Theological Movement Research Articles

A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz by David I. Shyovitz

Reviewed by: A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz by David I. Shyovitz Nina Caputo A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz. By David I. Shyovitz. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2017. It has long been held that the Jewish Pietists in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Germany—the Hasidei Ashkenaz—were self-consciously and resolutely uninterested in the shape and character of the natural world in which they lived. Unlike the Jewish communities in Iberia and North Africa, who viewed the natural world through the lens of Greek science (this argument holds), the Jews of northern Europe turned their gaze inward, away from the wider culture in which they lived and away from the mechanics and meaning of natural phenomena. This allowed them to devote themselves instead to working to perfect their service to God through hypermorality and self-abnegation, values that also inspired a deep suspicion of the physical world. In A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz, David I. Shyovitz digs into the texts and traditions of Hasidei Ashkenaz to challenge the widely held assumption that the physical world in which human beings live or God's role in it held no significance for them. Shyovitz casts this project as a bold revisionist take on the German Pietists' theology. And he is right to do so. From the opening pages of the book through the epilogue, he engages and challenges assertions offered by several towering figures in medieval Jewish history and thought—including Yoseph Dan, Gershom Scholem, Haim Soloveichik, Joseph Trachtenberg, and Elliot Wolfson—that the Pietists demonstrated no interest in theorizing or interpreting natural or physical phenomena of any kind. On the contrary, Shyovitz argues that the Pietists were intensely concerned with their physical environment and interpreted the natural world as an expression or reflection of God's divine essence. In addition, he links their preoccupation with the physical world to Christian debates about transubstantiation. Shyovitz frames this part of his argument as a response to Ephraim Urbach's 1955 call to historians of medieval Jewish thought to consider the Hasidei Ashkenaz as an [End Page 240] intellectual and theological movement shaped in part by the emerging schools of Christian scholasticism. Each of the book's five chapters delves into a specific thematic concern presented by leaders of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, and each includes a section exploring a parallel philosophical or theological turn in the Christian world. The book's title alludes to Psalm 111:4: "He has created a remembrance of His wonders." Chapter 1 argues that the Pietists subjected this verse to intense scrutiny because they believed that it was an invitation to explore events and attributes of the physical world as an expression of divine interventions in the world that human beings inhabit and experience. In their meditations on the structure of nature and the assumption that God communicates through it, the Pietists advanced a hermeneutic method that fixed nature in reliable, predictable patterns precisely because nature reflects God's actions and attributes. Building on this claim, Shyovitz argues that as a result of the German Pietists' deep fascination with the form, function, and meaning of nature, this psalm was widely applied as a hermeneutical devise to provide an orderly theological explanation and interpretation of ordinary natural events, such as a sunset, as well as extraordinary, wondrous events that challenged the limits of human intellect, such as the process of creation. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 each deal with questions related to different layers of human embodiment or disembodiment. Here again, the book's approach offers a significant revision of previous scholarship. The brand of extreme pietism laid out in various texts by leaders among the Hasidei Ashkenaz, according to Shyovitz, demonstrates their preoccupation with the functions, mechanics, and significance of the human body. Viewing the human body as a microcosm of the physical universe (an olam katan, or miniature version of the world), the Pietists built on rabbinic models for understanding how the human body works and how it represents an expression of divine intention. According to Shyovitz, the German Pietists' writings show that "far from bemoaning human embodiment...

