Doctrine Of Church Research Articles

Sacramentality of Bible in catholic tradition: from the Council of Trent to the Second Vatican Council

The most of Christian traditions embrase the notion of sacrament (Latin: sacramenta). This notion deals with the church directives in a narrow meaning. According to Saint Augustine, the sacrament is a visible action of an invisible grace thus the Church, the Christ, the Bible, being material phenomena where two natures combine (Divine and human), are also considered to be sacraments. Therefore, the author of the article presents the Bible as the most outstanding and the most visible example of a sacrament in a broad meaning.Using the examples of the attitude change to the Bible in the Catholic tradition, the author studies the move from the sacral perception of the text in the decisions made at the Council of Trent to its open sacramental understanding in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and its post-council decisions.Due to the fact that Ukrainian scholars and local clergy theologically poorly interpreted the Bible as a Word of God in the Catholic tradition, the goal of this article is to make a diachronic comparison of the results of the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council, which allows to show the change dynamics in the attitude of the Catholic Church to the Bible.The Council of Trent was a reaction of the Catholic Church to the emergence and achievements of the Reformation and its important principle Sola Scriptura. The Council approved two doctrinal documents on the Sacred Scripture: the first one deals with the Scripture canon and the relations between the Scripture and the Sacred Tradition, and the second one defines which text of the Scripture is to be considered sacred and official and how to interpret this text. The author concludes that the Council limited the Sacred Tradition only with faith and moral issues, meaning spheres of doctrines and piety, and recognized Latin translation of the Bible - Vulgate - to be the only official version to have a sacred meaning and "a sacred book per se". The Bible is admitted to be a closed book, separated from the readers and receivers of the Gospel, which is prohibited for an autonomous interpretation.On the contrary, the Second Vatican Council and its documents (Lumen Gentium - Light of the Nations and Dei verbum - Word of God), in their essence, had a pastoral task, manifested in an attempt of giving a comprehensible overview of the Catholic Church doctrine for the world community. Therefore, the author asserts that the last 400 years of the history of the Catholic doctrine show serious changes in its attempt of contextualization and mark its main peculiarity: reaction to the modern society challenges and needs. The task of the Second Vatican Council was to clarify the nature of the Sacred Scripture, which had to balance the Tradition and a new approach to the Scripture. Based on the analysis of the documents of the mentioned Councils and the commentaries of the authoritative Catholic preachers (Pope Benedict XVI, r. Robert Murray, r. Josef Ratzinger, Scott Hahn), the author concludes that the new approach to the Sacred Scripture essentially points to the open sacral and sacramental character of the Bible. The author emphasizes the modern approach to the sacrality of the Bible not only as to a "sacral book per se", but also in its sacral effect on the reader.The researcher asserts that new changes declared in Dei verbum and Verbum Domini, which emphasize the pastoral effect of the Bible as a way of knowing Jesus Christ, are crucial for the building relations between various Christian movements, especially for the Catholic and Protestant traditions.

The law of persons today: at the margins of jurisprudence

ABSTRACTRecent decisions have given legal identity to rivers such as Te Awa Tupua in New Zealand, and the Ganges and Yamuna in India, effectively treating them as having all the rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person. Looking at such cases, in which the enduring fiction of the legal person is extended over an increasingly wide range of referents, we are reminded that this fiction is anything but marginal – especially in the law of any jurisdiction influenced, however indirectly, by Roman jurisprudence. This paper begins from the point of view that the anthropological embedding of the juridical person ought not to be anachronistically attributed to the Roman ‘law of persons’ in which its craft originated. Rather, we suggest, the well-known Christian metaphysicalization of the juridical person as a moral entity not only adds to but also transforms and displaces that law as a juristic enterprise. What is marginalized in this sense is in fact Roman law's discrete and self-conscious techniques of shaping the legal person. This chapter aims not just to highlight the familiar fate of the person under the influence of church doctrine, but also to draw a contemporary inspiration – and, more cautiously, a critical potential – from a return to a casuistic, concrete and immanent conception of the jurisprudential art of crafting the person. Rather than argue for the inclusion of excluded identities within law's categories (thus extending such categories but doing nothing to challenge the often heteronormative construction of the identities it encompasses), this chapter asks what would it mean to return to an ‘experimental’ law of persons (or a ‘profaned’ art of fashioning the person, in Giorgio Agamben's sense)? Might this eventually be a path by which to liberate juristic technique to new uses?

