Resurrection Of Christ Research Articles

The Precarious Status of Resurrection in Friedrich Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre

Abstract: The Glaubenslehre provides the context for this exploration of Schleiermacher's understanding of Christ's resurrection in relation to redemption, the nature‐system and eschatology. In spite of Schleiermacher's affirmation of the historicity of Christ's resurrection, he proceeds to empty the resurrection of redemptive significance, thereby maintaining consistency with a nature‐system that implicitly disallows miracles, and resulting in an eschatology in which the resurrection of individual believers is posited in severe tension with the consummation of the church. Thus, the weight of Schleiermacher's consistent argumentation regarding redemption, the nature‐system and eschatology suggests that there is no room for resurrection in the Glaubenslehre in relation to either Christ or individual believers.

Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities (review)

Reviewed by: Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities Jennifer A. Harris (bio) Willi Braun, editor. Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities Wilfrid Laurier University Press. 258. $59.95 Conference proceedings appear to be taking the numerical lead in scholarly publication. Lists of recent publications are fatted with such works. Not every volume, however, is as thoughtfully gathered and insightful as the recent collection, edited by Willi Braun, entitled Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities. Braun has collected and commissioned nine papers on the use of rhetoric in the first six centuries of Christianity. The papers range chronologically in subject matter from the Gospel of Thomas (first century) to the Life of Saint Martin (sixth century). The purpose of the volume is to peer through the written practices of rhetoric to the social and religious realities beyond. In his introduction, Braun notes the situation of early Christianities in the ancient world, where religious pluralism was supported (and challenged) by the many means of persuading people to embrace one form of life or another. Braun's rather labyrinthine prose introduces the reader both to the scholarly debates about ancient rhetoric and to the volume's inclusive approach. It is tough going, at first; however, once having braved the introduction, one is rewarded with nine essays that fairly bristle with clear and urgent interest in pushing past the niceties of rhetorical criticism (observant of structure to the point of losing context) to the social settings that bring the arts of persuasion to life. Of the nine engaging essays, I can comment upon only two in any detail. The first, by Laurence Broadhurst, deals with the second-century paschal homily by Melito of Sardis. This text, renowned for its virulent anti-Judaism and novel assertion of Jewish deicide, is treated within the context of forms of rhetoric known and practised in Asia Minor. Current scholarship on Melito's sermon has reached something of a stalemate, suggesting that the homily is either directed at an imagined Judaism for purely rhetorical (hence theological) ends or at a real second-century opponent. Broadhurst, however, effectively demonstrates that the text, while indebted to the Second Sophistic 'school' of rhetoric, deals with real opponents, thus offering a nuanced understanding of rhetoric used in aid of theological [End Page 371] arguments. His reading of the homily makes no excuse for the latter's rhetorical excess and vituperative content; instead, Broadhurst seeks to understand Melito's discourse within a larger strategy for creating a Christian identity in the second century. His is a welcome addition to the ongoing scholarly re-evaluation of the conditions of Jewish-Christian relations in pre-modern Christianity. The other noteworthy essay, by John Kitchen, revisits the symbols of slavery and redemption that originate in Paul's letters and populate early medieval discourse. Kitchen approaches this language first through the analysis of a sociologist of slavery and a medievalist. His essay then provides a necessary corrective to their ideas about the support for slavery in the rhetoric of saints' lives. Using the life of St Martin, Kitchen notes the subversive use of resurrection imagery in the freeing of slaves, and suggests the death and resurrection of Christ is key to understanding the hagiographical rhetoric that might otherwise appear to bolster (or, at least, not question) institutionalized slavery. Kitchen's subtle reading of medieval hagiography provides a much-needed re-examination of the value of saints' lives. Like Broadhurst, Kitchen enters a controversial field of study and creates room for new readings that negotiate between existing scholarly extremes. The other essays in this collection offer thoughtful readings of the domestic code in Colossians, texts from the cult of Mithras, ritual responses to death, and the Christianization of Europe. In every case, the author weaves together some form of contemporary theory (e.g., ritual studies and social memory theory) with a desire to reread rhetoric in the light of social realities. The essays are of varying length, and one wishes at times for greater consistency in format. Nevertheless, they argue well for the study of rhetoric as a social, rather than merely literary practice. The volume is well worth reading, in its parts and as a whole. Jennifer A...

