Theological Background Research Articles

John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement: A Poet of the Church

The paper examines John Henry Newman and the extent to which his involvement with the Oxford Movement influenced his poetic endeavours. The analysis of the historical and theological background of the Movement from Newman’s perspective makes the task of presenting the genesis of Newman’s poetic conceptions much easier. Newman was famous for being a preternaturally gifted preacher and prose writer, while his poetic texts received less attention. The examination of poetry is carried out here by contrasting the Oxford Movement’s ideas, majorly Newman’s own ideas and poetry, with Romanticism as the high guardian of Imagination and furor poeticus. While the Romantic poets craved authenticity and defied the laws of imitative modes of expression, the devotional poets of that time oftentimes leaned on mimesis. The paper’s objective, therefore, is to help define the prominence of imitative elements in Newman’s poetry and their impact on the quality of his verse.

Object and Apparition: Envisioning the Christian Divine in the Colonial Andes

The subject of this book is the relationship between three- and two-dimensional divine images—that is, religious statues and paintings—in the colonial central Andes. It focuses as case studies on three statues of Christ and the Virgin and the representations of those statues in paintings: the Virgin of the Rosary in Pomata, the Virgin of the Purification in Copacabana, and the Lord of the Earthquakes in Cuzco. Maya Stanfield-Mazzi shows that statues were privileged conduits to the divine, at times verging on autonomous deities in their own right, while paintings documented and amplified those statues' power. In the end, it was the statue, not the painting, that granted worshippers' prayers and protected their communities.While the author's discipline is art history and the book includes some formal analysis, it focuses especially on the cultural history of religion, both elite and popular. Communities did not select their Christs or Virgins by chance. The dominant order in Pomata was the Dominicans, for whom the Rosary was a signature devotion; she offers a fascinating account of the historical interconnections between prayer beads, roses, the Virgin, and the religious orders, all of which underlay the Virgin of the Rosary's importance in Pomata. Augustinians, who controlled evangelization in Copacabana, identified their order with the faculty of vision and so embraced the Virgin of the Purification, who held a candle in her hand. Mary in her many manifestations was the most prominent sacred figure in the sixteenth-century Andes, but she was overtaken in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by manifestations of Christ, partly due to the emphasis placed on him in Jesuit devotions. The Lord of the Earthquakes was one of several forms of Christ competing for centrality in Cuzco; some archival detective work reveals a rather complicated relationship between this form of Christ and Cuzco's 1650 earthquake. One genre of painting celebrated the miracles that these statues of Christ and Mary accomplished, while another portrayed the individual statues, usually commissioned by a worshipper for her or his home. The reader takes away a vivid sense of the various statues and paintings as objects and personalities.It would be helpful to have a bit more theological background. The word advocation, referring to the different devotional forms of Christ and the Virgin (e.g., the Virgin of Sorrows, of the Immaculate Conception, or of the Rosary), is key to the argument; it appears often but is never defined. Different advocations of the same divine person were treated as distinct agencies, and so, to some extent, were individual statues of the same advocation, to which believers channeled their devotion individually or in confraternities. Paintings, meanwhile, were not autonomous agents but representations of the power of statues. A bit more background about these nested yet distinct devotional objects would enrich the book.How did the Andean experience fit into its larger context? Stanfield-Mazzi frames the book with the assertion that her images form “a uniquely Andean pantheon” (p. 183), one that was “forged uniquely in the Andes” (p. 8). But this assertion implies comparisons with the larger Hispanic and Catholic world, which the book does not supply enough of. Interestingly, when she addresses specific claims of Andean uniqueness, it is sometimes in order to rebut them. An example is the common claim that images of the Virgin that seem to resemble mountains (such as the Virgin of Potosí) reflect indigenous mountain huacas; in fact, she shows, European images of Mary often portrayed her in a similar, heavily draped and visually abstracted form, with her head seemingly perched on a mountain-like triangle. The chapter that most directly addresses the “uniquely Andean” side of the story is the first one, about the use of two- and three-dimensional sacred images by Andeans before the Spanish conquest. Based on archaeology and imaginative close readings of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala and the Huarochirí manuscript, she finds pre-Hispanic precedents for the supremacy of statues as well as the central role of the goddess-like Mary in the mid- and late sixteenth century. This chapter is among the most successful in the book.Still, the pre-Hispanic background does not seem to fully explain why statues were primary in colonial religion while paintings were secondary. One factor was the importance of confraternities and their processions, which carried statues (not paintings) through the streets and back to the church. Confraternities, the subject of a 2007 article by Stanfield-Mazzi, might have been worth exploring more fully here. But it is a sign of a successful book if the reader's only criticism is a desire for more information and broader coverage. Object and Apparition offers a fascinating exploration of the careers of different manifestations of Christ and Mary and a compelling argument about the relationship between two- and three-dimensional objects of devotion. And it includes abundant and beautiful reproductions of the images discussed.