Empson the Space Man: Literary Modernism Makes the Scalar Turn

ABSTRACTIn my essay, I document how the literary modernist critic and poet, William Empson (1906–1984), modeled his theoretical positions in the decades following the Second World War upon precedents found in the English Renaissance poetry of John Donne. After 1955, Empson emerged as a leading skeptic of literary “high” modernism by means of the novel analogy argued in his essay, “Donne the Space Man” (1957): namely, that literary depictions of space in Donne’s early poetry, athwart high Church doctrine, paralleled contemporary skepticism, in Empson’s own time, about interpretive orthodoxies within Eliotic criticism and among the American New Critics. With its focus upon what he calls “space travel,” Empson’s exegesis in “Donne the Space Man” (1957) pioneered what today one may call the scalar turn in literary modernist criticism. In Empson’s case, a scalar criticism endorsed Donne’s search for a more generous plurality of critical worlds and embraced cosmological scale irreducible to the more dogmatic worldview of Christian-inspired theorizations then prevailing. Re-reading the “Donne the Space Man” essay today – and when applying approaches inspired by the phenomenology of the contemporary built environment, object-oriented ontology, and unseen “lifeworlds” – allows for a more meaningful treatment of Empson’s criticism in its historical context, and when using scale as an heuristic to broaden our understandings of cosmologies, near and far, vastly different from our own.

The Prophetic Church: History and Doctrinal Development in John Henry Newman and Yves Congar by Andrew Meszaros

Reviewed by: The Prophetic Church: History and Doctrinal Development in John Henry Newman and Yves Congar by Andrew Meszaros Elizabeth H. Farnsworth (bio) The Prophetic Church: History and Doctrinal Development in John Henry Newman and Yves Congar. By Andrew Meszaros. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pages: xiii + 268. Cloth, $99. Paper, n/a ISBN: 9780198786344. Andrew Meszaros observes in the introduction to his, The Prophetic Church, that "one quintessential marker of modernity is undoubtedly historical consciousness" (10). This rise in historical consciousness prompts the question amongst Christian theologians as how to "theologically account for, and therefore make credible, doctrines whose content is allegedly revealed (coming from God) and therefore absolute and immutable, but whose existence and form rely on historical and human contingencies?" (12) No other Christian thinker rivals Newman's influence in how we conceptualize this tension between tradition as developing in time and the eternality of the revelation itself. The influence of Newman's theory of doctrinal development began during his lifetime,1 was amplified during the first half of the twentieth century,2 and continues to influence our contemporary discussion concerning revelation and its transmission in history, which is in many respects still considering the tension between corporeality and immutability as it relates to Christian doctrine.3 [End Page 83] Utilizing both historical and thematic methodologies, Meszaros sees a way to account for doctrinal propositions as both "products of history and effective instruments of God's revelation" (240). Pulling from theological giants, John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and Yves Congar (1904-1995), Meszaros proposes an Incarnational lens through which to understand the nature of doctrine and its reception. Namely, the idea that God reveals divine reality in a way that human language can mediate, albeit imperfectly Quoting Congar, Meszaros observes that "[h]istory, for Congar, is not synonymous with a theological problem to be 'solved,' as it were. It is, rather, an intrinsic dimension of what it means to be human" (127). Ultimately Meszaros argues that the economy of doctrine "give(s) doctrine a real role in the plan of salvation" (240), in which the Incarnation is the "key to giving a theological account of the historical conditions of doctrine" (240). The progression of Meszaros's argument is centered upon two challenges that modernity poses to Catholic theology, described in Chapter One as, 1) "the discovery of the subj ect or the analysis of what the subj ect brings to knowledge and to the world," and 2) "the discovery of history, change, or development" (18). Chapters Two through Five examine the nature of and connection between the "subject" and "history." Chapter Two looks specifically at how Newman's attention to the subject and history informs Congar's theory of doctrinal development. Here, Meszaros observes that "Congar definitely sees Newman's epistemic reflections on the subject as the basis for how the ecclesial subject penetrates the deposit [of faith]" (95). Chapter Three builds upon the notion of the Church's "mind" or "conscience" as the subject, which describes the active nature of the ecclesial subject and examines the intrinsic causes of development. Chapter Four investigates the relationship between the subject and history as it sets the stage for examining extrinsic,4 or historical, causes of tradition. Chapter five examines how history, or extrinsic causes, bear upon the Church's doctrine. In Chapter Six, Meszaros proposes a theory of doctrinal development, based firmly on ideas found in Newman and Congar, in which certain key principles are maintained: "the unity and finality of revelation based on, and culminating in, the coming of Jesus Christ; the homogeneity of revelation based on the Truth that is God who neither deceives nor is deceived; and the communicability and knowability of revelation implied in the very notion of revelation" (198). Meszaros's work functions at the intersection of several interrelated subfields within Newman studies, particularly 1) the historical and theological reception of Newman's thought concerning the doctrine of revelation and 2) an application of Newman's thought into a contemporary understanding of revelation, which is built upon the notion of an active ecclesial subject. [End Page 84] This book, which originated as Meszaros's doctoral thesis for the Catholic University of Louvain...

