Christian Humanism Research Articles

Ecce Homo: On the Divine Unity of Christ by Aaron Riches

Reviewed by: Ecce Homo: On the Divine Unity of Christ by Aaron Riches Matthew Levering Ecce Homo: On the Divine Unity of Christ by Aaron Riches ( Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), xxi + 279 pp. Aaron Riches begins this extraordinary book by quoting Pope Pius XII's Sempiternus Rex, in which the Pope emphasized that Christ's human nature must not be presented as though it existed on its own rather than in the Word. Riches notes that Pius XII's teaching on the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of the Council of Chalcedon squares with the Apostle Paul's affirmation of "one Lord Jesus Christ" [End Page 1284] (1 Cor 8:6; cf. the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) and belongs to the Church's fundamental teaching that "the human Jesus … shares a unity and identity with God (in the person of the Son and Logos)" (3). On this basis, Riches sets forth the thesis of his book: "Therefore, the only tenable starting point for Christology lies in the absolute unitas of the human Jesus with the divine Son. This opposes any alternative starting point that would begin from a theoretical or ontological sepa-ratio of divinity and humanity in Christ in order to proceed discreetly 'from below'" (ibid.). Central to his argument is the point that no separation from God is needed or helpful in determining what Jesus's human nature is or does. Riches gives two reasons in support of this argument. The first reason involves a paradox, given the incompatibility of the divine attributes (for example, that God cannot change and is eternal) with creaturely attributes. While differing infinitely from his divinity, Jesus's humanity cannot be truly known outside the union of his human nature with the divine nature in the Word. Riches remarks that, "if the reality of the human being 'Jesus' is ontologically constituted through union with the Logos, the human birth and real crucifixion of this human being is made possible only in the divine unity of the Logos" (5). There would literally be no human nature of Jesus if there were no union of that human nature with the divine nature in the Word, and so understanding Jesus's humanity cannot involve bracketing his divinity. Second, and correspondingly, no separation from God is needed or helpful for analyzing Jesus's human nature because, in fact Jesus is verus homo et verus Deus, and so "the fullness and excellence of perfect humanity is constituted by the intimacy of its union with God" (6). Whereas it might seem that union with God makes Jesus less truly human, in fact, it makes Jesus more truly human. To know what is truly human cannot be attempted, therefore, by bracketing God. Rather, human nature becomes more what it distinctly is the more it is united with God. Riches states that "the irreducible difference of the human being in relation to God is perfected in direct (as opposed to inverse) relation to the perfection of the unio of his humanity with the divine Logos" (7). We might think that what is truly human is known and protected in Jesus by downplaying or bracketing what is truly divine. But, in fact, the opposite is the case, as befits the Creator God's ontological noncompetitiveness with creatures. When we emphasize Jesus's full divinity, we illumine his true humanity. Riches argues that the same point extends to knowing our own [End Page 1285] human nature, which is known rightly when we know it as united to the divine nature in the Word. As Riches puts it, "only the confession of the 'one Lord Jesus Christ' maximally preserves the integrity and difference of verus homo before verus Deus" (7). Indeed, Riches makes the point even more strongly, denying that we can begin in any way "from an abstract idea of what his humanity might be apart from that unio" (8). The suggestion is that, to know what true humanity is, we must look to Christ, and we cannot import a concept of true humanity from outside the hypostatic union. Riches has in mind first and foremost the two main Christological heresies, Monophysitism and Nestorianism. Monophysitism appears to strongly affirm the unio, but it does...

Did the Saviour See the Father? Christ, Salvation, and the Vision of God by Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

