Columbia Theological Seminary Research Articles

Walter Brueggemann. Truth and Hope: Essays for a Perilous Age.

Walter Brueggemann. <i>Truth and Hope: Essays for a Perilous Age</i>.

I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation by Chanequa Walker-Barnes

Reviewed by: I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation by Chanequa Walker-Barnes Yvonne D. Hawkins (bio) Chanequa Walker-Barnes. 2019. I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. 280 Pp. $24.99. In I Bring the Voices of My People, Chanequa Walker-Barnes presents a textured argument that U.S. society needs to envision a new model of racial reconciliation if we intend to respond to our nation's original sin of racism. Walker-Barnes argues that this charge is particularly relevant for the Christian church. "That is, we are held captive by the understanding that reconciliation is core to the gospel, that it reflects God's intention for humanity, and that it is central to our identity as Christians." In presenting her model, Walker-Barnes, a professor of practical theology and pastoral counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary, combines the precision of her training as a clinical psychologist with the insights of womanist theology to demonstrate the waywardness of current models. The result is an unflinching exposé of prevailing distortions of race, gender, and racism that lead to faulty understandings of racial reconciliation and, ultimately, disappointing outcomes. Walker-Barnes argues that a womanist vision for reconciling work facilitates more holistic healing and liberation. The womanist vision centers the voices and lived experiences of women of color. As a womanist, Walker-Barnes largely focuses on Black women's voices. This approach indeed highlights gaps in prevailing paradigms of racial reconciliation that ignore gendered aspects of racism. Meanwhile, Walker-Barnes stays faithful to womanism's commitment to including other voices beyond those of Black women; she brings the experiences of Asian, Latina, and Native American women regarding racism into view. Indeed, Walker-Barnes's primary goal is to challenge the predominance of White, male experiences that currently inform most racial reconciliation models. Walker-Barnes begins with a historical overview of the major players in the 1990s racial reconciliation movements, turning her focus to Promise [End Page 317] Keepers (PK). She notes that in the nineties, evangelical organizations played a prominent role in the racial reconciliation movement as they sought to make racial reconciliation central to their missions. For example, she notes that PK's sixth primary commitment asked men to reach beyond racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate biblical unity. Such movements, Walker-Barnes argues, failed to consider how race and racism are gendered. Walker-Barnes explores three forms of gendered racism: colorism, mammification, and hypersexualization. She deploys an intersectional framework developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw that acknowledges that gender- and race-based inequalities interact in unique ways to impact the lives of women of color. She argues that considering the ways in which women of color experience racism provides a more comprehensive understanding of how racism operates. For Walker-Barnes, racism is about White supremacy, which is transmitted in gendered ways. She defines White supremacy as "an evil ideology that relies on brute power to enforce and maintain itself." Meanwhile, she rejects the popular definition of racism as "prejudice plus power"—the occurrence of individuals having the power to act on negative feelings toward those with different racial identities. Instead, Walker-Barnes offers a definition that underscores racism's link to White supremacy: Racism is an interlocking system of oppression that is designed to promote and maintain White supremacy, the notion that White people—including their bodies, aesthetics, beliefs, values, customs, and culture—are inherently superior to all other races and therefore should wield dominion over the rest of creation, including other people groups, the animal kingdom, and the earth itself. She further dismantles the racial reconciliation approach of facilitating good feelings toward others who hold different racial identities and developing cross-racial friendships. Walker-Barnes argues that these models fail to reckon with the fault lines that emerge from whiteness, a racial identity that "was created as a way of determining who got to partake of the benefits of White supremacy." Walker-Barnes's writing is strongest and most cogent when she again deploys an interdisciplinary approach in explicating the connection between whiteness and White supremacy. This is perhaps where Walker-Barnes is...

