In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Conscience and Calling: Ethical Reflections on Catholic Women's Church Vocations by Anne E. PatrickMary M. Doyle RocheConscience and Calling: Ethical Reflections on Catholic Women's Church Vocations Anne E. Patrick NEW YORK AND LONDON: BLOOMSBURY T&T CLARK, 2013. 197 PP. $24.95In Conscience and Calling, Anne Patrick weaves together insights into women's moral agency, vocational discernment, and historical narratives of religious women's engagement with clerical authority. Taking up James Gustafson's (...) question, "What is God enabling and requiring us to be and to do?" she offers a nuanced view of virtuous discernment and action in the context of the "ecclesial oppression" of women. Patrick asks, "What is correct 'church practice' for female moral agents in view of the institutionalized injustice toward women in Catholicism?" (59).Chapter 1 begins with cases of conflict between women's religious congregations and clerical leadership. In the first case, Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary protested intolerable living conditions at a parish in Brooklyn, New [End Page 201] York, in 1939. When repeated requests for heat fell on the pastor's deaf ears, the sisters requested to leave the parish and were told that they would then also have to leave another thriving ministry in the diocese. The sisters acquiesced to this decision in a spirit of obedience and did not publicize the real reason for their departure. Fifty years later in Miami, Florida, when another conflict arose, the sisters involved discerned a very different response to injustice, one marked by concern for "justice, honesty, and personal responsibility." The model of a "good sister" had shifted from an emphasis on obedience and institutional loyalty toward shared responsibility for ministry and leadership.Chapter 2 surveys the landscape of women's engagement with the Church and its structures of leadership and adapts H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture to sketch five "types": women against the Church; women content with the Church; women above the Church; women and Church in paradox; and women transforming Church. Patrick proposes the transformationist model as the approach that most adequately meets the challenges that women face in the Church today; she calls on those who adopt this approach to live in creative tension with the Church and with those who follow the other models, to espouse justice and mutuality in organizational structures, and to be self-critical. Chapter 3 recounts the history of the National Assembly of Religious Women through this transformational lens.Chapter 4 proposes a "framework for love" that builds on Margaret Farley's ethic of commitment to envision an ethic of vocation that elicits "active receptivity," values the contributions of institutions, practices egalitarianism, and keeps justice and love in dialectical relationship. The "myth" of vocation (the notion that vocation is a "thing" to be discovered and pursued, like one's destiny or soul mate) is balanced by the "mystery" of vocation that engages ongoing, lifelong discernment. Controversial cases involving women religious illustrate this kind of discernment and women's striving to live justly and faithfully. The final chapter, "Vocation in a Transformed Social Context," recounts the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's visitation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a case that has changed the landscape for women's discernment once again. Patrick calls the Church to live out its rhetorical commitment to the dignity of women by opening all church ministries so that women might serve and lead.Conscience and Calling tells an important story about how women religious have discerned the signs of the times and imagined new vocations in the Church and the world. Though the focus here is on women in the American Catholic Church, Patrick's contribution should pave the way for sharing religious women's stories in the global context to further enrich a Christian vision of virtue and vocation for those navigating ecclesial politics and practicing ministry in particular. [End Page 202]Mary M. Doyle RocheCollege of the Holy CrossCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

The plot thickens--in novels and our lives--forcing us from the fairy tale into a bewildering, even heartbreaking narrative. We look at the god we're holding, and find it too fragile, too brittle to meet reality. Cling tighter? Move on godless? In fact, rejecting a god image (or as C. S. Lewis puts it, allowing God to smash our limited god) opens space for deeper faith in the midst of painful life experience. In OMG, Mary Ellen Ashcroft invites readers to look (...) over her shoulder as she traces her god growth, beginning with a capricious childhood god. The loving savior who embraced her when she was eighteen, followed her into strict fundamentalism, while the god she met in an Anglican seminary shocked her by caring more about poverty than a seven-day creation, but then called her to a South Africa tipping toward revolution. An interweaving of narrative theology and creative nonfiction, OMG invites readers to grow into deeper faith, retelling their stories in the light of the biblical one, dropping inadequate gods to grasp a mysterious, awesome one. (shrink)

