Love Of Neighbor Research Articles

Between Apologetics, Emancipation and Imperial Paternalism

Abstract Scholarship on the abolition of the slave trade and slavery has given little attention to specifically theological factors behind the movement. This article seeks to interrogate three themes that underpinned the activism of the British abolitionists, namely, deliverance/liberty, love of neighbor, and imago Dei. These are examined, first, within their own biblical-theological frame of reference and, second, in relation to other intellectual currents of the era as well as, anachronistically, in the light of some key features of liberation theology. The article considers whether the British abolitionists, whose rhetoric oscillated around apologetics and emancipation and was marked by imperial paternalism, developed a form of proto-liberation theology.

CREATING A NEW IMAGINARY FOR LOVE IN RELIGION

Ideas of love within religion are usually driven by one of two mythologies – either a personal God who commands love or a mystical God of ineffable love – but both are inadequate for motivating love of neighbour. The first tends towards legalism and the second offers no cognitive guidance. The situation is further complicated by there being different understandings of love of neighbour in the various Abrahamic religions, as exemplified in the approaches of two philosophers, Søren Kierkegaard and Emmanuel Levinas. A better approach is therefore to explore actual practices of love in everyday life, and to discover how love might be performed openly and creatively. One such practice is recognition of vulnerability, and this too is often driven by a mythology, in this case one marked by fear, and by a violence either imposed or avoided. One paradigmatic example is the vulnerability felt by speakers, especially women, in front of an audience. A turning from wilful ignorance of vulnerability and a turning to reliance on collective work, modelled on an awareness of mutual vulnerability and openness to the unknown, will help to change our philosophical and social imaginary. The dark myth of vulnerability can be transformed into finding opportunities in vulnerability for openness to affection and so to an enhancement of life. It is only from the perspective of this new imaginary, and from everyday practices of it, that the double love-command – love of God and love of neighbour – will function as any kind of common ground between religions.

God, the Middle Term: Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard, and Christ’s Mediation in Works of Love

In this article, I argue that in Works of Love Søren Kierkegaard stays true to his Lutheran roots in detailing an ethic of neighbor love that draws deeply on and unfolds the implications of the inseparable realities of justification and Christ’s mediation in the social sphere. The article unfolds in two parts. Since neither of these realities are explicit in Works of Love, the first part considers Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s account of Christ as mediator in order to provide a framework for thinking about and identifying their presence in Kierkegaard’s thought. Engaging with Bonhoeffer in this manner is particularly useful, not least because he was deeply influenced by Kierkegaard and also stood in the Lutheran tradition, but also because although he outlines the expansive nature of Christ’s mediatorial work to tantalizing effect, he never unfolds its concrete, ethical implications for the Christian life. With the key aspects of Bonhoeffer’s account in mind, the second part of this article demonstrates and argues for an overlooked theological dynamic in Works of Love: namely, that Kierkegaard’s account of God’s mediation not only shares these keys aspects, but also unfolds the ethical implications of Christ’s mediation for the Christian life.

