? Jewish and Christian insights.

Medical ethics--a Christian view.

All ethics has a religious dimension. This paper considers how specific Christian insights concerning death, suffering, human nature and human creatureliness can help to expose more fully the moral issues at stake in some of the dilemmas faced by doctors. It ends by acknowledging the crushing burden of decision-making which rests on many in the medical profession, and indicates the importance of religious resources in dealing with this.

A Study of the Interaction of Science and the Bible in Two Anthropological Treatises of the Fourth Century

There are some who today assert that biblical ideas should provide a critique of contemporary presuppositions, that theologians should not pay respect to current scientific knowledge at the expense of distinctively Christian insights. My aim in this paper is to explore the extent to which the Bible actually did perform such a function in the theology of the patristic period, by examining the relationship between science and the Bible in two key anthropological texts of the late Fourth Century. These two texts differ to the extent that one purports to be an exegetical work, while the other is a philosophical or scientific treatise. (It should be remembered that science and philosophy were not then distinguishable disciplines, though one can, and should distinguish between serious philosophy of a professional kind, including medicine, and more popular semi-philosophical assumptions.) Simply because they belong to different genres, the similarities and differences between these two treatises should prove particularly illuminating.

Persistence in seminary and in ministry

A follow-up study of 672 seminary students from 14 seminaries who took the Theological School Inventory in 1962 and 574 from 10 seminaries who took it in 1973 investigated factors involved in persistence in seminary and in ministry. Among those found were definiteness of decision, interest in parish ministry, a supportive spouse, unambivalent resolution of the authority problem, good role models in father and ministers. Motivations included redemptive outreach, pastoral care, Christian insight and scholarship, the encouragement of other people and a sense of effectiveness in ministry.