Theological Material Research Articles

Nietzsche, Nishitani, and Laruelle on Faith and Immanence

Abstract This article explores the use of the concept of “faith” in three non-Christian philosophers. The study begins with Nietzsche, who, while deeply critical of Christian belief throughout his work, offers a positive reformulation of the term in a few key texts. From here, the discussion proceeds to two authors who are deeply influenced by Nietzsche, François Laruelle, and Nishitani Keiji. Laruelle’s recent turn to non-theology sees him engaging directly with Christian theological material and presenting a distinction between a positive form of “faith” in contrast from standard religious “belief,” a distinction I suggest bears close resemblance to Nietzsche’s approach, especially in relation to the Apostle Paul. Finally, Nishitani offers his own account of faith, one inspired primarily by the Buddhist notion of faith, but also referencing Christian theology and specifically the practice of Paul, while also connecting with Nietzsche. The connecting theme for all three thinkers is rooted in Zarathustra’s encouragement to be “faithful to the earth,” a non-transcendent, immanent formulation of faith. Faith, in Nishitani and Laruelle especially, is non-doctrinal, non-dogmatic, and non-intellectual; it is, instead, practical, an immanent existence, a way of life resulting in a different form of connection with the world around us.

Losing Salvation

This essay argues that critiques of redemption in contemporary black theory necessitate a rethinking of black theology in terms of loss so as to upend the political theological order of redemption and damnation that justifies antiblack governance of thought and existence. Through an immanent reading of political theology's appearance in ostensibly secular black feminist thought, the article shows how these wayward metabolizations of black theology's internal and external contradictions—specifically, those that illuminate a fundamental crisis of meaning at its heart—reveal black theology's abjection and alienation from its own stated desires for redemption. The article argues that this debasement of black theology opens onto its significance for black thought. As a form of black thought, black theology and its ongoing crisis of meaning crystallize the political theological crisis of illegitimacy and alienation generated by the failed announcement of redemption in racial slavery's wake. Through a reading of Saidiya Hartman and Christina Sharpe's work, the article shows how a wayward form of black theology is immanent in the ostensibly secular work of these and other radical black theorists. Taking their critiques of the redemptive theology that undergirds antiblackness as instructive, the article argues that a wayward, rather than confessional, form of black theology is already operative in realms of black studies that might be called nontheological. Recasting black political and theological desire for the coherence of redemption as a failure, the article proposes a loss of salvation and heretical appropriation of Christian theological materials as a demand for black thought. By critically reoccupying the sense of damnation that marks blackness, radical black reproductions of theological knowledge can insist on a disinherited procedure of thought—a rebellious gnosis in blackness—that disfigures the romance of redemption.

Πάτερ, ημων ο εν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς (Mt 6:9a): Reading the Lord’s Prayer with insight from Ewe cosmology

This article seeks to interpret the phrase Πάτερ, ημων ο εν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς in the invocation of the Lord’s Prayer in the light of Ewe-Ghanaian cosmology. The article employs a combination of the historical-critical and indigenous mother tongue biblical hermeneutical approaches to explore the implication of the invocation for Ewe-Ghanaian Christian spirituality today. The article firstly discusses the various theological and hermeneutical positions of the invocation in dialogue with Ewe-Ghanaian concept of God and the plurality of his dwelling place. The article argues that Matthew’s use of οὐρανοῖς to suggest a plurality in God’s dwelling place resonates with Ewe cosmology, where it is believed that there are seven states of existence and that Mawugã, the Supreme Being, dwells in the first – the absolute state. Thus God exists in ‘seven heavens’ in Ewe cosmology, with the highest heaven being the eternal state of abode. On the other hand, the inclusive interpretation of the fatherhood of God in Ewe cosmology is discontinuous with the exclusive interpretation in the works of the church fathers such as Cyprian, Origen, Gregory of Nissa, Augustine and Clement of Alexandria. This hermeneutical position, the article observes, was responsible for the theological tensions that characterised the encounter between missionary Christianity and Ewe indigenous religion in the middle of the 19th century. However, the introduction of social services as evangelisation strategy, the legacy of the Ewe Bible and liturgy and the handing over of the Ewe church to the indigenous coworkers may have contributed to a large extent in ensuring religious tolerance among followers of the two religions. Today, Ewe-Ghanaian popular Christianity has shifted from its apologetic stance to a more liberal stance and employs indigenous religious and cultural categories in theologising.Contribution: Matthew’s rendition of the invocation of the Lord’s Prayer in the context of Ewe-Ghanaian cosmology is the focus of this article. The article forms part of the researcher’s contribution to the academic knowledge on the Lord’s Prayer and inspires the use of mother tongue biblical hermeneutics in the development of theological materials for the Ewe-Ghanaian Christian communities in Ghana and Togo.