Hoping to Death: Baptism, Eschatology and Ethics

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Peter Gilmour, “Take Me Out,” Liturgy 21, no. 1 (2006): 51–53. In the opening verses of the sixth chapter, Paul equates baptism and being united with Christ's death (6:3), and therefore we are united with Christ's resurrection (6:4). Mark Searle, “Infant Baptism Reconsidered,” in Alternative Futures for Worship, Vol. 2, Baptism and Confirmation. ed. M. Searle (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1987), 40–43. Ellwood makes a distinction between the “great tradition” and the “little tradition.” The great tradition consists of the larger, overarching traditions of a religion, while the little tradition is comprised of local, familial, or individual practices and preferences, what one might consider “folk religion.” This distinction nicely parallels the distinction between Faith and faith I am making here. See Robert Ellwood, Introducing Religion: From Inside and Outside, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), 121–25. Many Protest denominations have created their own catechumenal process of adult initiation, including the Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians/Anglicans. Regis Duffy, Real Presence (New York: Harper and Row, 1982): 111. Duffy cites the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus as one example of service done in Christ's name as evidence of fitness for entrance into the church. Regis Duffy, O.F.M. scholar, mentor, and friend, died on January 4, 2006 after an extended illness. He was the rare person whose actions were as poignant as his words in communicating the Gospel. Regis will be sorely missed. This essay is offered in his memory. Duffy, 115. This is especially clear in Romans 6:4 where Paul describes the baptized in Christological terms; as Christ as died, so we have died, as Christ has been raised, so we have been raised. “So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ.” Romans 6:11 (NRSV). “…and that you, having been set free from sin, have becomes slaves of righteousness.” Romans 6:18 (NRSV). Duffy, 117. Ibid. 117. Ibid. 123. Such as the calls for sexual purity (1 Cor. 10:8), as well as for ritual purity (1 Cor. 10:14ff). Paul's description of divided table fellowship is seen as a sin against Christ, and one which has invoked God's judgment (1 Cor. 11:27–32). See 1 Corinthians 8:7–12. The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) determined that one need not follow the prescriptions of the Jewish ritual law to be a Christian. In particular males need not be circumcised before being baptized. Not all agreed with this decision, notably the group Paul addresses in Galatians which he refers to as the “circumcision party,” Galatians 2:12. This is most clear in Paul's calling Peter to task on his inconsistencies on this matter (Gal. 2:11–14). Galatians 2:9–10. Paul's litany of marks of unholy living (Gal. 5:19–21) and the subsequent marks of holy living (5:22–23) are both prefaced by the assumption that one is called to communal and ethical standards beyond personal piety. We are called into a community that stands over against the world in terms of its love for one another and its ministry to those in need (5:13–15). Paul's ironic image only underscores the seriousness with which he takes this issue. If the improper Faith is taught, in speech and in example, then those being formed in the faith will not be formed in the Christian faith, and Christ's work has been in vain. The relationship between initiation and ethical living is not peripheral but central to the Christian faith. It is through baptism that the distinctions of the world are erased through Christ's saving acts, erasing the distinction between genders, nationality, and class (Gal. 3:27–29). Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Modern Society (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 100. Clapp, 100. In particular Clapp identifies Romans 8:15–17 and Galatians 3:26—4:6 and their use of adoption language to define baptism and inclusion in the body of Christ. For the story of Hubmaier's faith journey and an analysis of his theology of baptism see my essay “Ordination or Initiation? Balthasar Hubmaier's Rite of Baptism” Studia Liturgica 25 (1995): 68–85. Johnson, 83–85. This is especially clear in that the bestowal of the keys and the authority to bind and loose sins, which was only done at the ordination of a bishop, was done at every baptism. For examples of process models of infant initiation see, Gail Ramshaw-Schmidt, “Celebrating Baptism in Stages: A Proposal” in Searle, ed. Baptism and Confirmation, 137–55; and Todd E. Johnson, “Rethinking Infant Initiation,” Catholic Issues, http://home.adelphi.edu/∼catissue/ISSUES/JOHNSON.HTM (Accessed October 17, 2006).