СОЦІАЛІСТИЧНИЙ ГУМАНІЗМ І РЕАЛІСТИЧНІ ТЕНДЕНЦІЇ В МИСТЕЦТВІ У НАУКОВІЙ СПАДЩИНІ ВОЛОДИМИРА АНТОНЕНКА

In the article is considered the ideas of ukrainian philosophy of soviet period V. Antonenko, and so the influence of the ideology of that time on the formation of the scientific worldview of the scientist is analyzed. Theoretical reconstruction of V. Antonenko's views on socialist humanism is carried out, principles of which he shows as the highest form of humanism, contrasting the anti-humanist essence of Christian preaching "love of neighbor" and depicts socialist reality as a practical embodiment of true humanistic ideas. Analyzed of views V. Antonenko on art the socialistic realism, which is presented as the highest stage in the development of progressive world art. The scientist traces the origin of art, explains how it was brought to life, what contribution religion has made to its best achievements. V. Antonenko explores the anti-religious and anti-church orientation of the works of many representatives of fine arts. He is analyzing the views of idealist aesthetics and theologians on art. V. Antonenko thoroughly researches the stages of development of humanism, traces its social and cultural movement, which arose in the XIV century. in Italy; studies the humanistic ideas of the leading figures of the Renaissance, who found their further development in the works of the ideological predecessors of the French Revolution of the XVIII century; explores the humanistic ideas of the utopian socialists of the nineteenth century; studies the period of development of Ukrainian and Russian art in the period of radical destruction of old traditions and the influence of religious ideology on their formation; considers a whole galaxy of outstanding artists of the second half of the nineteenth century, who glorified culture and began to speak a new about art as a higher product of human genius, about the principles of realism in art. V. Antonenko's research on the relationship between art and other forms of social consciousness, which are related to the problems of forming norms and principles of communist morality, is analyzed.

Love at the right time. The recognition of others in Franz Rosenzweig

In this article we delve into the conception of love for neighbor present in The Star of Redemption. Rosenzweig?s New Thinking is in praise of life, despite pain, and by virtue of love. Becoming oneself passes through the relationship with the other. Love of neighbor is born from the recognition of the other as close and representative of all humanity. This love requires going beyond the ?-isms? that separate us; it involves getting closer to the other without denying him or her (or even oneself), but recognizing them as different. But how do we know who we should love at every moment? Prayer, Rosenzweig would say, is the one that enlightens our neighbors matured for love.

Christ Is King: Paul's Royal Ideology by Joshua Jipp

Reviewed by: Christ Is King: Paul's Royal Ideology by Joshua Jipp Julien Smith joshua jipp, Christ Is King: Paul's Royal Ideology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015). Pp. 388. Paper $40. Why does Paul, having insisted that the Galatian believers not submit to Torah, nevertheless exhort them to fulfill the "law of Christ" (Gal 6:2)? Within what historical-religious framework did the early church come to venerate Jesus alongside Israel's God? What historical-religious antecedents underlie Paul's understanding of participation in Christ? How can one understand Paul's righteousness language while taking seriously his assertion that God's righteousness has been revealed in the resurrection and enthronement of the Messiah (Rom 1:3-4)? Joshua Jipp contends that these disparate scholarly conundrums find solutions when we place Paul's Christ-language in the larger context of ancient political discourse surrounding the reign of the good king. In the first chapter, J. sketches the contours of ancient kingship discourse, drawing from a vast and diverse array of Classical Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, and Jewish texts. The author's intent, however, is not merely to claim that such patterns of thinking were ubiquitous and therefore determined Paul's conception of Christ. Rather, he aims to provide a historical-religious conceptual reservoir which Paul plausibly could have both drawn from and adapted in his own presentation of Christ. The success of J.'s argument then depends on his close reading of a selection of Pauline texts, which unfolds in chaps. 2–5. Paul's command to bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the "law of Christ" (Gal 6:2) [End Page 320] must be understood against the backdrop of the good king's relationship to the law more broadly in antiquity (chap. 2). The ideal king was thought to be superior in virtue as a consequence of having internalized the law. Just as laws were understood to inculcate virtue, so the king, an "animate law," was able to transform his subjects through his virtuous rule. This was especially true of Israel's ideal king, who through his love of and internalization of Torah bestowed harmony upon his subjects. J. thus argues that Paul, in Gal 6:2 and Rom 13:8–15:13, understands Christ to fulfill precisely this royal function: fulfilling, in his life and death, the Torah as exemplified by love of neighbor (Lev 19:18), and enabling his followers to do the same by uniting them to himself. Early Christian hymns addressed to Christ "as to a god" draw from the conceptual reservoir of ancient royal encomia that praised the king as the vicegerent of the god(s), whose reign sustained his subjects and communicated to them royal benefits (chap. 3). Kings received divine honors when their subjects believed they had achieved what was expected of the gods, most especially for bringing peace and creating or recreating a new world order. This tradition illuminates Col 1:15-20, a panegyric to Christ the Davidic vicegerent who creates, sustains, and rules over creation, and whose reign establishes peace among his people. While Christ's cosmic reconciliation is consistent with what J. Rufus Fears has termed the Roman "theology of victory," no ancient parallel is to be found for a king who achieves this "through the blood of his cross" (Col 1:20) (J. Rufus Fears, "The Theology of Victory at Rome: Approaches and Problems," ANRW 2.17.2 [1981] 736-825). Thus J. argues, largely on the basis of Phil 2:6-11, that the cross, emblematic of Christ's refusal to exploit divine status, is for Paul the royal act that in fact redefines royal power and thus makes Christ worthy of worship. Indeed, "the journey to Nicaea where Jesus is confessed as one substance with God and yet fully human must traverse through kingship discourse" (p. 137). Throughout his letters, Paul deploys the language from these transformed scripts of royal praise in order to socialize the church into a world in which Christ is sovereign, and in whose reign it participates (chap. 4). To make this argument, J. draws on a variety of ancient sources that present the king as bridging the chasm between the gods...

