Christian Love Research Articles

Curing and Healing: What the Gospel Story of the Haemorrhaging Woman Can Teach Nurses

"Curing" and "healing" are terms frequently used in health care, yet what is actually meant by each? This article asserts that curing pertains exclusively to the corporal while healing is multidimensional-embracing the whole person. Drawing insights from the gospel healing story of the Haemorrhoissa, better known as the bleeding woman or the woman with the issue of blood(Mt 9:20-22; Mk 5:24-34; Lk 8:42-48), this article demonstrates that imitating Christ and partaking in His ministerial mission of healing the sick, demands assisting in the healing process as it expresses authentic Christian love through the patient care provided.

Raskolnikov on the Way to ‘Holy Russia’: Hermeneutics of Raskolnikov’s Image in F. M. Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment

The image of Raskolnikov in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment has been widely researched and commented upon. However, suggesting a particular approach to the material — that of hermeneutic linguistics — and focusing on the problem of holiness (two essential principles of this article) provide new results in understanding the content of Raskolnikov’s image, the direction of its development, and the inner plot of the novel’s epilogue. The paper focuses on defining markers of the idea of ‘Holy Russia’ in the image of Rodion Raskolnikov as well as the role of ‘holy’ symbols both in its own development, and, through it, in the novel’s overall plot. Particular attention is paid to intertextual connections of the novel with the New Testament and established prayers, as well as to temporal and topic religious symbols referring to the hero. The paper argues that both the ideals of ‘Holy Russia’ and Dostoevsky’s ‘Russian idea’ play a significant role in the development of the plot and the hero’s character. It also analyzes the connection of the hero’s inner journey (his spiritual and moral fall and his later rebirth) with embodying the ‘Russian idea’ in the image of an intellectual in the novel. The hermeneutic research demonstrates that Dostoevsky, bringing his hero through the abyss of ‘theoretical’ temptation, inner schism, and jail, discovers in him those powers that can become sources of transformation for his soul and his life, putting him on the way to holiness. The image of Raskolnikov appears to be charged with meanings connected with the ideals of ‘Holy Russia’ both in terms of individual transformation (the way to holiness) and in terms of social unity (the way to self-sacrificial service, mutual Christian love, and the common good).

Царство Небесное и царства мирские: полемика В.С. Соловьева и Антония (Храповицкого)

The article considers the controversy between philosopher V.S. Solovyov and Antony (Khrapovitsky) on the relationship between the Kingdom of Heaven and temporal kingdoms, i.e. about the relationship between the church and the state. The study touches upon certain biographical moments – the circumstances of the acquaintance and the first meeting of Solovyov and Antony, as well as the history of their personal communication. The article analyzes in detail Antony’s criticism of the book “Russia and the Universal Church”, written in French, which was banned in Russia, examines the dispute between the philosopher and the future church hierarch about the nature of the church, about the essence of Christian love, true Christianity, the essence of papist teaching and the truth and untruth of Catholicism. The research methodology involves a comprehensive historical and philosophical analysis of sources. In order to analyze the basic concepts discussed in polemics (“church”, “state”, “love”, etc.), to trace the ideas of thinkers, it is necessary to see the integrity of their worldview and views, and for this to carry out a certain synthesis based on the corpus of works, as well as public letters and personal correspondence of the authors. At the same time, philosophical and categorical analysis is required to clarify the discussed ideas and concepts. In addition, the research involved the methods of historical and philosophical reconstruction, comparative analysis, systematization of conclusions and results, as well as historical and biographical analysis. As a result of the study, the author examines personal relationships between Solovyov and Antony, which remained respectful and friendly, despite the worldview and ideological differences, as well as the controversy of the philosopher and the hieromonk about the Kingdom of God and the temporal kingdoms, about common good and personal salvation. Solovyov’s theocratic project, which presupposes the transformation of the Christian state into a universal church, was unacceptable to Anthony, who believed that church and state should be separated in order to avoid the redemption of the church. If Solovyov is convinced that individual salvation is impossible without concern for the common good, that salvation is carried out in the collective organism of mankind, Antony comes to the conclusion that for a Christian concern for his own soul is primary, and the common good by itself grows around the righteous.

