Theological Vision Research Articles

Far-right Ecology and Geopolitical Resentment at Europe’s Periphery: The Case of Romania’s “Conservative Revolution”

Building on insights from political geography and the social sciences, this paper illuminates the diversity of European far-right politics in general and far-right ecologism in particular by contextually examining a party at Europe’s margins—the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). Based on a discursive thematic analysis, our objective is to show how AUR challenges existing theoretical accounts, predominantly tethered to the Western and Central European experiences. While most influential scholars emphasize far right’s culturalized view of religion and the fixation on immigration, AUR outlines a theological vision of politics and perceives emigration as a critical problem. Moreover, it co-opts the language of anticolonialism to articulate a socio-ecological critique of global extractive capitalism in a semi-peripheral context. These specificities are essential for understanding the party’s outlier position within far-right ecologism: AUR places the environment at the very centre of its programme—and not merely as a strategic add-on to attract voters or respond to domestic or external pressures. To substantiate our claims, we reconstruct three dimensions of its hyper-nationalist, Orthodox geographical imaginary: AUR’s complex, human, and natural resource nationalism; its focus on food sovereignty and the Romanian peasant as an exemplar of sustainable agriculture; and the protection of “the last virgin forests in Europe” as central to Romania’s national identity and prosperity. We conclude that AUR effectively mobilizes historical geopolitical resentment at Europe’s margins and addresses it with a promise of recovered plenitude that endangers democratic politics.

Pengantaraan Orang-orang Kudus

This article wants to explore the historical and doctrinal basis for the practice of praying through the intercession of saints, which is commonly found in the Catholic Church. For that purpose, it will study the historical context of its origin and its doctrinal basis originating from the documents of councils. From the study of these sources, it is hoped that we can find the authentic spirit behind the practice of supplicating prayer through the intercession of saints. It is also hoped that, with a proper understanding of its history in the Church and the Church teaching on it, abuse can be avoided, and correct practice found support. For this reason, the discussion will be maintained by a study on the historical context of the practice and of the development of the doctrine found in the Magisterium of the councils. Yet the general theological framework of the Second Vatican Council will be presented first, so that the theological vision of the theme in the modern era could be placed as our basic understanding. But as it is also necessary to present the historical background of this practice, the discussion should also be supplied with this historical background. With this background, it is hoped that the idea of the teachings outlined by the councils, from the beginning up to the Second Vatican Council, can be better understood.

Being Womanish: A Womanist Perspective on Black Girlhood

ABSTRACT This article asserts the value of Black girls’ lived experiences as a source for theological reflection in Womanist pastoral theology. In doing so, it proposes a methodological shift in Womanist pastoral theology and introduces a method called the Kaleidoscopic Analysis Perspective or KAP—a methodology designed with and for Black girls toward a Womanish vision of pastoral theology and care.

Fratelli tutti e Solidariedade Global

The text aims to understand the evolution of the term “solidarity” within Pope Francis’ magisterial theology until the writing of the encyclical letter Fratelli tutti. Enriched with the global adjective, the term solidarity for Francis is translated as a real and profound critique towards global divisions and inequalities, in the pursuit of an inclusive and empathetic love inspired by St. Francis of Assis. Therefore, the idea of solidarity that seeks to become “global” is not reduced to charitable aid only, but must be concretized as co-participation in the pain and common destiny of humanity. The encyclical proposes a “social friendship” that recognizes the dignity of all, seeking to transcend polarizations and ultranationalisms. Francis seeks the promotion of forms of dialog between local and global instances, avoiding abstract universalisms and/or stagnant localisms. His theological vision emphasizes interconnectedness and mutual responsibility in the building of a just and fraternal global community.

