Christian Notion Research Articles

Does God Play Dice? A Response to Niels H. Gregersen, “The Idea of Creation and the Theory of Autopoietic Processes”

The idea that the Creator has a plan for creation is deeply rooted in the Christian notion of Providence. This notion seems to suggest that the history of creation must be the execution of the providential plan of God. Such an understanding of divine providence expects science to confirm that cosmic history is under supernatural guidance, that evolution is therefore oriented toward a goal—to bring forth human beings, for example. The problem is, however, that science finds evidence for neither supernatural guidance nor teleology in nature. To address this problem, I understand Niels H. Gregersen to suggest that God is involved in the creative process. The reason science cannot demonstrate God's supernatural guidance of evolution is that the Creator structures the process from within. Gregersen argues that God is involved in the process of creation by changing the overall probability pattern of evolving systems.In my view, such a model of how God interacts with creation is supported neither by orthodox Christianity nor by modern science. After a critique of Gregersen's argument and a brief history of the relationship between Christianity and science, I shall suggest an alternative. It is that the freedom of creation to create itself is implicit in the fundamental dogma of Christianity that God is love.

“Religion” and Christian Conversionin African History: A New Model

This article reviews recent scholarship on African religion and argues that, while much has been accomplished, historians have inherited a problematic view of the processes that they have investigated. They have unknowingly adopted evangelical ideas, in the form of written words and concepts that they wrongly assume have maintained consistent meanings down through the decades. Because missionaries’ translations have been taken in this way as accurate guides for understanding what gave rise to them, much of Africa’s intellectual history appears religious. The article focuses on the example of tui‐qua, a term used by Khoikhoi and translated as “God,” and suggests a model for understanding evangelism and conversion that does not rely on the supposed ubiquity of religion. It is argued that missionaries used Christian notions to accommodate the falsity of analogous practices, which although often unrelated in their original setting, together became a single entity (religion) as a result.

Depression and Spiritual Desolation

Discusses the Christian notions of desolation, the dark night, accidie, Anfechtungen, and how they relate to modern psychology's concept of major depression. Notes how ministers and pastoral counselors are uniquely equipped to offer assistance and hope to persons suffering from these maladies.

The Desert As Focus for Ethical Exploration: Ahad Ha'am and Baba Mezia 62A

This paper analyzes the talmudic text Baba Mezia 62a, which focuses upon a well-known ethical dilemma situated in the desert. The dilemma, dissected by Ahad Ha'am in his 1910 essay "Judaism and the Gospels," becomes a focal point not only for careful textual analysis, but also for an examination of Jewish and Christian notions of altruism.

Paul's Thinking about Resurrection in its Jewish Context

Paul describes his discipleship and mission, in short his apostolate, in terms of his vision of the resurrection of the exalted Christ. The glorious body of Christ and the spiritual body are similar in substance because one is transformed into the other, a conclusion based on his own experience of visions of the risen Christ in a body but not a physical body in normal sight. This notion of Christ's risen activity contrasts strongly with the later gospel description of the risen Christ. It comes out of Jewish apocalypticism, revalued to express his new Christian vision of the end.

Ethics for a small planet: new horizons on population, consumption, and ecology

This book assesses the combined impact of overpopulation overconsumption and economic and political injustice. Complementary studies on these issues are presented by two major social ethicists which focus on seeking a new understanding of religion and its power. Daniel C. Maguire indicts the male-dominated religions for the ecologic and reproductive ethical problems. He raises the controversial questions of whether the concept of God is a problem and whether the Christian notions of afterlife and a divinized male have done more harm than good. Larry L. Ramussen on the other hand identifies a male-made and wealth-dominated world as the cause of the problem. He observes that Europeans packaged a form of earth-unfriendly capitalism and sent it all over the world with missionary zeal. He reviews the history that led to the manic rush to push the earth beyond its limits and suggests moral norms and policy guidelines for sustainable communities and shared power. Arguments between positive and renewable moral energies in the worlds religions as well as an understanding of the response on the sanctity of life provides a grim prospect for the world. A sense of sacredness is presented as the nucleus of good and the only force that could bring about the lifestyle changes and power reallocations necessary for terricide prevention.