The Apocalyptic Theology of W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Culture at the End of the World

ABSTRACT This paper argues that W.E.B. Du Bois’ short stories are a rich source of apocalyptic theology. Reading them apocalyptically, I argue, illuminates how Du Bois employed Christian theological material in order to negate its White supremacist order. Reading Du Bois apocalyptically shows the significance of black cultural production in apocalyptic terms and illuminates the exilic character of black people in modern history, which has led to a unique imbrication of the theological and cultural in black writing. Through a close reading of 3 short stories by Du Bois, I show how his sense of apocalyptic draws the prophetic, messianic, and eschatological together in anticipation of a world ungoverned by White supremacy and free from anti-black violence. Finally, I argue that Du Bois sees the black apocalyptic event as both a failure and a glimpse of possibility in the fleeting moments of recognition and touch that occur in the stories.

THE ‘DUNKELMÄNNER’ OF DOKTOR FAUSTUS: HUMANISTS VERSUS THEOLOGIANS

AbstractThis essay considers the treatment of theology in Thomas Mann's novel Doktor Faustus. Specifically, it proposes theology as meeting‐point of the two opposing elements characteristic of German cultural history: humanism and fanaticism (‘the demonic’). The most significant representatives of humanism are the so‐called ‘Dunkelmänner’: the Christian humanists of the Reformation period and authors of the Epistolae obscurorum virorum. In these letters, we encounter the refined creative capacity of the human mind and spirit, in contrast to the excessive coarseness of the protestant Reformation and Martin Luther. The novel's narrator Serenus Zeitblom identifies himself particularly with Crotus Rubianus and Erasmus as representatives of both the classical and the Christian cultural world, a tradition threatened by fanaticism and violence in the twentieth century as in the sixteenth. The Epistolae arose from the burning of Jewish literature, and Mann's point is that the enfeebled German intelligentsia of the Third Reich now contains no true ‘Dunkelmänner’ – except perhaps himself. The essay also examines the sources of the theological material in the novel, both with reference to the characters in the university faculty in Halle and to the theological concepts themselves which give the novel its essential substance and are therefore necessary to its understanding.

Gender and Pan-Species Democracy in the Anthropocene

There are diverse historical trajectories in human societies’ relationships with the non-human world. While many small place-based groups have tried to retain egalitarian partnerships with other species and ecosystems, larger societies have made major transitions. In religious terms, they have moved from worshipping female, male or androgynous non-human deities, to valorising pantheons of deities that, over time, became semi-human and then human in form. Reflecting Durkheimian changes in social and political arrangements, movements towards patriarchy led to declining importance in female deities, and the eventual primacy of single male Gods. With these changes came dualistic beliefs separating Culture from Nature, gendering these as male and female, and asserting male dominion over both Nature and women. These beliefs supported activities that have led to the current environmental crisis: unrestrained growth; hegemonic expansion; colonialism, and unsustainable exploitation of the non-human world. These are essentially issues of inequality: between genders, between human groups, and between human societies and other living kinds. This paper draws on a series of ethnographic research projects (since 1992) exploring human-environmental relationships, primarily in Australia, the UK, and New Zealand, and on a larger comparative study, over many years, of a range of ethnographic, archaeological, theological, and historical material from around the world. It considers contemporary debates challenging Nature-Culture dualism and promoting ‘rights for Nature’ or—rejecting anthropocentricity to recognize an indivisible world—for the non-human communities with whom we co-inhabit ecosystems. Proposing new ways to configure ethical debates, it suggests that non-human rights are, like women’s rights, fundamentally concerned with power relations, social status, and access to material resources, to the extent that the achievement of ‘pan-species democracy’ and greater equality between living kinds goes hand-in-hand with social, political and religious equality between genders.

