Theological Anthropology Research Articles

Ulwaluko: A critical site for black theological reflection

Ulwaluko is an essential rite of passage for men in the Xhosa community in South Africa. This particular initiation rite of passage is a critical part of the transition from boyhood to manhood. In a post-apartheid South Africa, this African practice has received criticism for promoting gender and sexual exclusion with some calling for a halt to the practice. Using Simon Maimela’s theological anthropology and Jackson’s concept of modern slavery as human plasticity, I attempt to expose how post-apartheid constitutionalism has epistemically distorted the theological anthropology of this rite of passage. This is done acknowledging Ulwaluko theologically within the context of African holism. This, I argue, has had significant ethical implications for society. Recognising it as a site of black theological reflection using Maimela’s theological anthropology, I argue that this particular practice can positively influence discourses on morality in South Africa.Contribution: This article makes a theological contribution by situating African and black theology of liberation discourse within the epistemic framework of Ulwaluko as an initiation rite of passage. Recognising the prevalence of initiation rites of passage in South Africa, this discourse attempts to contribute towards thinking about the creation of humanity from these spaces of formation. This I do in the very challenging contexts within which Ulwaluko is practised.

La melodía de la celebración. Una revalorización teológica del canto en la liturgia de la eucaristía

Liturgical singing has lost importance within the most common parish environments. Furthermore, the role of the cantor, on many occasions, is replaced by a mere recording in liturgical celebrations, especially in the Eucharist. This work seeks to theologically revalue the role of singing within the mass, resorting to the reflection of Christology, theological anthropology and ecclesiology.

Reimagining Theological Anthropology: Ubuntu Philosophy, Election Violence, and the Quest for Peace and Justice in Kenya

In recent years, the intersection of theology, anthropology, and socio-political realities has garnered increased attention, particularly in Africa. This study engages with this conversation by examining human nature within the Kenyan context through Ubuntu, a philosophical tradition emphasizing communal interconnectedness, dignity, and justice. Focusing on the challenge of election-related violence in Kenya, the research explores the potential of Ubuntu-inspired theological anthropology to provide insights into addressing socio-political issues. By analyzing the historical, cultural, and socio-political dynamics of Kenya, particularly the roots and impacts of electoral violence, the study demonstrates how Ubuntu philosophy can inform theological reflections on human nature and contribute to peacebuilding efforts. Ubuntu, a Southern African concept, underscores the interconnectedness of humanity, encapsulated in the belief that "I am because we are." This perspective enriches theological reflection, offering a holistic understanding of human nature concerning the divine. Incorporating insights from African Christian theology, particularly inculturation theology, the study examines how cultural and historical factors contribute to conflict and explores indigenous approaches to peacebuilding and reconciliation. Addressing the root causes of electoral violence in Kenya, including selfish political interests, ethnic divisions, and land disputes, requires strategies promoting accountable governance, national unity, and equitable resource distribution. Ubuntu philosophy advocates for values of interconnectedness, justice, and ethical leadership, urging a theological perspective that reflects the communal nature of the Triune God and emphasizes living in harmony within a community. Integrating Ubuntu into Kenyan socio-political discourse calls for collective efforts to transcend ethnic differences, foster unity, and prioritize dialogue and reconciliation. This study highlights the significance of Ubuntu-informed theological anthropology in global discourse, advocating for a more inclusive and empathetic understanding of humanity that aligns with the principles of interconnectedness and communal well-being.

Genders, sexualities, and Catholic schools: towards a theological anthropology of adolescent flourishing

ABSTRACT Good religious education needs to be rooted in a robust theological anthropology. The Roman Catholic Church’s gender complementarity approach is inadequate for accompanying adolescents in Catholic schools as they engage in questions of gender and sexuality; instead, educators need a theological anthropology oriented towards adolescent flourishing. To construct a more capacious theological anthropological approach, one that is still authentically Catholic and rooted in the Church’s official documents, this essay turns to Pope Francis’ Christus Vivit and Fratelli Tutti. From Francis’ concern for mercy and accompaniment, a theological approach to the goodness of adolescence is described, which can ground theological reflection on gender and sexuality in love and human dignity, rather than shame and exclusion.

The Role of the Spirit in Rohr’s Theological Anthropology

This introductory essay comments on the diversity of positions between theology and anthropology in Richard Rohr. It presents him as one who walks a delicate line between semantic fidelity to Christian doctrine and its impact (or lack thereof) on spiritual well-being of the people affected by the brokenness of the world. Spirituality, which reflects the complexity of life, has become an alternative to institutionally driven Christianity.