Beyond Immanence: The Theological Vision of Kierkegaard and Barth. By Alan J. Torrance and Andrew B. Torrance

<i>Beyond Immanence: The Theological Vision of Kierkegaard and Barth</i>. By Alan J. Torrance and Andrew B. Torrance

From I Samuel 8 to Genesis 1: Towards a Political Theology of Difference

ABSTRACT One way of understanding Political Theology is as the reading of modern political concepts as secularized theological concepts, influentially promoted by Carl Schmitt. Chief among theological concepts secularized into modern politics, for Schmitt, is God, whose rule translates, through the writings of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes into modern sovereignty. For Hobbes, the sovereign is a “mortal God,” and God’s rule over Israel is the only ancient political model worthy of emulation. While scholars have increasingly engaged the role of theology in modern political thought, there has been little reckoning with the particular Judeo-Christian notion of God – an overlord alluded to in gendered terms – that is the prototype for modern sovereignty. This understanding of God has shaped and limited the modern political imagination, inviting understandings of sovereignty as domination. This article explores the possibility that visions of politics or sovereignty absent domination, being pursued in our time, would be enriched by – and may indeed require – an expansion of our theological imagination.

The Great Web of Being: Environmental Ethics without Value Hierarchy

Hierarchical views of the world such as the great chain of being have come under sustained critique in recent decades, and rightly so. They have justified not only the domination of non-human creatures but also the devaluation (via animalization/racialization) of many humans. The rejection of hierarchy and the great chain of being, however, does not require the rejection of the Christian Platonic theological vision upon which hierarchy is often based. In this paper, I argue that Christian Platonic theology has always been in tension with the great chain of being and is better suited to a non-hierarchical view of creaturely value. I then develop the ethical implications of this view in dialogue with both environmental and animal ethics and anti-racist and decolonial scholarship.

Ectogestation and Humanity’s Whence? An Exploration with Saint Augustine and Karl Barth

Abstract This essay explores the theological and anthropological significance of birth, in order to discern what might be lost with the adoption of complete ectogestation (“artificial wombs”). Specifically, it considers both Saint Augustine and Karl Barth’s respective accounts of humanity’s whence—that is, their theological answer to the question of the nature and significance of our origins as individuals. I suggest that Augustine’s account of his origins emphasizes both his epistemic and biological dependency on his mother and nurses, while Barth’s stresses the individual’s immediate derivation from God. Those disparate answers affect how they construe the relationships of parents and children and work themselves throughout their theological visions and imaginations. I conclude that careful consideration of humanity’s whence cannot answer whether we ought to pursue ectogestation; but it does help us account for how our understanding of God and ourselves might be altered if we gestate human life outside the womb.

How Christ Saves Us While Dead: An Exploration of Aquinas’s Position

In explain how Christ saves us, Aquinas focuses predominantly on the Passion and the Resurrection. Staying within the general orbit of Aquinas’s theological vision, this essay seeks to give some theological definition to how Christ furthers our salvation even while dead. I will investigate why Aquinas says that merit and satisfaction are no longer possible after death and whether this also applies to Christ. Further, I will assess how instrumental causality might work when applied to the events of Christ as dead; especially those that relate to his body, such as being pierced. There are particular challenges here because such events relate to a corpse (rather than an integral human being) and they have a seemingly passive character. Finally, I will suggest a way to explain how the time and space bound events of Christ as dead, understood as actions of instrumental causality, can have a universal efficacy.

The Mercy Seat: An Artistic Grammar for Substitutionary Atonement

Abstract: The "mercy seat" identifies a well-known artistic tradition that renders the Trinity for the sake of liturgical contemplation. While there is diversity in depiction, the motif visualizes God the Father holding forth God the Son while God the Spirit hovers as a dove. This essay explores the "mercy seat" tradition as visual theology, one that offers an imaginative grammar for apprehending the complexity of Trinitarian agency present in substitutionary atonement, while also respecting the triune mystery. The mercy seat motif thus offers a case study for how visual art might guide theological reflection and Christian spirituality in general.