Building on the work of Henk Bos and John Schuster, I will examine how the story of Descartes-the-philosopher and Descartes-the-mathematician proceeds in the years immediately following 1628. Specifically, I will focus on the 1633 Le Monde and the 1637 Geometry and hope to show that Descartes is still trying in this period to integrate his distinctively Cartesian version of math with his distinctively Cartesian version of philosophy. Being even more specific, I will look at the creation story presented (...) in Le Monde in conjunction with Descartes’ solution to the Pappus problem, which was published in the Geometry. On the reading I’ll offer, we find both a mathematical influence on the early metaphysics in Le Monde as well as (and this is the heart of my account) a metaphysical grounding for one very important part of the mathematical program that Descartes presents in the Geometry. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The BuddhaTerry C. MuckWhen I think of the Buddha, the subject of my scholarly study, the picture my mind produces is soft and blurred at the edges—out of focus but not in a way that makes it difficult to see or understand. It is more in the way a photography studio uses background and light to project the subject forward. The Buddha, in my mind’s eye, seems friendly, accessible. (...) This Buddha, my Buddha, manages to combine great warmth and great mystery.By contrast, when I think of Jesus, the object of my faith, I see clearly a well-defined personality. There is no portraiture here. It is more like a candid snapshot taken by a very good camera with plenty of natural light; a great photograph, a picture that produces a clear image, in my mind at least, of a person I know and understand. It is a picture of someone walking around Palestine doing great deeds, a father to my Buddha brother—and to me.I love both the Buddha and Jesus. I have loved Jesus since early Sunday school days in Huntington, Indiana, at the Bible Baptist Church on Lake Street. I have loved the Buddha since I first began reading about him in graduate school at Northwestern University and listening to Walpola Rahula lecture about him in classes there. Both the Buddha and Jesus were great men, doing divine things that have changed the world for billions after them. The differences my mind produces are in the realm of qualities. I love them both, but I see them differently.Why the differences? I suppose one reason is that they are different. Gautama Buddha lived in sixth-century B.C.E. India where he was the son of a king, chose a life of religious itinerancy, and died of food poisoning at eighty years of age. Jesus lived in Palestine in the first century C.E. where he was the son of a carpenter, chose a life of religious itinerancy, and was crucified by the Roman authorities after being convicted on a charge of political subversion.They both chose a life of religious itinerancy, to be sure. But the meaning of each of those traveling lives has been the subject of great debate, both within and without their respective religious traditions. Disagreements abound. In fact, in one of those [End Page 105] odd quirks of human cantankerousness, the deeper one gets into each of the traditions, Buddhism and Christianity, the more diverse and passionate are the views about the Buddha and the Christ.The diversity of views deep within each tradition can be stunning to the average Buddhist and Christian on the street, who tend to have a rather homogenized view of each other—kind of a standard life story that could be easily summarized in the pages and pictures of a comic book. But deep within the traditions, Buddhists argue about Buddha nature, Buddha veneration, and the role the Buddha plays in human liberation. Christians argue about Jesus’ divine and human status, his uniqueness, and the role he plays in human salvation. One good thing about all this disagreement: it makes my musings about the Buddha and Jesus pale in comparison.Still, I would like to understand better. Why do I see the Buddha and Jesus differently?Socialization and HistorySurely the most important reason can be summarized in one word: socialization. I was raised to love Jesus, to believe in him. Here’s how I was raised to see Jesus: Jesus is God’s son, born to a woman named Mary and a man named Joseph. God sent Jesus to help human beings lost in a morass of bad deeds, psychological confusion, and social injustices. This melange of evil is so pervasive among human beings that solutions can only come from someone outside the system, willing to enter into the system and guide others out, both by what he says and by what he does—how he lives his life.What Jesus said, what Jesus did, and who Jesus was—all are unique. Others of us can try to live like Jesus—indeed, we should. But none of us, not one, can... (shrink)

In her paper Expelled Again from Eden: Facing Difference through Connection, delivered in Plymouth in 1998, Mary Grey said the story of the Garden of Eden was a dilemma for Feminist Theologians. This because it both bears responsibility for the Fall of relationship between God and Man and the misogyny that has ensued through the ages but also underpinning the desire to return to a supposed golden age of matriarchy with the re-emergence of the Goddess and a related ecological (...) and egalitarian epoch of harmony. Grey makes a connection between the Lost Garden myth and the second wave feminist ideal of global sisterhood of the 1960s. Reflecting on her paper and updating it later, Grey concluded she still felt the challenge of years ago: the sense of rightness of connection and mutuality, yet the crucial need to embrace difference. (shrink)

