Covenantal Relationship Research Articles

Book Review: Leading Cross-Culturally: Covenant Relationships for Effective Christian Leadership

Book Review: Leading Cross-Culturally: Covenant Relationships for Effective Christian Leadership

Letters

Letters

Paul’s use of slavery imagery in the Hagar allegory

In this article it is examined how Paul used slavery imagery in Galatians 4 when dealing with the theme of God’s “children”. The use of words related to the semantic field of slavery in Galatians is briefly discussed. Paul uses these words both with their literal meaning and in a figurative sense. This is also true for the main passage to be discussed in this article – the Hagar allegory. In Galatians 4, Paul first speaks about a real slave wo- man, and then uses this imagery to describe those who do not accept God’s promises to have been fulfilled in Jesus. The way Paul uses the term “allegorise” is examined. It is argued that in Galatians 4 Paul uses the slavery imagery in order to speak about aspects of one’s relationship to God. The background of his use of the Hagar allegory is his “salvation historical” view concerning God’s covenantal relationship to his people. He uses allusions to Old Testament texts to express his view re- garding who belongs to God’s people in the era of the new covenant.

Development of Student Professionalism

In late 2007, the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) charged their National StuNet Advisory Committee to formulate tenets of professionalism, with the primary goal of introducing students to essential attitudes and behaviors of professionalism. The committee's list of tenets served as a working document for the development of this White Paper. This collaborative effort of the ACCP Board of Regents and the National StuNet Advisory Committee sought to complement other published documents addressing student professionalism. The purpose of this White Paper is to enhance student understanding of professionalism, emphasizing the importance of the covenantal or "fiducial" relationship between the patient and the pharmacist. This fiducial relationship is the essence of professionalism and is a relationship between the patient and the pharmacist built on trust. This White Paper also outlines the traits of professionalism, which were developed after an extensive review of the literature on professionalism in medicine and pharmacy. The traits of professionalism identified here are responsibility, commitment to excellence, respect for others, honesty and integrity, and care and compassion. It is from these traits that student actions and behaviors should emanate. Students, pharmacy practitioners, and faculty have a responsibility to each other, to society as a whole, and to individual patients whom they serve to ensure that their words and actions uphold the highest standards of professional behavior.

John Calvin As Teacher, Pastor, And Theologian: The Shape Of His Writings And Thought. By Randall C. Zachman Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin. By Randall C. Zachman

John Calvin As Teacher, Pastor, And Theologian: The Shape Of His Writings And Thought. By Randall C. Zachman Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin. By Randall C. Zachman

Human and Animal Relations in the Theology of Karl Barth

This article presents a theological approach to human and animal relations by way of engagement with the theology of Karl Barth. Barth's specific discussion of the ethical status of the killing of animals and his theological presuppositions are critically assessed. The author argues that Barth's theological framework, especially his use of the concept of “secondary responsibility” and the implications of God's covenantal relationship with human beings for animals, is morally problematic. A theology of human relationships with animals is inextricably linked to christology, eschatology and ecclesiology. Barth's account is persuasive, though limited, in the first two categories, but is wanting in ecclesiology. An ecclesiological account of human relationships with animals is proposed by means of an engagement with Barth's eschatological ecclesiology.

Von Balthasar y el giro estético de la exégesis veterotestamentaria: Un caso de estudio. Poder y alianza en la transición de Saúl a David

ABSTRACT The present study attempts to delve deeply into the question of the pertinence of the balthasarian esthetic perspective within the framework of narrative analysis, an approach that claims for itself the label of esthetic recovery of the biblical text. For this purpose, we take what, according to von Balthasar, ought to be –with broad strokes– the content of a theological (biblical) esthetics. This being defined as an articulation of the thematics of glory, the creature-companion of God and the covenant, man’s being is seen as a being-in-cove-nant. The Old Testament is of vital importance to the category of covenant and thematicizes it in a narrative manner on various occasions. In this writing one of these is analyzed—that is, the transition of power from Saul to David, motivated precisely by the rupture of the covenant relationship on Saul’s part. We ask ourselves what the staging of the scene is like and, particularly, how the problem of power is focused upon. The account permits the reader to visualize the grafting-on of the covenant alliance within a conflict of power