Born Again? The Ethics and Efficacy of the Conversion Experience in Contemporary Management Development

This article notes how a religious tone has seeped into the discourse of contemporary management development. This religious analogy is explored through the evangelical Christian notion of ‘conversion’ and radical personal change. The expansion of such a mind‐set into contemporary management thinking is related to the revival of the charismatic form of authority, in the writing of popular management gurus, such as Tom Peters. The search for new forms of ethical and social cohesion is considered. Next, this framework is applied to management development, with particular reference to one fairly mainstream, if intensive, programme. Through quotes from the managers involved, we illustrate how this programme employed emotional experience to remould individual personality and hence corporate culture in a way that mimics the religious conversion process. Finally, we question both whether a largely involuntary business organization has an ethical right to claim the ‘souls’ of its managers, and whether this is likely to be a realizable goal, in any case.

"To Take the Sin Out of Slicing Trees...": The Law of the Tree in Beloved

When Baby Suggs, Beloved's ancestor figure and moral beacon, expresses her view of what seems to be the novel's central transgression, the murder of a child at the hands of her own mother, she sums up what the whole work tends to demonstrate regarding the tragic deed: she could not approve or condemn Sethe's rough choice (180). Endeavoring to understand rather than judge, she acknowledges the legitimacy of some of Sethe's arguments while being aware of more questionable elements in her decision, such as her daughter, in-law's dangerously possessive conception of mother love, or the psychological damage her act has inflicted on each of her four children. Like Baby Suggs, Morrison clearly refrains, at least explicitly or in conventional terms, from either condemning or condoning Sethe's desperate deed. When the murder is overtly branded as a crime or a sin, it is by people--the community and Paul D--whose moral choices are not reliable. As a matter of fact, it is repeatedly suggested that the ultimate culprit is not the individual who committed infanticide, but the system that created the conditions for it, the peculiar institution. As the novel unfolds, the whites increasingly come under attack, even if, adding to the moral complexity and ambiguity of the book, they are also presented as the victims of a system they have themselves set up, while the blacks in turn prove to have been contaminated by the cancer of slavery, as shown in Stamp Paid's metaphor of the jungle (198-99).(1) Curiously enough, however, Morrison reserves the word sin for another context. It first crops up in Baby's address to her people in the Clearing when she urges them to love their abused bodies and heal the wounds inflicted by slavery: She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure. She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. (88) This statement is interesting in that it shows Baby distancing herself from established religion, overtly discarding the Christian notion of sin as an acceptable moral standard. This perception is actually confirmed by the use of the word in its second occurrence. When Paul D, shortly after his arrival at 124, takes Sethe and Denver out to the carnival, they walk past a big patch of rotting roses stretching along the lumberyard fence. narrator then makes the following remark: The sawyer who had planted them twelve years ago to give his workplace a friendly feel--something to take the sin out of slicing trees for a living--was amazed by their abundance ... (47). What this statement brings out is that the tree is a natural element that serves as a law--and a sacred one at that--unto man. In other terms, the religious referent that transgression is measured against is not Western religion or even some secular yet holy human law, but man's natural environment. This might seem to be a somewhat extravagant or incidental remark were it not for the fact that trees play such a prominent part in the novel, either in the form of the highly symbolic tree stamped upon Sethe's back by schoolteacher's whip, or as the real trees that the protagonists repeatedly turn to for spiritual support. Furthermore, one should bear in mind that trees, and in particular sacred groves, play a crucial role in African religion, where they are considered as intermediaries between God and man--they are even worshiped by some tribes as God himself in his immanent aspect (Mbiti 112-64). pervasive presence in the book of trees, and the moral significance they are imparted with, as the above quotation suggests, seems therefore to be in keeping with Morrison's claim that she is not an American, but an Afro-American writer, intent on preserving and transmitting her community's cultural heritage, which she insists is an essential dimension of her fiction. …

Prospects for Muslim Law in South Africa: A History and Recent Developments

Political change has had a noticeable impact on the South African Judicial systern. An index of this change was the major turnabout in the attitudes of the courts towards Islamnic law which had been stigmatized for centuries in this country. Following the landmark decision in 1996 by the Cape High Court in Ryland v. Edros, (see case note in Part TV on p. 515) the prospects for the further recognition of Islamic law have substantially improved. Previously the courts' approach was shaped by Seedat's Executors v. The Master (Natal) 1917 AD and Ismail v. Ismail 1983 (1) SA 1006 (A) in which it was ruled that marriages valid accordig to Islamic law, and actually monogamous must be regarded as void on the grounds of public policy.I But public in these instances in the past was necessatilv cstate policy which was wedded to Christian notions of martiage and had little regard to the diversity of cultures and values in the country. South Africa's new Bill of Rights now explicitly recognizes cultural and religious plurality, with an emphasis on equality which prevents discrimination on the grounds of culture, religion, race or minority status. It is in this context, notwithstanding some of the practical difficulties, that aspects of Muslim family law may be incorporated into the general legal system.