Current controversies about the ordination of women have shown the need for a re‐examination of what the Christian Church means by priesthood. This article looks at the Epistle to the Hebrews’ contribution to our understanding. To that end it focuses on the institution of priesthood in its first‐century Jewish context and shows the use made of it by the author of Hebrews in his presentation of Christian faith.Section 1 emphasizes some all‐important differences between the NT’s use of the language of (...) priesthood and ours. Not least, it nowhere uses “priest” to designate Christian ministers. All the more striking, therefore, is Hebrews’ depiction of Jesus as “high priest”.Section 2 discusses Judaism’ Day of Atonement ceremonies – Hebrews’ dominant cultic model. In the comparison drawn between Christ’s death and exaltation with these rites, he becomes not only the high priest but also the expiatory victim.As far as Judaism’ cultic institutions are concerned, however, Jesus was not and never could be a priest, since he was of the tribe of Judah rather than Levi. Hence Hebrews appeals to Melchizedek. How this non‐Israelite model is used by Hebrews to subvert the whole notion of priesthood as caste is discussed in section 3.Finally, in section 4 Isaacs concludes that for Hebrews there is no longer a role for an ongoing priesthood, since Jesus has definitively achieved access to God, which was its raison d’être. Melchizedekian high priesthood is unique to Christ; neither inherited nor transmitted. Hence, unlike other NT authors, for Hebrews even the church as a corporate body is not a priesthood. As its closing chapters show, in this Epistle the cultic model gives way to the more inclusive one of pilgrimage. (shrink)

The narrative of the Fourth Gospel shows the tranference of the meaning of Israel's temple as the dwelling place of God. The temple shifts in meaning from a building to the person of Jesus and then to the community of believers.

