Professor Of Theology Research Articles

The Second Letter to the Corinthians.By Mark A. Seifrid.

M ark S eifrid , formerly Professor of New Testament Interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and now professor of exegetical theology at the Lutheran Concordia Seminary, writes for the Pillar series. Aimed at ‘serious pastors and teachers of the Bible’, this evangelical series focuses more on exegesis of ‘the text of Scripture as we have it’ than on contemporary scholarship or technical minutia (p. ix). Consequently, Seifrid does not attempt sweeping dialogue with scholarly literature. Instead, he focuses largely on the theology of 2 Corinthians, which, he repeatedly argues, accords with that of Martin Luther, by far his most frequent dialogue partner. Seifrid argues that the epistle’s main theme is ‘the jarring contrast between [Paul’s] powerful letters and his pitiful presence … the difference between what the eyes can see and what the ears can hear in the apostolic proclamation of the cross’, a message manifest also in Paul’s ‘body and life’ (p. xxxii). As such, Seifrid frequently argues that the epistle’s ultimate concern is hermeneutical—that is, ‘whether the human being has the capacity of recognizing, understanding, and judging the work of God within the world, or whether it is the work of God that recognizes and judges the human being’ (p. xxxiii).

Giovanni Perrone’s Theological Curriculum and the First Vatican Council

This article examines the role of theological education as a factor in shaping the priorities and teachings of the First Vatican Council. The contribution of the Jesuit professor of dogmatic theology at the Collegio Romano, Giovanni Perrone, was particularly important for forming the theological minds of Church leaders in the middle decades of the 19th century. Perrone’s four-year curriculum, the Praelectiones Theologicae, was organized around the principles of faith, reason, and ecclesiastical authority. These principles formed a coherent and tightly integrated constellation for those educated in Perrone’s curriculum, in which reason relied upon the formative structure of faith, and faith as an act required the authority of the Church for its exercise. Correspondingly, the unity of the Church required the authoritative dimension of faith and suitable organs for its exercise. Perrone’s curriculum was employed in many parts of Europe during the 19th century. This article examines the theology of Perrone’s ...

Human evolution and the nature of morality

This past November a symposium was held in honor of J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, who recently retired after 23 years as the James I. McCord Professor of Theology and Science at Princeton Theological Seminary. It was my privilege to organize this event, titled ‘‘Evolutionary Science and Theological Identity,’’ a suitable tribute to my former advisor and continuing mentor and friend. The symposium featured papers from five respected, international scholars of theology and science, which, along with a formal response from van Huyssteen, have been reproduced here for this special issue of Theology Today. Interdisciplinary theology has been the persistent theme of van Huyssteen’s research, specifically related to the challenges and opportunities posed by science and the philosophy of science. Over the years his work has ranged across a wide terrain of topics, including theological method, philosophical theology, and theological anthropology. In each case, he has explored the multifaceted relationship between religious faith and scientific culture. More recently, he has concentrated attention on palaeoanthropology and the particular matter of how Darwinian evolution might inform theological anthropology on the question of what it means to be human. This was the theme of his celebrated Gifford lectures, and the symposium lectures collected here lend testimony to the importance and enduring impact of van Huyssteen’s contributions to this important area of research. This is all widely acknowledged, but what may be less well known to the casual observer is just how difficult this research program actually is, contributing even more grandeur to van Huyssteen’s accomplishments. Engaging the facts of human evolution from a theological perspective is an incredibly challenging task, at least if Theology Today 2015, Vol. 72(2) 135–140 ! The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0040573615581548 ttj.sagepub.com

Redeeming Our Sacred Story: The Death of Jesus and Relations between Jews and Christians by Mary C. Boys (review)