Book Review: Greek Philosophy and the Christian Notion of God

Book Review: Greek Philosophy and the Christian Notion of God

Language, Metaphor, and Chalcedon: A Case of Theological Double Vision

The question of how human language functions in relation to God constitutes one of the most difficult problems in Christian theology. I contend that Christian notions of language about God should be constructed in light of christology, since both are concerned with the relationship between the human and the divine. Northrop Frye, drawing on the poetry and thought of William Blake, speaks of the importance of “the double vision of a spiritual and a physical world simultaneously present” in understanding how religious language works. This fundamental quality of double vision or tension characterizes the relationship between the human and the divine both in language about God and in christology. In this article I shall examine several aspects of the relationship between the human and the divine: first, the basic problem of theological language as discussed by George Lindbeck; second, the notion of theological language as metaphorical, as discussed by Sallie McFague; and third, christology as found in the Chalcedonian definition of Christian faith. I shall conclude that it is appropriate to construct notions of language about God in light of Chalcedonian christology.

Greek Philosophy and the Christian Notion of God by Gerard Watson, Maynooth Bicentenary Series, Columba Press, Dublin, 1994, IR£ 8.99.

Greek Philosophy and the Christian Notion of God by Gerard Watson, Maynooth Bicentenary Series, Columba Press, Dublin, 1994, IR£ 8.99.

Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage During the Patristic & Early Medieval Periods by Philip Lyndon Reynolds, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1994, pp. xxx + 436

MARRIAGE IN THE WESTERN CHURCH: THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF MARRIAGE DURING THE PATRISTIC & EARLY MEDIEVAL PERIODS by Philip Lyndon Reynolds, E.J. BrillTHE SEARCH FOR THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP: SOURCES AND METHODS FOR THE STUDY OF EARLY LITURGY by Paul F. Bradshaw.THAT'S THE WAY I SEE IT by David Hockney; Thames and HudsonGREEK PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHRISTIAN NOTION OF GOD by Gerard Watson, Maynooth Bicentenary SeriesTHE CHRISTIAN GOD by Richard Swinburne

Novitas Christiana: Die Idee des Fortschritts in der Alten Kirche bis Eusebius by Wolfram Kinzig

BOOK REVIEWS629 White's book, namely, that which concerns Rome on the one hand and especially the Near East on the other. For it seems evident that, apart from the opposition of other religious groups in micro-Asiatic environments and generally in Near Eastern rural centers, Christian communities had freer access to accumulating real estate properties and private ownership of goods and proper religious buildings earlier than this might have been possible in Urbe, where the center of imperial government seems to have had a heavier hand on control, if not on persecution. Indeed, the argument ofpersecution should have been set forth in more express terms in this book. Probably, for Rome, materials so broadly investigated in the two volumes by Charles Pietri, Roma Christiana, could have been better utilized. The same is also true of Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann's Einführung in die christliche Archäologie (1983), which contains an accurate and very detailed account especially of the situation in the Near East and related enclaves. Likewise no reference to PaulyWissowa 's Realencyclopädie appears in these pages, although it is still useful in many respects. Mistakes in citations of Italian titles are more frequent than of German. But these are minor flaws in an admirable work. Giovanni Montanari Archives of the Archdiocese ofRavenna-Cervia Novitas Christiana: Die Idee des Fortschritts in derAlten Kirche bis Eusebius. By Wolfram Kinzig. [Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Band 58] (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. 1994. Pp. 702. DM 198,-.) While there is a vast literature on the concept of progress, the author in his Habilitationsschrift from Heidelberg maintains that most of the scholarship on the subject is defective because there has not been a deep and thorough study of the early Christian notion of progress. This work proposes to fill that lacuna. He defines progress as an advance of mankind for the better, whatever the cause. He begins by exploring the literature on the subject dating from the past two centuries. Thoughts of progress were rare in pagan antiquity, nor were they, as defined here, to be found in Scripture. While it is clear that Jesus' coming was something new, Kinzig feels that the thought of progress remained foreign to Jewish-Christian thought through the end of the first century. Christian apologists were torn between two tendencies. The thought of emphasizing Christian newness was tempered, if not sometimes extinguished, by the need, in view of ancient presuppositions, to stress the antiquity of Christianity. This was done by underlining Christianity's continuity with Judaism . The fading of eschatological expectation in the second century led to the need for theorizing about the continued existence of Christianity in time. 630BOOK REVIEWS The basic framework for doing this was that of two covenants of God with his people, with the second constituting progress over the first. At this point, starting with Irenaeus, Kinzig begins his detailed analysis of the idea of salvation history as progress. The Montanists raised the possibility of ongoing revelation. For Tertullian, this took the form of a more stringent discipline by means ofwhich the Church would become progressively better. But these ideas did not receive general acceptance. He shows how Clement, Origen, and Arnobius all contributed to the growth of the idea of salvation history as progress, but, for them, this was primarily a justification of Christian origins. The author sees the culmination of the development of the Christian idea of progress in the work of Lactantius and Eusebius at the beginning of the fourth century. The defining event of this time was, of course, the conversion of Constantine. The Church was psychologically unprepared for this great turnabout, but, he insists, the work of authors like Origen had laid the theoretical foundation for the conclusions drawn by Eusebius. The latter did not politicize theology; rather, he formulated a theological politics. For Eusebius, the Constantinian empire emerged as the vanguard of a God-directed progressive development. The Christian empire became an anticipation of God's kingdom. Since Eusebius had little interest in eschatology, one can conclude that this progress would not stop soon but would continue in this world for a long time to come. Kinzig concludes with a modest amount of editorializing...