Mission, Gender, and Theological Education

My reflection mission, gender, and power is in memory of two women who dedicated their lives to the proclamation of liberating gospel and theological education. Despite their different national, social, Christian, and theological backgrounds, they both envisioned the church and its mission in a similar way: as an inclusive community, as a round table, as a place of love, care, respect and sacrifice. I refer to Elizabeth Behr-Sigel, the well-known French orthodox theologian, and to Letty Russell, the famous scholar, teacher, theologian. Elizabeth Behr Sigel describes her vision: My desire is that the Church become what it is in the supreme reality of the mind of God: a community of faith, hope and love, of men and women, of mysterious human persons, unutterably equal yet different, made in the image and reflecting the glory of God, the Three in One. That is the great Orthodox vision of the Church. It remains for it to be translated into concrete historical terms. (1) And Letty Russell in her article with the title Hot-house Ecclesiology points out, I have entitled this article feminist interpretation of the church Hot-house ecclesiology because it seems to me that the vision women have for the Church is that it could be a sanctuary, a place of safety for all who enter, and especially for those who are the most marginal, weak and despised of any community ... and the welcome extends to those of all races, ages, nationalities, genders, sexual orientations, all creatures and creation itself as the Church becomes a place where there is intent to heal and to live out God's justice rather than to harm and to promote the privilege of the few. (2) Both visions, according to my understanding, are of biblical origin. The early church developed its ecclesiology, and in turn its missionary practice, a radical eschatological teaching of the historical Jesus about the kingdom of God (which, as modern biblical research has shown, moves dialectically between the already and the yet; in other words, it has begun in the present but will be completed in its final authentic form in the eschaton). From the writings of Paul, John, and Luke, in addition to other works, we see this teaching reflected in images of the church as the body of Christ, as vine, and especially as unity. Paul in particular was absolutely convinced that all share in the kingdom through baptism, completing with the eucharist their incorporation into the one people of God. The fourth gospel develops this radical eschatological teaching even further in regard to the unity of people of God around Christ and their incorporation into Christ's body--above all, through the eucharist. The main contribution early Christian theology made to the development of this messianic eschatology was the common belief of almost all theologians of the early church, emphasized and underlined most sharply by St Luke, that with Christ's resurrection and especially with Pentecost the eschaton had entered history and that the messianic eschatological community becomes a reality each time the church, the new Israel, the dispersed people of God, gathers epi to auto. This development is undoubtedly the starting point of Christian mission, the springboard of the church's witnessing exodus to the world, which in the fact interpreted the imminent expectation of the parousia in a dynamic and radical way. (3) For Orthodox, mission is not realized in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; but mainly, it is a participation in the life of the Holy Trinity, an expression of this love with all the power of existence. Mission is an essential expression of Orthodox self-conscience, a cry in action for the fulfillment of God's will on earth as it is in heaven. For Anastasios Yannoulatos, [O]rthodox mission, internal or external, is through its nature ecclesiastic. …