Covers

Front and back cover caption, volume 22 issue 6Front coverCaption to front cover: ‘From this murdered man are born all the men of tomorrow’: ‘The death and resurrection of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’, by Alicia Leal. Che Guevara died nearly 40 years ago in the jungles of Bolivia. He was almost immediately drafted into the canon of post‐Catholic saints. Jorge Castaneda argues that the official army photograph of Che, taken after he was executed by Bolivian soldiers with CIA assistance — head raised, eyes open, a faint smile on his lips — became the very icon of a saintly revolutionary. This Christ‐like image fuelled a popular myth among the poor of Latin America that their ‘querido Che’ would some day rise again. A Cuban expedition to Bolivia in 1997 located, exhumed and repatriated Che's remains. Dr Jorge Gonzalez, the forensic pathologist in charge, later described to Nancy Scheper‐Hughes the ‘almost mystical’ moment when his shovel hit a skull and he had the privilege of reaching down into the earth to retrieve the bones of their national hero.For Catholics and communists alike, dead bodies exercise a strong influence on the imagination. Once transplanted for human use, however, body parts are stripped of their owner's personality before being implanted into another body, whose biography they then assume. In this issue, Nancy Scheper‐Hughes considers the criminal traffic in tissues and other body parts brought to light by the abuse of the body of broadcaster Alistair Cooke (1908‐2004), whose bones were anonymously and illegally sold to be implanted in many bodies worldwide. When told of the crime by police, Cooke's daughter, an Anglican priest, invoked the death, vanished body and resurrection of Christ in her preaching as she struggled to come to terms with the crime.Back cover‘OSAMA BIN LADEN'S MEN’ IN THE SAHARA‘Terrorists’ belonging to the Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC), who took 32 European tourists hostage in the Algerian Sahara in 2003, pose for tourists in Mali and Niger. Despite the Algerian and US authorities' claim that their leader, El Para, is, or was, bin Laden's ‘man in the Sahel’, many local people believe him to be a member of Algeria's counter‐terrorist service, the Direction de Renseignements et de la Sécurité.The last of the 32 hostages were released in August 2003. Between December 2003 and March 2004 El Para and his men were allegedly chased from their ‘terrorist bases’ in Mali across Niger into Chad by a combined force of Malian, Nigerien and Algerian troops, assisted by US aerial surveillance. They ran into groups of German, French and Austrian tourists near Timbuktu (December 2003) and then at Temet in the Aïr Mountains of Niger on 24 February 2004. On both occasions they were keen to be photographed (right). The ‘contract’ was signed at Temet on 24 February 2004.For all the claims made by U.S. and Algerian authorities, no ‘al‐Quaida bases’ have yet been found, despite the best efforts of American satellites and Special Forces on the ground. We are now told that the bases, rather like Saddam Hussein's chemical weapon factories, are ‘mobile’, and thus hard to find. These photos depict such ‘mobile bases’— easily ‘located’ by tourists passing by.It is less difficult to conjure up terrorists than to control their legacy. The Tuareg term for a ‘terrorist’ like El Para is the French word ‘fantôme’. This ghostly metaphor invokes comparison with ‘freedom fighters’ who, after death, are glorified by their followers as heroes and martyrs. A notable example is the legend surrounding Che Guevara (see front cover). American intelligence agencies, in seeking to spread ‘democracy’ and secure their people against foreign threats, have been involved in fighting both types abroad. Perhaps they have learnt that the ‘phantom terrorists’ are easier to control than real‐life martyrs.

HISTORY AND RELIGION IN THE MODERN AGE

ABSTRACTThis essay seeks to clarify the relationship between history and religion in the modern age. It proceeds in three steps. First, it draws attention to the radical asymmetry between first‐person and third‐person statements that Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations rescued from the metaphysical exile to which it had been condemned by Descartes's definition of the self as a thing. Second, it argues that religion is designed to alleviate the peculiarly human kind of suffering arising from this asymmetry. Third, it maintains that history relies on the same means as religion in order to achieve the same results. The turn to historical evidence performed by historians and their readers is more than just a path to knowledge. It is a religious ritual designed to make participants at home in their natural and social environments. Quite like the ritual representation of the death and resurrection of Christ in the Mass, the historical representation of the past underwrites the faith in human liberty and the hope in redemption from suffering. It helps human beings to find their bearings in the modern age without having to go to pre‐industrial churches and pray in old agrarian ways. History does not conflict with the historical religions merely because it reveals them to have been founded on beliefs that cannot be supported by the evidence. History conflicts with the historical religions because it is a rival religion.

Mel Gibson's Passion: the film, the controversy, and its implications

Introduction unprecedented biblical-cinematic debate on the merits and demerits of Mel Gibson's controversial Jesus movie, Passion of the Christ, began long before its release nationwide in 2000-plus theaters on Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2004. A combined group of Christian and Jewish scholars convened by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Advisory Committee on Catholic-Jewish Relations and the leadership of the Anti-Defamation League met in Spring 2003 to evaluate the film's biblical accuracy in conformity with the Catholic Bishops' Guidelines on Passion Plays.(1) Their judgment was two thumbs down in both categories, and they offered corrections to balance history and scripture and strong suggestions to purge the anti-Judaism motif in the script. Though Gibson and his film company, Icon, were knowledgeable and initially supported this ecumenical review, they rejected vehemently the scholars' advisory, threatened lawsuits, and informed the media that the script was stolen and outdated.(2) rest is commentary. Gibson's Passion has produced in its wake a flurry of opinion pieces, syndicated columns, and cover stories in major newspapers (e.g., Forward, LA Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Village Voice), Catholic and Jewish Journals (e.g., America, Commonweal, Commentary, New Republic, New Yorker, and Tikkun), newsmagazines (e.g., Newsweek, Time, Vanity Fair), movie reviews, and study guides(3) on how to make sense of the willful death of the suffering savior of the Christian faith. first response made it abundantly clear: the film has shocked and divided Christians and Jews, between and among themselves, in how to view and review the traditional Jesus of the Gospels. On one side there are Jewish literati Frank Rich, Charles Krauthammer, and Leon Wieseltier, who opined that the films cinematic exaggeration is intoxicated by blood, bloodthirstiness, and blood libel(4); religiously observant and politically conservative Jewish radio talk-show hosts, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, and Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who see Jewish criticism as a mistake and misrepresenting Gibson's conscientious attempt to portray a non-antisemitic Jewish Messiah and his sympathetic Jewish followers; and Jews and Christians who express a deep concern that Gibson's dark portrayal of Temple leaders and the Jewish crowd renders asunder the good work done in Jewish-Catholic-Protestant dialogue since Vatican Council II. On the other side, there are Pentecostals and other evangelical Christians rediscovering a centralist Reformation theology that a suffering savior crowned with thorns, caused by our sins, is willed by God. What traditionalist Catholics never lost, born-again Christians are discovering, and both streams are returning to scriptural basics: a bloodied Christ on the cross is necessary for the salvation of mankind.(5) Mel Gibson focuses on the Passion, not the life or resurrection of Christ. By doing so, he leaves out most of the elements of the Jesus story familiar to Christians, and consequently he adds non-biblical gruesome details foreign to the Gospels. Case in point, the mean-spirited visions of the 18th-century Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich detailing the arrest and flagellation of Jesus eked out by shouts from a crowd of bloodthirsty Jews. Her problematic diaries, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ,(6) added to other distressing historical and linguistic inaccuracies, make a sham of Gibson's claim that he was striving for historical accuracy.(7) Nonetheless, countless Catholic and Protestant church leaders maintain the oft-quoted but disputed papal review: It is as it was. …