Reviewed by: Did the Saviour See the Father? Christ, Salvation, and the Vision of God by Simon Francis Gaine, O.P. Rik Van Nieuwenhove Did the Saviour See the Father? Christ, Salvation, and the Vision of God. By Simon Francis Gaine, O.P. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015. Pp. viii + 221. $122.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-56766-443-3. Simon Francis Gaine, O.P., has written an important and refreshing monograph on the topic of Christ's beatific vision on earth. The book is refreshing in two ways: first, because it tackles an issue which has become rather unfashionable, and second, because the book freely roams the frontier area between historical, biblical, and systematic scholarship. The first chapter chronicles how the view that Christ possessed the beatific vision during his earthly lifetime has gone utterly out of theological fashion since Pius XII's Mystici Corporis Christi (1943). In the second half of the twentieth century, there arose a near consensus amongst scholars that the traditional view was in need of revision, if not utter rejection. The Catechism of the Catholic Church did not explicitly retain the doctrine either. Chapter 2 examines the biblical sources of the doctrine. Gaine's account is nuanced. He acknowledges that the terminology of "beatific vision" cannot be found in the Scriptures—but then again, neither can key creedal terms such as homoousion. Of course, there are a number of texts that suggest that the New Testament asserts belief in an eschatological future vision of God, and he discusses these [End Page 443] (Rev 22:4; 1 John 3:2; 1 Cor 13:11-12; and Matt 5:8). The question is then raised: did Christ possess this vision on earth? Gaine argues that Christ's authoritative teaching (see Matt 11:25-26), which struck his contemporaries (see Mark 6:2), allows us to hold that Christ saw the Father (see John 1:18; 6:46) on earth: "though Christ's beatific vision as such may not be thus openly attested Scripture, there is something in Scripture that can invite us to suppose by way of further theological reflection that Christ possessed this vision after all" (39). Christ's "role as teacher … requires him to have not only a source in divine knowledge as well as humanly communicable knowledge, but also a kind of continuity between his divine mind and his human mind rather than isolation of one from the other" (40). The third chapter considers the patristic sources, and Gaine acknowledges that "the results … are admittedly meagre" (53). After a brief outline of Candidus (who falls somewhat outside the patristic canon in chronological terms), he discusses question 65 of Augustine's De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII (which appears to imply the teaching) and Contra Maximinum, where Augustine connects the vision of Christ's humanity with the heavenly vision of the saints, and, finally, Fulgentius (64-69), from whom the Scholastics took their cue. Ultimately, so Gaine observes, the argument for Christ's beatific vision on earth hinges on whether or not one accepts the Chalcedonian teaching that Christ's "human and divine knowing," although "distinct," "do not exist in isolation from one another" (70). Chapter 4 begins to sketch out a positive case for the plausibility of the earthly Christ's beatific vision, arguing that it is consistent with the intimate knowledge of the Father attributed in the New Testament to Christ as the human communicator of divine truth. While Peter Lombard included the thesis in his Sentences, it is Thomas Aquinas's analysis (mainly from the Summa theologiae and Summa contra Gentiles, less so from the Sentences commentary) that Gaine outlines in some detail (75ff.), and contrasts to the views of Karl Rahner and other modern theologians. Part 2, then, considers some common objections. Chapter 5 raises the question whether or not Christ had faith, and Gaine argues (convincingly in my view) that the New Testament does not ascribe faith to Christ, which further strengthens his overall argument (given the fact that faith and vision are mutually exclusive; see 2 Cor 5:7). The following chapter examines whether the beatific vision of the earthly Christ can be reconciled with Christ...

Jewish Scribes and Christian Patrons: The Hebraica Collection of Johann Jakob Fugger

AbstractAcquiring Hebrew books was a common practice among Christian humanists. More surprising, perhaps, is that a large group of Hebrew manuscripts was produced for a Christian library. A Jewish scribal workshop organized by Johann Jakob Fugger (1516–75) in Venice—here analyzed for the first time—is one of the rarest examples of this phenomenon that emerged out of Renaissance book culture. To understand Fugger’s extensive bibliophilic enterprise, this essay examines the circulation and dissemination of Hebrew texts from the Jewish bookshelf among Christians, the relationships between Christian patrons and Jewish scribes, and the role of manuscripts as agents of print and as objects of collecting.

Enduring Erasmus

This paper considers the future of Erasmus studies and scholarship on Christian humanism. It argues that two approaches will be especially useful going forward: reception history (of Erasmus’s works in particular) and the history of emotions. Both will aid in answering enduring questions about the relationship between the Renaissance and Reformation and the nature of Christian humanism, as well as opening up new avenues of inquiry in an area of study especially conducive to interdisciplinary research.