Reviewed by: Redeeming Our Sacred Story: The Death of Jesus and Relations between Jews and Christians by Mary C. Boys Robert A. Krieg Redeeming Our Sacred Story: The Death of Jesus and Relations between Jews and Christians. By Mary C. Boys. (New York: Paulist Press. 2013. Pp. xii, 387. $29.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-8091-4817-2.) The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum (November 18, 1965), teaches that “the Old and New Testaments are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God” (n. 7). Since Christians’ inadequate approaches to this sacred mirror have generated erroneous theological ideas, Dei Verbum proceeds (nn. 8–20) to explain and endorse the critical interpretation of the Bible within the Church’s life and worship. Redeeming Our Sacred Story builds on Dei Verbum, as it aims at releasing the New Testament’s references to the Jewish people from longstanding, tragic misinterpretations. This enlightening book is the fruit of participation in Jewish-Christian dialogue by Mary C. Boys, Union Theological Seminary’s Skinner and McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology and dean of academic affairs. The book’s part I, “A Trembling Telling,” highlights the issue. On the one hand, Christians have at times wrongly appealed to Jesus’s suffering and death in support of their denigration of themselves and/or of others (for example, women, African Americans, and Jews). On the other hand, they have at other times rightly approached the cross as a “mirror” of their misery and their hope. This mirroring is often evident, for example, in the religious hymns of enslaved Black Christians (pp. 26–31). Part II, “A Troubling Telling—and Its Tragic Consequences,” examines how the passion narratives, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Pauline letters have served as the “raw materials for hostility to Jews” (p. 47). For example, they were distorted in Nazi propaganda against Jews and Judaism, and, for centuries, they were misread [End Page 589] in the Oberammergau Passion Play’s misrepresentation of the Jewish people as “Christ killers” (pp. 104–36). A decisive, ecclesiastical effort to overcome anti-Semitic renderings of the New Testament occurred not only with the Second Vatican Council’s Dei Verbum but also with its Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate (October 28, 1965). As Boys explains, this effort is continuing today, although not without occasional ambiguity, in the Vatican’s deliberate engagement in Jewish-Christian relations (pp. 130–36). Part III, “A Transformed Telling,” demonstrates how Christians, building on Dei Verbum, can adopt a judicious hermeneutics to assure an accurate reading of the Bible. In particular, it proposes “eight guidelines for interpreting New Testament texts about the passion and death of Jesus” (pp. 221–26). These helpful, concrete criteria are meant to free the true “power of the story” of Jesus Christ. In pursuit of this goal, Boys illumines how the gospels’ authentic power may be experienced in the Church’s devotional practices such as the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and meditations on Jesus’s “Seven Last Words.” The epilogue observes that this book is a “synthesis,” uniting “biblical, hermeneutical, and historical studies” for the sake of “a ‘practical’ theology” (p. 258). In this vein, it recommends that Christians will discover more of the New Testament’s wisdom as they learn from Jewish interpretations of the Bible as well as from Jewish art and literature on Jesus’s Crucifixion such as that rendered by Marc Chagall and Chaim Potok (pp. 265–68). Appearing fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, Redeeming Our Sacred Story is a significant, timely contribution to the Council’s renewal of the Church’s life, mission, and theology. Written in clear, energetic language, it is readily accessible to general readers, and it is an invaluable resource for pastors, homilists, catechists, and teachers. Robert A. Krieg University of Notre Dame Copyright © 2015 The Catholic University of America Press

The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy

This recent work by Aristotle Papanikolaou, professor of theology and founding co-director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University, is a profound achievement in political theology. Papanikolaou's work fills a great void in Orthodox Christian studies as well as political theology. Continuing his emphasis on divine-human communion and ecclesiology, he offers the beginnings of a contemporary Eastern Orthodox political theology divorced from imperial and Constantinian traditions found in most Orthodox thought. Additionally, he engages contemporary political theologians and ethicists such as William Cavanaugh, Vigen Guroian, Stanley Hauerwas, John Milbank, and Jeffrey Stout, suggesting possibilities for Christian engagement with liberal democratic civil society that some of these thinkers denounce. What I find particularly helpful in this work is his positive appreciation of liberal democracy and human rights from an Orthodox Christian perspective, which many Orthodox prelates and theologians simply find incompatible with their faith tradition. Papanikolaou starts his work with a discussion and critique of the Eusebian and Constantinian model of Orthodox political theology, bringing the discussion to the present age. Such a model has failed in the postimperial age of the church and does not reflect an alternative patristic theology that can be brought forth for the present age. In this regard, he suggests this other approach to political theology based on divine-human communion in Cappadocian thought as understood in the personalism of John Zizioulas. Emphasizing the importance of the human being as a relational being bearing the imago Dei and existing in Trinitarian relationships of love, a rich model for political theology can be developed. But Papanikolaou does not blindly accept the Eucharistic theologies offered by Nicholas Afanasiev and being discussed in the Radical Orthodox movement today, whereby a sectarian disavowal of the secular is maintained. Asking whether the option is the Eucharist or democracy as Cavanaugh and Guroian (and others) insist, he suggests that the Eucharistic basis of the church opens up the possibility for acceptance of the democratic political sphere as well as greater participation in the common good of civil society.