To Count Our Days: A History of Columbia Theological Seminary by Erskine Clarke

Reviewed by: To Count Our Days: A History of Columbia Theological Seminary by Erskine Clarke Lee Ann Caldwell To Count Our Days: A History of Columbia Theological Seminary. By Erskine Clarke. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. xvi, 369. $49.99, ISBN 978-1-61117-996-5.) In To Count Our Days: A History of Columbia Theological Seminary, Erskine Clarke displays the same meticulous research and captivating narrative style that won him the Bancroft Prize for Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic (New Haven, 2005). This study of Columbia Theological Seminary is more than a chronicle of the economic, curricular, faculty, and service components seen in institutional histories. While those topics receive adequate attention, Clarke also examines the larger story of Southern Presbyterianism in the context of southern history, from the contradictions of slavery and Jim Crowism to the growing challenges to both the institution and traditional religion in the face of cultural modernity and consumer capitalism. As Clarke states in the preface, he hopes that even those without "personal connections" to the seminary "will find in the history of Columbia a story that intrigues and that helps to inform their understanding of southern history with all its ironies and of the religious life of the American people with all its complex intermingling of peoples and traditions, of light and deep shadows" (p. ix). In its beginnings in an antebellum mansion in Columbia, South Carolina, the seminary trained "gentlemen theologians" to be knowledgeable in Greek and Latin, science, history, and moral philosophy (p. x). By the 2010s the seminary, on an expansive campus in Decatur, Georgia, since 1927, served a much more diverse constituency as it sought to provide education appropriate for the twenty-first century while navigating cultural fault lines in both the church and society. In the almost two hundred years in between, the seminary faced the trauma of Civil War, the emergence of Lost Cause mythology, the controversies provoked by evolution, periods of great poverty and great growth, and the growing secularism and materialism of the modern world. [End Page 914] A particularly strong theme throughout the book is racism and its impact on the church, the seminary, and the people of the South. Chapter 2, entitled "Slaves: In the Shadows of Columbia," begins, "Hidden in the shadows of the seminary's history, waiting to tell their stories, were black men and women whose labors, sorrows, and dark bodies provided the financial foundations for Columbia Seminary and its development" (p. 15). Clarke gives voice to those enslaved servants who cooked, cleaned, and kept the seminary functioning day-to-day. He also tackles how erudite, religious men explained their hierarchical society and, recognizing "slavery as that which 'so radically and fundamentally distinguishes' the North and South," were willing to leave the Presbyterian church to form their own southern version and to secede from their country to maintain the racial status quo (p. 73). It was not the last time race led to disunion. The civil rights movement in the 1960s pressured white Christians to reexamine racial assumptions and southern norms. Clarke points out that, as in the antebellum era, most nonwhites on the seminary campus were those who worked there, and, "like those who had gone before them, they kept their own world and their own perspectives largely hidden from the whites who thought they knew them so well" (p. 221). Ultimately, the controversy over desegregation in the southern church helped lead to another breakaway in 1973. Columbia Theological remained in the fold and in 1983 was part of the reunion of Northern and Southern Presbyterians in the Presbyterian Church (USA). In the last chapters Clarke examines the seminary's efforts to find its place in a rapidly changing, diverse, individualistic, and secular society. The dilemmas are those facing our era. Clarke finishes with many questions, including about the very place of the institution's history in its present and future. This thought-provoking, engaging study by an insightful scholar and talented wordsmith is well worth a read. Lee Ann Caldwell Augusta University Copyright © 2020 Southern Historical Association

Divine Freedom and Human Religions

This print version of an address given in February 2018 at Columbia Theological Seminary pursues the question, How do we follow Jesus the Christ in this religiously plural world? Martha Moore-Keish tells the story of how Presbyterians, as one particular Christian family, have wrestled with this question for the past 500 years. After reviewing five historical interpretations of religious diversity, the essay introduces the emerging field of comparative theology, as a promising next step in engaging a world of many religions. Finally, it offers a trinitarian Reformed theological rationale for engaging in comparative theology.