The African Independent Apostolic Church's Doctrine under Threat: The Emerging Power of Faith-based Organisations' Interventions and the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church in Zimbabwe

The African Independent Apostolic Church's Doctrine under Threat: The Emerging Power of Faith-based Organisations' Interventions and the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church in Zimbabwe

O pridobitni dejavnosti Katoliške Cerkve

It seems to everyone, to individuals and groups alike, that a just profitable activity is something normal. Humans are not only spiritual, but also bodily beings. Profitable activities are necessary for their bodily life and covering of material needs. The same goes for larger communities and institutions. The Catholic Church is a visible and at the same time spiritual institution, a hierarchically organized society as well as »Christʼs mystical body«. It is one, but composed of two fundamental elements, human and Divine. As far as profitable activities of the Church are concerned, all this and many other things are mutually intertwined. Catholic Church – like any other individual and institution – can be a propriety owner and engage in profitable activities by all just means of the natural and positive law. In addition to the aforementioned external normative (legal) aspects, the Church doctrine in general and its social teaching in particular clearly defines that the Church can own and administrate material goods, but at the same time necessarily respecting the criteria of Evangelical poverty. All this should be governed by prudence, wisdom and transparency.

A Living Law: Divorce Contracts in Early Modern Russia

GEORGE DANDIN: Ah! I give it up altogether, and I can see no help for it. When one has married, as I have done, a wicked wife, the best step which one can take is to go and throw ones self into the water, head foremost. --Moliere The historiographical reconstruction of early modern Muscovite divorce and remarriage law and practices was initiated at the end of the 19th century by Russian legal historians as an erudite prerequisite to the study of modern Russian family law or, alternatively, as a part of comparative law studies. (1) All but abandoned for many decades, it was resumed not long ago from a different and broader perspective. Gregory Freeze and Daniel Kaiser were the first to introduce the analysis of marriage law and practices into two distinct, though connected, discussions about, first, the place and role of Orthodoxy in different strata of early modern Russian society and, second, the evolution of the extent and efficiency of church and state control over the tsar's subjects. The evidence about divorce and remarriage practices collected by Freeze tends to reinforce his general argument that, at least at the popular level, Orthodoxy exerted but weak spiritual authority, while the church was unable to monitor its adherents effectively until the 1760s. (2) Kaiser uses the same kind of material to argue, on the contrary, that the majority of Muscovite Christians had appropriated fundamental elements of Christian practice by the 17th century, while the church administration was far from impotent before parishioners. (3) This contradiction suggests that citing divorce and remarriage practices in broader discussions of religiosity may be premature, for our source base remains insufficient: we simply do not have a coherent picture of practices either locally or across the entire empire. The present article aims to enrich this source base, focusing on a practice of divorcing by contract without the intervention of the church court. It synthesizes preceding research on so-called divorce letters (razvodnoe pis 'mo, otpusknaia gramota, svobodnoe pis 'mo, zapis') and adds a proportionally significant number of newly discovered contracts, which allows us to take a step forward in elaborating a more complete and, in fact, a more consensual picture. On the one hand, the material presented in this article corroborates and enhances the vision of severe limitations upon the power of the church courts to control divorce and remarriage among the provincial populace. On the other hand, the same materials show that divorcing outside the church institutions did not automatically indicate the rejection of Christian rules or values. Men and women who chose to divorce by contract did not exhibit less formal respect for Orthodox principles than those who duly subjected themselves to episcopal authority. The study of divorce and remarriage practices throughout the medieval and early modern Christian world encounters serious difficulties due to the lack of sources. Deeply influenced by the church doctrine of indissolubility of marriage, Catholic societies, and even Protestant ones (despite the Reformists' rejection of the sacramental status of matrimony), do not constitute propitious contexts for the study of these practices, for when they existed, people tended to hide them. (4) Eastern Slavic Christendom presents a somewhat different case. Here a relatively liberal Byzantine marriage law prevailed for a very long time. In certain countries it continued to function well into the 19th century. (5) In Russia, the authorities started to develop an uncompromising church doctrine and powerful law enforcement mechanisms in the 1720s, and progressively transformed their divorce and remarriage policy into one of the most draconian in Europe. But prior to this shift, the tsar's subjects, in contrast to Western Christians, did not have an especially strong incentive either to repress a need for divorce and remarriage or to conceal these practices. …

Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church by Richard Firth Green

Reviewed by: Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church by Richard Firth Green Carole M. Cusack Green, Richard Firth, Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church ( Middle Ages), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016; cloth; pp. 304; R.R.P. US $55.00, GBP 45.00; ISBN 9780812248432. This engrossing and eminently readable book makes a significant, and original, contribution to scholarship on the medieval Church through its rehabilitation of the lived reality of medieval people with regard to belief in fairy lore. Green thus is able to bring together fields that are usually separated: medieval romance, and attitudes expressed by clerics in the Middle Ages. Elf Queens and Holy Friars joins a myriad recent studies that have enriched knowledge of vernacular beliefs and of 'religion' that existed outside of texts, creeds, and official Church doctrines. The brief 'Introduction' suggests that fairy beliefs were fluid and controversial even in the medieval era, and disavows sundry [End Page 208] ideas that have been floated with reference to such beliefs, including the 'Celtic origins' (p. 5) hypothesis, and the rituals that people performed to draw on fairy power at dangerous times of life. Green's interest is political; his study uses Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault, and traces the 'policing' of fairy beliefs by the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the high Middle Ages. Chapter 1, 'Believing in Fairies', addresses C. S. Lewis's challenge to 'imagine what it would feel like to witness, or think we had witnessed, or merely to believe in' fairies (pp. 11–12). Green details the clerical connections between fairies and demons, and notes the learned middle ground that posited 'neutral angels' (p. 25). He also sketches the less judgemental treatment of fairyland and fairies in literary texts, and rejects the modern view that 'the fairy machinery of medieval romance [… is] a convenient narrative device' (p. 33). Learned writers including Gervase of Tilbury, Walter Map, and William of Newburgh also gave some support to the 'popular' beliefs and practices regarding fairies. Chapter 2, 'Policing Vernacular Belief', demonstrates that the perceived gulf between learned and popular culture in the medieval era does not really work for fairy beliefs. Green summons evidence to show that penalties and penances for fairy beliefs and practices became more severe over the centuries (Burchard of Worms, who died in the early eleventh century, sentenced those who believed in fairy lovers to ten days on bread and water, but the late fifteenth-century Malleus Maleficarum condemned them to death). Green traces a 'campaign of cultural repression' (p. 66) of fairy lore, which, he contends, makes certain of the claims regarding Celtic elements in romances tenable if not provable. Romances were texts in which half-fairies like the magician Merlin existed, and which resisted the official clerical position. Chapter 3, 'Incubi Fairies', opens with an analysis of the various terms for fairies, and explains how clerics consistently express the view that relationships with fairy lovers will end badly, where in vernacular romance 'liaisons with fairy mistresses are invariably exotic and exciting' (p. 101). Chapter 4, 'Christ the Changeling', is especially interesting in that it makes plain how theologically orthodox Christian dogmas might shade into versions of fairy beliefs. Changelings are usually male, and when examined by the learned the beliefs of peasants are generally dismissed, in favour of a 'medical' view. The term for 'changeling', conjoun, appears in diverse contexts (for example, legal texts and romances), and in the Chester and York play cycles, Christ is called a changeling. Green examines all the 'uncanny' terms used for Christ and biblical characters associated with him, such as Abel, and demonstrates that the popular understanding of orthodox doctrine has many connections with fairy beliefs. Chapter 5, 'Living in Fairyland', examines liminal places such as Avalon in the Arthurian legend, and related speculative ideas such as William of Auvergne's consideration of 'whether the fairy horde might be made up of those who had been lost in battle' (p. 158). This segues into a discussion of [End Page 209] the emergence of Purgatory, a term first used around 1170, which begins with Jacques le Goff's account of the subject. Green argues...