The body and society: men, women and sexual renunciation in early Christianity (review)

Short notices Brown, Peter, The body and society: men, women and sexual renunciation in early Christianity, rpt London and Boston, Faber and Faber, 1990; paper; pp. xx, 504; 1 map, chronological figure; R.R.P. AUS$29.95 [Distributed in Australia by Penguin]. Peter Brown is at his best in catching the dust of history in a coruscating sunbeam that reflects links between ideological and sociological elements in society. Here the beam is the ethic of sexual renunciation, the wider issue is the nexus between Christian notions of the body and the body politic from Paul to Augustine. The Brown revolution in the historiography of late antiquity set impossibly high expectations for this long awaited book, soon followed by the paperback edition. Reviews reflect those expectations. The familiar charms are all on stage: the masterful and open-ended learning, the evocative image, the lateral insight above all the inimitable magic with which he conjures from webbed texts the untamed thought and action of those who were all so unimaginably different and all so long ago. The idiom of sexual renunciation is beautifully exposed, though some will be sad that the books of the ancients lie more heavily on his shelves than the records of material culture and some will feel cheated that no strategy is devised to deliver from maleauthoredtextsthe equality of women so seductively advanced in the title. The book is meant however, as more than mere description and doubts have been voiced about the power of his explanations in any wider vision of the history of early Christianity and late antiquity (the two are inseparable). His texts chart the destinies of a small, vociferous, divided and often peripheral minority at odds with the silent majority of Christians and Christian communities. His correlations between their ethic and social change often seem forced. His analysis privileges, indeed overprivileges, attitudes to sexuality and the body in general and the ethic of sexual renunciation in particular. In the history of its time this seems to be a minor strand, for all its noise, even in the works of his chosen authors, let alone in the contextualising attitudes of other Christians, pagans, and Jews. These notions may, as he says (p. 441), have come to the fore in the latefifthand sixth centuries and marked the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the Middle Ages, but that is another story. In his preface, Brown has preemptively anticipated much of this criticism and invited us all to catch our own dust, or his, in the prism of other sociologies. H e hints at some himself ('doors, left deliberately ajar') and others are outlined in the superb review article by Philip Rousseau in Prudentia 22.2 (1990), 49-70. W e must take up his invitation and place his explanations in the hierarchy of explanations for the development of early Christianity and late antiquity. Even if his study does not form the bedrock of future histories of 174 Short notices early Christianity, or of the Roman and Byzantine worlds, or even of sexuality in Christian cultures, it will surely be one of the shifting sands which form those histories. Peter Brennan Department of History University of Sydney Cook, Ramsay, ed. & trans., The voyages of Jacques Cartier, Toronto/Buffalo/London, University of Toronto Press, 1993; cloth and paper; pp. xli, 177; 8 illustrations; R.R.P. CAN$50.00 (cloth), $16.95 (paper). This is a useful collection of translations taken primarily from Biggar's work. The documents illustrate in various ways the problem of the language barrier—at the time and since. One can study the growth of the stereotype description of the native Americans. O n his first voyage Cartier used the word 'savages' and spoke of wild and savage folk, easy to convert. They were nomadic, the sorriest folk there could be in the world, naked and thieves. O n his second voyage he wrote of their immense numbers, kindliness and peacefulness, their lack of fear, convertability, and friendliness. At the same time he was suspicious of them. He noted that some were not nomadic and gave descriptions of their villages and way of life, near naked and miserably clothed. O n...