U. V. Koren’s Works, Volume 3: Articles ed. by Mark DeGarmeaux et al.

Reviewed by: U. V. Koren’s Works, Volume 3: Articles ed. by Mark DeGarmeaux et al. Mark Mattes U. V. Koren’s Works, Volume 3: Articles. Edited by Mark DeGarmeaux et al. Mankato: Lutheran Synod Book Concern, 2015. 600pp. The works of U.V. Koren (1826–1910) were published in Norwegian (1912) and are now being translated into English. A pioneer Norwegian-American pastor in the middle to late nineteenth century, Koren was a leader in what was known as the “old Synod,” a Norwegian-background Lutheran synod which in Koren’s day was [End Page 359] in fellowship with the Missouri Synod. The seventeen essays in this volume highlight Koren’s attitudes about slavery, educational theory, the election controversy, and his attempt to understand the multifaceted strands of Norwegian-American Lutheranism. In contrast to some Norwegian-American Lutheran pastors, Koren did not unequivocally condemn slavery even though he regarded it as an evil. Koren noted that scripture urges that slaves be treated properly. But even more importantly, he did not advocate an ethics that acknowledged that all humans have indisputable rights, whether those of individual freedom, or for that matter ownership of slaves. For Koren, humans are best understood not through the imagery of claiming rights but instead as creatures wholly indebted to and dependent on their creator. Koren was clear that slavery is not good (37–38). But he deplored the hypocrisy of liberal white Protestants who would contribute money to purchase freedom for slaves but who would never associate with blacks in public (49). With respect to education, Koren butted heads with Georg Sverdrup, a professor at Augsburg College and Seminary. Sverdrup wanted to appropriate a Christian humanism which would help Norwegian-American youth claim their civil freedom and be active democratically in public life. Just as important for Sverdrup was an education that subverted elitism between the classes. He did not want a gulf between pastors and laity as it existed in the state church of Norway. For Koren, Sverdrup’s goals came at the expense of a classical curriculum designed originally to uphold Christian truth. While not against an education that empowers Christians to be active in public life, Koren pointed out that occasionally Sverdrup’s appropriation of Christian humanism unintentionally championed rationalism and that civil freedom was, at best, only an “external, temporal good” (119). In other words, Sverdrup’s approach to education was not wholly consistent with Christian faith. Several essays display Koren’s leadership in the election or predestinarian debates of the late nineteenth century. Against F. A. Schmidt’s assertion, indebted to Aegidius Hunnius (1550–1603), that sinners are elected by God “in view of faith” (intuitu fidei ), Koren point by point showed where F. A. Schmidt is contradicted by the orthodox champion Johann Gerhard (163ff). Following Luther, Koren notes [End Page 360] that sinners must despair of themselves, even their “best behavior” (189), if they are to be ready to receive grace. Hence the intuitu fidei stance is ruled out. Koren notes, the doctrine of election is so very closely connected with the distinction between law and gospel, the sharp contrast between sin and grace, that has always made the gospel into an offense to the natural mind. Therefore the doctrine of election also is closely connected with the doctrine of justification by faith alone (209). Indeed, if law and gospel are at work any deeds whatsoever are ruled out (296). Bernt Julius Muus (founder of St. Olaf College) had gone so far as to advocate that “conversion depends on man’s own choice,” what we would call a “decision theology.” But, as Koren points out, if we have something to contribute, even a decision, then justification is no longer by faith alone (428). In a word, for Koren, the two pillars of Christian faith are the truth of the Holy Scriptures and the compass interpreting scripture, justification by grace alone through faith alone (407). Reading Koren makes nineteenth-century debates come alive. The conflicts he dealt with still influence Lutherans today. Mark Mattes Grand View University Des Moines, Iowa Copyright © 2017 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc

A Humanistic Perspective for Management Research: Protecting Dignity and Promoting Well Being

Pope Francis in his Encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ suggests that “Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good.” Despite such a positive view on the contribution of business, Pope Francis has also been highly critical of the capitalist economic system which in his perspective denies human dignity and where profit becomes the sole concern. “Money must serve, not rule,” he said. “Money does not have a neutral value, but acquires value according to the aims and the circumstances in which it is used.” In line with these criticisms, leading management scholars have long questioned the premises of management theory and practice (Gladwin, Kennelly, & Krause, 1995; Hart, 2005). Pope Francis and his predecessors have given voice to many citizens around the globe who have been losing trust in the current economic and political systems as the number of societal challenges is increasing (Adams, 2012; Edelman, 2011). The leading academic institution of business school professors, the Academy of Management (AOM), claims to “foster [] a philosophy of management” that serves “the public’s interests” (AMJ Editors, 1958). Yet, many scholars suggest that management scholarship’ has largely failed to contribute to the common good (Walsh, Weber, & Margolis, 2003). Already 20 years ago AOM’s then president, Donald Hambrick, remarked about the lack of relevance of AOM’s work to society (Hambrick, 1994). This tendency has been bemoaned with increasing frequency since (Aguinis & Pierce, 2008; Hambrick, 1994; Walsh et al., 2003), because very few contributions discuss managerial solutions to environmental degradation, the dangers of climate change, or increasing social inequities (Hahn, Kolk, & Winn, 2010; Hambrick, 1994). This chapter is exploring reasons for why current management thought and practice is not in line with what Pope Francis suggests. It also proposes a paradigm shift towards the protection of dignity and the promotion of well-being. The author labels this perspective a humanistic perspective, which is reflected in Christian humanism but also transcends Christian faiths.