John Calvin and the Presbyterian Psalter

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes James H. Nichols, Corporate Worship in the Reformed Tradition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968), 36. Charles Garside Jr., The Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music: 1536–1543 (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1979), 8. Ibid., 7. Erik Routley, The Church and Music: An Enquiry into the History, the Nature, and the Scope of Christian Judgment on Music (London: Duckworth, 1967), 125. John H. Leith, An Introduction to the Reformed Tradition (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981), 177. Ibid. John Calvin, Joannis Calvini Opera Selecta, Peter Barth, Dora Scheuner, and Wilhelm Niesel, eds. (Munich: 1926–36), 2:16–17. Friedrich Blume, ed., Protestant Church Music (New York: Norton, 1974), 517. Ibid., 133ff. Richard R. Terry, Calvin's First Psalter, 1539 (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1932), vii. Ibid., ii. Horace T. Allen Jr., “On Selecting Hymns,” Reformed Liturgy & Music 15:3 (1981): 142. Arlo D. Duba, “Liberating the Psalter,” Reformed Liturgy & Music 14:4 (1980): 27–37. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 28ff. Horace T. Allen Jr., “The Psalter in the Common Lectionary Revised (1992),” Reformed Liturgy & Music 26:2 (1992): 84. Paul F. Bradshaw, “Psalms and Prayer,” in Two Ways of Praying (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995). The work of the Daily Prayer Task force resulted in Supplemental Liturgical Resource 5 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987). The Psalter was intended to be published as a companion piece. Helen L. Wright, “Why This Psalter Now?” Reformed Liturgy & Music 26:2 (1992): 71. Helen L. Wright, “The Psalter on the Way,” Reformed Liturgy & Music 19:3 (1985): 131. According to Horace Allen, the number of psalms was actually decreased from the 1983 lectionary from 111 psalms to 105, with the additional use of 10 canticles. An average of 12 verses was used in each selection. Harold M. Daniels, “Service Books and Ecumenism: Response to the Berakah Award,” Reformed Liturgy & Music 29:1 (1995): 46. Hal H. Hopson, “Psalm Tones in The Psalter: Psalms and Canticles for Singing,” Reformed Liturgy & Music 26:2 (1992): 76–77. Additional informationNotes on contributorsPaul Junggap HuhPaul J. Huh is assistant professor of worship and director of Korean American Ministries at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia.

New Church Rising

Abstract I had the privilege of participating as a Campbell Scholar at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta with a group of theologians from Kenya, Egypt, Argentina, Jamaica and the US. The theme for our eight weeks together was “The Mission of the Church in an Age of Uprooted People”. This intensive time of dialogue and study helped clarify how the church as a whole has been uprooted from God's desired unity, and provided the space to reflect on the future of the global church from a congregational perspective. The result is this paper in which I explore the present state of Presbyterianism, Protestant denominationalism, and the church as a whole, while also envisioning new paths forward in our global, multicultural age.

Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic (review)

Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic. By Erskine Clarke. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. Pp. 601. Cloth, $35.00; Paper, $20.00.)Reviewed by B. W. HigmanWhen Erskine Clarke, professor of American religious history at Columbia Theological Seminary, came to ponder possible titles for the book taking form his hands, he was mindful of the many biblical and hymnological references applied to works on antebellum plantation slavery. His plantation narrative, situated the landscape of the Georgia coast - the low country - drew creatively upon the much referenced Children of Pride (Yale University Press, 1972), massive volume of letters of the family of the Rev. Dr. Charles Colcock Jones of Liberty County. Jones (1804-1863) was Presbyterian minister, missionary to slaves and, briefly, professor at Columbia, as well as slaveholder. editor of the family letters, Robert Manson Myers, had taken his title from the book of Job. Clarke turned the pages of his Bible beyond the harshness of Job's world, finding the next book, Psalms, notion nearer to his reading of the conjoined yet segmented world of master and slave. David's familiar psalm, which saw the Lord as shepherd and concluded with the hope of the righteous that they would the house of the Lord forever (Ps. 23:6), led directly to the hymnal and the faith that in God's house for evermore my dwelling-place shall be. concept of inhabiting landscape - more particularly house and home - pulled together theology and historiography. It also referenced Heidegger's idea that the world is the house within which we dwell and Bachelard's understanding that house as home is our primary universe. Clarke must also have had mind Eugene Genovese's Roll, Jordan, Roll: World the Slaves Made (Pantheon, 1974), that drew its title from song rather than hymns ancient and modern, but similarly turned to Psalms for its epigram: The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein (Ps. 24:1).Whereas Myers took as subtitle for his collection of letters A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War, Clarke chose the epic as his model. result, he said, was a composite biography: the lives of owners and owned are seen overlapping one another and being layered together complex and interdependent ways, even as they are located within larger social and cultural contexts (x). To construct his fugai version of the story, he needed to follow both the history of the writers of the letters, the slaveowning Jones family, with their view from the top, and, from below, the history of the extended, enslaved family of Lizzy Jones. Clarke knew he could not find everything he wanted the seemingly ample evidence of the Jones family letters because of their one-sidedness. Besides, the letters commenced 1854, while he started his story 1805. Clarke went to the archives, and searched through the results of archaeological, linguistic, architectural, and geographical studies and much more. Here it was sometimes necessary to argue from the general to the particular and perhaps atypical; to assume, for example, that if kitchens were typically located outside big houses separate structures this must have been the case at Liberty Hall; or to assume that the questions typically asked at slave auctions were put directly to the slaves of Liberty Hall when they were auctioned 1808. Even all of this was not enough. To understand why people had faith what they believed and to ac- count for their actions, Clarke knew he had to take series of imaginative leaps. …

Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic ‐ by Erskine Clarke

Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic. Erskine Clarke. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2005. Xvi, 601 pp. ISBN 0-300-10867-2. $35.00 (cloth), $20.00. (paper) Families, both White and Black, are at the core of this epic of four generations of antebellum, low-country Georgia slaves, and slave owners. Erskine Clarke, professor of American religious history at Columbia Theological Seminary, focuses his tale around Charles Colcock Jones, who experienced a religious conversion as a teenager and resolved the conflict between the morality of slave owning and his own slave ownership by devoting much effort to the religion instruction of slaves and championing their better treatment. Relying on the extensive Jones family correspondence, plantation records, and public records, such as probate, court, and land, Clarke has reconstructed the family relationships of the large Jones family as well as several of the extended slave families-no small feat. More important, he skillfully combines these primary sources with prodigious research in the secondary literature to produce a model composite biography. Especially notable because so difficult, given the paucity of records the slaves left, is his recreation of their lives, individually and collectively. Moreover, embedded in the narrative is a remarkable description of marriage and family life among both Blacks and Whites. Marriages detailed are typical of the time and place. White women married young, often by age 20, and cousin marriages, such as that between Charles Colcock and Mary Jones, were common. Parents did not choose partners for their children, but their consent was important. Charles's cousin Emma married against her father's wishes and found herself disinherited. Many slave marriages were also typical, with women often bearing a child before settling down in a stable marriage relationship. But a few slave marriages broke up as individuals found new partners, and one of the Joneses' slaves, Cassius, had families on three plantations. Demographic patterns also had an important impact on families. Deaths from accidents and disease were common, creating orphans and single parents. By age 6, Charles's father had been killed in an accident and his mother died of a debilitating fever. Charles's uncle Joseph Jones married his third wife at age 41, whereas his aunt Eliza Robarts had been widowed three times by her 28th birthday. In addition, birth rates were high in the first part of the 19th century: Joseph fathered 26 children by his three wives. By contrast, in the next generation, Charles and his sister Susan each had only three children. …

Cultivating Public Leadership Among Theological Students: The Role of Faith and the City of Columbia Theological Seminary

The case study examines the Faith and the City Program at Columbia Theological Seminary as it attempts to respond to the Association of Theological Schools' requirement to prepare students for public leadership. The program uses a multi-faceted approach to this task that includes student-led activities and an infusion of the curriculum through elective courses and guest lectures on the role of the pastor as a public leader. Special emphasis is placed on a joint seminar on Power, Faith, and Civic Leadership conducted for students and faculty from Columbia, the Interdenominational Theological Center, and Georgia State University. Elements of the case may be useful to other institutions seeking to cultivate public leadership among theological students.

John Calvin and the Sensus Literalis This essay is an address that was delivered at the Eleventh Biennial Conference on Calvin Studies, 2 March 2002, on the campus of Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. It followed Gary Neal Hansens address, John Calvins Non-Literal Interpretation of Scripture: On Allegory.