Christ in the Theologies of Paul and John: A Study in the Diverse Unity of New testament Theology

The foundational experience underlying Paul's Christology is the call and conversion that led him to focus his Christology on the death and resurrection of Christ. The foundational experience underlying the Christology of the Fourth Gospel is the witness of the Beloved Disciple to the incarnate Word, an experience that focuses the Gospel's Christology on the Incarnation. These different starting points clarify the diverse ways that Paul and John understood God's revelation, the human condition, and salvation.

Sharing Our Humanity: The Psychological Power of the Catholic Mass

Sharing Our Humanity:The Psychological Power of the Catholic Mass William Shuter The Mass is the central act of Catholic worship. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997) describes it as "the sum and summary of our faith" (1327) and "the source and summit of the Christian life" (1324). It is also central to the sense of Catholic identity. A "practicing" Catholic is in effect a Mass-going Catholic. Why does the Mass mean so much to so many? Instructed Catholics who continue to understand the Mass as the Church has taught them to understand it can no doubt answer the question in terms that would satisfy a catechist, but their actual experience of Mass is more varied and more complex than any statement of formal doctrine recognizes. Children of various ages experience the Mass differently from each other and from adults, while adults themselves discern very different meanings in the impressive rite with which they have been familiar since childhood. When "cradle" Catholics (those raised as Catholics) attend Mass, however, they at some level of consciousness experience it as the same Mass they first knew as children and are therefore reminded of the relation between their earlier and their later selves. Neither theology nor psychology alone can adequately explain this power of the Mass to engage the imagination of the child and to retain or even strengthen its hold on the mind of the adult. Since the Church claims to speak with authority of the divine nature, while psychology speaks from its observation and experience of our human nature, a dialogue on the meaning of the Mass should prove instructive, although the question will inevitably be construed somewhat differently by the participants on either side. For the purposes of a specifically psychoanalytic reading, the question will take the form, "What does the Mass mean at the more archaic as well as at the more recent levels of our mental life?" [End Page 7] 1 The first principal part of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Word, is introduced by the Penitential Rite, a communal confession of sin concluding with the priest's absolution. The second principal part, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, begins with the preparation and consecration of the gifts of bread and wine. The consecrated gifts are then offered to God the Father, as the priest recalls Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension. Then follows the communion of the faithful, the last of the principal actions of the Mass. A detailed account of the Mass as a reenactment of the sacrificial death and the resurrection of Christ has been given by Jung (1942). Jung's chief interest, however, lay in mythological motifs and parallels from the literature of alchemy. He wrote, moreover, before the reformation of the liturgy in the 1960s. Because he neglected the Penitential Rite and the Liturgy of the Word, and because of his entire theoretical framework, his account of the psychological sequence represented in the Mass differs substantially from that which I am presenting here. The Mass begins with a collective admission of guilt. In the Penitential Rite, those present acknowledge that they have sinned in thought, in word, and in what they have done as well as what they have failed to do, and they pray for forgiveness. Thus, the Mass begins by reminding worshipers of the reality of sin and of guilt. What is the origin of sin and guilt? According to the Catechism (1997), they are virtually coeval with the origin of the human race. The first man and woman wished to "be like God" but "not in accordance with God" (398), and the guilt of their act of disobedience was "transmitted by propagation to all mankind" (404). Baptism remits the guilt of this original sin, but the inclination to sin ("concupiscence") remains (405). Personal sins, those actually committed by an individual, are absolved in the sacrament of penance, but children are not admitted either to this sacrament or to the sacrament of the Eucharist until they reach the "age of discretion," which is taken to be seven years. Psychoanalysis has much less to say about sin than about guilt, but about guilt it has a good deal to say...