Cross-Cultural Representations of Tyranny as Depicted in Jesuit School Plays Performed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Cross-Cultural Representations of Tyranny as Depicted in Jesuit School Plays Performed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Deeply influenced by Ciceronian and Aristotelian political doctrines on the ‘republic’, political thinkers in the decades of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth addressed the issues of the ‘nature or health of the commonwealth, the nature of mixed government, the notion of just war, the limits of monarchy i.e. the despot versus tyrant’. These debates were immortalized in an abundance of political writings on the limits and power, the nature of good government and the importance of civic virtue and civic liberties, which sought to approach these issues in practical terms with respect to the republic or commonwealth as one ‘political community’. It is in this backdrop of rich political debate on the nature of the Commonwealth, that the Jesuits who first came to Poland in 1565, introduced a schooling system based in Christian humanism and which educated in civic virtues. Jesuit theatre played a crucial role in the education of young men, many of whom would later become distinguished statesmen and churchmen in the country. This paper will provide an analysis of chosen Jesuit school playbills that exploit the motif of the monarch-tyrant as represented in Jesuit plays that of Chinese or Japanese motifs. The assumption is that the very choice and rendition of topic provides and reveals the early modern Poland-Lithuania sentiments and reflections on the limits of power and right to individual freedoms. By doing so, this paper hopes also to elucidate why this topic so appealed to the minds and audiences of Early Modern Jesuit School and explain the significance of the chosen playbills school theatre understood within its culture-specific historical context.

Russell Kirk: American Conservative by Bradley J. Birzer

Reviewed by: Russell Kirk: American Conservative by Bradley J. Birzer David S. Brown Russell Kirk: American Conservative. By Bradley J. Birzer. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Pp. viii, 574. $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8131-6618-6.) Over the past several years a number of commentators have explored various facets of political theorist Russell Kirk's thought and "imagination." Among the best of these are W. Wesley McDonald's Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology (Columbia, Mo., 2004) and Gerald J. Russello's The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk (Columbia, Mo., 2007). Now arrives Bradley J. Birzer's big biography, which will immediately become the standard life-and-times account of Kirk. This work offers a full portrait, appropriately devoting most of its pages to Kirk's writings, politics, and critical role as an intellectual engagé helping elucidate a conservative tradition in America. Kirk's scholarship, particularly his important book The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana (Chicago, 1953), challenged the notion advanced by much of the postwar professoriat that the country's political philosophy, as a rule, trended liberal. In effect, he gave the Right a respectable intellectual heritage, which included Edmund Burke, Jeremy Bentham, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Adams, and Irving Babbitt. More than sixty years after publication, it remains an iconic text among conservatives. The strengths of Birzer's biography are numerous. Birzer, a historian at Hillsdale College, has immersed himself in Kirk's oeuvre, reading not simply his subject's major writings but also Kirk's many opinion pieces, articles, and [End Page 1012] novels. He ventures into Kirk's psychology and makes altogether reasonable and insightful observations about Kirk's search for faith and community, delight in the gothic, and antisocial pose as an undergraduate at Michigan College, now Michigan State University, before flowering in Scotland, where he completed his graduate work at the University of St. Andrews. He was a Catholic convert who swore he saw sundry fairies, goblins, and ghosts throughout his life. One has the impression of a preternaturally mature young man who may not have taken his callow American peers seriously. The bulk of Birzer's work assays Kirk's quixotic quest to challenge the secularism of the twentieth century and create a Christian humanist movement in response to the major ideologies—liberalism, communism, and fascism—of that period. For Kirk, this amounted to a proposed "return to first principles" (p. 185). Birzer rightly notes, however, that Kirk's high-humanistic pursuit began to lose focus in the late 1950s and early 1960s when he became increasingly involved in politics. Much against the advice of his friend T. S. Eliot, Kirk began writing for William Buckley's National Review and advising Barry Goldwater. By the 1980s and the onset of the Reagan Revolution, these connections helped make Kirk an éminence grise among the conservative faithful, but, as Birzer notes, such efforts in print and partisan politics took time away from his intellectual work. Kirk is certainly deserving of a large biography, but this one would have benefited from a bit of careful pruning. There are many pages examining the lives and works of important thinkers who knew or had some influence on or association with Kirk, including T. S. Eliot, Irving Babbitt, Ayn Rand, and Garry Wills. These often expansive vignettes border on becoming extraneous. One seven-page section explicates English critic T. E. Hulme's influence on Eliot and effectively de-emphasizes Kirk. Birzer also devotes considerable space to Kirk's three periods as a short fiction writer in a section that at times feels like a detour. Caveats aside, Birzer has provided an impressively researched and lucidly written study. Readers looking for a sensitive, sympathetic account of Kirk and his commanding role on the last century's intellectual Right will not be disappointed. David S. Brown Elizabethtown College Copyright © 2017 The Southern Historical Association