PLANTATIO ECCLESIAE DAN PAROKI MISIONER DALAM ARDAS KEUSKUPAN SURABAYA 2020-2030

Plantatio Ecclesiae is a particular term elaborated in missiology in the first half of the 20th century, and then used by the Vatican Council II in the decree on the mission activity of the Church Ad Gentes (1965) to designate the definition of mission and its goal, as well. From this perspective, it is believed that mission is not merely a question about converting souls and, therefore, bringing them to eternal salvation, but especially a “plantation of the Church” in the lands not yet touched by christian faith. Thus, mission is not only about individual salvation, but particularly about the formation of new christian communities comprised of indigenous people with their own hierarchical leaders, who live their own native values and culture contributing themselves for the local development and the good of their own society, enlightened by christian faith and strengthened by christian love. Being used to determine the ideal of a missionary parish in the Basic Orientation (Arah Dasar) of the Diocese of Surabaya 2020-2030, this term is important to be studied. This study tries to learn how the ideal of a missionary parish, seen from the perspective of plantatio Ecclesiae theology, could be realized by the Catholic Church of the Diocese of Surabaya in the years to come.

“The Burning Fire of Love, the Nucleus of Reconciliation”

AbstractIn 2022, the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches will gather in Karlsruhe, Germany, around the theme “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.” Since its 20th‐century beginnings, the modern ecumenical movement has been closely bound up with developments in Germany, not least during the period of the Third Reich. Its early protagonists included the Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed in 1945 for his resistance to National Socialism. This article considers the theme of the forthcoming WCC assembly in 2022, “Christ's love moves the world to reconciliation and unity,” from the perspective of the life and writings of Bonhoeffer, for whom speaking of reconciliation and unity raises the question of the relationship of the church as the body of Christ to the whole of humanity and the whole created order embraced by the reconciling love of God in Christ.

The Archetype of the Woman in the Life and Work of Paul Evdokimov

The article presents the view of the Russian Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov on the topic of women. Evdokimov’s theological reflections are framed in his own experience with women. The first chapter on the role of woman as mother as the inspiration of the icons of the Mother of God and God’s Wisdom begins with the mention of Evdokimov’s beautiful relationship with his own mother who gave him religious faith. He could not perceive a woman other than through this experience of maternal love. As an Orthodox thinker, he put the theme of woman as fiancée and wife in the sacramental unity of man and woman, modelled on the love of Christ and the Church, as discussed in the second chapter. The third chapter, again, deepens the topic in the example of the archetype of the woman as the Mother of God, and the archetype of the man as John the Baptist from the Deisis icon. The second and third chapters also mention his pain in the death of his first wife and his second marriage, which gave him the power to create. Evdokimov was critical of the history of subjugating women to men through ideologies, philosophies, and religions. Against this, he stressed that, in a Christian perspective, the woman, through her religious nature, is the stronger sex.

Transforming Schooling for the Mexican Immigrant Community: Integrating Christ's Love and Academic Excellence

Escuela Luz del Mundo (ELM) or “Light of the World School” was a progressive Christian middle school that served a high poverty, Mexican immigrant community in Albuquerque, New Mexico USA for seven years. In this study, the two distinguishing features of ELM are examined: Academic excellence and how Christ’s love was revealed at the school. These features are explored using the qualitative research methodology of ethnography. Literature is reviewed that illustrates the historic legacy in the United States of students living in poverty and students of color being denied access to high quality educational opportunities. At ELM, school personnel worked against this legacy by integrating Christ’s love and academic excellence.

Oxycodone

Oxycodone John Mark Ballenger (bio) Johnny sure would love to getthe hell out of here, but whereon Earth could he go? Here beingpain in the legs and hipsfrom the wreck. Here being surgerybills that don't square with bankaccounts. Here is knowing the drunkwalked away unscathed. Here isthe torpor of this trailer behind daddy's place. What separated mefrom Christ's love, he says? Troubleor hardship or persecutionor, or, or... I am the voiceof one crying out in the wildernessand only one power has released mefrom this agony. Look at the trees, he says. Look at the grasses, the river,the whitetail. See how alive, how high,how abundant. If you fall asleepit'll grow right over your head. Tell mehow ruin and want endure in a placecapable of this much green? [End Page 91] John Mark Ballenger John Mark Ballenger lives with his wife and two children in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He grew up in rural southeastern Ohio, the northern edge of Appalachia. That landscape and people influence much of his writing and interests and imagination. John earned his MFA in poetry from Ashland University. Copyright © 2021 Berea College

«НА ЕВРОПЕЙСКИЕ СОБЫТИЯ В 1854 ГОДУ»: ДОСТОЕВСКИЙ В ДИАЛОГЕ С ПОЭТАМИСОВРЕМЕННИКАМИ О «СВЯТОЙ РУСИ»