Christian visions of homosexuality: new debates of old churches

The article is devoted to the study of the relationship between the processes of erosion of the traditional norm vs deviation matrix in the public consciousness and changes in the position of Christian denominations and churches, new tendencies in theological research, canon law, social work, pastoral practice.
 The purpose of the work is to characterize the processes of diversification of Christian churches for their attitude towards homosexuality under the pressure of changes in the structure of social deviations and the liberalization of the Christian environment. The author defines the main types of historical stigma of homosexuality; characterizes changes in the public opinion of the population of traditionally Christian countries (based on the modern sociological studies); highlights the main innovations in the social doctrine and practice of various Christian denominations; and identifies the dominant trends in eastern and western Christianity in relation to homosexuality.
 It is substantiated that the contradiction between the official doctrine, the conservative position of the church hierarchy, on the one hand, and liberal tendencies in the public opinion of the secular community, on the other hand, are more or less common to all Christian denominations. The most difficult situation related the Roman Catholic Church, whose followers live in Western countries with a high level of tolerance for homosexuality. Under the pressure of changes in legal institutions, public morals and public opinion, the traditional Christian interpretation of homosexuality is filled with new connotations; changes were introduced in canon law, institute of spiritual education, other religious institutions; the church becomes more open to discuss problems that have long been taboo. Church policy and pastoral practice are based on the clear delineation of the concepts of "homosexuality", "acts of homosexuality", "homosexual inclinations", "homosexual intentions", "homosexual temptation", etc.
 It has been shown that despite the existing changes in rhetoric, canon law and church practice, the official position of churches is subject to constant critical attacks. Criticism refers not only to the "lack of" acts of homosexuality, the preservation of religious stigma of homosexuality as sin, the condemnation by the church of homosexual behavior, same-sex marriages and gay culture, but also the rooting of patterns of such behavior in monastic and priestly structures. An alternative to the official position of traditional Christian churches is the growing theological movement, which was called "Queer-Theology", which produces its own version of Christian anthropology.
 Processes of destroying of traditional structure of deviations in the globalized world, from one side, and processes of post-secularizing - from other, generate contradictory consequences for functioning of religious institutes; the palette of possible attitudes to homosexuality becomes complicated. Overall, the differently directed trends were done distinctly in western and east Christianity. In Catholicism, there are processes of liberalization of Christianity, the search for ways to adapt homosexuals to the religious environment, and in the problem field of Christian anthropology new theological interpretations of gender ethics are proposed. In the flow of Orthodoxy, especially of Russian, the fundamentalization and nationalization of Orthodoxy, the defense of the matrix of traditional values will preserve the religious stigma of homosexuality in the future.
 Research results can be drawn on in the courses of religious-studies and sociological disciplines; in research of the problems of social and religious deviation.
 Foreseeable assumptions about the development of the research object are finding the best ways to investigate the newest tendencies in attitude of Christian churches toward the social issues of the day; to provide comparative and cross-cultural analysis of processes of diversification of Christian environment.

“At War ’Twixt Will and Will Not”: On Shakespeare’s Idea of Religious Experience in Measure for Measure

“Religions in Shakespeare’s Writings,” the title of this special issue, can prompt consideration not only of singular exceptions to the normative religious landscape but also of the ideas that support the banner under which a plurality of examples together may be described as “religious.” In recent years, readers of Shakespeare have devoted attention to exploring Shakespeare’s engagement with specific theological and sectarian movements in early modern Europe. Such work has changed how we view the relation between theater and its religious landscapes, but it may be that in focusing on the topical we overlook Shakespeare’s place among such sociologists and philosophers of religion as Montaigne, Hobbes, James, Weber, and Berger. To this end, I argue that in Measure for Measure Shakespeare uses law to synthesize certain aspects of religious experience from divergent corners. And drawing on descriptions of religion from anthropology and phenomenology, I suggest that Shakespeare unites his characters through patterns of action within this deadly exigency that demonstrate a shared experience of religion as a desire for salvation beyond the law.

Latin American Liberation Theology as a Transforming Political Theology

Latin American Liberation Theology is a transforming theology in two senses: It is able to transform reality, as it has shown in these past decades, and it is transforming itself. This article shows how both types of meaning interweave. The transformations of Liberation Theology enable it to continuously adapt itself to new challenges in history. At present, this global theological movement is diversifying, or even fragmenting, in order to propose creative and effective solutions to different problems. Specifically, the Option for the Poor, which is at Liberation Theology’s core, currently presents profound challenges to European and Western theologies.