Seno'o Girō's Buddhist Socialism, Antiwar Movement, and Dialogue with Social Christianity in 1930s–1940s Japan

Seno'o Girō's Buddhist Socialism, Antiwar Movement, and Dialogue with Social Christianity in 1930s–1940s Japan Kunihiko Terasawa Seno'oGirō (1889–1961) founded The Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism (YLRB) on April 15, 1931. Seno'o Girō was an important Buddhist figure in prewar Japan as one of a few Buddhists who organized resistance movements against ultra-nationalistic war ideology and militarism. Seno'o not only worked among Buddhists, but also allied with non-Buddhists, such as labor unions, socialists, Christians, and Marxists unifying the Popular Front during the 1930s. Many young Buddhists came to join the YLRB, bridging sectarian divisions, even though Seno'o was a lay priest of Nichiren Buddhism. The YLRB was the declaration of a social Buddhism. The motto of the YLRB was "To Bear the Buddha into the Streets and Villages." Seno'o was the chairperson of the YLRB. They proclaimed: 1. We have to return to Buddha, Sakyamuni himself beyond denomination. 2. We have to reform Buddhism that is now like a dead corpse, which is too stagnant, superstitious, and corrupt to fit the new age. 3. We have to fight against the exploitation by capitalism, and to create a new society.1 The YLRB's membership was three thousand people at its peak in 1936. The members were involved in peasant disputes as well as labor disputes. There have been significant research articles on Seno'oGirō by Whalen Lai (1984), Stephen Large (1987), James Mark Shields (2012), and Eiichi Ōtani (2012).2 Lai's research is focused on Seno'o's prophetic voice based on his modern social hermeneutics of the Lotus Sutra. Large's article is an excellent historical analysis on Seno'o's political activities of the popular front, especially his affiliation with Shakai-Taishū-tō (Social Mass Party) according to Seno'o's own understanding of Buddhism and Marxism. Shields is focused on Seno'o's radical revolutionary ethos in comparison to the Marxist atheistic humanism and Derrida's deconstructionism. Shields points out that atheistic deconstructionism is compatible with the Buddhist notion of sunyata (emptiness) and interdependent co-arising resulting in the Seno'o's genuine humanism which considered the people's sufferings. Ōtani summarizes well in his sociological analysis [End Page 223] on how Seno'o's Buddhist social movement arose in the context of the rise of ultra-nationalistic Nihon Seishin (The Spirit of Japaneseness), Marxism, and the conflict within Buddhist groups to either support Nihon Seishin or counter it.3 These previous articles mention his hermeneutical circle among Buddhism, socialism, and Marxism. Though this is an important perspective, I would rather analyze Seno'o's thought and activities in the light of his constant dialogue with Social Christianity. seno'o girō's life and thought Seno'oGirō was born in the Hiroshima prefecture on December 16, 1889. In June 1908, he enrolled in the best junior college in Japan, Ikkō (一高; the first junior college in Tokyo, from which most students, then, enrolled in the Tokyo Imperial University). Nitobe Inazō 新渡戸稲造 (1862–1933), the principal of Ikkō, was a Quaker and the author of Bushidō, and later became the undersecretary general of the League of Nations in 1920. Nitobe was also a friend of Uchimura Kanzō 内村鑑三, who founded Mukyōkai 無教会 (Non-Church Movement). Both Nitobe and Uchiruma studied together and became Christians at Sapporo Nōgakkō 札幌農学校 (the Sapporo Agricultural School), guided by its principal, William Clark. Seno'o described in his diary during Ikkō that Nitobe became his ideal model, and that he was thinking of Nitobe every day, taking Nitobe's ethics class, and frequently meeting with Nitobe personally.4 Nitobe's knowledge and personality significantly influenced Seno'oin his humanism, internationalism, educational leadership, and, later, social activities. It should not be forgotten that Nitobe was a Quaker, a religious belief well known for its pacifism, inclusivity, and meditative practices. Even before Seno'o went to Ikkō, his middle school principal, Yanai Michitami 柳井道民, influenced him in 1903. Yanai had also studied at the Sapporo Agricultural School, where Nitobe and Uchimura learned of Christianity.5 It is important to remember that Seno'o's encounter with independent and non-sectarian Christian humanists shaped his youth consciousness, even though...