Καὶ ἄϕες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν … the Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:12, Lk 11:4) and dispute resolution in the African church: The Ewe-Ghanaian context and perspective

This article examines the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew in the light of Ewe-Ghanaian conflict management model. Theoretically, the article employs a combination of the historical-critical and indigenous mother tongue biblical hermeneutical approaches to explore the implication of the petition for Ewe-Ghanaian Christian spirituality. The main theme of the petition in both Matthew and Luke’s renditions of the petition is forgiveness, which employs a divine-human and human–human formula, with the human–human serving as a form of collateral for the divine-human. Whereas Matthew’s petition carries an eschatological motif that of Luke is viewed in a non-eschatological sense. The article discusses the various theological and hermeneutical positions of the text and dialogically engages the world of the text with the Ewe-Ghanaian conflict resolution model with the view of finding points of continuity and discontinuity, if any. The article argues that divine-human and human–human forgiveness model, and the eschatological and non-eschatological interpretations suggested in both Matthew and Luke, respectively, does not resonate with Ewe-Ghanaian worldview, which perceives conflict from a demonological point of view. Any conflict resolution model that does not take the demonological dimension into consideration cannot be trusted to deliver justice in conflict situations. Thus, the task of the 21st century Ewe-Ghanaian church is to design an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) that resonates with the Ewe-Ghanaian life and thought pattern and is able to deliver justice. Contribution: Matthew’s rendition of the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer from the perspective of Ewe-Ghanaian conflict resolution model is the focus of this article. The article forms part of the researcher’s contribution to the academic knowledge on the Lord’s Prayer and inspires the use of Mother Tongue Biblical hermeneutics in the development of theological materials for the Ewe-Ghanaian Christian communities in Ghana and Togo.

ماهية بازوزو معبود أم شيطان؟ في المصادر الأثرية والنصية خلال العصرين الآشوري الحديث والبابلي الحديث / الکلداني