The Psalmist's Lament∗

ABSTRACT This sermon was preached in October 2006 on Domestic Violence Awareness Sunday to a medium-sized, middle-class Presbyterian congregation. It uses Psalm 55 as a springboard to explore domestic violence through the lens of a betrayal of a covenant relationship; defines domestic violence; lists reasons congregations often ignore domestic violence in their midst; examines Ephesians 5 and its impact on the concept of male privilege; provides alternate interpretation of text; suggests ways individuals and congregations can work to help victims of domestic violence; affirms congregation in its ongoing support of local domestic violence work; gives reasons for hope that attitudes towards domestic violence are changing; encourages congregation to remember God is with us in times of trouble, just as the psalmist was sustained by his faith in God.

September 11: A Christian Fundamentalist Interpretation

This article analyses sermons preached by Free Presbyterian ministers in the United States following the World Trade Centre tragedy and the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. It explores how these religious fundamentalists made sense of the event theologically. While terrorists carried out the attack, ultimately God was believed to have been responsible. It was considered God's way of punishing the American nation for its sin. Ministers' use of the Old Testament and God's covenantal relationship with ancient Israel is both the theological and historical backdrop to their explanation of September 11. Concentration on the Old Testament and fundamentalists' exegetical approach means that politics and religion are tightly intertwined. Emphasis on the militaristic portions of the Old Testament also helps justify the war in Iraq. Although Free Presbyterian doctrine is based on institutional separatism and believers' withdrawal from "the world" the sermons connect parishioners to their wider society through a shared sense of patriotic loyalty and national loss.

Drawing up The Jewish Social Contract

FOLLOWING THE PUBLICATION in 2000 of his Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory and in 2005 of The Jewish Social Contract: An Essay in Political Theology, the American Canadian rabbi, scholar, and theologian David Novak has emerged as perhaps the most important political thinker within the Jewish tradition in the still very young twenty-first century. With his customary display of vast erudition and incisive thinking Novak has made an impressive endeavor in these books to formulate distinctively Jewish but broadly applicable answers to some of the age-old questions of political philosophy. For this effort he has already received much acclaim.1Novak's goals are certainly very ambitious. Far from being a mere academic exercise, his theological-political project represents a bold attempt to replace modern liberalism. Rejecting what he sees as the social contract foundations on which it based as well as the political theories that have been erected upon them, he offers the blueprints for a better world, one in which the deficiencies of liberalism will remedied but where the admitted benefits it has conferred upon humankind will still retained. Whenever a thinker of Novak's stature promises to do so much, it behooves us to listen carefully.Covenantal Rights, Novak indicates, a work of political theory and The Jewish Social Contract articulates a political theology. What exactly he considers to the difference between these two disciplines difficult to discern. But it quite clear that his political theory completely intertwined with his theology, just as his political theology deeply theoretical. And, if we disregard their respective subtitles, it also quite clear what place each of his two most recent books occupies in his overall project. Covenantal Rights seeks mainly to locate the foundation of human rights, properly understood, in men's covenantal relationship with God. The Jewish Social Contract aims above all to explain now modern polities can best sustained and utilized if they are conceived not as conglomerations of isolated individuals but as the products of social contracts agreed upon by disparate but mutually accommodating covenantal communities. Novak's theoretical efforts will no doubt attract the attention of many Jews who are ill at ease with modern liberalism but averse to anything that would tend to undermine its greatest achievements, especially its guarantee of religious freedom. Ultimately, however, his reasoning can fully persuasive to only a small sector of the Jewish people. For Novak, a self-described traditionalist Jew, bases most of his positive recommendations on dogmatic premises that less traditional Jews simply cannot accept. And the political theology with whick he wishes to replace liberalism rests on a belated and inconsistent appropriation of ideas that are only justifiable on the basis of what he considers to his liberal adversaries' invalid assumptions. It provides, in the final analysis, no solid justification for the preservation of religious freedom and consequently of very doubtful use to the Diaspora Jews it primarily meant to serve.DOGMATIC FOUNDATIONSDavid Novak rejects the idea of the state of nature as a hypothetical-that is, fictitious, even mythical condition.2 He faults the modern social contract theory that takes this idea as its starting point both for its lack of any and ontology and for its essential inutility (JSC, 19). It is, at bottom, a way of thinking that is insufficient to protect us from the anarchy most of us correctly fear.3 Rejecting the social contract theorists' focus on the primacy of individuals, Novak emphasizes the primacy of community, something that can be really located in history-especially in Jewish history (JSC, 19). For Novak, Jewish above all the record of his people's interaction with the God who rules the entire universe.The real history to which Novak refers hardly distinguishable from the biblical narrative, taken quite literally. …