The interesting thing about the word for ‘palace’ in Homer is that there is no such word. All the words that mean ‘house’ may be applied to a royal palace, but all of them may equally well be used of the house of an ordinary citizen, μέγαρον is often translated ‘palace’, or some other word with connotations of kingly majesty. But it too, when it is not more narrowly localised to the living-room, means just a house in general.Just as there (...) is no separate word to designate a palace in Homer, so a qualifying adjective is never used to indicate that a particular house is ‘royal’. In fact, to Homer there is no sharp distinction between a palace and a house, except that a king is likely to have a bigger and better home, more sumptuously furnished.The Iliad and the Odyssey are much concerned with kings. So it is odd that no word serves to designate the king's palace and no other dwelling, especially when the poet so delights in describing the splendour of royal homes. The major archaeological sites of the Mycenaean period, in which the main stories of the poems are set, all contain a palace which is easily recognised, even in its ruinous state. Can one imagine a new arrival at a great Mycenaean site needing to be shown which was the palace, as Odysseus was shown at Phaeacia? It seems highly unlikely that the Mycenaeans should have had no special word for a palace, though there is so far no firm evidence for the existence of such a word in Linear B. If a ‘palace’ word existed, its special significance, if not the word itself, must have been forgotten by Homer's time, when a great many houses might be found within the city wall, as at Smyrna. There may, however, be traces of the ‘palace’ meaning still detectable.In Table 1, which has been compiled from the concordances of Prendergast and Dunbar, I have tabulated the frequency with which each of the regular words for ‘house’ is used to denote a dwelling occupied by gods, lesser divinities, mortals or animals. Various interesting points arise from this table.It is apparent that there is a far higher proportion of gods' houses mentioned in the Iliad than in the Odyssey. The figures for δόμος and δῶμα show this particularly clearly. But the difference is probably due entirely to the subject-matter: far more of the action is taken up with scenes among the gods in the Iliad than in the Odyssey. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HERMENEUTICS OF HISTORY IN THE THEOLOGY OF EDWARD SCHILLEBEECKX AGNIFICANT UNDERLYING issue in recent.discussions of the writings of Edward Schillebeeckx, whether in academy or church, is the fundamental question of theological method. In his contemporary work, Schillebeeckx has shifted clearly from dogma to human experience a:s the starting point for theological investigation, a move in which he is certainly not unique. The growing " consensus in theology " 1 (...) which views the theological task as a critical correlation between the Christian tradition and contemporary experience takes a unique shape, however, in each theologian's work. How is Schillebeeckx's developing theological method to be characterized and evaluated? Is his new approach to theology hermeneutical or political or both? 2 Has Schillebeeckx abandoned the earlier metaphysical and phenomenological foundations of his thought or is Thomas Aquinas still the secret mentor of his contemporary writings? 3 Does Schillebeeckx 1 See Consensus im Theology?, ed. Leonard Swidler (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980). 2 David Tracy's distinction of hermeneutical from political theologies is inadequate in describing Schillebeeckx's " hermeneutics of history " since Schillebeeckx's designation of the theological task a.s hermeneutical includes an explicit political-critical dimension. See Schillebeeckx, The Understanding of Faith (New York: Seabury, 1974), esp. ch. 6-7. See also "Theologisch Geloofsverstaan Anno 1983 " (Baa.rn: H. Nelissen, 1983). For Tracy's distinction see The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1981), pp. 74-75. a In his review of Schillebeeckx's Ghrist, Leo O'Donovan observed that " Schillebeeckx's real master here is still probably Thomas Aquinas, whose theological realism he is transposing into a critical and practical historical language." (" Salvation as the Center of Theology," Interpretation 36 (1982), p. 196). The transportation from metaphysical to historical categories does involve, however, a major philosophical shift as Schillebeeckx notes in Jesus: 97 98 MARY CATHERINE HILKERT, O.P. implement the narrative-practical theology he applauds or does he remain a theoretician? 4 How does dogma fit into his present theological method, if at all? That last question has been of particular interest to Schillebeeckx 's critics. More than one author has contrasted his contemporary writings with his earlier dogmatic works. Jean Galot, an outspoken critic of Schillebeeckx's recent theological writings, acclaimed Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God as an outstanding work of sacramental theology in accord with the traditional doctrine of the church.5 Similarly, Leo Scheffczyck praised a "pre-critical phase of Schillebeeckx's theology " prior to his hermeneutical writings while describing the latter as " critically turned against the dogma of the church." 6 An Experiment in Christology, trans. Hubert Hoskins (New York: Seabury, 1979), p. 619. The question remains whether a theological realism grounded in creation faith and eschatological hope does not ultimately require some sort of philosophical explanation of "the idea of anticipation of a total meaning amid a history still in the making" (Jesus, pp. 618-619). William L. Portier suggests that even in order to negotiate his theological appropriation of ideology critique successfully, Schillebeeckx must retain at least a minimal, fundamentally negative, realist metaphysics from his Thomist past. ("Edward Schillebeeckx as Critical Theorist: The Impact of Neo-Marxist Social Thought on his Recent Theology," The Thomist 48 (July 1984), pp. 361-63). 