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Passing Over

When Pope Francis was elected in 2013, the church and the world were in for many surprises. His first actions and gestures would speak volumes about his values, vision, and understanding of God's mission. In his humility, solidarity, and magnanimity, he paid his own bills, ate meals with common workers, and visited those in prisons. As he began articulating God's universal care for all, he showed his concern for the vulnerable and marginalized, especially those excluded from the centres of power, privilege, and opportunity--those from the margins. Beyond these initial, highly symbolic gestures, his travel itinerary also revealed much about his mission priorities and pastoral perspective. His first journey outside the Vatican was not to Washington, Geneva, London, Beijing, or other centre of political, economic, and cultural power. Instead he chose to visit a small island off the coast of southern Italy named Lampedusa, where thousands of refugees have perished in their dangerous sea crossing in search for better lives. For most of the world, this was an unknown, isolated, and insignificant territory. But to Pope Francis it would be the land from which he would speak about the message of the reign of God, a message that addressed directly the degrading and dehumanizing conditions that result in poverty, exploitation, and injustice. Pope Francis chose to go to Lampedusa because the tragic deaths of these migrants and refugees reached him like a "thorn in the heart." He went there to "make a gesture of closeness," "to challenge our consciences," and to pray for the thousands who have lost their lives after migrating from countries like Eritrea, Somalia, Egypt, Gambia, Mali, Pakistan, and other countries. (2) During his visit he celebrated a eucharist liturgy, and in addition to speaking through words, actions, and rituals, the symbols of the liturgy magnified the depth and importance of his message. Before mass began outside in the open air, he threw a wreath into the sea in memory of the many migrants who had drowned in these waters. A ship's wheel was placed at the lectern, and the cross, chalice, and altar were carved from refugee boats. During the homily, he contrasted the heart of God's mercy with our own heartlessness in the face of human suffering: Has any one of us wept because of this situation and others like it? Has any one of us grieved for the death of these brothers and sisters? Has any one of us wept for these persons who were on the [refugee] boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men [sic] who were looking for a means of supporting their families? We are a society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion--"suffering with" others: the globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep! (3) Lampedusa, sadly enough, is not an isolated instance but rather a highly symbolic representation of a larger global phenomenon. Today there are more than 232 million international migrants in the world, making migration one of the defining issues of modern times. (4) In 2012 approximately 45 million migrants were forcibly uprooted, including 15.4 million refugees, 29 million internally displaced persons, and 2.4 million trafficked persons. (5) In 2010 alone 42 million were displaced by natural disasters. (6) By every estimate, these numbers will increase significantly in the coming years. They will continue to cross borders like those between Afghanistan and Iraq, Syria and Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, Burma and Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, Mexico and the United States, and many others. Some of the most vulnerable people in the process are women and children, who bear much of the burden of the world's economic, social, and political disorders. (7) In this essay I would like to examine gender injustice and the issue of international migration in ways that expand on Pope Francis's liturgy at Lampedusa by looking at this "globalization of difference" and the challenges of conversion. …

Exploring Karl Barth’s View on the Image of God

Exploring Karl Barth’s View on the Image of God Reymand M. Hutabarat Introduction The theology of Karl Barth is generally known as neo-orthodox.2 it is characterized by an encounter between God and man. This section present an introduction to the Barth’s theology; then briefly discusses his view of God, revelation, the Holy spirit, salvation, and last things. Karl Barth3was born in 1886 in Basel, Switzerland.4 His father was a professor of theology at Reformed seminary, who moved to the University of Bern when Karl was a small child.5 The young Karl grew up in that capital city of Switzerland and resolved to become a theologian at the time of his confirmation-he was only sixteen years old. He studied theology under some of the leading liberal. Protestant thinkers of Europe, including Adolf Harnack,6 and became a minister of the Reformed church, firs in Geneva, and the in small town of Safenwil on Switzerland’s border with Germany.7According to his later memories, Barth found that the Liberal Theology of his education did not translate into meaningful preaching that connected with the lives of the average people of the parish. He became disillusioned with liberal Protestantism when his own theological mentors such as Harnack and other German professors publicly supported the Kaiser’s war policy in 1914. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/ijpt.v3n1a17

18TH CENTURY BOOKS ON POETICS IN GERMAN AVAILABLE FOR DONELAITIS DURING HIS STUDY TIME

The paper is based on the hypothesis that the most important sources of Kristijonas Donelaitis’ poetic theory might have been some books in German about poetics, which were popular in Prussia in the first half of the 18th century. In all probability, the poet read these books between 1736 and 1740, during his study time at the University of Konigsberg, rather than later, when he was interested in other subjects (such as music and theology), and moreover living in small provincial centres without access to any specialized libraries.Since it is assumed that the most influential of these publications was the treatise Versuch einer Anleitung Zur Deutschen Poesie, published in 1732 in Konigsberg and written by Donelaitis’ teacher Heinrich Arnoldt, professor of theology at Konigsberg’s University, the paper pays great attention to this work by proposing a detailed analysis of it. It is also pointed out how Arnoldt’s book, together with Morlin’s treatise Principium primarium in lingva Lithvanica, influenced Donelaitis’ choice to write his poem in a popular style; in addition, the book could have influenced Donelaitis’ pietistic ideology.The paper ends with a shorter analysis of other two books, cited by Arnoldt, with which Donelaitis could have been likewise acquainted during his study time at the university: Gottsched’s Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst vor die Deutschen (1730) and the anonymous treatise Anleitung zur Poesie, Darinnen ihr Ursprung, Wachsthum, Beschaffenheit und rechter Gebrauch untersuchet und gezeiget wird (1725).

Calvin vs Wesley: Bringing Belief in Line with Practice.