The Discourse of Souls in Tana Toraja (Indonesia): Indigenous Notions and Christian Conceptions

In Insular Southeast Asia, indigenous religions are oriented more towards practice than philosophy. Geertz's (1973:177) observations concerning in Bali generally hold true for other autochthonous religions of the Indonesian archipelago: Beyond a minimal level there is almost no interest in doctrine... The stress is on orthopraxy, not orthodoxy. Accordingly, discussions of indigenous notions of the soul in insular Southeast Asia rarely center on philosophical doctrine. Rather, local practitioners tend to emphasize ritual obligations to souls at various points in time, enumerating the requisite rites to aid souls in their afterlife journeys (cf. Fox 1973; Weinstock 1987). This essay is broadly concerned with the relationship between such amorphous practice-centered indigenous conceptions of soul and subsequently-introduced Christian metaphysical propositions. Recently, Indonesianists studying processes of relgious transformation have prompted us to recognize the dynamic interplay between world religions, national politics, and indigenous religions (cf. Atkinson 1983; Kipp and Rodgers 1987). Atkinson (1983), for instance, has elegantly demonstrated how the construction of the Central Sulawesi Wana is rooted in a dialogue with both world religions and nationalist Indonesian civil religion. In a similar vein, Hoskins (1987) illustrates how the redefinition of Sumbanese spirit worship as a religion resulted from exposure to the doctrine of the Christian church and the Indonesian government. On Sumba, what was once a system of ritual practices and regulations became transformed into a system of beliefs. Taking such notions of religions in dialogue as a starting point, this essay examines indigenous and Christian conceptions of the soul among the Sa'dan Toraja of upland Sulawesi. While Hoskins and Atkinson give more attention to the influence of world religions and national politics on local belief systems, my major focus in this paper is on the other side of the dialogue. That is, I am particularly concerned with the ways in which Christian Torajans incorporate and reformulate indigenous conceptions of the soul. Ranger (1987:183) has stressed the ironic aspect of African Christianity, noting that the dialectic between local religions and Christianity evolves in ways that confound both missionary and indigenous expectations. In this essay I examine how, for Christian Torajans, indigenous and Christian notions of soul not only coexist, but intermingle and at times compete. This essay begins with a discussion of the indigenous Torajan conception of the soul. One should note, however, that several factors have encouraged a more formal elaboration of their notions of soul. These factors include Torajan exposure to doctrine-centered world religions, the Indonesian government's 1969 recognition of Torajan Aluk to dolo as an official religion, and the queries of anthropologists and tourists visiting the Toraja highlands. After examining indigenous notions of the soul, I contrast these with the Dutch Reformed Church's vision of the soul. The final section addresses lay Christian Torajans' approach to the concept, and suggests that there is a discernable pattern to those indigenous ideas about the soul that persist. ETHNOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND The Sa'dan Toraja people are primarily wet-rice farmers inhabiting mountaninous Tana Toraja Regency in the province of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Most Torajans speak both Tae' Toraja, an Austronesian language closely related to other South Sulawesi languages (Mills 1975), and the national lingua franca of Bahasa Indonesia. In a multi-ethnic nation of 185 million people, the Toraja are a minority group numbering approximately 350,000. Torajan society is hierarchically organized on the basis of age, descent, occupation, and wealth. Traditionally there were three basic ranks: the aristocracy (to parengnge'); commoners (to buda, to sama); and serfs or slaves (kaunan). …