4 The critique of Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society (New York: Seabury, 1980), p. 79, n.5: "None of the important modern Christologies take this practical structure of Christology as their point of departure. In this sense, they are all idealistic and characterized by a non-dialectical relationship between theory and praxis." Metz includes Rahner, Kiing, and Schillebeeckx specifically in his charge. 5 Jean Galot, "Schillebeeckx: What's He Really Saying About Jesus' Ministry?" The Catholic Register, October 1983, p. 1. 6 Leo Scheffczyk, "Christology in the Context of Experience: On the Interpretation of Christ by E. Schillebeeckx," The Thomist 48 (July, 1984), p. 389. See also The Schillebeeckm Case, ed. Ted Schoof (New York: Paulist, 1984). While the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith drew no definitive conclusions regarding Schillebeeckx's theological method in their investigation of his Jesus book and granted that his Christology could be interpreted as compatible with the doctrine of Nicea and Chalcedon... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Incorporating Religion into Psychiatry:Evidenced–Based Practice, Not a Bioethical DilemmaMary D. MollerFor over sixteen years I was the owner and clinical director of an advanced practice nurse–managed outpatient rural psychiatric clinic staffed by APNs, a social worker, a licensed counselor and several graduate students. Many of our patients were victims of severe and often brutal trauma and abuse suffered at the hands of family, friends, and various professionals including spiritual (...) leaders. We also uncovered sources of abuse suffered from those involved in occult practices ranging from seemingly innocent white witchcraft (Wicca, Paganism, New Age) that includes such activities as astral projection and remote viewing to the darkest possible black witchcraft (perpetrating evil, incanting evil spirits, casting spells and hexes, creating dissociative identities) such as occurs in ritual abuse and satanic rites. Both types of witchcraft also typically involved family, friends, various professionals, and spiritual leaders. Recognizing the controversy surrounding the reality of witchcraft I am sharing a story that I hope will help break down the barriers that prevent many patients from receiving the treatment that would provide the most benefit to recovery.Seeking services for these patients led me on an intense personal and professional journey that included a profound Christian born–again experience at almost 50 years of age. My professional career grew in nearly indescribable terms as a result of the incorporation of prayer and deliverance ministry as part of the services we selectively provided. Today I always include assessment of spiritual experiences a patient has as well as spiritual supports that are available with every new patient intake. For patients who indicate that prayer is one of their supports, I ask if they would like prayer at the conclusion of the session. The gratitude that is expressed by individuals who appreciate being able to pray with a psychiatric provider is often profound.In the field of psychiatry there has been a long–standing and distinct taboo regarding incorporating religious and spiritual aspects of life experience into treatment unless it is to frame most of these discussions within the context of psychosis. This stems from the advent of psychoanalysis in which religion was deemed a neurosis and atheism became the goal. Some still hold to that belief and there certainly remains controversy regarding the incorporation of prayer into routine outpatient or inpatient care. The essential starting point is the determination of accurate differential diagnosis, which can often be a lengthy process. The clinician must be careful about distinguishing between religious experiences and religious delusions, and often this takes time to sort out. The determination of the etiology of hearing the voice of God or the devil or demons must be carefully parsed and framed within the context of the situation and culture the patient describes. If the clinician denies the existence of God or the devil or demons or the practice of witchcraft, the patient’s descriptions of such experiences will be quickly [End Page 206] labeled psychotic. The patient may then experience a lengthy hospitalization and treatment with psychotropic medications that can have an extremely negative effect on the possibility of recovery. Once I witnessed the level of healing that occurs with carefully administered spiritual interventions that are related to specific spiritual experiences that are based on the patient’s belief system, there was no going back to using only allopathic medication and non–spiritual psychosocial interventions, even in spite of the criticisms from others. The key is to understand and respect the patient’s belief system, if this is not congruent with the practitioner’s belief system, then practitioner must refer out.In the United States, an increasing persecution of Christianity and a devaluing of the Judeo–Christian heritage of our Constitution are creating a climate of intolerance to the expression of religious values resulting in an expectation that Christians should compromise their beliefs for the sake of political correctness. As a doctorally prepared psychiatric–mental health advanced practice nurse I experienced a profound born–again Christian experience that ultimately led to study of the Hebrew roots of Christianity and I now worship in a Messianic Jewish synagogue. It is impossible for me to not include the concept of spirituality into... (shrink)