Two Types of Critical Theological Interpretation

This article challenges a part of the introductory chapter of Biblical Truths in which Dale Martin rejects the nineteenth- and twentieth-century project called New Testament theology, contrasting it with his alternative theological use of the Bible. That contested discipline’s characteristic combination of biblical scholarship with the often unspoken religious aims of the interpreters distinguishes it from the explicit theological interpretation of Barth, Martin, the ‘biblical theology movement’ and most Christian readings of scripture. The latter has priority in churches, but both types are needed for scripture to be a source and norm of faith and theology, and the former is therefore prominent in theological education.

Pentecostal Oral Liturgy as Primary Theology

An ongoing task in Pentecostal studies is identifying categories that articulate Pentecostal theology in manners congruent to the intensely embodied liturgical practices that fund Pentecostalism as a theological tradition. In this paper the author suggests as a promising rubric, the patristic era’s monastic and ascetically rooted, Evagrian notion of prayer as theology, which has deeply funded the liturgy as primary theology movement. Together, the author calls these notions the Evagrian-LAPT grammar of prayer/liturgy. Part One explores how Steven Land’s A Passion for the Kingdom monograph was a direct by-product of the LAPT movement, thus describing Pentecostal spirituality through the Evagrian-LAPT grammar. Part Two suggests how this grammar clarifies three pertinent foci within Pentecostal spirituality; Pentecostal primary theology, liturgy, and liturgical ascetics. Part 3 delineates as the liturgical ascetics of Pentecostalism, the shalomic efficacy of its oral liturgy, which generates its primary theology of eschatological hope.

1903년 『웨스트민스터 신앙고백서』 개정에 대한 ‘ACTS 신학공관(共觀)’의 관점에 따른 평가

1903년 『웨스트민스터 신앙고백서』 개정에 대한 ‘ACTS 신학공관(共觀)’의 관점에 따른 평가

La Teología del Pueblo: su contexto latinoamericano y su influencia en el Papa Francisco

The author presents the fundamental lines of the Theology of the People by wondering about its relationship with Liberation Theology and its impact on Pope Francis. He analyses the main issues treated by this theological movement that emerged in Argentina in the figure of two important Argentine theologians, Lucio Gera and Rafael Tello; and wonders about the influence of both not only on Pope Francis, but also on the future of Liberation Theology.

The Historical Mediation of God and Man: Vermittlungstheologie’s use of Hegelianism for Constructing a Theological System

Summary Despite criticism, the thought of G. W. F. Hegel has been highly influential in theology. This article contributes to the debate on the heritage of Hegel from a historical perspective, by studying the theological movement of Vermittlungstheologie. It is demonstrated how Hegelianism provided these theologians with the tools to transform insights from confessional and “Schleiermacherian” theology into a comprehensive worldview. Special attention is paid to the construction of a system of theology with the incarnation at its heart.

The Canonical Black Body: Alternative African American Religions and the Disruptive Politics of Sacrality

“The Canonical Black Body” argues that central to the study of African American religions is a focus on the black body and the production and engagement of canons on the sacred black body within the black public sphere. Furthermore, this essay suggests that, by paying attention to alternative African American religions in the twentieth century, we can better engage the relationship between African American religion and the long history of creating these canons on the black body, debating their relationship to black freedom, and circulating the canons to contest the oppressive, exclusive practices of modern democracy. Through a critical engagement of the fields of Black Theology and New Religious Movements and using the resources offered by Delores Williams’ accounts of variety and experience and Vincent Wimbush’s category of signifying, this essay will argue for how a return to the body provides resources and tools for not only theorizing African American religions but thinking about the production and creation of competing black publics, including the important role of alternative black sacred publics.