Don Thorsen is Professor of Theology at the Haggard Graduate School of Theology, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, California. In this book he argues that, when it comes to practice, most Christians are closer to Wesley than to Calvin and that this is regardless of their stated theological position. In support of this thesis he offers a comparison between the two on the issues of the sovereignty of God, the authority of Scripture, predestination, prevenient grace, the scope of salvation, the quest for holiness, the nature of the Church, and the nature of ministry. In each case, he provides a clear and comprehensive account of the theology of each before comparing and contrasting the two. All technical words are clearly explained, making this a suitable introduction for those who have little or no prior knowledge of either the two men or theology, and of interest to the general reader.Despite the title, Thorsen makes clear that Wesley and Calvin agreed with each other more than they disagreed and, while he admits that his sympathies lie with Wesley, it is clear that he has striven to be fair to Calvin. That said, he characterizes Calvin as a systematically oriented theologian and he sees this ultimately as a weakness, arguing that Calvin allowed rational unity in theology to supersede individual experiences of faith and Spirit-led encounters.The book can clearly be recommended as an introduction to what each man said and in one sense it does exactly what it set out to do. However, the lack of a sense of historical context is regrettable. At times this came out simply in minor anachronisms, such as the fact the Wesley is regularly described as Anglo-Catholic. At other times, however, the book would have benefitted from a better awareness that the issues facing Calvin in the sixteenth century were simply different to those facing Wesley in the eighteenth, particularly when dealing with the issue of the relationship between Church and State. For example, the death of Servetus receives an inevitable mention, with no explanation of the different attitude to the nature of heresy which was prevalent in the early modern world.While the reading of both men is generally good, it is difficult to avoid the sense that Wesley always gets the more sympathetic interpretation. Issues in his theology are smoothed out slightly—for example, on Christian perfection—while the disagreement with Whitefield is played down, as is his lax attitude to Anglican Church discipline. Equally, in subtle ways, Calvin receives the opposite treatment. While the reading of Calvin put forward is certainly a reasonable one, the union with Christ receives disappointingly little attention and the argument that Calvin emphasized God's sovereignty over God's benevolence is not as clear-cut as Thorsen implies.Thorsen states from the beginning that he intends to focus on Calvin's and Wesley's own writings and, indeed, nearly all references are to primary documents. There is also no bibliography or any kind of guide for further reading.

KRISTIJONUI DONELAIČIUI STUDIJŲ LAIKAIS PRIEINAMOS XVIII A. POETIKOS KNYGOS VOKIEČIŲ KALBA

Dipartimento di Antichistica, Lingue, Educazione, Filosofia, Universita di Parma Via M. D‘Azeglio, 85, 43125 Parma, Italia El. pastas: guido.michelini@unipr.it Kristijono Donelaicio kūrybos istakas apžvelgianciuose tyrimuose dažnai pasitenkinama bendru XVIII a. literatūriniu kontekstu, nors būtų tikslinga mėginti nustatyti, per kokias konkrecias knygas buvo galima susipažinti su to konteksto idėjomis. Tam klausimui skiriamas sis straipsnis. Laikomasi nuomonės, kad teologas, muzikas ir poetas K. Donelaitis turėjo būti ypac gabus ir talentingas žmogus: tikriausiai jam pakako perskaityti ir gerai apmąstyti kelias „strategines“ knygas, kad remdamasis jomis galėtų sėkmingai plėtoti „Metuose“ pritaikytas mintis apie poetiką. Be tokių klasikinių veikalų kaip Aristotelio „Poetica“ ir Horacijaus „Ars poetica“ dvikalbis K. Donelaitis tikriausiai bus skaites tuomeciame Karaliauciuje populiarias naujausias poetikos knygas vokiecių kalba. Su jomis jis galėjo susipažinti studijų metais, nes vėliau, gyvendamas Prūsijos provincijoje, ilgą laiką atsidėjo kitiems dalykams; todėl tikslinga ieskoti pries studijų baigimą (1740) isėjusių vokiskų publikacijų. Neaisku, ar K. Donelaitis turėjo pakankamų prancūzų kalbos įgūdžių, kurie jam būtų leide įsigilinti į tokį svarbų ir XVIII a. populiarų veikalą kaip Nicolas Boileau „Art poetique“ (1674); toks klausimas nekyla dėl angliskų publikacijų, nes anglų kalbos jis nemokėjo.

Spiritually Bilingual: Buddhist Christians and the Process of Dual Religious Belonging