Calvin has been traditionally regarded as having consistently interpreted scripture according to its literal sense and having also consistently repudiated non-literal modes of interpretation. This view has been recently challenged, however, by Gary Hansen, who claims that ‘Calvin's theological rules or priorities of interpretation allow for and even require non-literal interpretation of biblical texts’. The issue turns, however, on what interpreting scripture according to the literal sense actually meant for Calvin. Hans Frei claimed Calvin as a champion of the literal sense because he affirmed the primacy of the literal sense with respect to scripture's witness to the identity of Jesus Christ – that is, following the longstanding consensus of the church, Calvin proceeded on the basis that what the scriptures are literally about is not a concept or timeless truth, but the suffering, obedience, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.The fact that other so-called ‘non-literal’ modes of interpretation such as allegory appear in Calvin's exegesis should not necessarily, however, be seen as a betrayal of Calvin's commitment to literal interpretation, but rather as evidence of the elasticity of the concept. For Calvin, metaphorical or allegorical interpretations may, to a limited degree, be ascribed to the literal sense, but they must not offend, subvert, or be given independent or equivalent status alongside the literal rendering of the basic story about Jesus depicted in the Gospel narratives.This essay demonstrates that the literal sense in Calvin is a much more supple notion than many have assumed, especially when one considers his Harmony of the Gospels. Contrary to modernist assumptions and in contrast to a strict, direct identification between signa and res, a tight, irresidual, one-to-one correspondence between what is written and what is written about, Calvin's approach to literal interpretation allows for what Frei called ‘breathing space’.

MEMORIES BY CHRISTIAN ADULTS OF CHILDHOOD BULLY EXPERIENCES: IMPLICATIONS FOR ADULT RELIGIOUS SELF-UNDERSTANDING

The relation of adult memory of bullying experiences during childhood with adult religious self-understanding is a neglected area of inquiry by researchers. Based upon a qualitative research design over a period of four years with Anglo Christian students at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, the researcher concludes that there is a relation between the adult memory of bullying experiences during childhood with adult religious self-understanding. It is posited, moreover, that bullying is an indication of spiritual crisis expressed outwardly as a desire to be in relation with the other−but with the opposite result. The relation of bullying with such themes as empathy, hospitality, and friendship are explored as possible correctives to this spiritual crisis.

&lt;sc&gt;Janet Duitsman Cornelius&lt;/sc&gt;. &lt;italic&gt;Slave Missions and the Black Church in the Antebellum South&lt;/italic&gt;. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1999. Pp. x, 305. $34.95

Journal Article Janet Duitsman Cornelius. Slave Missions and the Black Church in the Antebellum South. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1999. Pp. x, 305. $34.95 Get access Cornelius Janet Duitsman. Slave Missions and the Black Church in the Antebellum South. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1999. Pp. x, 305. $34.95. Erskine Clarke Erskine Clarke Columbia Theological Seminary Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 106, Issue 1, February 2001, Pages 170–171, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/106.1.170 Published: 01 February 2001

BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS Get access Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice. Editor By David D. Hall. Princeton University Press, 1997. 253 pages. $52.50 cloth; $16.95. James Hudnut-Beumler James Hudnut-Beumler Columbia Theological Seminary Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 67, Issue 4, December 1999, Pages 900–902, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/67.4.900 Published: 01 December 1999

The Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Classic and Contemporary Readings