Proclaiming and cultivating ‘childlikeness’: a subversive thread in Christian anthropology

If contemporary public discourse struggles with truncated notions of what it means to be human, nowhere is this more obvious than in our discussion and treatment of children. By and large, in our public discourse, we treat children as ‘little adults’ – as consumers, objects of beauty and fashion, career aspirants and sometimes even as sexual beings. By contrast, Jesus put children – as children – at the centre of his project in proclaiming the kingdom of God. He preserved a special place for children in his ministry, and in all three synoptics, he called his followers to ‘childlikeness’. This paper examines a subversive thread in historic theological anthropology. The nature of ‘childlikeness’ is explored and possible ways to cultivate childlikeness for adults are discussed. The notion of childlikeness has been rediscovered in recent times by the ‘Child Theology Movement’, but, in this paper, I wish to examine three linked authors who wrote on ‘childlikeness’ in the 19th and 20th centuries, predating the Child Theology Movement by some decades: George MacDonald, Baron Friedrich von Hügel and Gwendolen Greene.

Caught Between Theology and History: The Integration of Spring Hill College

In 1954, Spring Hill College, a small, Jesuit-run college in Mobile, Alabama, quietly opened its doors to black students. Spring Hill's admission of black students reflected little of the violence and backlash that made national news as other schools across the South integrated over the next fifteen years. Spring Hill's ability to break its own color barrier without public scrutiny was the result of the Jesuit leadership's decision not to mention publicly the school's integration. Thus this decision protected the school, but it also kept a very important historical and theological narrative largely out of the eye of U.S. Catholic history. Spring Hill's story, however, marked an important historical and theological turning point for the Catholic Church in the South in regard to race relations. In 1954, Spring Hill found itself in a unique place in time as the Catholic Church grappled with its identity in an increasing complex and interconnected world. Drawing on historical and theological movements of the early-to-mid twentieth century, Spring Hill's decision to integrate also foreshadowed significant theological movements that would emerge with the Second Vatican Council in the second half of the twentieth century.

II. Rákóczi Ferenc itáliai (zarándok)útja

Young Ferenc Rákóczi traveled to Italy in 1693. His trip started in Vienna and then he visited Venice and other famous cities in Northern Italy, like Bologna, Florence, Pisa, etc. During his tour he spent four months in Florence, then he left for Torino, Milano, and in August he arrived in Loreto. Between September and January that year he was living in Rome. Later he traveled to Napoli and its neighbourhood. In February he had to return to Vienna. This journey was described by Rákóczi in his work named Confessio Peccatoris, which was composed in France more than twenty years later. Living in Paris and in the monastery of Grosbois Rákóczi was influenced by the contemporary Catholic theological movement called Jansenism. In this paper I will try to elucidate, how his Italian travel experiences were recomposed and reevaluated by Rákóczi two decades later under the influence in the framework of Jansenism.

Constructive Theology, Black Liberation Theology, and Black Constructive Theology: A History of Irony and Resonance

ABSTRACTBlack liberation theology and Constructive theology have an inextricably intertwined history. Yet the shared history has been one full of tensions and ambiguity. Black Liberation theology and Constructive theology overlap in their concerns and their approaches. Most, but not all, Black liberation theology today is Constructive theology while all Constructive theology holds in sight liberationist aspirations, yet has not always succeeded in fully incorporating Black liberation theology. Understanding this relationship historically and conceptually is key to understanding the history of both. Liberation theologies, especially in their Black theological form, has pushed Constructive theology beyond a historically typical White liberal theological movement, a clear risk it ran in its origins. Likewise, Constructive theology has given Black theology, including liberationist ones, a space into which to grow and link up with other theological discourses.