Betekenis En Funksie Van 1 Petrus 2:21B-25

The meaning and function of 1 Peter 2:21b-25 First Peter addresses the Christians in the five Roman provinces in Asia Minor, and can in general terms be described as a letter of consolation and encouragement. Although they are suffering discrimination and injustice as a consequence of their faith in Christ, they should remember that they are in this world, but not from this world; that God has given them a new life through the resurrection of Christ; that they were born into a living hope of an inheritance that nothing can destroy or spoil. Within this broader picture of First Peter, the hymn in 2.21b-25 functions on two levels: firstly it exhorts the Christian house servants to obey their owners, although they are suffering without cause; as motivation the hymnal fragment deals with the suffering of Christ. He was without sin, yet He took their sins upon Him when He died at the cross, without retribution, thus leaving them an example to follow; secondly, it is pointed out that the author had with this hymn also the broader Christian community in mind (= servant paradigm), since they are all 'servants and slaves of God'. Apart from its function within First Peter as a whole, the paper also deals with the possible origin, demarcation, strophic structure and contents of the hymn.

High Fashion in the Church: The Place of Church Vestments in the History of Art from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (review)

High Fashion in the Church: Place of Church Vestments in the History of Art from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. By Pauline Johnstone. (Leeds, UK: Maney, 2002. Pp. ix, 176; 32 color plates. $119.00 clothbound; $59.00 paperback.) Pauline Johnstone affords the reader a fascinating and lavishly illustrated study of the origins and development of sacred vestments, chiefly in the Catholic tradition. This splendid tome ought to adorn the shelves of every Catholic seminary and house of formation where, according to the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, During their philosophical and theological studies, clerics are to be taught about the history and development of sacred and about the basic principles which govern the production of its works. Thus they will be able to appreciate and preserve the Church's ancient monuments, and be able to aid by good advice artists who are engaged in producing works of art (Sacrosanctum concilium 129). size of a coffee-table book, and favored with a scholarly text copiously footnoted, it doubtless will make a welcome addition to the library of anyone seriously interested in producing, collecting, studying, or simply admiring liturgical vestments. Altar guilds, especially those of the Anglican communion, will rejoice in the possession of this attractive and engaging volume. Likewise, costume designers and producers of historical dramas striving not merely for effect but for authenticity would do well to have this book ready to hand. In addition to scores of exquisite black-and-white photographs, plus thirty-two magnificent color plates, of historic vestments and altar frontals, the book features a first appendix of over twenty-six diagrams, drawn by Des Firth, illustrating various cuts and shapes of assorted vestments. These display regional differences in the arrangements of orphreys and panels. A second appendix lists the principal Christian symbols used in traditional vestment decoration, e.g., anchor, fish, pelican, tetragrammaton, etc., and their mystical meaning. A glossary of technical terms acquaints the non-specialist with types of fabric, textile, and kinds of stitchery. Formerly a member of the curatorial staff of the Department of Textiles and Dress at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Johnstone is quite at home discussing embroidery and the technical creation and decoration of church vestments. Her expertise here is beyond question, and she explains her material with aplomb. She is on slightly less solid ground, however, when she treats the iconographie dimensions of ecclesiastical and finer points of church history. She identifies as the risen Christ, for example, a figure of Christ who is undergoing the complete paschal mystery in a representation of The Mass of St Gregory (Fig. 3, p. 6). There, on the altar, stands Christ nearly naked, crowned with thorns, blood pouring from his side into Gregory's chalice. Several groups surround him: Pilate condemns him, Peter denies him, torturers mock, scourge, and spit at him. rugged cross of Calvary serves as the altar cross and the sepulcher functions as the retable or reredos. Two jars of ointment stand on the tomb. whole picture presents a conflation of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, not merely or even primarily the resurrection. This slip is entirely forgivable in view of the need for brevity and the fact that the body of Christ in the Eucharist is not a cadaver but the living body of the risen Lord. …

Die Areopagusrede (Hand. 17:22-31) – ’n verkenning van homiletiese elemente

The Areopagus speech (Acts 17:22-31) – an exploration of homiletical elements In this article certain guidelines are developed from a selection of definitions for preaching and also from relevant data about the process of compiling and evaluating sermons. The aim in developing these guidelines was to establish parameters for the exploration of the Areopagus speech. It was established that the way in which listeners is addressed, and also the link-up with the situation of the listeners to the speech, can be considered as important homiletical elements. Together with these elements the structure of the speech as well as the transitions in the speech can be regarded as major homiletical elements in the body of the sermon. The trinitarian revelation of God in this speech and also the balance between indicative, imperative and promise mark this speech as a sermon. The elements of cohesion and progression are perceptibly present in this speech with the result that the introduction (God creates and grants life) links up well with the climax (eternal life through the resurrection of Christ).