Spiritually Bilingual:Buddhist Christians and the Process of Dual Religious Belonging Jonathan Homrighausen Sociologists studying convert Buddhism in America have found that a surprisingly large number of Buddhists also identify as Christian.1 However, little empirical literature examines these Buddhist-Christian “dual religious belongers.”2 This study aims to fill that gap. Based on extensive interviews with eight self-identified “Buddhist Christians” of varying levels of doctrinal and experiential understanding, this study examines the conversion process of these dual belongers and how they combine these religious traditions. Building on Michael von Brück’s contention that one’s first religion is like a mother tongue, I compare taking on a second religious tradition to learning a second language.3 As practitioners become more “fluent” in the second religion, they differentiate the two religions more clearly while combining them more seamlessly in their daily lives. methodology This study employs grounded theory and a qualitative, inductive methodology. Grounded theory is designed to elucidate the dynamic changes involved in a social process, with rich descriptions of categories and explanations for variations between different people’s experiences.4 While the use of qualitative methods with a small sample size means that my results have little statistical significance, such methods have been used in recent research on conversion and dual belonging and yield deep theoretical insight.5 Eight participants for this study were solicited via word of mouth, personal acquaintance, and posting in a Buddhist-Christian Yahoo Group. In particular, I focused on Buddhist-Catholic practitioners to limit my sample group. Interviews were conducted and recorded in person or on the phone over a three-month period in fall, 2011. Interviews were open-ended, each lasting from sixty to ninety minutes. Several participants later received a draft of the paper to ensure they felt adequately represented; five participants responded. Names of participants have been changed for [End Page 57] confidentiality. To complement these interviews, I also incorporate written accounts of Buddhist-Christian conversion from both Catholic and Protestant authors.6 participants’ backgrounds It can be difficult to define Buddhist identity in the West, as many people who regularly practice meditation in a sangha do not self-identify as Buddhist.7 This study focuses on those who both practice Buddhist and Christian spirituality and belong to religious groups of both traditions. The eight participants have a range of religious expertise and commitment to both traditions. In terms of Catholic identity, six are laypeople (one in a secular religious order), one a priest, and one a nun. Three participants are theology professors. Seven have been Catholics from birth. One spent a decade living in a Buddhist monastery, two of them are roshis, and five give Buddhist teaching or meditation instruction formally. Seven of them practice various forms of Ch’an or Zen, while one practices Tibetan Buddhism. Cathy went not from Catholicism to Buddhism, but from Buddhism to Catholicism. A former Mormon and Unitarian, she began learning meditation at a Ch’an temple. This Ch’an temple normally only reached out to the Chinese community, but there was a Taiwanese nun there who wanted to reach out to non-Chinese community members. After practicing there for a few years, Cathy moved to another location, where she could not find any sangha that fit her needs. After attending Mass with a friend, she decided to become Catholic because she needed a community. It was not a hard transition for Cathy, who described feeling in meditation “some kind of entity, whether you call it God or Creator or atomic process.” She was confirmed as a Catholic in 2011. Rachel has been a nun for fifty years and a practicing Zen Buddhist for thirty, ten of those years living and working in a Zen monastery in the mountains of California. She described feeling an emptiness in her faith, a lack of practical knowledge of how to attain the spiritual goals that her Catholic tradition had for her. After hearing Zen teacher Cheri Huber speak at a conference, she took Huber on as her teacher. She has facilitated meditation workshops for many years. Though meditation instruction is not her full-time ministry, “meditation is my life … so in a sense...

Le temps découvert. Développement et durée chez Newman et Bergson by Grégory Solari

NEWMAN STUDIES JOURNAL ____________________________________________________________________ BOOK REVIEW Le temps découvert. Développement et durée chez Newman et Bergson. By Grégory Solari. Paris. Les Éditions du Cerf, 2014. Pages: 204. Softcover, 24 euros, ISBV 9782 -204-10084-7 CHARLES TALAR ____________________________________________________________________ In the course of his long philosophical itinerary Henri Bergson (1859 – 1941) conducted a sustained analysis of the nature and role of reason. A comparatively neglected philosophical figure today, in his own time he was the premier intellectual spokesman of his era, especially after the publication of Creative Evolution (1907), the book which established his world reputation. Bergson was aware of Newman’s work. In 1907 he observed to Jacques Chevalier that Newman’s thought was more timely than it had ever been. However, it is difficult to state with any precision the nature and extent of Bergson’s knowledge of that thought. His mastery of English was such that he was capable of reading Newman without relying on translations, but there is no explicit reference to his having done so. In 1914 his nephew, Floris Delattre, sent him a bilingual anthology of Newman texts that Delattre had published, but there is no substantive discussion of it, or even indication that Bergson had read it. True, a number of French figures who were notably influenced by/active propagators of the “nouvelle philosophie” of Bergson—Chevalier, Edouard Le Roy, Jean Guitton—all were manifestly interested in Newman (a 1926 lecture by Chevalier on “Newman and the Notion of Development” forms an appendix to this volume). But any discussions they may have had with Bergson regarding Newman must remain in the realm of speculation. Solari’s study, then, is not an attempt to trace lines of influence of Newman’s thought upon that of Bergson. Nor is it a classic comparative study of the two thinkers. Rather, S. argues for a “connaturality” between Newman and Bergson, evident in affinities between the notional and the real that reside at the core of Newman’s thought, and those of intuition and intelligence central to Bergson’s. Such fundamental affinities enable S. to draw upon Bergson’s analysis of time to explore the temporal dimension of the Essay on Development in ways that remain unthought by Newman, whose primary concerns there were historical and theological. ___________________________________ Charles Talar is Professor of Systematic Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary, Houston Texas. 112 BOOK REVIEW Reciprocally, S. is able to argue for an undeveloped potential in Bergson’s philosophy, latent but discernible, that, with the aid of Newman’s appreciation of the connection between doctrines and life, can actualize that potential. In an introduction S. lays the foundations for his contention of affinity between the two men and proposes that the notion of development that Newman disengaged from his study of history resembles that of “duration” which Bergson intuited from his study of Zeno’s paradoxes. Ch. 1 begins the task of “clarifying the Newmanian notion of development in light of Bergsonian duration” (39), raising focal concerns in the Essay and making suggestive connections with those of Bergson and the Bergsonians mentioned earlier, who developed his thought in France. Chapter 2 develops those connections. For example, Bergson had challenged the habitual way of regarding time as a series of successive states that represented it as a linear narrative of past, present, and future. An immediate consciousness of time as duration reconfigures it as a continuous flow, a temporal synthesis analogous to a melody. With Newman, “if there is real change between a non-defined belief and a defined belief, the latter must be thought of not as a passage from one state to another, but as the moment in a continuous process, or again as its condition of visibility, as time is the condition of the expression of duration” (98). While in Ch. 2 Bergsonian duration is used to bring clarification to certain difficulties posed by Newman’s development, in Ch. 3 Newman’s appreciation of dogma is drawn upon to correct Bergson’s. Bergson approached dogma from the outside, and thus its conceptual aspect was paramount. Early on, in his 1816 conversion, Newman recognized dogma at the interior of religion, in intimate connection with...