Acknowledgements. List of Contributors. Introduction. Part I: The Contexts of Theological Interpretation: 1. Spiritual Understanding: Henri de Lubac, S. J. (French Jesuit Theologian, 1896-1991), Translated by Luke O'Neill. 2. The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis: David C. Steinmetz (Duke University). 3. The Story-Shaped Church: Critical Exegesis and Theological Interpretation: George Lindbeck (Yale University). 4. Feminist Theological Hermeneutics: Canon and Christian Identity: Claudia V. Camp (Texas Christian University). 5. The Bible and African Americans: An Outline of an Interpretative History: Vincent L. Wimbush (Union Theological Seminary in New York). 6. The New Testament and the Nicene Dogma: A Contribution to the Recovery of Theological Exegesis: David S. Yeago (Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary). Part II: Theological Interpretations of Select Biblical Texts: Exodus 3: 7. Selections from Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses: Translated and introduced by Joseph W. Trigg (Rector, Christ Church, Port Tobacco Parish, La Plata, Maryland). 8. Selections from Nicholas of Lyra's Commentary on Exodus: Translated and introduced by Corrine Patton (University of St Thomas). 9. Three Postcritical Encounters with the Burning Bush: Peter Ochs. 10. Exodus 3: A Theological Interpretation: Terence E. Fretheim (Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary). 11. Exodus 3: Summons to Holy Transformation: Walter Brueggemann (Columbia Theological Seminary). Isaiah 52-53: 12. Selections from Theodoret of Cyrus's Commentary on Isaiah: Translated and introduced by Angela Russell Christman (Loyola College, Maryland). 13. Selections from John Calvin's Sermons on Isaiah: Translated and introduced by Kathryn Greene-McCreight (Yale College). 14. Speech and Silence in the Servant Passages: Towards a Final-Form Reading of the Book of Isaiah: Tod Linafelt (Georgetown University). 15. Selections from I, He , We, They: A Literary Approach to Isaiah 53: David J. A. Clines (University of Sheffield). 16. Engaging Metaphors: Suffering with Zion and the Servant in Isaiah 52-53: Beverly J. Stratton (Augsburg College). Matthew 5-7: 17. Selections from John Chrysostom's Homilies on Matthew: Translated and Introduced by Robin Darling Young (The Catholic University of America). 18. Selections from Martin Luther's Sermons on the Sermon on the Mount: Translated and Introduced by Mark S. Burrows (Andover Newton Theological School). 19. Righteousness from the Inside: The Transformative Spirituality of the Sermon on the Mount: Brian K. Blount (Princeton Theological Seminary). 20. Selections from The Cost of Discipleship: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Theologian, Pastor in the Confessing Church in Germany, Martyr, 1906-45). 21. The Sermon on the Mount as Radical Pastoral Care: Richard Lischer (Duke University). Romans 9-11: 22. Selections from Augustine's Propositions from the Epistle to the Romans and To Simplician - on Various Questions: Introduced by Peter Gorday (Georgia Association for Pastoral Care). 23. Selections from Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on Romans: Translated and Introduced by Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. (University of Virginia). 24. Romans 10:4 and the 'End' of the Law: Paul W. Meyer (Princeton Theological Seminary). 25. Divine Initiative and Human Response: E. Elizabeth Johnson (New Brunswick Theological Seminary). 26. Figure and Ground in the Interpretation of Romans 9-11: Neil Elliott (The College of St Katherine). Index.

Scripture, Tradition, Knowledge and Experience

The Ecumenical ReviewVolume 50, Issue 1 p. 48-53 Scripture, Tradition, Knowledge and Experience A Review of Some Recent Literature from the Church's Conversation on Homosexuality D. Cameron Murchison Jr, D. Cameron Murchison Jr D. Cameron Murchison, Jr, is professor of ministry at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, USA. An earlier version of this article appeared in Theology Today, vol. 53, no. 4, Jan. 1997Search for more papers by this author D. Cameron Murchison Jr, D. Cameron Murchison Jr D. Cameron Murchison, Jr, is professor of ministry at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, USA. An earlier version of this article appeared in Theology Today, vol. 53, no. 4, Jan. 1997Search for more papers by this author First published: 26 March 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6623.1998.tb00324.xCitations: 4 AboutPDF 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 Citing Literature Volume50, Issue1January 1998Pages 48-53 RelatedInformation

:Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard

This fascinating volume explores the mystical strand of thought that exists in the writings of John Calvin. Dennis Tamburello explores in particular the relationship between Calvin's notion of with and notions of the mystical union between believers and Christ that were prominent in the medieval period as explicated in the writings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. The Columbia Series in Reformed Theology represents a joint commitment by Columbia Theological Seminary and Westminster John Knox Press to provide theological resources from the Reformed tradition for the church today. This series examines theological and ethical issues that confront church and society in our own particular time and place.

:John Calvin's Exegesis of the Old Testament

The Columbia Series in Reformed Theology represents a joint commitment by Columbia Theological Seminary and Westminster John Knox Press to provide theological resources from the Reformed tradition for the church today.Volumes in this series are intended for scholars, theologians, pastors, and lay people who are committed to faith in search of understanding.

Pascal (review)