Hide and Seek: On Teaching God to Be a Better Exemplar

Hide and Seek: On Teaching God to Be a Better Exemplar Jack H Bloom Like my biblical namesake, I have had a lifelong struggle with the God of Abraham who it is reported entered a covenant relationship with my ancestors at Sinai. From time to time, God and I busy ourselves in a sporadically engrossing though all too often tedious game of “hide and seek.” For long periods of time we just ignore each other. As a liberal often skeptical rabbi, I am respectful of others’ traditions and beliefs while holding in my fashion reverence for the formulations about the nature of God that my covenanted people have affirmed down the generations. That covenant, paradoxically both unaltered yet constantly in flux, is at its root, a relationship that has not and cannot be superseded by any other. I am bound to it. Sitting quietly one Sabbath morning in synagogue during the public reading of the Torah,1 I found myself desultorily attending to a number of probably for good reasons, obscure Torah passages, With a start, I was aware that another “go‐around” with God had begun. Disturbed by what I was hearing, I looked to the commentators who adorned the bottom half of the pages of biblical text I held in my hands. Their task now as ever, was to explain and elucidate the textual reading for the understanding of the Jews of whatever era they lived in. My attention was piqued, as I followed some “modern” commentators doing verbal cartwheels to make “difficult” texts consonant with the idea of a benign, perfect divine being, who having created the world loves all its inhabitants, while still maintaining a special, loving covenantal relationship with the people Israel, despite their often being recalcitrant and obtuse. A relationship described retrospectively by Jeremiah with the distortion typical of a long‐married disputatious couple.2 Jewish tradition, text based, takes the words of Holy writ seriously. When I read that a prominent rabbi put into print as an accurate reading of holy writ that. the Torah speaks of God as a parent, a lover, a teacher and an intimate sharer of our hearts.3 I was shocked by the distortion. To the astute reader that is not even close to the whole truth. God is all too often anything but all‐loving. Being in serious denial about the nature of the Deity with whom we are in relationship, commentators, old and new, struggle to make God’s behavior fit an all‐loving procrustean bed. I listened at another time to the obscure story of a man gathering sticks, perhaps some tinder, on the Sabbath who broke what was until then unwritten legislation. Now when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man picking wood on the Sabbath day. They brought him near, those who found him picking wood, to Moshe and to Aharon, and to the entire community; they put him under guard, for it had not been clarified what should be done to him. YHWH said to Moshe: The man is to be put to death, yes, death, pelt him with stones, the entire community, outside the camp! So they brought him, the entire community, outside the camp; they pelted him with stones, so that he died, as YHWH had commanded Moshe.4 What got God so upset that even after a pause—time to cool the divine anger, time to consider compassion, God summarily invokes a law promulgated after the fact, and demands the public stoning of the unfortunate gatherer by the whole community. The superb Torah Commentary, Etz Hayim,5 used in the congregation I founded, and now attend on Sabbath mornings, exemplifies how even modern erudite commentators perplexed in their own words, by the “apparent” severity of the narrative, let the enraged God off the hook: The wood gatherer, therefore, was not just violating one law but was destroying the dream that Israel would be a people obedient to God’s ways.6 That is a most interesting use of the word “apparent” by the modem spin‐doctor. What happened was not apparently severe; it was cruel beyond any rationale that might mitigate God’s instruction...