A Korean perspective on megachurches as missional churches

Both the megachurch and the missional church are on-going global phenomena. Working from the premise that the church has to be missional, this article operates from a Korean perspective and researches whether a megachurch can be missional. The megachurch is not simply a very large church in terms of membership or the physical size of its building(s) � because of the influence of the interaction between socio-cultural, historical, and theological backgrounds, the megachurch has its own missiological and ecclesiological perspectives. The megachurch understands that the growth of an individual church implies the expansion of the kingdom of God, which means that the individual church has a responsibility to be both functionally and structurally sound, in order to ensure the efficient growth of the kingdom. This is an influential tendency that is found not only in larger size churches, but in all churches who are trying to achieve the quantitative growth of the church by way of evangelisation. The Korean megachurches, represented by the Poongsunghan Church, display these characteristics. The missional church is not simply a mission-driven church, sending many missionaries to other countries; the missional church believes that all churches are sent to the world by God, who wants to reconcile the whole universe with himself. The implication of this is that the church has to restore its missional essence in order to be able to participate in the mission of God. Thus, the missional church is a reforming movement that witnesses to God�s rule by recovering its apostolic nature. The characteristics of this movement are clearly visible in one of the case studies � the Bundang Woori Church. The importance of the missional movement for Korean churches is emphasised.Interdisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The research is a case study of Korean megachurches from a missional perspective. The research represents a critique of practises in Korean megachurches and a contrarian view of the mainline discourse in terms of the popularised view of Korean megachurches. The research may result in new insights in the missional possibilities open to megachurches.

Monstrous Landscape in Beowulf

A considerable proportion of Grendel scholarship to date is concerned either with the creature's Cainite identity or with the quest for narrative analogues to the section of Beowulf that concerns him. The subject matter of the former branch builds on the highly deliberative tradition of written exegesis, while sources of the latter kind are mostly narratives of a folk-traditional character which could be argued to have absorbed social concerns in a more organic fashion. This paper analyzes the tensions between Cainite identity and folktale features through a study of the environmental associations of Grendel and his mother. It is demonstrated that their association with wet landscapes, which is explicitly given a theological background, may equally well be explained with reference to socio-economic considerations implicit in folk tradition. At the same time, the geographical mapping of the poem's antagonists constitutes one of few differences between its humans and monsters. This suggests that the poem's geographical distancing functions alongside its religious distancing as a psychological demarcation of human identity.

Καταβολἠ κόσμου in Clemente e Origene

The study intends to treat the merits of the phrase καταβολὴ κόσμου as it is interpreted and applied by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. It also aims to determine whether within these two authors, who share the same philosophical and theological background, there are convergent or divergent viewpoints concerning an expression which assumes significant importance especially in protological reflection.

Santa Teresa de Jesús, una mujer de todos los tiempos.

With St. Teresa of Jesus we fnd not only the mystical experience of a Carmelite of the 16th century, but also the spiritual and theological background of a woman who has accompanied many generations. In her, we discover the paradox of a woman who, having no public voice, became a master of a path focused on Jesus’ humanity. She accepted the advice of her confessors, with humility built on her inner freedom. With no academic studies, she was able to tell her experience of encounters with God which, far from locking her up in a convent, urged her to respond to the challenges of her time.

The metaphysical, epistemological, and theological background to Aquinas’ theory of education in the De Magistro

This article explores the relation between Aquinas’ metaphysical, epistemological and theological ideas and his theory of education as presented in the De Magistro and other writings. Aquinas’ theory of education is based on a theological metaphysics of human nature and an account of human rationality that is grounded in human nature. In the first section after the introduction we provide a synopsis of Aquinas’ metaphysical narrative, but in a contemporary key that draws upon the resources of Analytical Thomism. However, this theologically inspired metaphysics leads to a somewhat neglected epistemology that is crucial to his understanding of teaching and learning in the De Magistro – the notion of connatural knowledge that we explore in the second section. Our exposition of the Thomistic ontology of the human person together with the notion of connatural knowledge, provide the context for understanding the De Magistro in the third section.