Staging Resistance from the Clergy During the Holocaust

The resistance to the Holocaust from Catholic and Protestant clergymen came in myriad forms. A few clergy willingly gave up their lives, thus becoming martyrs for refusing to be judged by Nazi law, surrendering instead to divine justice. Such noble and heroic decisions in which a humble person surrenders life in defiance of a totalitarian regime opposed to Christian humanism is a subject most worthy of study. This essay focuses exclusively on stage representations of the extreme sacrifices the clergy made during the Holocaust as reflected by martyrdom in Arthur Giron’s Edith Stein and David Gooderson’s Kolbe’s Gift. The protagonists of these two plays, Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe, died and suffered greatly to uphold the moral position of the Church.

ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННЫЙ МИР СРЕДНЕВЕКОВЬЯ В РОМАНЕ К. ИСИГУРО «ПОГРЕБЕННЫЙ ВЕЛИКАН»

The article considers the specific character of time and space, the problem of memory and oblivion in the latest novel by K. Ishiguro The Buried Giant (2015). The novel is placed into the broad context of a legendary history of Britain and to a certain extent into the context of the whole mankind’s world. The paper analyzes the world view of a medieval man at the time when Christian ideology overlaid the thick stratum of mythological ideas. Much attention is paid to the image of Sir Gawain, the defender of Christian humanity, the idea being different from the interpretation of the famous Arthurian Romances focused on love enticements of the knight of the Round Table. It is emphasized that out of the three narrative elements establishing both the composition and the plot, the basic motif is travelling and wandering. This motif is associated with poetics and chronotope embedded in the perception of a mediaeval man as well as of our contemporary. The novel narrates about the complexity and entanglement of human destinies, solitude and repentance, memory and oblivion, love and forgiveness. Ishiguro turns to the global and at the same time personal issues of exis­tence applying myths, stories and fantastic motifs. Being written for intellectuals, Ishiguro’s novel represents a kind of science fiction with a distinct historical background and approaches the genre of parable in its finale. It is concluded that Ishiguro’s work is the novel-admonition that fictionalizes the perception of history as of a lesson for future generations.

Fostering the Future: Lydia Maria Child's Environmental Engagements in <em>The Juvenile Miscellany</em> and Beyond

Fostering the Future:Lydia Maria Child's Environmental Engagements in The Juvenile Miscellany and Beyond Karen L. Kilcup Natural history and Native Americans figure among early-nineteenth-century white Americans' most significant obsessions. Often conflating the second into the first—depicting Indigenous peoples as "natural" and aligned with nonhuman animals—they authored histories, poems, novels, and tracts for both adults and children.1 Editing and writing for The Juvenile Miscellany—as well as contributing children's books and essays outside that venue—Lydia Maria Child spoke beyond her contemporaries' norms, reinventing imperialist natural history discourses, captivity narratives, and histories of America's settlement. Child educated young people and their mothers about early relations between settlers and Native Americans and problematized conventional notions of "civilized" and "savage," as she invested Indigenous peoples with personhood and told harsh truths that would propel Americans toward a more just future. In doing so, she promulgated several ideas that, more than 150 years later, would be included among the concepts that define environmental justice. These principles include "mutual respect and justice for all peoples"; "the education of present and future generations" on social and environmental issues; resistance to the exploitation of lands, peoples, and cultures; fair public policy; and recognition of the "special legal and natural relationship of Native Peoples to the U.S. government through treaties, agreements, compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty and self-determination" ("Principles"). Child's work thus comprehends the interconnections among racial justice, environmental access and agency, cultural and political sovereignty, and human rights that drive contemporary social justice activists.2 Child tests her innovative ideas in nascent form in her early story "Adventure in the Woods," in which she promotes mutual respect and education. The story depicts how immigrant children Rachel and Benjamin, lost in the forest near their Boston home, encounter an Indian woman to whom Rachel and their mother have earlier provided food. Terrified because adults have told them many "frightful stories" concerning their Indigenous neighbors' "wickedness [End Page 13] and cruelty," the children fear her (7). But Child rejects the standard captivity narrative plot: her Native woman, whom the author suggests is maternal (and hence civilized), returns them to their worried family and visits them annually thereafter. Although Child invokes the Noble Savage, she nevertheless rejects fabricated stories that stress Indians' violence, educating future Americans—protagonists and readers—that they need to build a respectful interethnic community. She develops more complex views about land appropriation and Native sovereignty three years later in The First Settlers of New-England: or, Conquest of the Pequods, Narragansets and Pokanokets. As Related by a Mother to Her Children (1829). Like "Adventure in the Woods," this book foregrounds a mother figure to help child readers reimagine troubling histories and explore just citizenship. First Settlers constructs a pedagogical dialogue between "Mother" and two daughters that revises normative histories of settlement and Indian wars, inverting the categories "civilized" and "savage." Child ventriloquizes her sentiments through the children's observations. Daughter Caroline, for example, asserts, "I think, mother, it is somewhat extraordinary, that the colonists should complain with so much bitterness of the Pequods [sic] having punished with severity those who stole their corn, and burnt their hay or grass, and shot their game; after they themselves had so inhumanly destroyed the dwellings, killed the people, and refused to comply with the request of the Pequods to lay aside arms, and hear what their chief had to propose" (40–41). Depicting the resource wars waged against America's Indigenous peoples, Child underscores important environmental justice principles that include resisting exploitation of Indigenous peoples, honoring their treaties, and affirming their sovereignty. Child also published essays in the Miscellany that emphasized environmental justice. In May 1829 she issued one of a series of dialogues between the pseudonymous Aunt M. and her nephews. "American History" begins by praising Roger Williams and continues by relating the New England colonies' troubled histories, focusing finally on Connecticut. Although Aunt M. excuses the Pequods "for being savages," she contends that "it is much more difficult to excuse the cruelty of the English settlers, who had been educated in principles of Christian humanity" (202). The settlers attack the helpless Pequods, setting fire to...