Review of John B. Cobb, Jr. (ed.), 2012, Religions in the Making

In 1926, the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead published his seminal work, Religion in the Making, reflecting on the place of religion in human life in light of his innovative cosmology. In this work Whitehead lamented that neither Christianity nor Buddhism had engaged in a full dialogue with contemporary science and cosmology, and he hoped for such reflection in the future. Three years later, Whitehead published a more systematic reflection on God and the cosmos, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. Departing from most traditional monotheistic approaches, Whitehead presented creativity as the ultimate in his philosophy of organism, and he viewed God as its primordial accident. For Whitehead, God does not create the universe out of nothing, does not radically transcend the world, and is not omnipotent. Whitehead saw God as constantly interacting with the world, receiving each event into the divine life and proposing a divine aim for each new occasion, operating by persuasion, not coercion. While Whitehead was not a professional theologian, his philosophy of organism had an important influence on many Christian theologians in the decades that followed, and Mordecai Kaplan developed the ideas for Reconstructionist Judaism in awareness of Whitehead’s work. In Religions in the Making, one of the most distinguished leaders of Christian process theology, John B. Cobb, Jr., invites scholars from a variety of religions to consider the relation between Whitehead’s thought and the perspectives of their respective traditions.

Richard Špaček o Janově evangeliu: Kapitola z dějin české biblistiky

Richard Spacek (1864-1925) is primarily known as Professor of dogmatic theology and Dean of Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology in Olomouc. It is, however, less known that he began his academic career as a New Testament scholar. This article analyses his paper The Fourth Gospel in Protestant Scholarship, published in the periodical Journal of the Catholic Clergy (Casopis katolickeho duchovenstva) in 1909. I claim that Spacek composed this text, which is a compilation of several German sources, with two intentions. First, he aimed at providing the Czech Catholic clergy with an answer to the translation of Harnack's History of Dogma. Second, he struggled to provide a solution to historical-critical questions, which would be in accord with the recent decision of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Karl Barth's Emergency Homiletic 1932–1933: A Summons to Prophetic Witness at the Dawn of the Third Reich. By Angela Dienhart Hancock. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2013. xvi + 372 pp. $42.00.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Karl Emergency Homiletic 1932-1933: A Summons Prophetic Witness at the Dawn of the Third Reich . By Angela Dienhart Hancock . Grand Rapids, Mich. : William B. Eerdmans Publishing , 2013. xvi + 372 pp. $42.00.Book Reviews and NotesAngela Dienhart Hancock offers a fascinating and engaging contextual reading of homiletic by setting it into a thick description of the political, academic and theological context of the end of the Weimar republic and the rise of the Third Reich in Germany.The book is made up of two major parts: the setting of the scene and the representation of homiletic lectures. The first part, which makes up more than half of the volume, provides a detailed picture of the setting into which homiletic speaks, narrowing in on the scene from four different angles. In chapter 1, which sketches the trajectory of Karl theological biography from his studies in Marburg onwards, Hancock gives special attention discovery of the threefold form of the Word. Against many a flatfooted reading of (30) which perceive him as one-sidedly pointing transcendence, Hancock aligns with those strands of Barth interpretation reading him as a strongly contextual thinker. She points out complex engagement with culture by the Leitmotifs of Realdialektik and analogia fidei , borrowing a concept from George Hunsinger draw on Bruce McCormack's analysis of Barth (26-30). Chapter 2, a portrayal of the political history of Weimar, highlights the precarious and unstable situation of the young republic after the war, the rise of National Socialism and how it impacted and was witnessed by Barth, the German church, and the theological academy. As a third angle, chapter 3 zooms in scrutinize the political language of the Weimar years. Hancock dismisses the characterization of Germans as unpolitical as a myth. The permeation of the press, propaganda, theology and everyday language by political shows them be hyper-political, if anything (97). In this situation, silence with regard political events has be read as a determined way deprive them of their pathos (121) and, thus, as a strategy of nonviolent resistance (122). As a fourth route of advance homiletic, Hancock presents the homiletic tradition and developments from Friedrich Schleiermacher Emil Pfennigsdorf, professor of practical theology in Bonn at the time when Barth embarks on his own homiletic enterprise. She highlights the war as a new paradigm of preaching as well as the conspicuous absence of studies about the homiletic of the Weimar era. She demonstrates how the theme sermon and the effectiveness of preaching become the call of the hour from Political Theologians (170). turn away from theme preaching towards the biblical text and from a rhetorical and formal homiletic a principal homiletic stands in stark contrast this use, but also in continuity the enterprise of taking the modern listener and the modern task of preaching seriously: Barth's emergency homiletic was born of the conviction that how these novice preachers went about their task as Weimar crumbled mattered (91).The second, somewhat shorter, part of the book (chapters 5-6), is dedicated a re-narration of lectures on homiletics in the winter semester of 1932-33 and the summer semester of 1933. Hancock takes into account not only the published version of 1966, but also Charlotte von Kirschbaum's notes and student protocols, thus providing insight into hitherto unpublished sources. Session for session, she gives a synoptic account of the political developments around classroom and of the content of his teaching.The tumultuous historic events covered start from the electoral campaign for presidential election in July 1932 up the church elections of July 1933. She shows how in this agitated context, homiletic spoke out against fixed schemas of interpretation and application, how he encouraged the students to think for themselves and made a point of engaging their ideas (209). …