The Humane-Theological Genesis of Some Aspects of Catholic Social Teaching in the Context of Interfaith Realities in Ukraine

The article outlines the main aspects of public life, which the social doctrine of the Catholic Church examines.
 The basic components of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church are emphasized.
 Nowadays the semantics of the concept ''The Church’s social teaching'' has an immensely wide spectrum. It ranges from such a simple phenomenon as charity to the understanding described in the Gospel as ''sacrificing one’s life''.
 Due to the drastic social changes and the events of the recent decades, Ukraine has been forced not only to go through one of the most tragic pages of its history, but also to reawaken its significant ''signs of time''. They include social, political and religious cataclysms that have led to the profound reconsideration of the Churches’ meaning and role in social processes.
 The Church has never estranged itself from a human. Understanding a human as a gift of God, the Church serves a human in the light of the Gospel of Christ. To serve a human (through diaconia) is the aim and mission of the Church. Furthermore, the Church focuses not only on humans’ spiritual values, but also on their material and social well-being.

Klauzula generalna społeczno-gospodarczego przeznaczenia prawa w wykładni przepisów regulujących prawo własności

<p>Z poglądów przedstawicieli nauki prawa wyłania się zróżnicowany stosunek do klauzuli generalnej społeczno-gospodarczego przeznaczenia prawa w odniesieniu do treści własności. Wśród poglądów opowiadających się za jej usunięciem wskazywane argumenty dotyczą między innymi niewystępowania aktualnie podziału własności na typy i formy charakterystyczne dla systemu prawnego PRL-u. Fakt ten przejawiał się w zróżnicowaniu zarówno treści, jak i ochrony poszczególnych postaci własności, tym samym podkreśla się, że w nowym systemie prawnym III Rzeczypospolitej, usankcjonowanym Konstytucją RP z 1997 r., utrzymywanie tej klauzuli jest bezzasadne. Z kolei w ramach drugiej grupy poglądów, opowiadających się za pozostawieniem tej klauzuli, podkreśla się fakt jej przydatności w aktualnym systemie prawnym, gdyż pozwala ona tam, gdzie jest to wskazane, odwołać się do funkcji społecznej własności, co stanowi przejaw utrzymania równowagi między uwzględnianiem interesów indywidualnych oraz interesów ogólnych. W literaturze podkreśla się również, że paradoksalnie to, co służyło zupełnie innej koncepcji własności w systemie prawnym PRL-u, nagle odpowiada społecznej konstrukcji własności występującej w społecznym nauczaniu Kościoła katolickiego, urzeczywistnionej dla przykładu w Konstytucji RFN.</p>

Happily Religious: The Surprising Sources of Happiness Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Adults

This article analyzes the impact of religion on reported levels of subjective well‐being (general happiness) among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adults. Although previous studies find religious affiliation to be a significant predictor of subjective well‐being among the general population in the United States, limited quantitative research investigates general happiness among sexual and gender minorities. This study augments the existing literature by using a national survey of LGBT adults conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2013. The results show that religious affiliation is a significant predictor of LGBT individuals’ happiness. LGBT individuals who identify as Catholic, agnostic or atheist, or with no particular religious affiliation report lower levels of happiness compared to mainline Protestants. Surprisingly, no significant differences are found between mainline Protestants (whose church doctrine often accepts same‐sex relations) and evangelical Protestants (whose church doctrine often condemns same‐sex relations). In addition, income is the only control variable that affects general happiness. Our analysis reveals interesting differences in the determinants of subjective well‐being between the LGBT and general population.