تاريخ العراق القديم (بلاد الرافدين) ملئ بعديد من المعبودات التي لا تعد ولا تحصى وفي الأغلب قد تصل إلى الآلاف من المعبودات وأعداد قليلة من الشياطين والأرواح غير الصالحة أو التي لم تدفن بالطريقة التي تليق وتقدم القرابين لها أو ممن قاموا بمخالفة أوامر الألهة أثناء حياتهم، وکذلک الأرواح الصالحة التي ربما کانت وظيفتها حماية المعبودات، وعلى کلا فإن عالم الشياطين في العراق القديم (بلاد الرافدين) قليل أو محدود الفهم، ربما يکون أحد أسباب ذلک يعود إلى أن الباحثين سواء القدماء أو المحدثين لم يقومون بدراسته أو تنظيمه مثل ما حدث مع معبودات العراق. وربما يکون بسبب أن الشياطين ليس محدد لهم جنس، أو عوالم غيبية أو ليس لهم أسماء مدرجة في قوائم الآلهة، وهناک العديد من الأسباب والتخمينات. ومايلفت النظر إليه وهو الکيان بازوزو وزوجته کما يقال الکيان لاميشتو، وهما الشيطانين الوحيدين کما يدعي کثير مثل Culican W وغيرة في العراق القديم (بلاد الرافدين) لهما عديد من الأيقونات والتمائم، وهذا إستثناء ليس لغيرهما من الکيانات الأخرى التي يطلق عليهم شياطين. ومن أسباب الغموض أيضا حول بازوزو هو ظهوره المفاجئ في العصر الحديدي، ووجود فجوة بين ظهوره ووجود بعض الکيانات الآخرى قبله والتي ربما کانت تقوم بنفس الوظيفة، مما يلفت نظر الباحثة بالنسبة لظهوره المفاجئ ربما يکون لغرض معين أو للتحکم في شئ بعينه وليس هباء، ومن هنا يثبت هذا البحث إلوهية بازوزو وأنه ليس بشيطان. What is the nature of Pazuzu God or demon? In archaeological and textual sources During the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian period ABstract: The long history of the Mesopotamian Civilization has produced over three thousand gods, and a far lesser number of monsters, sages, spirits, and demons, which together with the protective deities of the individual, the countless souls of the dead, and the demonized witch defined supernatural agency in Mesopotamian thought. However, Mesopotamian demonology is less varied than Mesopotamian theology, and at the same time less defined. One of the reasons is that the ancient scholars did not collect, organize, and explain their demonic material in demon-lists, like they did their theological material in god-lists. This may be attributed to the fact that demons were considered beyond monstrosity. That is, they were neither male nor female, they were incorporeal non-beings, they were concealed, their names did not exist in Heaven and Earth, and that they were not counted in the universal census. An exception to this are the two best known Mesopotamian demons, Lamashtu and Pazuzu. The two most deviant ones, they have the most stable and explicit iconographies. First millennium texts prescribe the manufacture of Pazuzu heads that were to be worn on the body during an exorcism. Representations of Pazuzu, made of terracotta, stone or metal, remained in use for an extended period of time. Pazuzu then, though a king of the demons, functioned not like a demon to be exorcized, but like an apotropaic monster guarding a house or a person against aggressive demons. It is this research proves the deity of Pazuzu.

The Queer Narrator

Hijras, India’s “third gender” now often translated as trans figures, have long been defined by their castrated status in colonial and postcolonial discourse, which has aimed at conflating their social and moral positions with their corporeal modification. This article juxtaposes various sets of narrative accounts to explain the theological underpinnings of liberal explanations for accommodating queer sexuality in India. First, the article looks at contemporary Bollywood films in which hijras are often inserted into the plot to bring the villains to justice, sometimes by castrating them. This seeming contradiction, in which queer personhood is made life-affirming, reveals the complex ways in which hijras have been redefined as legitimizing forms of historical queerness in South Asia. Their role, it is argued, is better understood not through an ontological notion of generosity but through the particular dramaturgical position of the sutradhar that the Hindu-Muslim theology of South Asia makes available. The sutradhar is the one who holds (dhar) the strings (sutra) of the dramatic plot. The voicing and enacting of the moral position with which queer ethics have been associated, both in film and in life, are drawn from this character. Given that the long documented history of hijras has made them quite intelligible to South Asian people without the need for translation, this article argues that debates of queer sexuality must go beyond the civilizational terms of “West and the rest” and explore the theological material available for the crafting of queer personhood and ethics.

An Inhuman God for Our Inhuman Times

This paper attempts a careful reading of chapter I of Division Two, particularly section 53, on death in Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927). Our aim is to deconstruct some of Heidegger’s assumptions while imagining the margins of his text that could warrant a comparison and contrast with the biblical theological material of the New Testament. In parallel by reading the Synoptic Gospel of Mark on Jesus’s agony in the garden prior to his arrest, trial, death, and resurrection, we can initiate a series of comparisons and contrasts. For Heidegger, there is no conception or idea beyond death, and yet death itself as a possibility, even as the greatest possibility to be, is not like any other point in time that a human being can experience, grasp, remember, or anticipate while they are alive. It is not the witnessing of the medically certified death of another person or animal. Out of this paradox, we will argue for a greater philosophical degree of complexity that Jesus the human being experiences when it comes to the possibility of death and the impossibility to surmount it. In the same token we cannot exclude the theological doctrine of the single hypostatic substance (as two natures) of the historically finite person Jesus as human flesh and divine transcendence. So philosophically speaking, his death is unique even though its event as physical expiration on the Cross is like any other human being. However, the physical death of the human called Jesus does not answer the question of the meaning of death in the split-natured unified hypostatic substance of Christ, the Second Person of the Triune Christian God, which includes the First Person of the Father and the Third Person of the Holy Spirit. By tracing a series of complicated philosophical relations, we hope to contribute to the fields of philosophical theology, albeit a heterodox one, and the philosophy of religion while attending to the inherent secular limits that Heidegger’s philosophy requires in so far as he imagines his project as ‘ontological,’ and not ‘theological’ or ‘historical.’ We conclude with certain philosophical speculations to what is other to both Heidegger’s ontology and mainstream Christian theology.