The Imago Dei in David Novak and Thomas Aquinas: A Jewish-Christian Dialogue

The Thomist 72 (2008): 259-311 THE IMAGO DEI IN DAVID NOVAK AND THOMAS AQUINAS: A JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE MATTHEW LEVERING Ave Maria University Ave Maria, Florida AT THE ROOT OF Jewish and Christian understandings of human nature are God's words in the first chapter of the Bible: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:26-27) Interpreting this passage, Richard Middleton describes the contemporary debate between "a metaphysical, substantialistic analogy" (the image of God as rooted in human rationality) and "a dynamic, relational notion of the image as ethical conformity or obedient response to God."1 Middleton's concerns regarding 1 Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The "Imago Dei" in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2005), 20. He attributes the latter position to Karl Barth, among others. See also Marc Cardinal Ouellet, S.S., Divine Likeness: Toward a Trinitarian Anthropology ofthe Family, trans. Philip Milligan and Linda M. Cicone (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2006). Regarding Genesis 1:26-27 Ouellet observes that "current exegesis is moving beyond two extremes. On the one hand, one finds the purely spiritual interpretation-which is the commonly held opinion of Christian exegesis since Philo-that the notion of image of God concerns only the spiritual dimension of man, allowing him to have dominion over animals and things. On the other hand, there is the purely material interpretation of the image: the fact that the Hebrew term selem (sculpture, statue) would bring us back to the bodily configuration proper to man, that is, his vertical posture. The majority of exegetes can 259 260 MATTHEW LEVERING the traditional account of the image of God as human rationality are shared by Jewish theologian David Novak, who sets forth his position especially in two books, Natural Law in Judaism and Covenantal Rights. In what follows, I will explore Novak's approach in detail, and then examine Thomas Aquinas's theology of the image of God in light of Novak's insights and criticisms. The goal is to offer an account of the imago dei that engages constructivelywith contemporary concerns about "a metaphysical, substantialistic analogy." I. THE IMAGE OF GOD ACCORDING TO DAVID NOVAK A) Human Nature and Divine Power: Creation and Covenant Novak argues against the view, held by Aristotle as well as by Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides, that the human relationship with God is part of a cosmic teleology. For Novak, such a view undermines the priority and gratuity of the covenantal relationship of human beings with God.2 Although for Maimonides the eschatological "world-to-come" will include only persons "whose moral conduct is oriented in the context of a relationship with God,"3 nonetheless he reaches this conclusion primarily on the basis of the doctrine of creation rather than that of covenant. As Novak says regarding Maimonides' teleology, currently be found between these two opinions" (27). 2 See, e.g., David Novak, Natural Law in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chaps. 4-5; idem, Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish Justification (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 125, 139, 154; idem, Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 53. As he puts it inJewishChristian Dialogue, "in Scripture, the Lord God is the creator of this cosmic order, and as creator he transcends its limits. Holiness (qedushah) is not part of the cosmic order. Being God's own relational capacity with man, it, too, transcends that order. Those addressed by God's covenant also transcend therein the limits of that order: 'You shall be holy because I the Lord your God am holy' (Leviticus 19:2). The relationship, on the human side, only presupposes the cosmic order for its formal structure, but it transcends it in its substantial being-with God" (154). 3 Novak,Jewish-Christian Dialogue, 139. Novak emphasizes...