The Wisdom of Animals: Creatureliness in Early Modern French Spirituality

This is a book with an agenda. The agenda is, quite openly, the promotion of animal rights; and the paratexts all speak eloquently of that conviction. But it is also in most respects an engaging and lively piece of scholarly exposition. Four figures are central to Catharine Randall's enquiry: Michel de Montaigne, Guillaume du Bartas, St François de Sales, and — almost certainly the least well known — the eighteenth-century Jesuit Guillaume-Hyacinthe Bougeant (with briefer treatments of several other early modern writers). And, at least from the seventeenth century onwards, the figure of René Descartes, with his reduction of the non-human animal to the status of a machine, looms in the background as an oppositional figure of dogmatic inflexibility. Randall's rapid but perceptive opening section on Montaigne concludes approvingly with a quotation from the Essais (ii. 12), in which the essayist ‘recognizes the value of the animal kingdom as part of creation along with man’ (p. 29). Du Bartas and François de Sales form a convincing central diptych: for the Protestant poet, animals are placed at the service of man in the divine scheme, and fulfil a primarily didactic function as ‘the animate and literalized form of the workings of God's mind and will’ (p. 49); for François, by contrast, the popularizing format of the manual of spiritual direction (whose origins and development are helpfully sketched in by the author) allows him to erect what is perhaps ‘the first intentional theology of creatureliness’ (p. 77, emphasis original). But the most intriguing figure, whose thinking merits a justifiably extended exposition, is the Père Bougeant, whose Amusement philosophique sur le langage des bêtes of 1739 met with predictable opposition from the ecclesiastical authorities. For Bougeant, it is rationally inconceivable that animals, especially such social animals as beavers and wolves, do not have a language, even if it falls outside humankind's capacity to decipher it (although his hypothesis becomes more unappealing when a contorted eschatological justification, involving a kind of Christianized metempsychosis, is advanced in support). Randall's writing is fluent, the theological background is accessibly incorporated into the argument, and the succinct conclusion is compelling, uniting as it does a range of ‘creatures […] who [open] up new, vibrant ways of experiencing both this world and that beyond it’ (p. 135). There are, unfortunately, a few presentational quibbles: the author seems on occasion to have an unduly loose sense of what makes one writer ‘contemporary’ with another; and the transcription of many French words in the endnotes is inaccurate (even with full account taken of the vagaries of archaic orthography). Above all, the bibliography is highly inconsistent, so that, for example, François's Introduction à la vie dévote is cited in a scholarly French edition, whereas the Traité de l'amour de Dieu (largely absent from the body of the text) appears only in a rather creaky nineteenth-century English translation; and reference to the single ( but seminal) poem cited by La Fontaine, the anti-Cartesian ‘Discours à Madame de la Sablière’ (Fables, IX), comes from a Lagarde et Michard anthology.

Background and Develpoment of Caries Management based on Risk Assesssment(CAMBRA)

This article reviewed theological background and historicak development in dental caries management by risk assessment. Dental caries prevention and treatment according to CAMBRA model is patient-centered, risk-based, evidence-based practice. Team approach is necessary and clinician need to integrate science, practice and product. Dental hygienist take a important role in implementing CAMBRA. CAMBRA model could be incorporated into dental and dental hygiene education. Dentist and dental hygienist able to provide scientific and ethical care managing dental caries by risk assessment.