The major focus of the research is the content of the “Holy Russia” concept in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s poem “On the European Events of 1854”, analyzed in the context of the writer’s creative biography, as well as in the “big” context of historic, military, and political events of 1854, and the wave of poems evolved in Russian literature in response to these events. The author argues that, by the beginning of the Crimean war in 1854, Dostoevsky acquired a new understanding of himself, the Russian people, and Russia. This new understanding had, at its core, the notion of Christ’s absolute holiness, of inner connection between a person and a person through compassionate Christian love as an undoubted value, of vibrant pulse of this love in the Russian heart. No wonder, then, that the poem “On the European Events of 1854” - written by Dostoevsky in March 1854 and devoted to the political, historic, and religious situation connected with the Crimean War - comprises significant motifs characteristic of the writer’s mature works (primarily, the motif of holiness of Russian people’s ideals) and, thus, cannot be considered simply an expression of the author’s loyalty to the tsar and those in power. Two literary contexts - of military-patriotic poetry and of Slavophile poems devoted to the Crimean War - allow distinguishing between the common topics and the author’s voice in the poem. The text has three distinct parts: the first is profoundly innovative, both in the form and content, while the second and third ones basically follow the samples of Slavophile and military-patriotic poetry, correspondingly. The peculiarity of the “Holy Russia” concept, actualized in the first part of the poem, is determined by its involvement with the image of a “little man”, on the one hand, and by the significance of the motifs of self-sacrifice, sufferings, Christian love and faith, on the other. The name “Holy Russia” corresponds here to the Russian people’s historic way of shaping the state and defending it as a truly national value; it expresses the basis of the “Russian spirit”: self-sacrifice; Orthodox notions; respect for such holy things as family and motherland, the tsar and the state; the Russian people’s belief in a sort of special connection with the Lord. The analysis of the way the name “Rus’ ” functions in Dostoevsky’s other “Crimean” poem - “On the First of July 1855” - verifies the hypothesis that the writer’s concept of “Holy Russia” was formed in his poems devoted to the Crimean War.

Ambrose, Augustine, and the Pursuit of Greatness by J. Warren Smith

Reviewed by: Ambrose, Augustine, and the Pursuit of Greatness by J. Warren Smith Thomas Clemmons J. Warren Smith Ambrose, Augustine, and the Pursuit of Greatness Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020 Pp. vii + 292. $99.99. We might think of magnanimity as an aristocratic quality or even a political virtue, signifying an air of detachment, nobleness, and the rejection of petty meanness. Smith lands on "generosity" or "mercy" as "primary modern synonyms" for magnanimity (2). For Smith, that our modern synonyms for magnanimity diverge so greatly from the terms surrounding "greatness" in antiquity indicates a "real cultural shift." However, Smith's concern is not a genealogy from antiquity to the present, but rather, it seems, the longstanding commonplace (à la Edward Gibbon) of the classical great-souled man in contrast to the small-souled Christian saint. The first section of the book treats magnanimity from Homer to Plutarch. In Homer, greatness is bound with the pursuit of honor (τιμή) as Achilles's response to the slight from Agamemnon shows. Aristotle qualifies Homer to bind greatness with virtue, which, Smith maintains, is internalized in an ethic of self-sufficiency. In contrast to Aristotle, Plato's "myth of Er" reveals a rejection of Homeric honor, which re-narrates magnanimity from, in Smith's words, the great to the good. Three "Roman" philosophers, Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, present iterations of the reception of Homer's honor-centered greatness and the responses of Aristotle and Plato. Cicero preserves gloria and exalts philosophical indifference, Seneca conceives of greatness as bound with self-restraint and even clementia, and Plutarch combines moderation and the common good. [End Page 646] Ambrose is the focus of the second section of the book, which in this reviewer's judgment is the most comprehensive, impressive, and compelling in Smith's fine study. Smith expands the common observation of Ambrose's attempt to replace classical exempla with Christian ones. Ambrose's Commentary on Luke depicts the patriarchs as images of the self-restraint taught by the Law and the fulfillment given by the grace of Christ. As images of Christ, Smith avers that the patriarchs are "not only examples of what the Christian should do, but also of what the Christian can do. Their lives provide the hope of virtue" (130). Thus, the perfection of Christian love offers an alternative ideal of greatness. Smith turns to De officiis to examine Ambrose's identification of the Christian virtue of compassion or misericordia with officia perfecta, which are "the eternal good in the present" for the benefit of all (138). Seneca made the distinction between clementia, an emotionless act of moderation, and misericordia, an emotion of pity. The former reinforces society, shows greatness, and confirms justice, while the latter risks unraveling societas and dissolving justice. In contrast, for Ambrose, misericordia is a magnanimous disposition "informed by the reason implicit in the economy of salvation" (144). Ambrose, thus, wholly re-conceptualizes the meaning of Ciceronian justice and societas. As De Ioseph suggests, societas is not derived from the order of nature, but rather is founded on the compassion of Christ; hence, the common good always includes one's neighbors and their needs. The shift from greatness bound with honor to a magnanimity exemplified in misericordia might promote "humiliation" and resentment (Nietzsche's critique of Christianity). Smith responds with Ambrose's comments on the biblical king David's transcendence of resentment through his trust in God's "gracious judgment" (185). Unlike Plutarch, Ambrose perceives greatness as great-souled humility, "a Christ-like disregard for one's own honor and conversely a high concern for one's social inferiors, conferring on them a dignity greater than one's own" (187). Therefore, Ambrose reorganizes greatness in society around compassion or misericordia, while not abandoning iustitia and without engendering a culture of resentment. Unlike the impressively thorough and often original treatment of Ambrose, Smith confines himself to the first book of both Confessiones and De ciuitate Dei. Smith mentions (and this viewer looked forward to reading) Augustine's understanding of misericordia in earlier works (there are references to an earlier chapter, which this reviewer was not able to find [226]). Instead, Smith homes in on two common and prominent criticisms of magnanimity...