Peter Lombard’ın “Sentences”ı Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme

Yüzyıllar boyunca Batı Hıristiyan dünyasında teoloji ders kitabı olarak okutulan “Sentences” adlı eserin yazarı Peter Lombard olarak bilinir. İncil’in yanı sıra teolojik açıdan irdelenen eserler arasında daha fazla yorumun konusu olmuştur. Bu eser her ne kadar eski kaynakların bir derlemesi olarak görülse de asıl önemi, teolojik materyalin organizasyonu, sunum yöntemi ve birçok önemli alanda doktrini ele alma biçiminde yatmaktadır. Bu öneme rağmen eserin yazarının yaşamı ve düşüncesine dair herhangi bir giriş ne yazık ki yoktur. Eser Hıristiyanlık geleneğinin nasıl geliştiğini ortaya koyarak başlar ve sonrasında Lombard’ın yaşamını ve çalışmalarını ortaya koyar. Tanrı, üçleme, yaratılış, angeloloji, insan doğası, etik, ayinlerin doğası ve nitelikleri, Hıristiloji de dahil olmak üzere ana konular eserde yorumlanmaya çalışılır. Orta Çağ’daki en önemli teolojik ders kitabı olarak kabul edilen “Sentences”, kilise babalarının ve sonrasında ortaya çıkan yorumcuların bir dizi teolojik konudaki derlemelerinden meydana gelmiştir. Dört kitap halinde ayrıştırıldığında aşağıdaki gibi ifade edilebilir. Teslis inancının gizemi / Yaratılış üzerine / Enkarnasyon üzerine /İşaretler Doktrini (ayinler ve ayinsel işaretler üzerine).

Τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον (Mt 6:11; Lk 11:3): The Lord’s Prayer and an African predicament – the Ewe-Ghanaian context in focus

This article seeks to reconstruct the phrase τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον (Mt 6:11; Lk 11:3) in the light of an African predicament with the Ewe-Ghanaian context in focus. The article posits that the various interpretations of the phrase throughout the epochs of Christianity have arisen as a result of the ambiguity associated with ἐπιούσιος and the quest to make the Lord’s Prayer in general relevant to the life situation of the recipient communities. Although the Lord’s Prayer is still regarded as a prayer par excellence in the Ewe-Ghanaian Christian community, its central theme in popular Ewe-Ghanaian spirituality has been demonological instead of eschatological. The demonological interpretation is premised on the primal Ewe belief that successful spiritual warfare against the evil forces believed to be militating against one’s destiny in life can restore one’s fortunes and lead to the blessing of material prosperity. Thus, the phrase τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον (Mt 6:11; Lk 11:3) in popular Ewe-Ghanaian Christian spirituality is a call on God to ‘grant us the blessing of material prosperity, good health and longevity’. The demonological approach towards material prosperity, however, is discontinuous with the evangelisation approach, which was introduced into Ewe-Ghanaian spirituality through missionary activities in the mid-19th century. The missionaries identified the cardinal Ewe-Ghanaian predicament – poverty of the mind and spirit – and addressed them holistically through the message of the Gospel and the establishment of schools, hospitals, and agriculture to guarantee food security. This holistic approach to alleviating the poverty of the spirit and mind laid the foundation for the socio-economic development of their Ewe-Ghanaian Christian converts and the communities in which they practise their faith. Contribution: This article forms part of the researcher’s contribution to the academic knowledge on the Lord’s Prayer and inspires the use of Mother Tongue Biblical hermeneutics in the development of theological materials for the Ewe-Ghanaian Christian communities in Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