Maturity and Fruitfulness in A Song of Ice and Fire: A Reflection in Theological Anthropology

This article seeks to understand maturity and fruitfulness in terms of going beyond oneself toward others and, ultimately, the divine Other. It suggests that, from a perspective of Christian theological anthropology, the pursuit of maturity and fruitfulness in human life entails being in community since human nature is inherently relational. To grow in maturity and “bear fruit” in one’s life, the whole web of one’s relationships at various levels must be transformed. Christian maturity and fruitfulness, then, are understood in terms of love as a non-linear striving for perfection. Ultimately, this process must be enabled and carried by grace, lest it become futile and oppressive. Using an illustrative case of A Song of Ice and Fire, a popular epic fantasy series by George R. R. Martin, this thesis will be elaborated in this article throughout three steps that make for three interrelated dimensions of this process, namely, grace, love and community, respectively.

What to Do after the Emancipation Proclamation? A Princeton Seminary Alumnus’s Views on Racial Issues and Slavery in Brazil and the United States (1852–1867)

Abstract This article reflects on how the concept of race and views on African Americans and Afro-Brazilians permeated the American Presbyterian missions that operated in the Brazilian empire in the nineteenth century. This analysis considers the writing and reading of Ashbel Green Simonton (1833–1867), a Princeton Seminary alum sent to Brazil as a missionary by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA). In his missionary activity, Simonton founded the first Presbyterian Church and the first evangelical periodical in Brazil. Considering the intercessions between the racial theories stemming from natural history and nineteenth-century theological anthropologies, as well as the missionary’s interactions with the racial and slavery issues that permeated the American Civil War (1861–1865), this article analyzes Simonton’s journal (1852–1867), the books requested by Simonton at Princeton Theological Seminary (1856–1858), and the periodical Imprensa Evangélica (Evangelical Press, 1864–1867).

The Theological Anthropology of Dobbs: Women in Service to White Nationalism

Précis: In 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal protection for the rights of people who are pregnant to obtain an abortion. Discussions of abortion in the United States are, and always have been, bound up with issues of gender, race, and ethnicity. The Dobbs decision is the latest in a long history of U.S. policies that manipulate reproduction in order to maintain white dominance. In the same logic as military service, people who can become pregnant are now being required to sacrifice themselves, not for the possible individual embryo or fetus they might carry, but rather for the nation. They are conscripted into service of a particular vision of the United States as a white nation. This universal, enforced availability for service truncates the status of women, rendering us less than fully human.

The dialogue of theology and law in russian science and education

Theology in Russian education is increasingly strengthening its position, claiming interdisciplinary status. Such areas as theological anthropology, theological psychology, legal and political theology, etc. are being developed. The spread of theology in secular universities of the country faces a number of difficulties related to the specifics of integrating secular and religious education and science. A special point of intersection is the dialogue of law and theology on the basis of secular universities. The author of the article analyzes the possibility and relevance at the present stage of the transition from the historical dialogue of these two main regulators of public life and types of knowledge to the development and implementation of specific educational programs for training lawyers and jurists based not only on legal but also theological knowledge, taking into account the current political and legal situation in Russia and the world. It is especially important to take into account the specifics of the Russian Orthodox culture with its rich experience of spiritual and educational practice and positive foreign experience of integrating theology and law in the educational system.

Theological Anthropology Facing Artificial Intelligence. The Investigation of an Intersection Based on Treatises

Abstract For the novelty, the research fields of Artificial Intelligence and Theological Anthropology are creatively confronted with each other, especially the emerging ideas of perfection, salvation, mind and corporeality in comparison with the verbatim meaning of theos and logos. For this purpose, both fields of research, which – historically marked – became virulent at about the same time in (ca. 1960s), are theoretically framed, systematically introduced, and classified. Afterwards, a text-critical appraisal is made based on current European institutional publications on Artificial Intelligence regarding concepts, representations and ways of speaking about the hu_man, about der mensch being beyond neuronal networks. Commonalities and challenges through the juxtaposition and found synergies are not only making a valuable contribution to subjecting concepts of hu_mankind for a sustainable relecture. Furthermore, it provides relevant insights and findings about the positioning of the new technology within (ethical) discourses about human dignity and rights, as well philosophical debates about freedom.