Genesis der Geltung und Geltung der Genesis

Genesis and validity (Genesis and Geltung) can be distinguished and even separated: genesis would be a historical or empirical question; and validity a question of pure reason. But genealogy in Nietzsche’s tradition has challenged this separation. What is the validity of genesis; and what is the genesis of validity? The constellation of genesis and validity are to be analysed. Therefore the theological background has to be remembered: the »original« identity of genesis and validity (in the narration of creation like in salvation). This imaginary identity is dissociated in history. That is why genesis and validity are given »for us« only in difference. Than the pretention of identity is always a little imaginary: may it be the genealogical idea (the genesis is the validity) or vice versa the idea of pure reasons (validity is indifferent to genesis). Beyond the pretention of identity or separation, it is suggested to look for dialectic and furthermore chiastic relations of validity and genesis. Than the question arises: who is in position to draw the distinction between them? Who is »the souvereign« to define the limits of genesis and validity? Is their difference a question of genesis or a question of pure reasons? I suggest: the difference is made by symbolic power and interpretation, more exactly: the relation of genesis and validity is a question of »Deutungsmacht« (symbolic or interpretational power).

Мир религий в глобальной динамике: “традиционное” и “нетрадиционное”

The collision of “traditional” and “non-traditional” in the present day Russian religious landscape as well as in the present day world could not be interpreted as a kind of direct confrontation between Past and Present. This collision displays its global nature connected with subtle and complicated problems of revival of seemingly obsolete archaic ideas, habits and institutions in unique post-modern conditions of social life, economy, technology, mass culture and cross-cultural interplay. It seems to be valid either for interpretation of universal religious dynamics of modern and post-modern world (including Japan, India and Latin America), or for understanding and interpretation of the present day cultural, religious and legal realities in Russia including life and status of the Russian religious minorities. Many Russian domestic problems in the field of religious matters seem to be dependent not only on unique constellations of the present day universal and domestic history, but also on certain shortages of legal, philosophical and theological background of the Russian political class as well as (partly) of intelligentsia.

When Gods Get Broken—the Theory and Practice of the jīrṇoddhāra and navīkaraṇa in the Pāñcarātrika sources

The elaborate rituals accompanying the construction of a temple and the installation of its idols characteristic of Tantric traditions were meant to ensure a perfect abode and receptacle for the highest god in his earthly manifestation. Descriptions of these rituals in religious texts supplement technical prescripts included in texts on art and architecture and provide a theoretical and theological background for the temple cult. The practices enable the proper creation and then the appropriate use of the temple and its idol, guaranteed by the permanent presence of god. But in the every-day temple practice the ritual could be endangered by the fact that the temple and the idol in some situations lose their perfection. This can be caused by impurity or damage. The ideal structure can be spoilt and therefore the religious practice and ritualistic manuals have to provide practical methods of reacting to such inevitable events.The article refers to several Pāñcarātrika sources which in their passages concern the impurity and damages as well as the renovation and replacement of old temples and images. The actions to be undertaken in such cases are presented in the texts under the heading jīrṇoddhāra.

Liturgy of Nation‐Formation: Patrick Pearse and the Theological Background of the Easter Rising of 1916

AbstractThe Dublin 1916 Easter Rising is most often analysed in terms of the ‘blood sacrifice’ concept and its ‘theatrical’ aspect with both rhetorical devices being ascribed to Patrick (Padraic) Pearse – poet, dramatist, and a crucial figure in the development of the discourse of Irish nationalism. This article proposes a reading of Pearse's literary and political texts centred on the relation between the religious and the political. Starting with the delineation of the complex ‘translation of the sacred’ from the religious to the secular context, the article then examines the two above‐mentioned key dimensions of the Rising, its sacrificial and ‘theatrical’ aspects, demonstrating their theological affinities. The two are interconnected through the thomistic theory of the liturgical sign, suggesting that the Easter Rising, as a crucial event in the construction of Irish nationhood, was devised and carried out per analogiam to the liturgical symbolism of the Catholic Mass.