The Internationalist Vision of Black Theology and Black Power

The Internationalist Vision of Black Theology and Black Power

From Matter to Material Culture

Abstract As a contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Caroline Walker Bynum across the Disciplines,” this essay traces the origins and development of Bynum's interest in the material artifacts of late medieval Christian spirituality. The author narrates these evolutions through analyses of a single object, the Louvain beguine cradle from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The essay begins by treating Bynum's research from the 1980s to the early 1990s as moving toward a “visual theology” and then charts her movement from an interest in matter to an interest in materiality over the second half of the 1990s and first decade of the twenty-first century. Finally, the author uses the Louvain cradle's appearance in Bynum's most recent book, Dissimilar Similitudes, to articulate and reflect upon her contribution to material culture studies.

The Gospel of Pura Luka Vega: Queer Love, Irreverent Life, and Indecent Faith in the Margin

In this particular historical epoch described by many as a time of hypermasculinity and fascist populism, how do we think of emancipatory resistance and decolonizing spirituality that disrupts the patriarchal logic and destabilizes imperial structures that supply blood to the capillaries of our neoliberal order? Where do we locate and source the nerve impulse for our theological task to animate emancipatory praxis of our time? Moving away from the heterosexual theological discourse of emancipation, I suggest that queer life in the margin offers us a different theological vision and, importantly, better provides us with a theological voice that talks back to the system of domination and embraces the marginalized collective selves excluded in our time. Taking lessons from a drag performance, here I argue for a queer spirituality of resistance, one that is particularly angled at the hetero-patriarchal system. Channeling the blasphemous and rebellious spirit of Pura Luka Vega, a Filipino trans drag performer, I lay out a picture of why and what this could mean for people’s theology and I conclude this paper with a proposal for a new theological militant subject: an indecent and irreverent outlaw/outlawed.

From Consumption to Communion: The Ecclesial Role of Public Theologians in Cultivating a Livable City

Abstract Urbanism has become the dominant form of human dwelling, giving rise to the concept of livability, accompanied by livability indexes and city rankings. These reports provide brief bragging rights and marketing opportunities for high-ranking cities while glossing over the complex realities and inherent dangers of urban life. The issues surrounding livability rankings reveal corrupted anthropologies that prioritize the ways that one can consume a place rather than the cultivation of communities that are mutually reinforcing in their flourishing. Public theologians must work at the level of theological imagination to reclaim a vocational anthropology that places participation with God in the cultivation of community at the center of what it means to be made in the Image of God. In order to accomplish this fundamental shift, a significant and sometimes overlooked role for public theologians in the world today is serving ecclesial communities in facilitating this imagination through liturgical formation.

The Spirit of Pentecost and the Future of Creation

Abstract Studebaker’s overarching thesis is that “the Holy Spirit is the telos of redemption and, therefore, the divine person that consummates the fellowship of the triune God.” This thesis reflects not only the trajectory of current pentecostal scholarship, but the very core of Eastern Orthodox pneumatology that has primed the theological imagination and sacramental life of many Eastern European Pentecostals. This present reflection highlights a few questions that invite further engagement and offers a brief contemplation on three related subthemes within the proposal, pointing to some helpful insights from the Orthodox tradition. These subthemes are the event of Pentecost as the theotic telos of creation; the Spirit and the resurrection; and the redemptive significance of Spirit baptism (focusing on the pentecostal experience of glossolalia and xenolalia).

Visi Teologis dan Manajemen Pembinaan Calon Imam berdasarkan Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis

The purpose of this study is to comprehend the basic guidelines of priestly formation in which priesthood candidates purify their vocation motivation and align it with the priestly vision, which isbased on a theological vision of Christ as the High Priest. This theological vision of Christ as the High Priest is then elaborated specifically in a rule of life for the priesthood candidates. This rule of life is constructed based on six aspects of formation: personality, spirituality, community, intellectual, pastoral, and vocation. After interpreting the theological vision, the priesthood candidates are invited to develop their vocation together in a community of priesthood candidates where they are invited todevelop themselves together in various fields of skills. This is what is called managerial activity, which even in formation, the elements of management affect the lives of the priesthood candidates. Based on this, the priestly formation is based on a formation guideline contained in the Ratio FundamentalisInstitutionis Sacerdotalis formation document. The goal of priestly formation is for the candidates to realize their future identity as priests of Christ. Therefore, in order to achieve this goal, priesthood candidates engage themselves in various activities that lead to the goal of formation. In the management term, this cycle is referred to as management functions. The management function itself consists of planning, organizing, implementing, supervising, and evaluating.