264 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY right at hand, without getting in the way. If it had been printed in as readable type and as elegant form as Steinmann's edition, it might be the ideal easily accessible version to familiarize us with the Pens~es as they were actually written and classified by Pascal himself . RICHARD H. POPKIN University of California, San Diego Pascal. Quinta edizione riveduta e aumentata. By Michele Federico Sciacca. (Milano: Carlo Marzorati Editore, 1962. Pp. 250. 2000 L.) This Pascal by Sciacca consists of three parts. The first gives and considers the Life of Pascal (1623-1662) in connection with his complex and restless century (pp. 13--72). The second part (pp. 75-112) analyzes the relationship of Pascal with Jansenism. Pascal is both dependent on and independent of it. The Jansenists discussed while Pascal felt. Jansenism could not find a stable equilibrium between nature and grace which Jansenism either contrasted or confused while Pascal well distinguishes these two orders. They are for him heterogeneous but the lower order leads to the higher. Without God, man is misery and darkness. With God, man can do all things (p. 118). The third part (pp. 115-219) is entitled The Christian Philosopher. It shows that man is made for the infinite. The true call of humanity is religious (p. 206). The final conclusion is that Pascal can still teach us to exist (p. 216). PAUL Y. FUHRMANN Columbia Theological Seminary Louis Thomassin (1619-95), ~tude bio-bibliographique avec vingt lettres et deux textes in~dits. By Pierre Clair. (Vol. I of the series Le mouvement des idles au XVH" si~cle, Collection dirig~e par Andr~ Robinet.) (Paris: 1964. Pp. 160. NF 12.) This small volume is the first in a new series devoted to bringing to light various figures and aspects of seventeenth-century thought that have either been set aside, forgotten, or are only dimly known. Louis Thomassin (as well as Bernard Lamy who is the subject of the second volume that has appeared in this series) certainly falls in these categories. Although his name often turns up in discussions of Cartesianlsm, Jansenism, Malebranchism, etc., very little consideration is ever given to him as a fairly important personage of the time, or to his ideas and the role they played. This volume by Dr. Clair will be of much use to seventeenth-century scholars in providing the basic data about his life, his connections with several of the vital movements of the period, the fundamental bibliographical materials, as well as publishing two texts and twenty letters not before available. The biographical section (pp. 1-84) traces (a bit too episodically) Thomassin's education, his career among the Oratorians as a professor of humanities, philosophy, and theology, his possible involvements with the Jansenists, his difficulties as a result of his first published work, Dissertations sur les Conciles (1667) (suppressed the same year), his later successes for his many other works in theology, philosophy, history, and pedagogy, and his relations with various major and minor figures of the mid- and late seventeenth century, like Arnauld, Malebranche, Richard Simon, Bayle, Huet, etc. Section II (pp. 85-99) gives a detailed bibliography of Thomassin's published works, plus a list of his manuscripts located in various French libraries. This is followed by twenty letters of Thomassin, an intriguing and interesting discourse on the difference between history and science, and one on the nature of chronology, plus three letters by Thomassin's secretary, Nicolas Barat. In a brief ...

Dialogo con Maurizio Blondel (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 285 than" which is both immanent and transcendent, a kind of "coincidentia oppositorum" beyond logic and definition. It is the realm of the "person" within which, although the tragic conflict is not resolved, there arises the free self from whose non-dual perspective the unity and eternity of life are seen. Within this realm the individual gains an illumination the result of which is "amor fad," his free decision to affirm his being. In this act of decision lies the "meaning" and "value" of life. The substance and point of Miss Bauer's book is to show the connection between the metaphysical ground of Simmel's concept of the tragic and its manifestations in different aspects of human experience. Her account is especially interesting in her chapter on the "tragic opposition" in which as an example of a tragic personality she cites Socrates who, by his refusal to flee from his prison, freely embraced his fate and, by choosing to die, confirmed his decisive, binding truth that the heavenly powers remain silent to the questions asked by a doubting and despairing humanity. His act declares that the individual must really stand alone in the world, taking counsel only from himself. Miss Bauer's book is written with a sympathetic understanding of Simmel's philosophy. By opening our eyes to the significant in human existence she succeeds in showing file relevance of his thought to our time. RIA STAVR1DES Vassar College Dialogo con Maurizio Blondel. By Michele Federico Sciacca. (Milano: Carlo Marzorati Editore , 1962. Pp. 159. L. 1300.) Sciacca has gathered here various articles which he had written about Blondel as well as new notes about this French thinker. Blondel struggled against the cult of science seeking to vindicate man's religious needs. Man longs for an end which transcends the natural order. Hence philosophy cannot ignore religion which points to a supernatural human destiny. According to Blondel, God is the only Word which answers the search of man and makes his action both fruitful and progressive. PAUL T. FUHRMANN Columbia Theological Seminary Essays in Ontology. By E. G. Allaire, M. Brodbeck, R. Grossman, H. Hochberg, R. G. Turnbull. Vol. I, Iowa Publications in Philosophy. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963. Pp. 216.) Essays in Ontology is the introductory volume of a new series of monographs to be published by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. The first volume, as its title indicates, is a collection of essays whose authors are closely affiliated with the Iowa Philosophy Department, being faculty members there now (Allaire and Turnbull) or former students (Hochberg, Grossman, and Brodbeck). Considered as a representative display of talent, the collection is somewhat unbalanced, since twelve of the fourteen papers are by three of the contributors, Allaire, Grossman, and Hochberg, while the other two are contributed by Brodbeck and Turnbull. It is also a matter of some disappointment that eleven of the fourteen papers have seen the light of print elsewhere; although this feeling is somewhat offset by the impact of sustained inquiry into one philosophical problem which the papers make when brought together in this way. The three new papers are "Particulars and ...