Danza para los ojos azules / Dance for blue eyes

La danza de los ojos azules es producto de un proceso creativo llevado a cabo en el año 2014 por estudiantes de distintas generaciones de la Escuela de danza Espiral y la Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano en Santiago de Chile. Su origen se arraiga en la visión cultural y espíritu artístico de sus fundadores, Patricio Bunster y Joan Turner, quienes en contexto político adverso en la Historia de Chile siguen una formación que pudiera recuperar, congregar y acercar la danza a sectores sin acceso al goce de este arte. Espiral contribuyó al restablecimiento de la tradición de extensión cultural en Chile, abriendo un espacio de desarrollo para el arte hacia diversos sectores sin imponer formas ni estilos, extendiendo la posibilidadde recuperación de la cultura artística a través de perspectivas de crecimiento, conocimiento e identidad.Dance for blue eyesThe blue eyes dance is a product of a creative process carried out in 2014 by students of different generations of the School of Dance Spiral and the University Academy of Christian Humanism in Santiago de Chile. Its origin is comes from the cultural vision and artistic spirit of its founders, Patricio Bunster and Joan Turner, who in an adverse political context in the history of Chile follow a formation to recover, congregate and bring dance to sectors without access to the artistic practice. Espiral contributed to the restoration of the tradition of cultural extension in Chile, opening a space for the development of art towards different sectors without imposing forms or styles, extending the possibility of recovery of the artistic culture through perspectives of growth, knowledge and identity.

An Unlikely Christian Humanist: How Bess of Hardwick (ca. 1527–1608) Answered “The Woman Question”

An Unlikely Christian Humanist: How Bess of Hardwick (ca. 1527–1608) Answered “The Woman Question”

Moral geometry in Restoration Ireland: Samuel Foley’s ‘Computatio universalis’ (1684) and the science of colonisation

AbstractDespite the importance of the new science in the colonisation of Stuart Ireland, and the many Irish links to major figures in the Scientific Revolution, these connections remain relatively little studied outside of major episodes such as the Down Survey. This article examines a much smaller project, the ‘Computatio Universalis’ (1684) of Church of Ireland clergyman (later bishop of Down and Connor) Samuel Foley (1655–1695). Submitted to the Dublin Philosophical Society in 1684 as an attempt to ‘to demonstrate a universal standard’ of value, Foley’s project was in fact a guide to the achievement of ‘happiness’ through the careful stewardship of time and wealth. Foley’s project recalls earlier Christian humanist and Protestant concern with stewardship, however, and also reflects seventeenth-century economic writers’ and moral reformers’ concern with avoiding idleness. In the context of Restoration Ireland, however, it can also be seen more specifically as a project harnessing new methods of quantification for the cultural maintenance of a ruling Protestant elite historically threatened by degeneration in a colonial setting, as well as a reflection of Protestant anxieties about the Catholic church’s control over time.

Christian Human Rights by Samuel Moyn

Christian Human Rights by Samuel Moyn

A Natural History of Modernity: Bernhard Grzimek and the Globalization of EnvironmentalKulturkritik

This article explores the doomsday vision of humans and other animals found in the nonfiction books, documentary films, and autobiography of former Frankfurt Zoological Garden director and television star Bernhard Grzimek. Focusing on his career transition in the 1940s and 1950s from veterinarian to zoological director to global conservation activist, the article shows that the Malthusian fears that underpinned Grzimek's plea for national parks in sub-Saharan Africa that segregated people and wildlife had their origins in an environmental Kulturkritik born of post-Nazi and Cold War ruminations about human aggression and environmental destruction. Grzimek portrayed both the zoo and the national park as compensation for a “great extinction” that linked the industrialized slaughterhouse in Europe to trophy hunting in Africa. This natural history of modernity envisioned a global nature commons beyond the ideologies of Christian humanism and social democracy, yet it enfolded Africans into a European narrative of development that left no room for cultural landscapes created by customary tenure and vernacular ecologies.