Gesetz und Evangelium im Nachkriegsprotestantismus by David Scherf

Reviewed by: Gesetz und Evangelium im Nachkriegsprotestantismus by David Scherf Matthew L. Becker Gesetz und Evangelium im Nachkriegsprotestantismus. Religion in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 5. By David Scherf. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. 285 pp. This doctoral dissertation, accepted at the University of Osnabrück, examines the transformation of the distinction between law and gospel in the work of three post-WWII West German Protestant theologians: Ernst Wolf (1902-1971), Helmut Thielicke (1908–1986), and Carl Heinz Ratschow (1911–1999). The author, [End Page 245] a Lutheran pastor in Bavaria, provides brief biographical sketches, summarizes key works, surveys the secondary literature, and offers theological analysis and a concluding assessment. While the introduction describes the cultural crisis in German Protestantism after the First World War and gives an overview of three key theological movements in the Weimar era (dialectical theology, religious socialism, and neo-Lutheran confessional theology), the first chapter only offers an incomplete description of the contrasting views on law and gospel by Werner Elert, Karl Barth, and Paul Althaus. As important as that Auseinandersetzung was for later developments, it should have received fuller analysis. More context was needed, as well as better sources. Why Scherf used post-1945 writings from Althaus but not from Elert is unclear. A strength of the chapter is how it identifies important if subtle differences between Elert's and Althaus' positions on the revelation of law. The Barthian-Erlangen debate over law and gospel was partially continued by the three central figures in Scherf's study, but also transformed by them in the changed cultural and political situation of postwar West Germany. These three middle chapters provide insightful perspectives on figures lesser known today and whose ideas are worthy of further engagement. The starting point for Wolf's social ethics coincides with the first thesis of the Barmen Declaration, which focuses solely on the incarnate word. Wolf, who had been Barth's student, replaces the latter's notion of "law" (Gesetz) with "command" (Gebot). Wolf moves from "the new human being" in Christ to the content of the divine command that summons the disciple of Christ to faithful obedience in the world. Christ's command is the form of the gospel, and the gospel, which is all about the assurance of divine grace, is the content of the command (99). According to Wolf, the basic unity of command and gospel within the one word of God has consequences for the political existence of the Christian. Such a view begins and ends with the one lordship of Jesus Christ. It rejects Elert's and Althaus' understandings of "two kingdoms," "the orders [End Page 246] of creation," and "natural law," and it reframes the Creator's orderings and social structures along the lines of Bonhoeffer's "mandates" and the command/summons to exercise Christian love in society. In contrast to Wolf, Thielicke defended the sharp antithesis between law and gospel, whose impact on the Christian life abides unto death, but he took more seriously the problem of secularization in post-war West Germany than did his Doktorvater Althaus. Thielicke transformed the law-gospel dialectic to speak more clearly to the challenges of Christian faith and ethical behavior in that postwar liberal democracy. Nevertheless, like Elert and Althaus, Thielicke stressed that the word of God is not a singular, uniform message since it addresses us in this twofold form. While both the law and the gospel give knowledge of the self, the law discloses that the human being is alienated from God and under God's judgment (123). Every divine command always implies that I ought not to be what I am. Thus, the divine command cannot be the content of the gospel. Rather, over against the law and command of God, the gospel discloses that I am reconciled with God and it actually creates this new reality. Against Barthian-Wolfian social ethics, Thielicke insisted that the distinction between law and gospel and the related distinction between the two kingdoms are crucial since they each seek to maintain the gracious promise of solo-Christo and sola-fide, while also opening up important ethical implications for the Christian life. Ratschow, who studied under Friedrich Brunstädt and who edited...