We Know in Part: James McCosh on Evolution and Christian Faith

James McCosh (1811-1894), president of Princeton College from 1868 to 1888, played a significant role in the American reception of evolution in the late 1800s - he was one of the more prominent clergyman to assuage the public's fears of evolution while incorporating evolution into a conservative Christian worldview. McCosh was a prolific writer, whose books document his intellectual journey from hostility to acceptance of evolution. Three things will stand out in this overview that have not been emphasized in detail in other works: (1) James McCosh's perspective on evolution dramatically changed over time; (2) McCosh's motivations for engaging in the evolution-religion debate serve to clear up confusion regarding McCosh's final position on evolution; and (3) the theological and philosophical basis for McCosh's acceptance of evolution was established while McCosh was still hostile to evolution. His theological background therefore 'pre-adapted' him for evolution, and he was able to preach theology and evolution without substantially altering his theology.

Susanne M. Sklar, <i>Blake’s</i> Jerusalem <i>as Visionary Theatre: Entering the Divine Body</i>

Every reader brings his or her own strengths to Blake’s Jerusalem. Susanne Sklar’s strength lies in her biblical and theological background, and in Blake’s Jerusalem as Visionary Theatre: Entering the Divine Body, she identifies an extensive range of biblical references and echoes in Blake’s masterpiece, while she also embeds the poem in the context of various eighteenth-century social and religious movements, including Freemasonry, Moravianism, and the Messianism of Joanna Southcott. Sklar also wants to use the notion of “visionary theatre” to show that Jerusalem can be read both synchronically (holistically, like a painting) and diachronically (for its story and plot). However, she is more successful at deploying the biblical and theological context than with applying the visionary theatre aspect, and the result is a discussion without a clear overall thesis.

Necessary fiction: Realism’s tragic theology

This article revisits the early realist understanding of tragedy in international relations in order to highlight its debt to continental philosophical thought and tragic theology. Far from sharing a view of tragedy as objective externality, early realists engaged with the existential conditions that make up the paradoxical structure of experience: human beings’ constant albeit frustrated striving to make the world intelligible and ascribe meaning to their actions. The upshot of this article is that early classical realists, such as Hans Morgenthau and Reinhold Niebuhr, entertained a view of tragedy as a necessary fiction, that is, a fabricated but real condition that is inextricably linked with the constitution of subjectivity and human agency. This paradoxical view of tragedy as an ‘enabling obstacle’ that contests the idea of tragic destiny as inescapable determinism finds its roots in the continental philosophical and theological background of their thought but is more consistently exhibited in Niebuhr’s theological anthropology.

Kritisch én trouw

This contribution deals with the question of commitment to the Roman Catholic Church after the crisis on sexual abuse. This question is answered through a survey among 131 Roman Catholics. Several aspects of commitment can be distinguished: being shocked by the abuse, accusations of laxness and carelessness of the Church, trust in the media, losing faith in the Catholic Church, doubting faith, and distancing from the Church. Our results prove that the respondents are critical on the one side and loyal on the other. A model in four stages for the loss of commitment is described: 1. finding out about the abuse; 2. criticism of the church; 3. losing faith, and 4. erosion of commitment. For women and those who know of victims of abuse this erosion of commitment occurs more frequently. For respondents with a theological background there is relatively less loss of commitment.

CLOWNING ON THE PULPIT? CONTOURS OF A COMIC VISION ON PREACHING

This paper revisits the concept of the preacher as clown, tracing some aspects of the basic philosophy and history behind this somewhat unconventional understanding of the ministry. Attention is given to aspects such as the disruptive effect that the presence of a clown or jester can have on normative discourse, the role of scripture in attaining speech that is subversive to the status quo, and the ethical implications of such a mode of preaching. The theological background for this is explained in terms of the image of a vulnerable God.

The Theological Implication and Background of Vicarious Suffering in the Gospel of Mark

The Theological Implication and Background of Vicarious Suffering in the Gospel of Mark