New Trinitarian Ontologies? Trinitarian Theology, Theological Anthropology and Contemporary Critical Consciousness in Dialogue

AbstractThe recent translation into English of Klaus Hemmerle's Theses Towards a Trinitarian Ontology has led to a renewed interest in ontology and in the construction of new trinitarian ontologies. In his Theses, Hemmerle argues that a new trinitarian ontology discloses a new order of things: the analogy of Being becomes an analogy of the Trinity. A trinitarian ontology, therefore, turns on an axis of relationality and its impetus is reflexive and performative. In this article, I take up Hemmerle's argument that dialogue with theological anthropology is essential in the development of a trinitarian ontology. I engage the theological anthropologies of Kwok Pui‐Lan and Rita Nakashima Brock, whose work reflects a relational turn in theological anthropology, and bring these into dialogue with Hemmerle's insights. In doing so, I consider the implications of contemporary critical consciousness for thinking the human‐divine relationship and argue for a Christian trinitarian praxis which explicitly works to subvert narratives and structures that perpetuate the silencing of diverse discourses.

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF FREEDOM AND THE PERSON IN THE GREAT INQUISTOR BY DOSTOYEFSKY AND IN THE THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT OF THE METROPOLITAN OF PERGAMO IOANNIS ZIZIOULAS

In this particular work, a tightrope and as accurate as possible rendering of the relationship between the person and freedom and freedom as our obligation and attitude towards the Other is attempted. The concept of freedom, in essence, is undoubtedly and inescapably intertwined with the authenticity of the person and, in particular, with the deeper meaning of human destiny and existence. In this sense, Dostoyevsky focuses in his work on the dual phenomenon of freedom, that is, on the function of man between internal and external freedom, as well as on the individual responsibility of each subject, towards society and the Other. Subsequently, an in-depth theological and existential analysis and interpretation of the person is presented, which is based on the work of the Metropolitan of Pergamos, Ioannis Zizioulas, who recently passed away/fallen asleep, as well as the meaning of the content of the concept of person in modern theological anthropology. Finally, the interweaving of theology and literature is attempted through the active and analytical presentation of the person and freedom.

Mirrors of Death, Images of God: Likeness and Difference in Gregory of Nyssa’s Social Ethics

Abstract Gregory of Nyssa’s critiques of various forms of social injustice hinge on his rigorous theological anthropology. For Gregory, slavery, the accumulation of wealth, and the mistreatment of the poor are evil because they deny the freedom proper to human creatures created according to the divine Image. However, Gregory’s anthropology also contains, we will argue, a distinct account of the ways in which humanity’s difference from God – particularly its poverty and limitation – reveals important aspects of the particular and ultimately Christological mode in which finite humans imitate the infinitude God. The aim of this present essay is to articulate how both likeness and unlikeness to God – mirrors of God and mirrors of death – are integral to Gregory’s theological anthropology as it pertains to various forms of social critique.

No Orthopathy without Orthoaesthesis: On the Necessity of Negative Effort

AbstractTheologians have become increasingly attentive to the role emotion and experience must play in theological reflection. Several thinkers have recently done so by appropriating and developing Jon Sobrino’s understanding of orthopathy, or “right affect.” A close examination of these efforts, however, reveals inconsistencies in the way the category is understood and deployed. This article redresses these inconsistencies by complementing orthopathy with orthoaesthesis, or “right perception.” The article opens by considering various appeals to orthopathy before suggesting how William James’s theory of emotion might provide the category with clarifying content. The second stage engages Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch as practitioners of orthoaesthesis. Special attention is given to Murdoch’s “techniques” aimed at transforming how practitioners perceive reality. With Murdoch’s guidance, the article contends that orthopathy is ineluctably bound to and not possible without orthoaesthesis. The article concludes with a constructive proposal to show how orthoaesthesis-orthopathy contributes to a Christian theological anthropology.

Catherine of Siena on persons created in God’s image: Basis for a spiritual path

The belief that persons are images of God offers powerful constructs for imagining and thinking about a spiritual journey. What about; who we are makes a relationship possible with God? What are the goals of a spiritual journey given who we are to God? Catherine of Siena’s wisdom regarding persons as images of God offers answers to these questions. This study presents a textual analysis of Catherine’s metaphor-filled rhetoric on this topic and shows how Catherine, an uneducated woman mystic appropriated the foundational systematic teaching of Augustine of Hippo on persons as images of God having memory, understanding and will. Catherine asserts that persons as images of God having these three powers of the soul are created out of God’s love with a capacity to love and to be in a relationship of love, first of all, with God. The spiritual journey essentially consists in transcending – through God’s redemptive love – all that obscures this created capacity.Contribution: This study contributes by highlighting the importance of theological anthropology – both as a theological tenet and as a belief – to the way persons imagine and live a spiritual journey. Furthermore, it shows how Augustine of Hippo’s formulations, foundational for Christianity, influenced a medieval mystic and can be relevant for spiritual practice today. Accordingly, this study concludes with suggestions about how this patristic and medieval understanding of persons can be appropriated for today’s spiritual life.