Is There a Universal Love Ethic in 1 Thessalonians 3:12? Probing a Pervasive Presupposition

ABSTRACT Paul’s wish-prayer in 1 Thess 3:12 contains the twofold desire that the Lord Jesus increase the Thessalonians’ love “for one another” (εἰς ἀλλήλους) and “for all” (εἰς πάντας). An overwhelming number of commentators, buttressed by some tendentious English translations, think that the latter phrase is commending a love for all people, even extending to the Thessalonians’ persecutors. Yet insights from epistolary analysis as well as Paul’s own linguistic usage and apostolic example call into question this pervasive presupposition. The wish-prayer of 3:12 points not only back to themes earlier in the letter (2:17–3:10) but forward to themes developed in 4:1–5:22, most particularly brotherly/sisterly love at 4:10–12, which contains the interpretive key to the identity of εἰς πάντας in 3:12. Paul has a different term for outsiders altogether, which he can and does use in the letter to distinguish from insiders. Paul’s own apostolic example, called on to undergird the community’s love εἰς ἀλλήλους and εἰς πάντας, makes sense only within an ever-expanding insider-love ethic, which now includes those believers in the wider regions of Macedonia. In short, this article contends that no such universal love ethic exists in Paul and certainly not in this wish-prayer. For Paul (and arguably for the New Testament writings as a whole), love remains firmly embedded in the mutual caring and concern of the Christian community. While Christians do good to outsiders, outsiders are not the object of Christian love, which remains the prerogative of insiders only.

The Phenomenon of Conscience in Social Work

The Phenomenon of Conscience in Social Work

Jesus As a Philosopher: At the interface between Ethics, Economics, Politics, and Civics over 2000 years ago

Over 2000 years ago, Jesus faced nearly the same kind of economic, institutional, political, and social problems that confronted Socrates over 400 years earlier in Athens, Greece. A certain segment of the upper income class in Jerusalem, called Sadducees, who were allied with Israel’s aristocrats, were engaging in practices that were damaging the economic and social health of Israel. Jesus was a teacher of ethics and moral philosophy in Israel. Ethics dealt with the self (starting with those actions that provided security and safety through prudent behavior for the individual) while moral behavior concentrated on the interactions between one’s self and other selves (benevolence). Jesus’s main philosophical concern was teaching, applying, and living virtue ethics. Jesus’s main teaching tool was the parable, which was usually a short, fictitious story that made a clear cut ethical or moral point. Jesus’s version of virtue ethics was very concise, brief, and to the point. Jesus taught that there were only two laws or rules, not many laws or rules that had to be practiced in order to obtain salvation. These two laws were to a)love your God and b) love your neighbor as yourself or as you love yourself. Either law implies the other either directly or indirectly. If you love yourself as you love your neighbor, then you are also loving God. If you love your God, then you will love others as you love yourself. The crucial word here, that is reflected in all of his teachings, is Jesus Christ’s emphasis on the word love, although sometimes what is required is “tough love”. Christian love is benevolence from those who have to those who do not have, where we are dealing with needs, not wants. Needs must be fulfilled or the person in need will be unable to have a fulfilling life. Jesus‘s emphasis on only two laws also put him in direct conflict intellectually with the Pharisees, who accepted the standard conclusion that there were 619 laws that were directly descendant from Moses. The Pharisees, like Jesus, understood that the Sadducees were misusing the Temple in Jerusalem to amass great wealth. The definition of a good Jew for a Pharisee meant that one knew all the laws, as well as their correct interpretation, or always was carrying or had available for immediate personal use documents containing the written laws that one could then consult and implement as needed. Jesus and the Pharisees split over this issue of knowing precisely and exactly what the written law entailed as well as knowing how to correctly interpret the law.