The Body and Theology of Julian of Norwich

Unlike other mediaeval male theologians, Julian of Norwich reflects ‘feminine capacity’ in her theology by avoiding dichotomy of the body and soul and taking her body and Christ’s body as the locus of her theology. Because the human body is sexually ambiguous, which is inescapable reality, Julian sees that the body can be an important means to receive God’s revelation. In fact, she understands that the body and soul are God’s precious creatures. Her understanding of the human body is related to her physical sickness. She experiences God’s mystery and feels the Passion of Christ through her severe illness. By doing so, her body makes a bridge between herself and God. Furthermore, she explains that the incarnation of Jesus Christ appears in her physical sickness. Because the Christ’s Passion does not happen in His words, but in His body, without the emphasis on the body of Christ, His Passion becomes abstract. Because Christ’ spiritual suffering comes with His physical affliction, Christ came to this world as a real human being. Julian comprehends that the Church dogma stress the divinity of Jesus and Trinity, which does not the body and humanity of Christ. Instead, Julian confirms Christ’s humanity by emphasizing the birth of infant Jesus through Mary’s womb. By applying this female image of mercy to Jesus Christ, she places that God’s mercy takes care of God’s children through Christ. It is a unique view that Julian appreciates Jesus Christ in the perspective of motherhood because her theology focuses on the body of Christ. In this point, Christ’s plentiful bleeding during the crucifixion signifies women’s menstruation and it functions mother’s milk for an infant, which indicates Christ’s real suffering. Although Menstruation has been regarded as a taboo in the both church tradition and patriarchal society, women’s discharge of blood stands for creating life as human reproduction. In addition, in arguing when a mother gives birth to a baby, she bleeds, Julian claims that Christ becomes the head of the Church and the Church become the body of Christ through Christ’s bleeding. Therefore, her body and Christ’s are an important tool to demonstrate ‘feminine capacity’ in the male dominant society.

Tomasza More’a koncepcja naprawy chrześcijańskiego społeczeństwa

The article concerns the concept of reform of the European society in the spirit of Christian humanism in terms of Thomas More and his involvement in the work of the royal court as the person directing the philosophy of Christ. In the same vein of thinking was Erasmus of Rotterdam. Both promoted the foundation of Christian humanism, whose aim was to improve in Europe, focusing on values. The reform referred to the Catholic Church and society. Thomas believed in reforming contemporary Europe, subject to acceptance by the people of humanistic education, to serve each other and to follow the philosophy of Christ. A significant impact on the shape of his reforms was undoubtedly Erasmus. In discussing Thomas appeared a dilemma whether a man wise and guided by God’s principles should follow the path public service. Without the Bible, the help of Christ and the Catholic Church society can’t be really good. The controversial practice appearing in “Utopia” such as communist society, the vision of marriage and divorce, religious beliefs and practices and attitude to the clergy were intended to arouse desire to reform individuals, and society. On the other hand pointing to serve each other was the emphasis on humanism and underlined the duty of wise men to serve his countrymen and sovereigns.

Informed consent and medical ethics

Medical ethics has a very long history and it investigates ethical issues arising in medicine and health care provision by applying the principles of moral philosophy. The ancient ethical codes were often expressed in the form of oaths. The best known medical oath in the western tradition is the Oath of Hippocrates and often regarded as the very foundation of Western medical ethics. The Hippocratic School produced a large body of writings on medicine, science and ethics. In the ensuing centuries the principles of Christian humanism dominated the practice of medicine. Towards the end of 18th century the role of physicians in dealing with disease in individuals as well as population groups led to the drafting codes of professional conduct. Changing attitudes of society and the major advances in medical science at the beginning of the 20th centuries led to recognition of the need for modification of the Hippocratic Oath. This need was met by the Declaration of Geneva, formulated by the World Medical Association in 1947, supplemented by Declaration on particular aspects of medical ethics. Now, the advanced medical technologies or revolutionary developments in the biomedical sciences as well as in clinical medicine and its communication to the public has led to a growing need for the medical professional to be fully aware of society`s views on various developments. This, no doubt, enables ethical guidelines to reflect and safeguard the interests and wellbeing of patients.