Salafism in Malaysia: Historical Account on Its Emergence and Motivations

The term Salafism refers to an interpretation of Islam that seeks to restore Islamic faith and practice to the way they existed at the time of Prophet Muhammad and the early generations of his followers. Since this early period represented the golden age of Islam in its pure form, Salafis believe it should be the example followed by all Muslims today. Salafism as a trend and theological movement has been a point of interest to many researchers due to the current global political escalation. It has been a focal point of issues related to global terrorism, radicalism, post-Arab Spring politics, religious trends as well as theological debates. Salafism, more often known as Wahabism, has come to Malaysia at different times and with different motivations. The early brand of Salafism in pre-Malaysia Tanah Melayu, or Malaya, was the emergence of the early 20th century reformist Salafi movement, known as Kaum Muda, inspired by the Middle Eastern Abduh-Afghani Pan Islamism. Despite the differences between that and the current global Salafism they share the same roots. Additionally, according to numerous historical accounts, the current Salafi trend in Malaysia is closely related to the global Islamic revivalism of the 1970s and 1980s, and was also affected by the return of Malaysian students studying abroad during the 1990s and early 2000s. Evidence has shown that the emergence of Salafism in Malaysia has contributed directly and indirectly to the mainstream discourse of Islamic theology and Islamic worldview amongst Malaysian Muslims in general, and Islamic organizations in particular. This paper employs a historical approach in explaining the emergence of Salafism in Malaysia and offers a critical examination of certain historical events that led to the existence of the different trends and groupings of Salafism in Malaysia and its implications for Islamic discourse in the country.

Particularity, Reality, and Reparative Thinking: Another Reformation by Peter Ochs

Particularity, Reality, and Reparative Thinking: Another Reformation by Peter Ochs Another Reformation: Postliberal Christianity and the Jews. By Peter Ochs. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2011. ix + 278 pp. $30.00 (paper).There are very few books that transcend their subject matter. Those that do address broader and deeper issues than their ostensive topic. They also come to serve models for others to follow-whether or not they are working on same topic. Finally, they provide substantive insights into not only the topic they explore but the task of writing a whole.Peter Ochs's Another Reformation is one such book. At first glance, his topic might seem relatively narrow-he wants to test a correlation he has noticed between different iterations of postliberal Christian and a position of nonsupersessionism regarding the Jewish faith. To define each of these terms requires that Ochs, a Jewish philosopher, delve into recent developments in contemporary Christian theology and philosophy. In the process, he displays his own formidable theological and philosophical skills, which serve a model that Christian theologians should follow. Specifically, Ochs provides insights into theological methodology and major theologians that should inform the broader work of theology in the future.The best way to see the range of this work is to trace Ochs's definition of and nonsupersessionism. Beginning with the first, Ochs develops an intricate typology to show the different iterations of this movement in contemporary Anglo-American theology. Ochs initially defines postliberalism the third of three epochs. During the Epoch of Formation, Christian thought was focused on communal self-definition, which it did primarily by differentiating what Christianity believed opposed to other religions. latter were seen as other-as an offense to its self-definition or a threat to its ideological and social boundaries. During the Epoch of Assimilation, the focus shifted from the particular to the universal Christians tried to translate their faith into a single of reason. In the current Epoch of Postliberalism, the compromises made during the second epoch, which created a religion of ethics and enlightenment for the new nation-states and market economies of Europe, became unviable.1 However, this does not mean that it is possible, or desirable, to return to the first epoch. In each epoch, theologies develop to reform the religious practices of their day. Consequently, to reiterate the theological answers given in an earlier epoch is to ignore the imperative of repair required today.The task today is to develop a theology that avoids the binaries dictated by the law of the excluded middle2 regnant in modernity. This means avoiding the dyads of matter/spirit, reason/revelation, intellect/ emotion, authority/autonomy, dogmatism/modemism, scripture/ tradition, confessional/academic, public/private, church/society, and so on-dyads that plague contemporary theological reflection and modernity in general. It also means reforming the ground from which these dyads grow and flourish. Specifically, Ochs sees this the tendency to differentiate a novel theological position by portraying others the logical contradictory of what one advocates. In its place, Ochs articulates a pragmatic, relational logic that is grounded in a context, community, and narrative.One might be tempted to characterize this logic hermeneutic, and this is appropriate to the extent that Ochs is advancing a theory of interpretation. However, Ochs justifies his logical project much on scientific on humanistic grounds. dyads that theologians have used to organize their thinking are unwarranted by empirical evidence, argues Ochs: The world is not divided sharply between subjects and objects, knower and the known, mind and matter, the theoretical and the practical, what is active and what is passive. …