Essays in Ontology (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 285 than" which is both immanent and transcendent, a kind of "coincidentia oppositorum" beyond logic and definition. It is the realm of the "person" within which, although the tragic conflict is not resolved, there arises the free self from whose non-dual perspective the unity and eternity of life are seen. Within this realm the individual gains an illumination the result of which is "amor fad," his free decision to affirm his being. In this act of decision lies the "meaning" and "value" of life. The substance and point of Miss Bauer's book is to show the connection between the metaphysical ground of Simmel's concept of the tragic and its manifestations in different aspects of human experience. Her account is especially interesting in her chapter on the "tragic opposition" in which as an example of a tragic personality she cites Socrates who, by his refusal to flee from his prison, freely embraced his fate and, by choosing to die, confirmed his decisive, binding truth that the heavenly powers remain silent to the questions asked by a doubting and despairing humanity. His act declares that the individual must really stand alone in the world, taking counsel only from himself. Miss Bauer's book is written with a sympathetic understanding of Simmel's philosophy. By opening our eyes to the significant in human existence she succeeds in showing file relevance of his thought to our time. RIA STAVR1DES Vassar College Dialogo con Maurizio Blondel. By Michele Federico Sciacca. (Milano: Carlo Marzorati Editore , 1962. Pp. 159. L. 1300.) Sciacca has gathered here various articles which he had written about Blondel as well as new notes about this French thinker. Blondel struggled against the cult of science seeking to vindicate man's religious needs. Man longs for an end which transcends the natural order. Hence philosophy cannot ignore religion which points to a supernatural human destiny. According to Blondel, God is the only Word which answers the search of man and makes his action both fruitful and progressive. PAUL T. FUHRMANN Columbia Theological Seminary Essays in Ontology. By E. G. Allaire, M. Brodbeck, R. Grossman, H. Hochberg, R. G. Turnbull. Vol. I, Iowa Publications in Philosophy. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963. Pp. 216.) Essays in Ontology is the introductory volume of a new series of monographs to be published by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. The first volume, as its title indicates, is a collection of essays whose authors are closely affiliated with the Iowa Philosophy Department, being faculty members there now (Allaire and Turnbull) or former students (Hochberg, Grossman, and Brodbeck). Considered as a representative display of talent, the collection is somewhat unbalanced, since twelve of the fourteen papers are by three of the contributors, Allaire, Grossman, and Hochberg, while the other two are contributed by Brodbeck and Turnbull. It is also a matter of some disappointment that eleven of the fourteen papers have seen the light of print elsewhere; although this feeling is somewhat offset by the impact of sustained inquiry into one philosophical problem which the papers make when brought together in this way. The three new papers are "Particulars and 286 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Time" and "Common Names" by Grossman, and "The Tractatus: Nominalistic or Realistic ?" by Allaire. With the exception of May Brodbeck's elegant analysis of John Dewey's philosophy, Edwin Allaire's article on Berkeley, and Herbert Hochberg's disquisition on Quine's supposed rejection of mental entities, all the essays concern themselves, in one way or another, with the problem of universals. Sometimes the problem is looked at independently of any historical context--as in the first seven papers---or as emerging from such a historical setting, as in Robert Turnbull's tightly argued discussion of Ockham's logic, Reinhardt Grossman's investigation into Frege's ontology, and Herbert Hochberg's article on the status of the "non-natural properties" mentioned by G. E. Moore in his early works. There is thus a common core of subject matter in the collection; but even beyond that, the papers reveal a tightly knit community of philosophical opinion. The writers share a common outlook on what the problem of universals is...