Achieving moral, high quality, affordable medical care in America through a true free market.

The basis of a just and moral economic model for health care is examined in the context of Catholic social teaching. The performance of the current model of "central economic planning" in medicine is evaluated in terms of the core principles of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and compared to freedom-based economic models. It is clear that the best way to respect and serve human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity in medicine is through the establishment of a true, free-market health economy. Lay Summary : This article reviews the impact of recent healthcare reforms as well as traditional "third party payment" models for healthcare financing in America (insurance). Impact on patients and doctors are evaluated in the context of Catholic social doctrine and the Catechism. The many shortcomings and negative consequences of an economy planned centrally by government are compared to the benefits of a true free-market medical economy with empowered individuals. The analysis shows that interference in the patient-physician relationship and the centrally planned medical economy itself violates Catholic teachings, harms patients and doctors, and create morally evil outcomes and economic structures.

Dilemmi del fine vita nel confronto tra approccio scientifico e prospettiva religiosa (cattolica – protestante)

End of life bioethics includes a wide range of issues, all of them dealing with the value of human life, on human dignity, on the idea of justice and good. In the field of medical sciences, the recent technological progress has deeply changed traditional concepts such as life, death, vegetative state and imposes a rethinking and a distinction between biological and biographic life. The paper aims at comparing the doctrine of the Roman catholic church with and Protestant theology, which is more adherent to a secular ethics with regards to the safeguard of human dignity. The goal of this analysis is to underline the complex dilemmas that a modern and pluralistic society is called to deal with in a context of mutual respect and tolerance.

A Working-Class Sherlock

Timothy Sheard, the Lenny Moss mystery series (New York: Hardball).At its best, the art of fiction reveals the underlying truth of human relations: we are communal and collaborative by nature. Selfishness and greed are social aberrations because, ultimately, they violate the principle of self-preservation. No wonder we are drawn to crime stories: they mirror our common experience. Capitalism is high crime disguised as church doctrine. Conspiracy is evident, though the evidence is concealed. Hence, our fascination with the detective genre. We are in dire need of Timothy Sheard's scrutiny—a detective who peers through a working-class eyeglass.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Thomas Ford and Joseph Smith, 1842-1844

Research Article| October 01 2016 Thomas Ford and Joseph Smith, 1842-1844 Andrew H. Hedges Andrew H. Hedges ANDREW H. HEDGES is an associate professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. He is coeditor of Journals, Vol. 2 and Journals, Vol. 3 of The Joseph Smith Papers and served for a time as managing historian of that project. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Mormon History (2016) 42 (4): 97–124. https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.42.4.0097 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Andrew H. Hedges; Thomas Ford and Joseph Smith, 1842-1844. Journal of Mormon History 1 October 2016; 42 (4): 97–124. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.42.4.0097 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of Mormon History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2016 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2016 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Saint Francis in Climate-Changing Times: Form of Life, the Highest Poverty, and Postcapitalist Politics

This paper considers the relevance of Franciscan monastic practice to contemporary postcapitalist politics in the time of the Anthropocene. Giorgio Agamben’s reflections on the monastic revolution of the eleventh and twelfth centuries explores the different relationships between the rules governing monastic life and materiality, wherein the renunciation of property and the practice of highest poverty give the greatest expression of a collective, monastic form of life. The embodied connection between having a rule and living it contrasts starkly with emergent Church doctrine that introduced a cynical split between the sacred and the material: good or bad, the priest only need say the words. Centuries later, a version of this cynical split seems operative in contemporary “green consumerist” responses to the Anthropocene, amounting to a palliative gesture when what is required is revolutionary transformation. In contrast, this essay considers how contemporary postcapitalist politics, like monasticism, rests upon embodied forms of collective life.