Концепт «любовь» в лирике М. И. Новьюхова

Introduction: the article is devoted to the study of the concept sphere of Finno-Ugric literature. The subject of the analysis is the concept of love in the lyrics of M. I. Novjukhov. Objective: analysis of the concept of love in the individual author’s picture of the world of the Khanty poet Matvey Ivanovich Novjukhov. Research materials: the works of M. I. Novjukhov included in the book «With Hope For Happiness» (2012). Results and novelty of the research: the article analyzes for the first time the concept of love in the creative work of the Khanty poet. Attention of the work is focused on the presentation of the concept love in the individual author’s picture of the world by M. I. Novjukhov. The study of the author’s poetic heritage has shown that the concept of love is a complex formation consisting of different semantic components. The main meaning of the concept love was determined by the poet’s works with the theme of love. The semantic field of the concept also includes love for mother, love of neighbors, love for the motherland, love for nature, love for the people, and Christian love. The concept was supplemented by romantic and physical love; love that transforms the world; love as the basis of creative inspiration of poets. The concept of love in the works of M. I. Novyukhov is represented by direct nominations of the lexemes «love» and «to love».

How Is Love of the Neighbour Possible? A Løgstrupian Response to a Lutheran Critique of Levinas—and Vice Versa

AbstractThis paper considers how both Levinas and Løgstrup seek to explain how love of the neighbour is possible. It focuses on a criticism of Levinas made by Merold Westphal, which follows Kierkegaard in arguing on Lutheran grounds that such love first requires a relation to God as a “middle term,” but that Levinas cannot appeal to this relation to account for neighbour love, as for him the God relation itself arises through love of the neighbour. In response, the paper explores how Løgstrup, while working in a Lutheran tradition, like Levinas also sees neighbour love as arising without any prior God relation, showing how the accounts that each offer of how this is possible serve to complement each other.

Medieval Bishops: a Collective Portrait

Medieval bishops are regarded as a special group of people, united by common occupation and common history. The qualities of a bishop listed in the Holy Scriptures, in the Epistles of St. Paul in particular, serve as the basis for the identification of this group. Throughout the Middle Ages, the fragment of I Epistle to Timothy (I Tim 3:1-7) served as the definition of an idealized bishop. The texts of hagiographic, historiographic, and epistolary genres show how the qualities of an idealized bishop could be realized in everyday life. The analysis of literary sources allows us to outline a circle of topoi that go back to the apostolic epistles and define a plan for describing the life of a bishop as a person with a circle of responsibilities inherent in his social group. The commandments of love for God and neighbor are revealed in the bishop’s serving God and people. Serving God implies actions in the church, that is, consecration of the church’s building, the celebration of mass, and the manifestation of personal piety, that is prayer, fasting, mortification of the flesh. Serving people is manifested in helping the poor, building, in protecting the borders of the diocese’s territory. The bishop can act as a judge, adviser to the ruler, diplomat. All his actions fit into the scheme defined by St. Paul’s Epistles to Titus and Timothy.