‘Wann du fromm lebst / so wirst du nimmer trawrig’: Professor Jodocus Lorichius and the Cistercian Nuns of Günterstal

This article examines the relationship between Jodocus Lorichius, a Freiburg theology professor, and female monastic houses in South-West Germany in the second half of the sixteenth century. It looks at the books which Lorichius dedicated to certain nuns, highlighting Lorichius’s interest in the past, and how they were adapted to suit the needs of the present. It sheds new light on Lorichius’s character, on writing for women, and on the transmission, translation and adaptation of Latin and German medieval works.

The Holy Spirit as the Fulfillment of the Liturgy

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes James B. Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 32. Vladimir Lossky, Orthodoxy Theology: An Introduction (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1989), 46. C. F. D. Moule, The Holy Spirit (London: Mowbrays, 1980), 44. Basil the Great, De Spiritu Sancto, 1:3, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3203.htm. Pavel Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, trans. Boris Jakim (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 85. E.g., Otto Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics, trans. Darrell L. Guder (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 2: 235–36. Eugene F. Rogers, “The Mystery of the Spirit in Three Traditions: Calvin, Rahner, Florensky Or, You Keep Wondering Where the Spirit Went,” Modern Theology 19, no. 2 (April 2003): 243–60 (256). See the generally negative assessment by R. A. Knox, Enthusiasm (London: Collins, 1987 [1950]). Such examples can be seen in The Spirit of Worship and Worship in the Spirit, eds. Teresa Berger and Bryan Spinks (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009). W. J. Hollenweger, “Gifts of the Spirit: Natural and Supernatural,” in International Dictionary of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 667–68. E.g., John Mansford Prior, S.V.D., “Jesus Christ the Way to the Father: The Challenge of the Pentecostals,” FABC Papers 119, http://www.fabc.org/fabc%20papers/fabc_paper_119.pdf. Lumen Gentium no. 4, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html. Hans urs von Balthasar, Explorations in Theology III: Creator Spirit, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 125–26. Cf. David L. Schindler, “Institution and Charism: The Missions of the Son and the Spirit in Church and World,” Communio 25, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 258. Boris Bobrinskoy, “The Church and the Holy Spirit in 20th Century Russia,” Ecumenical Review 52, no. 3 (2000): 329. The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann 1973–1983, trans. Juliana Schmemann (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2002), 137, 291–92. Emphasis his. Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1:157. Jenson, Systematic Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 2:204–5. Jenson, Systematic Theology 2:167–88 (see n. 16). Translation by the author. Angelos J. Philippou, “The Mystery of Pentecost,” in The Orthodox Ethos, ed. A. J. Philippou (Oxford: Holywell, 1964), 91. Nissiotis, “Spirit, Church, and Ministry,” Theology Today 19 (1963): 485. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke, 1957), 168. Author's emphasis. David du Plessis, The Spirit Bade Me Go: The Astounding Move of God in the Denominational Churches, rev. ed. (Oakland, CA: David du Plessis, 1963), 16. Reinhard Hütter, Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans, 2000). John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press), 130. Nikos A. Nissiotis, “Called to Unity: The Significance of the Invocation of the Spirit for Church Unity,” in Lausanne 77: Fifty Years of Faith and Order (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1977), 54. Florensky, 89–90 (see n. 5). For a classic study of the synergistic nature of the liturgy see Jean Corbon, The Wellspring of Worship, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005). Kenneth Paul Wesche, “The Doctrine of Deification: A Call to Worship,” Theology Today 65 (2008): 175. Gordon W. Lathrop, Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993). Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 30, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html. “The Second Helvitic Confession,” in Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition: Reformation Era, vol. 2, eds. Jaraslav Pelikan and Valarie Hotchkiss (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), chap. 1, sect. 4. John H. McKenna, The Eucharistic Epiclesis: A Detailed History from the Patristic to the Modern Era, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2009), chap. 8. “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville, TN: United Methodist Publications, 1989), #384. Convergence churches are those seeking to integrate the sacramental, evangelical, and charismatic dimensions of worship. See Wayne Boosahda and Randy Sly, “The Convergence Movement,” in The Complete Library of Christian Worship, vol. 2, ed. Robert Webber (Nashville, TN: Star Song, 1994), 134–40. Wout van Laar, “Churches as Healing Communities: Impulses from the South for an Integral Understanding of Healing,” Exchange 35, no. 2 (January 1, 2006): 226–41. Additional informationNotes on contributorsSimon ChanSimon Chan is the Earnest Lau Professor of Systematic Theology, Trinity Theological College, Singapore.