‘Even the Stones Will Cry Out’: Native American Cosmology, Theological Anthropology and the Mission of Creation

Based on a unique cosmology Native American theologians propose theological anthropologies which represent humanity as the weakest of all created beings. Accordingly, this paper will advocate reframing humanity’s call to creation care from one of superiority in which humankind cares for creation, to one of humility in which humankind is cared for by creation. This paper will begin by outlining a prominent symbol for a properly ordered cosmos across Native American contexts known as the Sacred Circle. By identifying the origins of Native American contextual theologies in a pan-Native American cosmology popularised by the teachings of Lakota holy man and Catholic catechist Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) it will introduce core tenets of Native American cosmology. The most prominent of these is the Sacred Circle’s representation of a cosmological priority for space over time, which is often linked to an egalitarian, interrelated view of the cosmos. By engaging a range of primary source texts from Native American theologians who continue the legacy of Black Elk by contextualising Christian faith in accordance with the Sacred Circle, this paper will recognise land as the locus of a tangible spirituality. Accordingly, non-human beings have spiritual agency and personhood, and human beings must learn to relate to them rightly to participate in cosmological harmony. Human beings may do this by recognising human fragility and dependence on non-human persons for survival. Therefore, humanity’s call to creation care begins and ends with humility, manifested through gratitude and reciprocity towards non-human creatures.

Wonder as a New Starting Point for Theological Anthropology, Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies in Religion and Theology by José Francisco Morales Torres (review)

Wonder as a New Starting Point for Theological Anthropology, Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies in Religion and Theology by José Francisco Morales Torres (review)

Honouring Children

The views held about the humanity of children influence faith praxis with regard to children. Recognizing the full humanity of children will help pose questions that will lead to critical reflections on theories and practices thatunderpin the lived realities of neglect, abuse and violence against children. It is said that a faulty anthropology produces a faulty theology, and a faulty theology produces a skewed anthropology. It is argued that views of children that harm them in daily life could be connected with views of Godas authoritative, hierarchal, powerful and strong, a God who punishes and disciplines. There is, therefore, the need to explicate a Christian view ofchildren that honours the dignity and humanity of children and could result in faith practices that are liberating. The Trinity could serve as a framework for a theological anthropology of children. The paper explores insights from key scholars such as Miroslav Volf (1998), Jürgen Moltmann (1991) and Catherine LaCugna (1991) on a relational view of the Trinity to glean resources that could influence a theological understanding of the personhood of children: resources which recognise the full humanity of children and honour their dignity, and interdependence as well as mutuality in faith communities and society. The paper posits that a relational view of the Trinity could provide a sounder foundation for a deeply relational and non-hierarchical Christian view of children that arehonouring, and therefore, promotes faith praxis that is liberating and encourages flourishing.

Beauty, Ugliness, and Black Theology

In this paper, I argue that theological aesthetics speaks powerfully to black experience in light of this very situation. It does so, I find, through the Beauty of the Cross. While the Beauty of the Cross constitutes its own tradition developed through art, architecture, liturgics, and devotion, I use it to gesture broadly to the cruciform character of beauty in theology. The Beauty of the Cross shows how a theological account of beauty necessarily encompasses ugliness. I draw out the implications of this dynamic with regard to three doctrinal areas and related debates in black theology: theological anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology. I aim to show the utility of theological aesthetics for black experience, and center it as a vital resource for black theology.

Beauty, Ugliness, and Black Theology

In this paper, I argue that theological aesthetics speaks powerfully to black experience in light of this very situation. It does so, I find, through the Beauty of the Cross. While the Beauty of the Cross constitutes its own tradition developed through art, architecture, liturgics, and devotion, I use it to gesture broadly to the cruciform character of beauty in theology. The Beauty of the Cross shows how a theological account of beauty necessarily encompasses ugliness. I draw out the implications of this dynamic with regard to three doctrinal areas and related debates in black theology: theological anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology. I aim to show the utility of theological aesthetics for black experience, and center it as a vital resource for black theology.