Beyond Sacrifice: Gloria Naylor Rewrites the Passion

We need a god who bleeds now a god whose wounds are not some small male vengeance some pitiful concession to humility a desert swept with dryin marrow in honor of the lord --Ntozake Shange According to contemporary feminist theory, the process of rewriting and reinventing cultural texts is a liberatory practice. The challenge is to rewrite the established, influential texts of dominant culture in such a way as to explode the myths and symbols that support oppressive ideology. (1) Contemporary black women writers participate in this process in order to critique both racist and patriarchal power structures. I argue that by focusing the rereading and rewriting process on the text most central to Western culture, the Bible, successfully challenges dominant ideology. Contemporary African American women writers are part of a long tradition of black writers who have focused their practice of rewriting on the language and narrative of Christianity. The early slave spirituals are examples of this discursive practice where Christian stories and symbolism were recuperated to protest slavery and sometimes to pass information and thwart the white masters. Slave narratives such as Harriet Jacobs' challenge Christian definitions of sin and purity in order to argue against slavery in general and the fugitive slave laws in particular. Black writers such as Zora Neale Hurston identify the struggles of African American people with those of the Israelites in Egypt, as does Martin Luther King, Jr. in his speeches. And Malcolm X challenges white images of Christ with the notion that Christ was a black man. Renita Weems asserts the importance of such a project: It has proved the task and responsibility of marginalized readers today, both female and male, to restore the voice of the oppressed in the kingdom of God. In order to do this, they have had to be able as much as possible to read and hear the text for themselves, with their own eyes and with their own ears. And in the final analysis, they have had to be prepared ... to resist those elements of the tradition that have sought, even in the name of revelation, to diminish their humanity. (77) There is power in this practice, particularly as the focus is on reenvisioning the Christian myths central to maintaining existing power structures. Continuing this practice, while at the same time transforming it, contemporary black women writers make more extensive critiques of Christianity and the biblical text from both feminist and antiracist positions. Gloria uses biblical allusion to critique foundational myths of Western, and specifically American, culture. She aims a pointed critique at the central New Testament myth--the birth, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ--questioning in particular the concept of sacrifice and its relationship to systems of oppression. As part of this critique, Naylor recasts female sexuality as shaped by Judeo-Christian tradition in which the virgin/whore dichotomy is inescapable (Alexander 92) and argues for the celebration of female sexuality as necessary for spirituality. Like Shange's poem quoted in the epigraph, envisions a religion based on female sexuality and its role in the creation of life, and focused on salvation from the racist and sexist oppression supported by traditional Christian theology. includes biblical intertextuality to extend her critique to the whole of the biblical narrative as it is most often interpreted by mainstream Christianity. In Bailer's Cain, she constructs a cast of characters who closely parallel the biblical characters who prefigure Christ's birth and death. These characters serve to set up George Andrews as a Christ figure. In Mama Day, George's own early death parallels Christ's crucifixion and ultimately calls into question the necessity of such a sacrifice. In most Catholic and Protestant doctrines, interpretive focus is placed on the crucifixion as emblematic of salvation. …

Crucifixion in Rabbinic Context: Juridical or Theological?

1. A Secular, Juridical, versus a Sacred, Theological Reading of the Passion Narratives: What Is the Difference? How people view the death penalty governs their reading of the Passion narratives. The prevailing picture is simple and secular. Execution after trial and conviction represents a legal punishment after an unjust trial—pure and simple. Jesus was tried for a crime, found guilty, and executed. Reading the execution as penalty for a crime does not accommodate the next chapter in the [End Page 79] story. The resurrection disrupts that narrative rather than completing it and forming its climax. Within that framework, Good Friday alone —the trial, conviction, sentence, and execution—registers. Within the teleology of the juridical narrative there is no accounting for Easter Sunday. That destroys the juridical transaction. That juridical perspective on the Passion narratives, secular at its heart, governs in the prevailing culture and stresses a secular reading of the matter. It draws attention away from those components of the narratives that underscore an other-than-punitive evaluation, an other-than-juridical approach to the story. There is no compelling logic, from that perspective, that requires the climactic chapter of resurrection. Accordingly, the culture in which we live affords no space for an other-than-secular perspective, accords short shrift to a final chapter of resurrection and eternal life. So the representation of the Passion Narratives is truncated, with its emphasis on trial and execution, and it is unable to explain the resurrection except as a contradiction. That is why the culture, defying the continuity and logic of the narrative as a whole, dwells on Good Friday, not on Easter Sunday, to speak liturgically: the death of Jesus the man, not the resurrection of Christ, atoning for humanity's sins. That secular reading of the Passion with its emphasis on the horror of the trial and the gruesome penalty inflicted necessarily rather than on the sublime conception realized in the narrative treats as an epilogue what is and theologically is meant to be the climax. And it is not how the Gospels present the matter. But how else, and in what context if not the juridical one, are we to read the Passion Narratives? A perspective on the death penalty formed within the theology of monotheism restores the correct emphasis of the Passion Narrative, that is, within monotheism we see the climactic place of the resurrection and the realization of eternal life. What I wish to show is how the model of the rabbinic framing of the monotheist narrative allows us to read the Passion narratives in all their proper proportion and perspective: how the crucifixion fits in to the salvific narrative. And that, we shall see, not only accommodates all of the details in a governing theory of the transaction, but imposes the focus on the Passion narratives that the punitive, juridical model distorts. 2. The Monotheist Narrative To understand the centrality of resurrection in monotheism, and therefore the trial and punishment of the felon as an act of mercy, we have to stand back and ask, why is resurrection, whether of Christ on Easter Sunday or of holy Israel [End Page 80] at the end of days, critical to the monotheist system, whether that system is expressed in philosophical or mythic categories? Monotheism resolves the problem of evil, which so troubled Ecclesiastes and Job, by a narrative. Specifically, God ultimately will restore that perfection that embodied his plan for creation. In the work of restoration death that comes about by reason of sin will die, the dead will be raised and judged for their deeds in this life, and most of them, having been justified, will go on to eternal life in the world to come. The paradigm of man restored to Eden is realized in Israel's return to the Land of Israel. In that world or age to come, however, that sector of humanity that through the Torah knows...