Minjung Theology of Korea and Ecological Thinking: Focusing on the Theological Imagination of Ahn Byung-Mu

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria, currently used as a set of standards by socially conscious investors to evaluate a company’s operations before investing, are becoming an important global trend today. In particular, environmental and ecological crises are increasingly being seen as issues that will determine the sustainability of human civilization. Scholars of religion have been paying more attention to the issue as well. In fact, religion and environmentalism have emerged as sub-disciplines in, among others, religious ethics, religious studies, the sociology of religion, and theology. In view of this development, this paper aims to reexamine Minjung theology, literally meaning “the people’s theology”, which arose as a form of liberation theology in South Korea in the 1970s, from an ecological perspective, particularly focusing on the former’s view on the relationship and interrelationship between the individual and the environment. The paper pays special attention to the work of Ahn Byung-Mu, a founding scholar of Minjung theology, shedding light on the connection between his concept of gong, literally meaning “publicness”, and ecology, the characteristics of his ecological thoughts and their relevance to his view of god, and his views on bapsanggongdongche, literally meaning “the table community”.

A Pilgrim’s Performance: Practical Theology as Convening

Abstract Convening is a mode of practical theology inquiry that stages a counter-performance to the spectacle of prominent logics that order ecclesial life: brand Christianity, silos, and competition. Three parts organize this argument: Part I sets the stage with a preliminary portrait of convening, noting the contextual features of this inquiry. Part II introduces Augustine’s City of God as an interpretive lens to understand convening as a counter-performance to prominent spectacles on display. Part III redescribes convening by combining Augustine’s theological vision of spectacle, performance, latreia, and pilgrimage with the introductory portrait in order to perform what is possible when people of faith gather for collective inquiry.

U.S. CATHOLIC BISHOPS’ VOTING GUIDELINES: FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP AS A RESOURCE FOR POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT

Beyond offering guidelines for voting, Faithful Citizenship represents an attempt by the U.S. Catholic bishops to articulate a theological vision of political engagement. One may examine the theological vision of Faithful Citizenship according to three textual viewpoints: what it says (content); theological understandings (problematics); and possibilities for conceptual development (implications). Addressing the dynamics of political engagement in contemporary society is a complex task. While this analysis maintains that Faithful Citizenship constitutes a useful conceptual resource insofar as signaling the basic theological terms of Catholic political engagement, there are areas of conceptual underdevelopment. Accordingly, the analysis suggests paths toward a deeper conceptual engagement with political philosophy, especially understandings of constitutional democracy.

A Tapestry of Black Anthropology of Freedom: Insights from James H. Cone and Frantz Fanon

ABSTRACTAbstract: What is freedom without the ability to wonder and imagine new ways of being in the world? This question is at the heart of the works and contributions of Frantz Fanon and James H. Cone in their responses to the colonialities operating in the Black world, and the appropriate response to such colonialities through the medium of strategic alliances and a theological imagination of what it means to be human that is oriented towards blackness itself. However, since blackness is a production of white gaze, it is intended to embody pathologies of dehumanisation. Fanon and Cone do not shy away from shedding light on these pathologies. However, rather than slipping into the realm of nihilism, a pneumatological turn is articulated that allows for blackness to be a medium of encountering the gift of authentic humanity that is in solidarity with God's epiphany of life in the world. Fanon's and Cone's centring of rebellion as the pathway for an embrace of an anthropology of freedom is retrieved as a way of understanding the link between hope and a rich reading of anthropology of freedom that blackness evokes.