Pergulatan Teologi Salafi dalam Mainstream Keberagamaan Masyarakat Sasak

The Salafi movement has recently spread so widely in Indonesia that it has reached rural communities. In that context, its contact with local beliefs and practices produces a dynamic and creative tension between them. This paper will explore the contact dynamics by photographing wrestle of Salafi’s theological movement and beliefs in the mainstream of theological beliefs of local Sasak society of Lombok. The authors found that local knowledge that expressed through practicing several ceremonies associated with the human life-cycle from moment of human birth to death events considered by the Salafi as unauthentic element of Islam called heretic to which the Salafi has to carry out purification. That potential conflict between the Sasak and Salafis, requiring mutual respect and tolerance among them.

The Worker-Priest Archetype

The concept of the worker-priest archetype, in its most recent official form, originated in France's Roman Catholic Church as a missionary attempt to “rediscover the masses” of the industrial class workers in the French factories of the 1940s. This effort was shut down by the Vatican in the 1950s out of fear of Communist influence within the movement. With the advent of the Vatican II Council (1962–1965) of the Catholic Church, new life seemed to have been infused into this archetype. For example, the liberation theology movement in Latin America was strongly influenced by Vatican II. In the United States, many new forms of liturgical celebration were created, and social reform movements, doubtless as part of the 1960s social-revolutionary energy, emerged and were fostered. When the conservative faction within the Catholic hierarchy reacted to what they perceived as dangerous and threatening developments in the church, they acted to stop this liberal movement. One likely consequence of this slamming shut the windows that had been newly opened by Vatican II was a mass exodus of Catholic priests in the United States who left the clergy and entered civilian life. This article focuses on interviews with three of the men who were active Catholic priests, two of whom chose to leave the priesthood and one who remained a priest but moved the focus of his work to the “inner city.” There he cared for young black men as an unofficial social worker/priest, operating on his own to serve a population traditionally underserved by the Catholic Church.

D. Timothy Goering: System der Käseplatte. Aufstieg und Fall der Dialektischen Theologie

Abstract The group of Dialectical Theology (also known as Neo-Orthodoxy) included some of the most well-known theologians of the 20th century – Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Friedrich Gogarten, Eduard Thurneysen, Georg Merz und Emil Brunner. In the summer of 1922 they founded the journal Zwischen den Zeiten, which launched Dialectical Theology as the most influential avant-garde movement in Protestantism during the Weimar Republic. Due to internal strife and theological disagreements, the group began to lose strength in the early 1930s and eventually split up and ceased publishing Zwischen den Zeiten in 1933. The individual members later became fierce critics of each other’s theological works. Gogarten and Barth became arch enemies during the so-called “church struggle” (Kirchenkampf), and Bultmann and Barth became each other’s nemesis in the Federal Republic of Germany. In this article I examine the rise and fall of this movement. I argue that the concept “generation” was central to the early self-understanding and selfjustification of the group. It allowed the group to forge an alliance and oppose an antagonistic group of influential theologians. The claim to speak up for a young generation of theologians and pastors – in opposition to an older, liberal generation – became the rallying cry for Dialectical Theology. Further, I argue that conferences, not only the theological writings, played a central, constitutive role in establishing the group as a theological movement. It was at conferences that the members of Dialectical Theology could challenge the older generation and assert their own theological stance. Instead of merely concentrating on the published theological writings of each of the members, I thus argue that one must additionally focus on the applied concepts and the role of conferences to understand the history of Dialectical Theology. It is only when we include these additional contexts that we understand how Dialectical Theology was able to be launched and sustained as a theological movement despite the irreconcilable differences amongst the members.

‘ACTS 신학공관’에서 본 찰스 브릭스 (Charles Augustus Briggs)의 웨스트민스터 신앙고백서 개정 시도(1889-1893년)에 관한 고찰

‘ACTS 신학공관’에서 본 찰스 브릭스 (Charles Augustus Briggs)의 웨스트민스터 신앙고백서 개정 시도(1889-1893년)에 관한 고찰