A Share in God's Life: Mystical / Liturgical Foundations for a Catholic Morality

Catholic moral theology has for the most part taken a natural law approach to understanding what moral living looks like. Since the Second Vatican Council, however, there has been exploration into a more explicitly theological approach to moral theory and application. This can be seen in works that more intentionally incorporate Christology or Scripture, for example. Moralists can also base their view of what is good for the human person upon the reality of sacramental incorporation. These approaches endeavor to simply highlight the supernatural side of moral formation, which has been less frequently examined.1 What needs to be especially highlighted is the way our humanity is sublated into what is really and concretely a new life in Christ. Through Baptism in water and the Holy Spirit, a person’s life begins in Christ. This is the life that is “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. :), meaning that it is a mystery. The sacramental human life is one that is immersed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Due to many human limitations, especially our sinful

A Response to Jürgen Moltmann’s ‘Blessing of Hope’

AbstractThis article responds from a ‘Full Gospel’ perspective to Moltmann's critical-constructive dialogue with the ‘Full Gospel Theology’ of Dr Yonggi Cho. Moltmann's emphasis on the resurrection of Christ as the inexhaustible source of the Gospel, his eschatological orientation, as well as the wide horizon of his theological reflection—including individual and communal dimensions of humanity, nature and universe, and all dimensions of time—are affirmed, while some distinct differences are uplifted concerning pneumatology and the understanding of time and hope. An especially strong objection is raised to the element of universalism in Moltmann’s perspective.

What is Christian About Christian Bioethics?

What is Christian about Christian bioethics? The short answer to this question is that the Incarnation should shape the form and content of Christian bioethics. In explicating this answer it is argued that contemporary medicine is unwittingly embracing and implementing the transhumanist dream of transforming humans into posthumans. Contemporary medicine does not admit that there are any limits in principle to the extent to which it should intervene to improve the quality of human life. This largely inarticulate, yet ambitious, agenda is derived first in late modernity's failed, but nonetheless ongoing, attempt to transform necessity into goodness, and second the loss of any viable concept of eternity, thereby stripping temporal existence of any normative significance. In short, medicine has become the vanguard of a profane attempt to save humankind by extracting data from flesh. In response, it is contended that an alternative Christian bioethics must be shaped by the Incarnation, the Word made flesh. This assertion does not entitle Christians to oppose the posthuman trajectory of contemporary medicine on the basis of any natural or biological essentialism. Rather, it is an evangelical witness to the grace of Christ's redemption instead of the work of self-transformation. It is Christ alone who thereby makes the vulnerability and mortality of finitude a gift and blessing. Specifically, it is maintained that the chasm separating necessity and goodness cannot be filled but only bridged through the suffering entailed in Christ's cross, and through Christ's resurrection eternity becomes the standard against which the temporal lives of human creatures are properly formed and measured. Consequently, Christian bioethics should help us become conformed to Christ rather than enabling self-transformation.

Thomas Woolston , William Trapnell (review)