ΛΟΓΙΟΝ in Biblical Literature and its Implications for Christian Scholarship

This article explores the use of λόγιον in literature (Septuagint and New Testament) and shows how this agrees with its classical use as authoritative message from the gods. Building on an overview of the function of λόγιον in its several textual contexts, it defines and distinguishes this use of λόγιον against the background of λόγος. This culminates into a summary of the use of λόγιον in literature, which argues for the following five characteristics: λόγιον is exclusive to divine speech (1); exclusively addressed to the human world (2); both specifically and collectively used (3); applied in an intimate setting of covenant relationship (4); and its contents is revelatory in nature (5). From the plural use of λόγιον in Acts, Romans, Hebrews and 1 Peter, this article advocates practical applications for the future of Biblical scholarship in the 21st century. This specific use of λόγια τοΰ Θeοΰ emphasizes that the Bible comes to us in a profound spiritual context and with a specific spiritual claim, namely as Words from Above. This encourages an innovative appreciation of the primary sources of Apostolic Christianity and calls for a renewed quest to do justice to their prima facia meaning.

Transformational Leadership in Labor Organizations: The Effects on Union Citizenship Behaviors

This study suggests that transformational leadership influences union citizenship behavior by fostering a covenantal relationship between the union and the union member. A framework for covenantal relationships is developed from social exchange and social identity theories. Transformational leadership behavior was found to be strongly related to perceived union support, a social exchange construct. The results also indicated that there are positive and significant relationships between other social exchange constructs such as felt obligation and trust. Social identity theory is used to augment social exchange theory in explaining the process by which transformational leadership behaviors relate to union citizenship behaviors through union-based self-esteem. Limitations of the study, implications for union management, and directions for future research issues are discussed.

Johannine Discipleship as a Covenant Relationship – By Rekha M. Chennattu

Johannine Discipleship as a Covenant Relationship – By Rekha M. Chennattu

Christology and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Personal Theological Journey

The Canadian theologian Gregory Baum has argued that chapter four of Vatican II's Nostra Aetate represents the most radical reformulation of the church's ordinary magisterium to emerge from the Council. He is correct. For this chapter on the Church's Relationship to the Jewish People undercut an understanding of that relationship that had persisted since patristic times. In the classical understanding the Church is presented as replacing the Jewish People in the covenantal relationship with God because of the supposed Jewish responsibility for murdering Jesus the Messiah. Traditional Christological proclamation in the Church was very closely connected with this reversal in covenantal membership. Hence the fundamental change of perception on the part of the Council regarding the Church's relationship with Judaism poses a fundamental challenge. If Jews are now to be seen as remaining in a covenantal relationship with God after Christ, then Christological statement today needs significant reformulation. But it must be a reformulation that protects a continued universal dimension for the actions of Christ.

The Psalms of Lament and the Transformation of Sorrow

This article explores how the psalms of lament can be used as a resource for pastoral care, and how ultimately they point toward the transformation of sorrow. Relying on Walter Brueggemann's scheme of orientation--disorientation--new orientation as a way to recognize the depth of human experience, the article sees the laments as honest engagement and dialogue with God within a covenantal relationship where hurt and pain are acknowledged rather than denied and avoided. The implications of using the psalms of lament in pastoral care and in Clinical Pastoral Education are discussed.

Book Review: Johannine Discipleship as a Covenant Relationship. By Rekha M. Chennattu. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006. Pp. xxiv + 256. Paper, $29.95

Book Review: Johannine Discipleship as a Covenant Relationship. By Rekha M. Chennattu. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006. Pp. xxiv + 256. Paper, $29.95

Book Review: Johannine Discipleship as a Covenant Relationship

Book Review: Johannine Discipleship as a Covenant Relationship

Tapuia (Space Made Sacred) in Bridging Research and Relationships: Brown culture and commonsensical ethics

The institutional ethics application such as the one all postgraduate students have to consider for the purposes of research does not and cannot begin to address nor offer solutions on the various and diverse issues one encounters in the field. This is especially true when researching your own people. This paper addresses some of the ethical issues from the Samoan cultural perspective by describing my own Master's research. It argues that whilst institutional ethics is a suitable requirement, in the Fa'aSamoa1 protocol, culture has had its own ethical processes and boundaries already defined by the ‘va tapuia’ concept of sacred space of ‘feagaiga’ (the covenant relationship of brother and sister). Its validity is judged not by the institution, but by participants. The research is used to illustrate the process and its significance.