Loving Father, Embodied Son, and Life-Giving Spirit: The Trinitarian Narrative and Liturgical Experience

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes This essay is built on and draws heavily from my Trinity and Revelation, vol. 2: A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), chap. 2. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, bk. 2, eds. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956–1975), 483, 512–13. Gospel and the Church—The Malta Report (1972), no. 16, available at http://www.pro.urbe.it/dia-int/l-rc/doc/e_l-rc_malta.html. Dei Verbum, no. 2, available at http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html. For theological reflections, see Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “‘Evil, Love and the Left Hand of God': The Contribution of Luther's Theology of the Cross to an Evangelical Theology of Evil,” Evangelical Quarterly 74, no. 3 (July 2002): 215–34. Martin Luther, “Heidelberg Disputation,” in Luther's Works, eds. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1957), 31:57 (hereafter LW). LW, 31:52. Ibid. LW, 31:53. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993), 26. Ibid., 27. Chung Hyun Kung, The Struggle to Be the Sun Again (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 39. Luther juxtaposes “negative” and “positive” works of God using different kinds of nomenclatures, such as left and right hand or alien and proper work. He uses them in the context of speaking of two governments, divine and earthly; in the context of two kinds of theologians, namely theologian of the cross who discerns God in opposite elements such as divine suffering and humiliation, and theologian of the glory; in the context of soteriology, namely showing us, first, to be sinners who are desperate, and then making us just and hopeful. Anne Wonhee Joh, Heart of the Cross: A Postcolonial Christology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006), xxi. Andrew Sung Park, The Wounded Heart of God: The Asian Concept of Han and the Christian Doctrine of Sin (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 123. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.6.6, available at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103406.htm. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 8.1, available at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm. Aquinas, Summa Theologia 3.1.1, available at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/. Karl Rahner, “The Quest for Approaches Leading to an Understanding of the Mystery of the God-Man Jesus,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 13, trans. David Bourke (New York: Seabury, 1975), 200. Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel (London: Burns & Oates, 1970), 32–33 (33). Karl Rahner, “The Body in the Order of Salvation,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 17, trans. Margaret Kohl (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 74. Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, bk. 1, 119 (see n. 2); cf. Vatican II's Dei Verbum no. 4. See 1 Corinthians 2:9–10: “But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,’ God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 379. Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 49–50. Ibid., 216. Additional informationNotes on contributorsVeli-Matti KärkkäinenVeli-Matti Kärkkäinen is professor of systematic theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, and Docent of Ecumenics, University of Helsinki, Finland.

The Dismissal of Father Charles Curran and the Catholic University Strike, April 1967

In April 1967, the board of trustees of Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., dismissed Father Charles Curran from his position as theology professor without any hearing or explanation. In response, the CUA faculty led a campus-wide strike in support of Curran, which succeeded in having Curran reinstated as a professor. The story of the strike narrated below draws from never-before published material from the archives of CUA and the personal papers of key bishops on the CUA board of trustees. The battle which played out at Catholic University centered on the question that consumed Catholic higher education throughout the country during the turbulent years following the Second Vatican Council: “What is the meaning of academic freedom at a Catholic university that seeks to be fully American?” Widespread frustration among Catholic intellectuals with ecclesiastical control found a willing and powerful ally in the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), whose principles had developed during the twentieth century into a quasi-religious ideology of academic freedom in opposition to any and all creedal statements of a priori dogmatic truth. Throughout the 1960s the AAUP waged an aggressive attack on religious institutions of higher education demanding they renounce commitments to denominational interests. The outcome of this high-profile clash of opinions over the nature of bishops’ authority over theology professors remains normative in U.S. Catholic higher education.