Pecock’s Mismigrations across the Religious Field

Abstract In mid-fifteenth-century England, the anti-Lollard Bishop of Chichester Reginald Pecock managed to get himself convicted for heresy in the very act of trying to teach orthodox doctrine to the laity. His remarkable array of interlocking treatises recodified the entirety of Christian doctrine and catechetics in a sprawling multitextual summa that endeavoured to forge its own new communities of interpretation. Pecock’s textual mismigrations reveal much about the perils of social change and stasis that they attempt to address through the intent to reform. Although the laity of this time was successful in procuring more challenging devotional and theological materials, Pecock’s bid to bestow on them a newly enhanced theological and philosophical role was a step too far. So what can be extrapolated from his failure? What do his frustrated texts tell us about the dynamics, permeability, and (non-)negotiability of religious boundaries in mid-fifteenth-century England?

ДУХОВНО-РЕЛИГИОЗНАЯ ОСНОВА ПОВЕСТИ ДАЛЬНЕВОСТОЧНОГО ПИСАТЕЛЯ С. П. БАЛАБИНА «РОЖДЁННЫЙ ИЗ ЛОТОСА»

The article is devoted to analyzing the second part of S. P. Balabin’s historical novel-dilogy “The Golden Empire”. The research is based on the vast amount of mytho-poetical and theological material; special attention is paid to spiritual and religious conceptions, which formed the basis of the novel “Born from Lotus”. The authors consider close interweaving of the eastern religious doctrines (Buddhism, Taoism) with the traditional Jurchen religious and mythological conceptions including conceptions of nature (shamanism, animism). It is shown that confrontation of two forces - attackers and defenders - is described within philosophical and religious discourse, the elements of mytho-poetics and expressive artistic means are interweaved into the story.

GERHARD VON RAD (1901–1971): A RELUCTANT MODERNIST’S APPROACH TO WISDOM LITERATURE

Gerhard von Rad defended the importance of the Old Testament for Christians in the face of Nazi pressure. Reacting to the sterility of a Religionsgeschichte approach, he was a part of the Biblical Theology Movement and sought to set forth the theological material of the Old Testament in roughly historical order as a summary of Israelite faith. Attempting to set forth the “saving acts of God,” his equivocal use of the category “history” failed to bridge his modernist assumptions that reality is unbreachably divided into the phenomenal and the noumenal. Though a number of his assumptions about wisdom literature have since been discredited, von Rad strove to approach Old Testament wisdom on its own terms, with poetic sensitivity, respect, and deep appreciation.

Poetry and Revelation: For a Phenomenology of Religious Poetry. By Kevin Hart

Few scholars can claim the sort of wide-ranging expertise that we see in the work of Kevin Hart. He has made substantial contributions to Continental philosophy, Christian theology, and literary criticism, and, in addition to this academic work, he is one of today’s finest Australian poets. In his new book, Poetry and Revelation, we see these many elements together in one place. The result is a volume that conveys, perhaps better than any single previous publication, the scope of his scholarly interests and the ambition of his constructive project for extending the application of phenomenology in the Husserlian style to literary and theological material. The book consists mainly in essays that have been previously published elsewhere in some form. Each of its 15 chapters give a close reading of poetry written by a diverse set of sources, from familiar figures such as G. M. Hopkins, T. S. Eliot, Geoffrey Hill, to lesser known poets such as Australians Judith Wright and Robert Gray. The final two chapters, newly written for this collection, treat Marian lyrics and the theme of silence. With each essay Hart examines a religious theme that emerges in the chosen poems, ranging from revelation, transcendence, and the function of theological speech, to prayer, contemplation, and atheism. Hart’s readings are characteristically patient and convincing and his use of phenomenological analysis to illuminate these texts produce original and profound results. He has few rivals in the English-speaking academy in this sort of interdisciplinary endeavour.