MLR, ioo.i, 2005 211 undertake the revision of Mongredien and Robert's Dictionnaire biographique to take on board all this fascinating new material. University of Durham Jan Clarke Six discours sur les miracles de Notre Sauveur: deux traductionsmanuscrites du XVIIF siecle dont une de Mme Du Chdtelet. By Thomas Woolston. Ed. by William Trapnell. Paris: Champion. 2001. 394 pp. ?63. ISBN 2-7453-0504-2. This volume is a further fascinating addition to our knowledge of the clandestine manuscripts that circulated in France during the Enlightenment, and William Trap? nell is particularly well placed to edit them, having already published a biography of Thomas Woolston. Woolston is a fascinating and enigmatic figure,an Anglican cler? gyman and Fellow of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, whose very personal esteem for the Fathers of the Church, and in particular Origen, led him to take an extreme position regarding the literal truth of the Scriptures. For Woolston, the miracles of the Bible were true in a figurative, not a literal, sense, and he devoted much effortto preaching and spreading this belief. The inevitable clash with the authorities actually led to him being incarcerated forseveral years as a madman. The six discourses edited here were produced several years afterWoolston's release, and they represent one as? pect of a complex debate over the literal truth of Scripture and the various possible ways of interpreting miracles 'reasonably'. Woolston used these intensely polemical writings?in part at least?as a way of avenging himself, goading his various ecclesiastical dedicatees mercilessly. Although probably regarded as 'ephemera' at the time of their publication (1727-29), the discourses?which Woolston had published privately in London?soldwell, and he appears to have had a considerable following. One purchaser was Voltaire, who was clearly impressed and who, for example, included Woolston as one of the unorthodox 'heroes' of his Lettres a Mgr le Prince (1767). Trapnell's edition has an exemplary introduction, which considers with admirable clarity every aspect ofthe history,composition, and diffusion ofthe original Discourses and which also contains much useful technical information about their French trans? lations. However, forthis reviewer the main interest ofthe Discourses (and of this edi? tion) lies in their content, in the beliefs ofthe author, and in Voltaire's interpretation of him. Trapnell feels that Voltaire later traduced Woolston's real position by mak? ing him out?inaccurately?to be a deist (cf. pp. 38-41: 'Voltaire devait savoir qu'il trahissait Woolston' (p. 41)). Yet, as one reads these extraordinary pieces, with their shockingly direct and violent attacks on Christ as portrayed in the New Testament, at the very least one has to wonder. A considerable part ofthe sixth discourse, on Christ's resurrection, consists of the reflections of a Jewish Rabbi, one of Woolston's 'friends'. According to him, the claimed miracle ofthe Resurrection was Timposture la plus manifeste et la plus effronteequi aitjamais ete executee a la face de tout le Genre humain' (p. 302). God allowed this imposture to 'humilier les hommes a cause de l'orgueuil qu'ils avoient de croire posseder la sagesse et les sciences' (ibid.). One ofhis aims was to warn men 'de la necessite qu'ils ont de se procurer la Liberte dans leurs pensees et dans leurs discours sur la religion pour se corriger de leurs erreurs et pour parvenir a la de? couverte de la verite' (p. 303); another was to 'ramener les hommes, lorsqu'ils auroient acquis une maturite convenable pour cet effet,a cette Religion Naturelle qui regnoit dans le siecle d'or et qui, selon le temoignage de nos plus anciens cabalistes et de votre Jesus, sera la finde la Loy et des Prophetes' (p. 303). Not only here, but throughout the discourses, Jesus's miracles and conduct are satirized in terms so violent and so scathing that they would cause offence among many believers even in the twenty-first century. Can someone so dismissive of Christ's motives and actions really believe that 212 Reviews this charlatan and impostor, whose resurrection was an impertinent deceit, is none the less a model forall of mankind, and whose farcical and demonstrably false miracles are intended to contain a moral message? While...

La pervivencia de la Visitatio Sepulchri de Gandía (Valencia) (1550-2004)

San Francisco de Borja, IV duque de Gandía, renunció en 1550 a sus bienes terrenales y marchó a Roma entregado a la causa de la Compañía de Jesús. Para conmemorar el acontecimiento, dejó instituida y dotada en Gandía, su ciudad natal, la celebración anual de un drama lírico-litúrgico en dos jornadas que escenifica el entierro (Viernes Santo) y la Resurrección (Domingo de Pascua) de Cristo, con base en un privilegio pontificio preexistente. Hacia 1865 el arzobispo de Valencia suprimió la representación al no mostrársele el breve que la autorizaba y cuando en 1996 los gandienses trataron de reponerla, ya era completamente desconocida en la ciudad la función del Viernes Santo, así como gran parte de las acotaciones escénicas, el texto y la música de la del Domingo de Resurrección. A partir de aquellos pobres, incompletos y defectuosos restos, inicié una investigación que, con el hallazgo de olvidados documentos, me ha permitido la reconstrucción íntegra y fidedigna de la obra.

A Note on Romans 6:5: The Representation (ὉΜΟΙΩΜΑ) of His Death

The meaning and especially the reference of the ὁμοίωμα in Romans 6:5 is a subject of debate in Pauline studies. This note, keeping in view the two main lines of interpretation (‘corresponding reality’ and ‘form’), argues for a specific different meaning, namely, that of ‘representation’ referring to a discourse which here in Romans is the proclamation of the death and resurrection of Christ. It does so by giving an important place to the role of the gospel at the start and in the time of ‘newness of life’.

The daybreak of the new creation: Christ's resurrection in recent theology

The essay suggests that three main approaches have been taken toward Christ's resurrection in recent theology. One view focuses on the question of existential meaningfulness. While it may or may not affirm the resurrection as a statement about Jesus' particular eternal destiny, it takes his resurrection primarily as a symbol of spiritual regeneration. A second view affirms precisely what the first rejects, namely, that Christ's resurrection is grounded in an actual historical occurrence. Knowledge of his resurrection is mediated by modern critical research and confirmed by it. Whether this mediation is necessary under the conditions of modernity or merely a matter of apologetic ground-clearing remains various within the type. Finally, there are those who argue that questions of meaningfulness and historicity, though important, are secondary, because determined by the nature of the resurrection event – which is necessarily unique in kind. Its meaningfulness and historicity are themselves correspondingly unique. Whereas the first type is seen as emphasizing transcendence at the expense of historicity, the second does the reverse by elevating historicity at the expense of transcendence. The mysterious conjunction of historicity and transcendence is what the third type regards as essential to understanding other relevant questions. The first type is represented by Schleiermacher, Bultmann and Tillich; the second by Pannenberg and Wright; the third by Moltmann, Frei and Barth.