The Holy Family as a Model of the Spiritual Life in Bl. Bolesława Lament’s Teaching

The Christian spiritual life, the essence of which is holiness, needs an example that sheds clear light on the path of love for God and neighbor. In her teachings, Bl. Bolesława Lament indicates that the example of the Holy Family of Nazareth’s life is especially helpful in for man’s spiritual development. The Holy Family’s example can help shape the spiritual life of believers according to the Incarnation. The essence of the Holy Family’s example is its deep focus on the mystery of Incarnation and, thus, union with Christ, the Incarnate Word. Moreover, the hidden life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph provides a solid foundation on which apostolic life can take on form.

아렌트의 초기 시간분석과 이웃사랑의 가능성

아렌트의 초기 시간분석과 이웃사랑의 가능성

Tergeraklah Hatinya oleh Belas Kasihan Belajar dari Perumpamaan Orang Samaria yang Murah Hati (Luk 10:25-37) dalam Mengasihi Embrio Manusia sebagai Sesama

Jesus’ teaching on the love of neighbor is excellently presented in the parable of the Good Samaritan. This parable elaborates narratively Jesus’ understanding of the love of neighbor. Learning from Jesus’ teaching from this parable, we can learn how to put in practice the love of neighbor which is surpassing all categories. This discussion and elaboration on the love of neighbor provides a biblical-theological insight into the personhood of the early human embryo. It also helps us to understand how to exercise our personal engagement to the early human embryo as an expression of the love of neighbor.

Protestant Political Theology and Pluralism: From a Politics of Refusal to Tending and Organizing for Common Goods

Protestant perspectives on pluralism in political theology are predictably plural. While prevalent narratives of modern decline bemoan Protestant pluralism and its ostensive side-effects, others celebrate pluralism as a good in its own right. One aim of this essay is to display the diverse perspectives in Protestant political theology regarding political theology itself, pluralism, secularism, and democracy, while clarifying and refining these terms. I do so by considering each theme in turn. Finally, I consider the ways that religious dissenters of the 1790s defy prominent depictions of Protestantism, even as they exemplify the plurality at its core. The dissenters wed an ancient legacy of reflection on theological virtues such as charity to appeals for human and women’s rights, and suggest that love of country, neighbor, alien and God is central to protestant political theology. Given the plurality inherent in Protestantism, Christianity, and modern democratic societies alike, we have good reasons, I argue, to turn from a politics of refusal to one of tending and organizing for goods shared in common.

Iyagi Theology in Minjung Theology and Love of Neighbor : Rereading Iyagi Theology by Comparing with Story Theory by Hannah Arendt

Iyagi Theology in Minjung Theology and Love of Neighbor : Rereading Iyagi Theology by Comparing with Story Theory by Hannah Arendt

“Papa Don’t Preach”: Imagining a Theology of Apology in Canada

Considering the ninety-four Calls to Action published by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (trc), this article aims to articulate how a “theology of apology” might shape Roman Catholic mission in Canada. It begins by examining Roman Catholic participation in the trc and interrogating the absence of a formal Roman Catholic apology. By highlighting the importance of centralizing the lived experiences of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (fnmi) peoples, it also unsettles conventional Catholic understandings of liberation theology in a Canadian context. The radical possibility of a decolonized understanding of Church mission is proposed as a pedagogy for confronting ecclesial culpability in residential schools. Finally, this article unpacks the ecclesiological implications of a theology of apology as an ecumenical praxis of being allies, through love of neighbour, with Indigenous peoples, and it envisions the possibilities of right relationality among (settler) Roman Catholics in Canada with FNMI communities and the land.