Crossing Boundaries: The Genesis of the Township Plays

On 18 June 1954, Port Elizabeth Evening Post published an article by an unknown young local freelance writer recently returned from working his way around world on tramp steamer. The article, entitled Drama of P.E.'s Night School For Adults, attempted to explain to its white South African readers why four nights week, month after month and year after year, over 500 African men and women of all ages attend night school New black township on outskirts of city. To engage Post's readers with subject they obviously knew nothing about, writer simply and effectively dramatized stories of some of these men and women of New Brighton, particular, Philip and Lena. For men like Philip, learning to read and write meant keeping out of trouble, for instance by being able to read notices like Europeans Only. It also meant some alleviation of bewilderment and loneliness of urban life, for instance through enabling him to write letters home to his parents in kraal. For women like Lena, worried about having brought her children into a world of learning to read enabled her to share budding learning, well to buy an occasional tin of something special because she can follow directions on side. The author of this small attempt to convey something of lives and everyday experiences of his fellow South Africans across boundaries of race, class, and gender was twenty-two-year-old Athol Fugard. It sounds patronizing today, but article demonstrates how, from his earliest published writings, Fugard was concerned to acknowledge lives, indeed very existence, of those of his compatriots excluded one way or another from centers of privilege and power his society. Although this concern led him to go on and testify to experiences of lost and discarded whites from Hester and Johnny (in Hello and Goodbye) to Gideon Le Roux (in Playland), it has also involved bearing to experiences of black people, from correspondence student Willie Seopelo (in No-Good Friday) to rural migrant Sizwe dictating letter home (in Sizwe Bansi Is Dead), to--how prophetic name of her New Brighton predecessor--the desperate Lena (in Boesman and Lena), stripped even of consolations of motherhood and belonging township. As I have suggested elsewhere (Resituating), idea of bearing witness, which Fugard has used to describe his motivation since 1968, and which has subsequently been echoed by many critics (myself included) to legitimate his work, should not be accepted without question. Certainly it seems an appropriate idea to invoke humanist version of familiar Christian notion of offering oneself testimony to truth of what has been seen or experienced extreme situations. The writer as is type who increasingly appears annals of twentieth-century literature, representing writer's solidarity with doomed, deprived, victimized, under-privileged (Heaney xvi). But who really should bear witness situations of degradation, suffering, even death? Shouldn't victims speak for themselves? And if they cannot, who can legitimately speak for them? In other words, whose voices are heard, whose have been silenced? And how does passage of time change answers to these questions? The passage of time South Africa since Fugard first began his career has now at last produced sound of many voices, previously silenced, belittled, or degraded, demanding to be heard, ANC exile Barbara Masekela remarked historic speech delivered Grahamstown shortly after her return to country 1990. Indeed, battle is going on for space at center of culture for so long dominated by white minority. Masekela attacked English speakers for having been the most exclusive and resistant to genuine national influences, and associated elite, those who work financed cultural institutions, who have fax machines, telephones for instant interviews and time and resources to create, for enjoying a disproportionate access to national and international media, where their voice is often assumed to be our voice, simply because it is only one anyone has heard. …

The Active Force of Hearing: The Ancient Hebrew Language of Persuasion

he question of the existence of a Hebrew concept of per­ suasion arises as a subordinate pofrit in James BCinneavy's book, The Greek Rhetorical Origins of Christian Faith. Kmneavy's thesis is that the Christian notion of TTIO-TIC, faith as dis­ tinct from the Hebrew concept of faithfulness or trust, 'emunâ, owes its origin the Greek concept of TTIO-TIC, beUef as persuasion or proof. In the process of proving this thesis, Kinneavy cites G. Berfram's Hebrew supplement Rudolf Bultmann's essay on -rreidu} in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Berfram comments that bibUcal Hebrew has no word corresponding TTeidu), to persuade (Bultmann 1). From this, and from the con­ cordance the Septuagint which indeed shows that no Hebrew verb was franslated with Greek ireido) in its active fransitive form, Kirmeavy draws the conclusion that this apparent lack is conceptual—that what is lacking is an awareness of a reflective and analytical concept of persuasion as such (54). In my opinion, this conclusion, whUe not in itself incorrect, is unwarranted by the evidence Kinneavy attests, which instead points a more specifie difference between disparate concepts of persuasion, whether pragmatic and impUdt, as in the Hebrew fradition, or reflective and analytical, as in the Greek.

The Equality of All under the One in Luther and Rousseau: Thoughts on Christianity and Political Theory

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Equality of All under the One in Luther and Rousseau: Thoughts on Christianity and Political TheoryJoshua MitchellJoshua Mitchell Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 72, Number 3Jul., 1992 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/488916 Views: 13Total views on this site Copyright 1992 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Change, Ritual, and Grief: Continuity and Discontinuity of Pastoral Theology in Ghana

Uses a life segment from a Westernized Ghanaian man going through grief over the death of his father to illustrate the conflicts implicit when Ghanaian culture and religious values interact with Western civilization and Christianity. Develops the thesis that a pastoral theology of ritual may provide a religious understanding in which Western Christian notions and practices and the original understandings of Ghanaians can be bridged. Notes especially the role of the cross in providing a symbol capable of creatively relating original cultic meanings witn an enlightened Christian understanding of death and grief.