How should we suffer? Meditating on Christian responses to the problem of suffering

Despite the irreducible non-equivalence of individual experiences of suffering, there is a solidarity possible among sufferers especially during times of collective crisis. This essay focuses on the suffering of the disciple Peter in order to formulate a model for suffering that resonates deeply with other, more recent accounts. Peter’s suffering is linked with Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, as well as the work of certain German political theologians, in order to show how it is our human inability to adequately respond to suffering that gives us the existential vulnerability we need in order to stand in solidarity with others who suffer too—the primal element of Christian love. At a precarious time when so many feel a vulnerability perhaps never felt before, such vulnerability potentially transforms us into more responsible social agents and political actors.

Reconciliation as Expression of Christ's Love

AbstractThis paper discusses the theme of the upcoming World Council of Churches' assembly from the perspective of mission as reconciliation as it has been formulated in ecumenical discussions around the World Missionary Conference at Athens 2005 and since. It argues that the intersecting of reconciliation and healing disclosed theological and ethical dimensions in both concepts that have been picked up in ecumenical mission theology while they had been less prominent in earlier decades. The emphasis on the Holy Spirit as agent of mission (Athens, Arusha) is then used to interpret Christ's love as the outpouring of the inner dynamic of the Trinity into the world.

Christ's Love as the Basis of the Church's Faith Witness to Muslims

AbstractAccording to the Christian view, the essence of the triune God is revealed in the relational event between God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The Bible says of this God, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). By way of example, the article explores “God's love” to show that the Qur'an's conception of God is incompatible with key tenets of the New Testament. Thus, when keeping both conceptions of God in view, we cannot speak of one and the same God. Now what does this mean for the pursuit of conciliatory relations between Christians and Muslims? Which relational paradigms need to be kept in mind?After reflecting on the concepts of neighbourliness, companionship, and hospitality, the article goes on to trace the conceptual outlines of Christian mission as a mission of God's love (missio amoris Dei). Its hypothesis is that a characteristically Christian conception of God can supply useful motifs for appreciative and conciliatory actions by Christians toward Muslims. Finally, the author proposes a theology of interreligious relations (which he has elaborated upon elsewhere) as an alternative approach to conventional theologies of religion.

Natural Morality or Splendid Vice? The Case of Paul Ramsey

In Basic Christian Ethics, first published in 1950, Paul Ramsey began a decades-long attempt to relate Christian love to natural morality. As his work focused increasingly on particular moral problems, critics suggested that he had altered the position staked out in his first book and should consider writing a new or revised version of it. This article traces Ramsey’s continuing examination of the relation between justice and love, and it suggests that the long introduction to Jonathan Edwards’ Ethical Writings, over which Ramsey labored in the last years of his life, was much more than just an introduction to those writings. It was one last reworking of the foundational themes first taken up in Basic Christian Ethics.

How can Christian love be taught using the ‘spiritual cinema’?

The article reflects upon one aspect of multimodal education – the possibility to teach moral matters with films. This possibility was discerned by American film philosopher Stanley Cavell. It was also discussed in detail by American social science teacher W.B.Russell III, The author of this particular article sees some essential similarities and some differences between Russell’s suggested methodologies and stages and the methodology she developed herself and started to use actively from 2002 teaching practical philosophy in some Lithuanian universities in practical philosophy courses. She is using films as an analogy. Educators using this method of teaching with films customarily stress its purpose as being to develop critical-thinking ability and acquire knowledge. But is it possible to use cinema in education for acquiring sensitivity to certain values? For example, the ability to recognize the values of Christian ethics? The article discusses the results of multimodal teaching experiment teaching Christian ethics with two feature films: Ingmar Bergman’s The Winter Light (1963) and Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (1951). As the results of teaching experiments were reflected the values of suffering, love and patience discerned by the students.

Encompassment in Love: Rabi'a of Basra in Dialogue with Julian of Norwich

ABSTRACT Rabi'a Al-Adawiya (ca. 717–801) and Julian of Norwich (ca. 1343–1416) offer fertile ground for comparative study, but they have yet to be studied together in depth. This article is the first sustained comparative analysis of these two crucial voices, each dominant in research on Islamic and Christian love respectively. There are powerful correspondences between the contemplatives' approaches to divine love. Both Julian and Rabi'a seek an apprehension of the ineffable Beloved in their prose and poetry respectively. Attention will rest primarily on these women's approaches to divine familiarity and indwelling; these approaches are enshrined in their prayer practice and in their imaged enclosures.