John Paul II’s Theology of the Suffering Body

This article evaluates the experience of suffering and its redemptive value in the light of St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. It begins by exploring how man was created in “the beginning,” before the experience of evil and sin. Man’s “original experiences” of solitude, unity and nakedness help man to understand himself as a being who is always in relation and is called to transcendence. These experiences continue to resonate within man, though sin can blind him from interpreting them correctly. Instead of man’s body opening him to relations and receiving the love of God and neighbor as a gift, he often experiences shame for his disordered desires, which enclose man within himself. While shame can be a negative experience, it is also a “boundary experience,” in that it points man to an original goodness that is now lacking due to the experience of evil. Suffering, likewise, can be a boundary experience that opens man, through his vulnerability, to recognizing his need for communion with God and neighbor. Christ, therefore, does not eliminate suffering but redeems it, transforming it into a revelation of God’s love. Suffering has become a path to conversion, to rebuilding goodness in man’s heart, and to liberation from evil. Redemption occurs when man freely opens himself to Christ’s love in the midst of suffering, making up for what is “lacking” in Christ’s suffering: our participation. Suffering isn’t a problem to be solved so much as a mystery to enter into. Through participation in Christ’s suffering, not only is man able to experience his own redemption, he can also offer his body with Christ for the redemption of the world.

Egzegeza i interpretacja Łk 16 na podstawie metodologii wypracowanej przez retorykę semicką

The focus of this thesis is an exegesis and interpretation of Luke 16 based on the methodology developed by Hebrew Rhetoric. The assumed goal has been achieved.The conducted analysis was described in three interrelated chapters. The first chapter was dedicated to the composition of the text. This stage of work consists of delimitation which has allowed to separate Luke 16 as one unit and present its context. Luke 16 includes three interrelated passages. Their detailed segmentation was provided in the second paragraph. The final stage was a holistic view of the examined sequence, which justified its symmetrical-concentric structure.In the second chapter, intertextual analysis of particular expressions significant for the interpretation of the pericopes included in the sequences, was carried out. At this stage, connection between units was revealed, what in the next chapter allowed to describe relations and explain the previously established compositional figure AXA’.Developed interpretation of particular passages has been a starting point for deeper analysis, in which parallel units were interpreted, what let to draw theological conclusions. It has been shown that cognition, in the biblical sense, is a first stage leading to full commitment. Only the person who really experienced the closeness of Jesus is able to risk using all possible means to enter kingdom of God. It is possible only by showing mercy and making use of worldly possessions. Undivided heart commited to serving God requires creative love of neighbour.

Kenotic Gestures

Christians sometimes take Christ's ken?sis, or self-emptying, as the pattern for Christian love of God and neighbor. Feminist critics suspect that this model reinforces unhealthy gender norms and oppressive power structures and contest the nature and extent of this template. Interreligious study can shed light on the debate. The Gau??ya Vai??ava tradition employs the categories of Indian aesthetic theory to explain how types of loving devotion (bhakti rasa) toward Krishna are evoked and expressed. The subordinate and peaceful modes of love for Krishna can serve as a heuristic for understanding Sarah Coakley's and Cynthia Bourgeault's retrievals of ken?sis in spiritual practice. A comparative reading suggests that objections to Coakley's version, which resembles the subordinate love of God, are more intractable due to the rootedness of its aesthetic in oppressive human experiences, while Bourgeault's reclamation of ken?sis aligns with a peaceful or meditative mode of love that feminists may more readily appreciate.

“‘You Shall Love the Alien as Yourself’: Hope, Hospitality, and Love of the Stranger in the Teachings of Jesus”

The Trump administration’s controversial immigration policy has provoked significant opposition, including against a 35-day partial shutdown of the federal government over Trump’s insistence on a “wall,” but the most outrage was generated by the “zero-tolerance policy” for refugees and asylum seekers that resulted in the forced separation of thousands of children from their parents. This essay evaluates the current U.S. policy in light of the life and teachings of Jesus as portrayed in the New Testament Gospels, beginning with the flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15; cf. Deuteronomy 10:19–20) but focusing primarily on Jesus’s teachings on hospitality—including the love of neighbor and the stranger—for those people with their “backs against the wall,” in the words of Howard Thurman. Key passages include the parables of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:26–37), the Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25:31–46), and the Great Dinner (Luke 14:15–24).