La Mariología de Francisco de Vitoria: cuestiones bibliográficas

The immediate purpose of the present study is to clarify the problems of a bibliographical character which might arise for one who wishes to penetrate into the mariological thought of Francisco de Vitoria. The author's final objective is to prepare the edition of the Commentaries which the famous restorer of Theology in the sixteenth century was carrying out on mariological questions from his chair of Theology at the University of Salamanca, where he was teaching the Tertia of St. Thomas. The work is divided into two parts. The first is a documental exposition of the present state of theological production of the theologian of Salamanca. As is known, if we make exceptions of four prologues, a brief work adressed to confessors and a few works of moral opinion, Vitoria was not published during his lifetime. A this death, however, he left behind a considerable legacy of theological material, consisting of his Relecciones and his university theological Lecturas. Various editions of his Relecciones have been published, some of them being annotated, the most outstanaing by P. Urdanoz. But the greater part of Lecturas still remain unpublished. In this regard, the most important publication up to he present moment is the editions of the Comentarios a la Secunda Secundae, in six volumes, by P. Beltrán de Heredia. The author points out, interestingly enough, that the Lecturas which have come down to us are not the originals of Vitoria himself but the notes taken down by his students (dictata, reportata, reportationes) either closesly adhering to the explanations given in class (academic manuscripts) or those which were carefully composed later by copyists (extra-academic manuscripts). The author, at this point, considers the research of all those who have studied the material, especially that carried out by Cardinal Ehrle, P. Beltrán de Heredia and prof. Stegmüller. Thanks to these, we can determine the number of manuscripts in existence, the material treated, the date on which each lecture was given, the library where they can be found or the professor to whom they belong. All of this data means that we are in conditions to be able to consider the theological production of Vitoria with sufficient assurance of objectivity, whether, to study his thought or to edit all or part of this material. The second part is dedicated to the presentation and analysis of the sources of the mariological doctrine of Vitoria, that is to say, to the five manuscripts which contain his Comentarios in III, 99. 27-37. It is a through analysis, in which the author, considering the diverse elements, attempts to arrive at a reliable conclusion in regard to the documental value of each of these manuscripts. The manuscripts are the following: 1. Manuscript 1.202 from the Section of Universities, in the National Historical Archives of Madrid. It is an extra-academic manuscript, made up of Lecturas of diverse origin. In the author's judgement the explanations which accompany questions 27-37 are not Victoria's. 2. Manuscript 44.XII.20 found in the Library of Ajuda, Lisbon. Likewise, this manuscript is extra-academic, although with notable similarities to the Evora Manuscript, the Latin Ottoboniano Manuscript 1.056 and the Zaragoza Manuscript. 3. Manuscript 123-1-17 found in the Public Library of Evora. It is academic, of outstanding value. 4. Manuscript 20/89 of the Capitular Archives of La Seo in Zaragoza. Only mentioned by P. Beltrán de Heredia, it had not been studied until the present time. It is an academic manuscript, the best preserved and the most extensive of the Commentarios of Vitoria on the Tertia. 5. The Ottoboniano Latin Manuscript 1056 in the Apostolic Vatican Library, also academic. Once its authorship can be attributed to Vitoria, it could be the most important, but after q. 31 it is almost completely illegible. The author concludes by indicating that for his edition of questions 27-37 he will take as his basis the Manuscript from Zaragoza.

The Dream of the Red Chamber and Christian theology: Seeking a new philosophy of love from the Christian perspective

AbstractThe Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng or The Story of the Stone), composed by Cao Xueqin in the middle of the eighteenth century during the Qing dynasty, is celebrated as the greatest of all classical Chinese novels. However, little effort has been made to explore its theological dimension, as well as the theological interaction with Chinese classical philosophy in the field of Redology (the name for research around this text). This article aims to fill this gap to explore the theological influences upon the thematic ideas of this novel. Attending to the newly discovered theological materials in recent studies, I argue that the author of Honglou meng is not ignorant of Christianity, and in fact, used a triadic image to refer to the trinitarian persons.