Book Review: From Nothing: A Theology of Creation

From Nothing: A Theology of Creation. By Ian A. McFarland. Louis- ville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014. xvii + 212 pp. $35.00 (paper).Recent years have seen a renewed interest in, and focus on, the role of the doctrine of creation within systematic theology. North American Anglicanism is no exception to this trend. In 2012, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church passed Resolution A136, which focused on creation in light of the relationship between science and Christian faith, and commended the Catechism of Creation as a tool for congregational study. Unfortunately, the Catechism of Creation left much to be desired as a theological text. Its casual readers may be left with the impression that Christians must choose between either a version of process theology or creationism of the sort unique to contemporary American debates on the origins of the material universe and of humanity.Ian McFarlands compact but rich retrieval of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo offers another way forward, engaging with recent developments in the physical and biological sciences through the lens of the Christian tradition. McFarland, whose previous work has involved theological anthropology as well as Christology, is most recently the author of In Adam's Fall: A Meditation on the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin. His latest effort thus follows the trajectory of his previous work, reaching beyond the Fall to the moment of creation. At the same time, however, From Nothing is not ultimately concerned with temporal questions of origins. Instead, McFarland focuses primarily on the dogmatic function of creatio ex nihilo as a Christian proposal about the character of God's relationship to the world (p. xiv).Crucially, this God is not an abstract or universal prime mover, but the Triune God known and revealed in Christ. McFarland argues that the doctrine of creation cannot function as a ?forecourt of the Gentiles,' a means by which Christians can find common theological ground with non-Christians at a generous remove from the more knotty questions associated with topics like atonement, original sin, or the (p. xii). McFarland eschews these attempts to speak in a kind of theological Esperanto, relying instead on a grammar that is emphatically and irreducibly Christian, and grounding his argument in the doctrine of the Trinity through the role of the Word in creation described in John 1. As he explains in the preface, The church's doctrine of creation from nothing is best understood in the context of the specifically Christian doctrine of the Trinity and, still more specifically, as a corollary of the belief that Christ is the one in whom all things were created (Col. …

Systematickoteologické přístupy k encyklice Laudato si'

In the present collective study the members of the Department of Systematic Theology at the Cyril and Methodius Theological Faculty of Palacky University in Olomouc respond to the encyclical of Pope Francis Laudato si'. First, they point out that the encyclical amounts to a strong defense of the Christian approach to problems of the environment. It consists of a certain completion of Compendium of Social Doctrine of Church where the dignity of all creatures is emphasized. Theo mariological, sacramentological, eschatological and ethical parts of the text are also inspiring in this respect. Most of what the encyclical presents has been for a long period of time an integral part of the lessons and formation in all the disciplines offered by the Department of Systematic Theology.

Pictorial Theories by Missionaries in Sixteenth-century New Spain: the Capacities of Hieroglyphs as Media in Transcultural Negotiation

This article discusses image theories of missionaries in sixteenth-century New Spain. It contextualizes the practice of adapting indigenous Mesoamerican iconography by mendicant friars for the purpose of evangelization within contemporaneous European debates about Egyptian hieroglyphs, seen by many authors in the period as akin to the pictographs used in central Mexico. The article argues that the supposed universal legibility of these visual systems prompted friars not only to use images as tools for teaching Church doctrine, but to incorporate select indigenous symbols into Christian devotional art. Such formal similarities between Egyptian, Mexican, and Christian iconography were used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as evidence for the original unity of all religions. The text outlines the connection with Renaissance theories about the special quality of Egyptian hieroglyphs which were—in the Hermetic tradition—said to contain ancient wisdom entrusted to the Egyptians by God. Comparison between Egyptian writing and Mexican pictographic symbols raised a debate on whether the latter had the same dignity as the former. With this debate in mind, the Christian iconographies integrating pre-Hispanic glyphs gained a different status.

RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY: WHAT CAN BE TAKEN FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

The article studies the state of the research of the religious preconditions and consolidating factors of democracy. The analysis of the transformation of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, the main reference points of the present day social doctrine and the place of democracy in this doctrine demonstrates that the church doctrine is not a dogma but a fluid discourse responding to the challenges of modernity.