Mixed Feelings: Tropes of Love in German Jewish Culture by Katja Garloff

Reviewed by: Mixed Feelings: Tropes of Love in German Jewish Culture by Katja Garloff Jennifer Hoyer Katja Garloff. Mixed Feelings: Tropes of Love in German Jewish Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016. 228 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419000308 The history of Jewish-German relations has long been described in terms of an unhappy or failed love affair. Why? Does describing such a fraught sociological and political topic in terms of an emotional relationship reduce it to sentimentality? This is the starting point for Katja Garloff's nuanced and complex study Mixed Feelings, in which she delves into over two centuries of discourse of Jewish-German relations and various text types that use iterations of love to reflect the strain and potential of Jewish integration into German society. [End Page 241] Over 187 pages, Garloff takes a closer look at seventeen different texts and references numerous others. The two major sections are anchored in pivotal moments in Jewish-German relations: the year 1800, straddled by burgeoning emancipation in the late eighteenth century and integration in the early nineteenth century; and the year 1900, around which swirl debates about Jewish assimilation into German society, political and religious Zionism, and the serious onset of racial antisemitic politics on a national level. The conclusion briefly sketches out how Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), and Barbara Honigmann (born 1949) viewed Jewish-German relations after 1945, and the book closes with reflection, vis-à-vis Honigmann's work, on an unfulfilled German-Jewish-Turkish dialogue. In the two primary sections, Garloff traces the use of tropes of love, ranging from filial to romantic to neighbor love, between Jews and non-Jews in Germanlanguage texts from the late eighteenth century to the twenty-first century, demonstrating how the use of the trope reflects larger aesthetic, political, and sociological issues of a given era while making the sustained case for two radically divergent expectations of love. Non-Jewish German-language writers view love as "totalizing": love erases differences to create a bond (13). For Jewish German-language writers, however, love is a bond that accepts and maintains difference. Hence numerous German-language Jewish authors, whatever their position on intermarriage and assimilation, make the case for Jews to be accepted as Jews, without erasing their religious or cultural distinctiveness, while non-Jewish German-language writers make their case for or against Jewish integration, emphasizing the erasure of difference. Garloff defines these divergent understandings of love by way of Giorgio Agamben (born 1942) and Roland Barthes (1915–1980) and draws on Kenneth Rein-hard's explanation of the terms ger (stranger) and reaʿ (neighbor) in Leviticus. The thwarted, ambiguous, and failed loves she then elucidates review the well-known antisemitic argument (for example in the work of Achim von Arnim, 1781–1831) that interfaith (sometimes understood as "interracial") love must fail because Jews must and never can erase their difference and highlight a different reading for the more numerous pro-integration writers: unfulfilled love opens a potential space to rethink Jewish-German relations. Whatever disruption leads to the failure isolates some aspect of the social and political framework that needs rethinking. The book is at its strongest in Garloff's close readings. The comparisons of Moses Mendelssohn's Jerusalem (1783) and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise (1779), and of Friedrich Schlegel's Lucinde (1799) and Dorothea Schlegel's (née Brendel Mendelssohn) Florentin (1801) insightfully show the two parallel trajectories of love against their respective historical backdrops. Mendelssohn is pro-integration but against intermarriage, which would historically necessitate the conversion of the Jewish spouse; instead, he suggests that "brotherly" love through common civic responsibility should make space for Jews as Jews. Lessing is likewise pro-integration, and even posits the potential for successful interfaith romantic love; the potential couple in Lessing's play, however, can never come to be—not because of their religious difference, but because they are revealed to be siblings, marking the easy transition from one kind of love to the other. The key to this family attachment is the emphasis on similarity rather [End Page 242] than making space for difference. The case for Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel's works as...