Sister Insider/Outsider


 
 
 Religious studies as an academic pursuit is heir to the ideal of objectivity traditionally pursued in the social sciences. Consequently, some scholars dismiss theology from religious studies on the grounds that it is not appropriately distant from its subject matter. On the basis of this distinction the vast array of theological material available to religious studies scholars has been discounted as unusable, despite providing much needed insight into religious beliefs and behaviors. In this paper, I argue that theological material as a whole should not be discounted as a source of religious studies scholarship and critique and conclude that it is necessary to reconsider the place of theological texts within religious studies discourse. This reconsideration is necessary because critical theologies can use methods and include analysis that conform to the critical academic standards of religious studies.
 
 

Liberation Theology in Brazil: Some History, Names and Themes

Liberation Theology in Brazil: Some History, Names and Themes Cláudio Carvalhaes and Fábio Py Liberation Theology is not just one theology among many others. No! Liberation Theology, as we understand it, is a matter of survival, of life and death. It is a place where faith, discourse of God, and real life meet in order to protect and expand the possibilities of life, in the eco‐biodiversity of the planet and in the possibility of justice for the poor. We didn't choose Liberation Theology; we were chosen by it, and it is because of Liberation Theology that we are here today. To take away Liberation Theology is to mute our voices; we become tongue‐tied, inarticulate, dumb. We are among the third generation of liberation theologians in Latin America. We attended Protestant churches, had a more conservative upbringing, and through social resistance and seminary formation, we were introduced to Liberation Theology. Our beginning text was Gustavo Gutierrez, a Catholic theologian, and we struggled to understand the book. But it led to a time of discovery and excitement! Rubem Alves, Richard Shaul, Julio de Santana, Jaci Maraschin, Leonardo Boff, Milton Schwantes, among many others, influenced us during the height of Liberation Theology. Priests and pastors were giving rise to the movement through churches and Base Communities, gaining consciousness about their social situation and how God Was calling them to a new day! Many women engaged in theological work as well and were beginning to shift the map of the theological production. Great theological material was produced, Liberation Theology pulsed everywhere, and socio‐political transformations spread all across Latin America. It is not our task here to give a long historical account of the processes and movements of Liberation Theology in Latin America, but rather to highlight the work of a few Latin American liberation theologians, namely Rubem Alves, Ivone Gebara, Milton Schwantes and Nancy Cardoso. Liberation Theology concerned itself with the poor and in that way engaged the black people of Latin America. But we failed to include black theologians and Liberation Theology as a whole neglected race in their work. We will begin by highlighting the ways in which liberation theologies started in Latin America with a few notes about its major tenets. Then, we will present a small part of the work of these four theologians mentioned above. We will finish with some words about what is left undone. Liberation Theology was not the creation of one theologian. Gustavo Gutierrez did not begin the movement; it was the work of the people, through grassroots movements calling for justice, in collaboration with priests and theologians, that deeply shaped Liberation Theology in Latin America. Moreover, Liberation Theology is best understood not only by looking at published books, but also by looking at the movement of the church. In the 1950s and 1960s, Latin America experienced extensive influence and control by the United States. In the midst of McCarthyism, the United States was afraid that Russia would take over other countries besides Cuba. The CIA supported radical conservative groups seized power in many countries in Central and South America: Chile, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and so on. The School of the Americas was an ongoing colonizing institution that supported the CIA's desire to take over the Latin American continent. SOA trained local people to kill their own people and promised money and protection for those who cooperated. The massacre in El Salvador, the killing of Oscar Romero and the priests of Universidad Catolica, the military coup in Brazil and Argentina can be explained by the deadly power and influence of the United States in Latin American countries. Liberation Theology came out of the struggle against external domination and socioeconomic oppression. To see the beginning of Liberation Theology in Latin America, we must go to the conferences of CELAM, the Latin America Episcopate Conference of Medellín in Colômbia, where in 1968 the cries of the people in Latin America began to be heard. This was the birth of a movement that, pushed by the Second Vatican Council, connected with the people through base communities. The church expanded into a new movement, with the help of the...