Contributing to renewed scholarly interest in R. D. Laing and his circle, and in the radical therapeutic community of Kingsley Hall, London, this article offers the first article-length reading of Mary Barnes’ and Joseph Berke’s Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey through Madness. This text offers views of anti-psychiatry ‘on the ground’ that critique the 1960s utopianism of Laing’s championing of madness as a metanoic, quasi-psychedelic voyage. Barnes’ story, too, reveals tensions within the anti-psychiatric movement. Moving beyond existing (...) criticism of the text, Barnes, it is argued here, emerges as far more than an exemplary patient, victim or anti-psychiatric puppet. Particular attention is paid in this reading of Two Accounts to the following: the ways in which the spiritually inclined Barnes and the psychoanalytic Berke differ in this dual narrative text; the ways in which each differs from Laing; the metaphor of the journey; and the setting of Barnes’ story in the often conflicted, experimental household of Kingsley Hall. (shrink)

Jesus' story -- A family affair -- Whose story are you in? -- Hatred that passes understanding -- Evidence of the invisible -- A family feud -- What is it to you? follow me! -- Wild blessing -- What's a cheeseburger? -- The road to Oz -- Christian Anti-Semitism -- Israel time line -- Jewish intellectual contribution.

This work is designed to show that there is an implicit connection between Ockham's academic and political careers in his theory of conscience. ;Thomas Aquinas offers a theory of moral responsibility according to which the conscientious individual has knowledge of the rightness of her act which does not preclude her doing otherwise. His account of the will, however, proves that this state of affairs never obtains. Ockham's alternative presupposes that we freely choose our own ends. He is therefore entitled to (...) assert that conscience is the knowledge of one's own acts as right or wrong. ;The libertarian metaphysics underlying Ockham's ethics is tested by the problem of unfulfilled prophecy. Thomas Bradwardine argues that the Antichrist is free not to come because it is possible for God to undo the past. Thomas Buckingham argues for the possibility that the prophecy never meant that the Antichrist was going to come. Meanwhile, Ockham is left with the possibility that God lied. Ockhamist John of Mirecourt shows why this 'heretical' solution is the only way to save the faith. Ockham's theory of conscience provides a sound basis for interpreting his treatise on heresy. Heresy is disobedience, not to authority, but to the truth. Since the condemnation of heresy is itself a paradigm instance of this kind of perversity, freedom of speech prevails by default. Ockham's conception of a community united by this realization provides an answer to twentieth-century speech-regulation advocates. ;Ockham thought that it is through our obedience to the truth that Jesus's promise to be with his disciples 'always, to the end of the age' will be fulfilled. According to Walter Burley, 'I promise you a Christian' converts with 'A Christian is promised to you by me.' According to Ockham, in contrast, it is an opaque construction. This account of the logic of indefinite promises implies that no individual can claim to be one of the disciples to whom Jesus was referring. ;I hope to leave the reader in a better position to appreciate the sense in which the claim that Ockham's two careers are united by his nominalism may be considered correct. (shrink)

No doubt all are familiar with the story of Abraham, of whom God demanded the sacrifice of his son, Isaac, and who, at the last minute, received from this same God the order not to touch the child since it was by then certain that Abraham would not refuse to do so. Ultimately, as the Bible itself seems to say, was this not simply a test in those remote times when, after all, sacrifice was a common occurrence? And so, (...) perhaps, we might think this is all there is to this story, simply a matter of fear. Nevertheless, how can we not be amazed by the seeming gratuity of such an ordeal? Was not Abraham, and already since a very long time, the chosen one of God? Can we not, then, ask if a more attentive reading of the texts will provide a more substantial message? (shrink)

In this article, the subject of Jesus and the Gospel is discussed according to the Qurʾān. This study focuses on the position of Jesus and the nature of the Gospel from the perspective of the Qurʾān about the perception of Jesus and the Gospel in the Christian belief. The issue of Jesus and the Gospel has been the subject of different understandings and discussions between Muslims and Christians from the first periods of Islamic history until today. There are serious confusions (...) around them both within the Christian world and Islamic world. Even if there are common points between the information contained in the New Testament and in the Qurʾān on these issues, this information does not agree with each other. While Jesus and the Gospel described in the Qurʾān are not independent and not detached from the historical process of divine revelation; Jesus, which was placed in a superior position in Christianity, and the Gospels written by different writers on different dates after Jesus, do not integrate with this historical process. As for the Islamic world, it can be said that the perception of Jesus and the Gospel is not directly shaped by the Qurʾān, but rather by narratives and common beliefs. In this article where concept analyses are intense, the Qurʾān, the Bible, TDV (Türkiye Religious Foundation) Encyclopaedia of Islam, dictionaries, commentary resources and studies on Jesus and the Bible were mainly referred to. According to the Qurʾān, all the messengers called rasūl and nabī are human prophets chosen by Allah and none of them are angel or superhuman. Allah is the only God and there is no god but Him. According to the Qurʾān, it is not possible for God to adopt a wife or son. Allah is not the third of the three that finds its expression in the Christian belief in the form of the trinity: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Rūḥ al-Quds). According to the Qurʾān, every understanding that deifies Jesus and carries him to a position above human is a deviation from the right path. The deification of Jesus, who was born of Mary without a father, has been a belief formed over time. It is stated in the Qurʾān that Jesus is a messenger of Allah and a word He informed Mary, like the other prophets. What is meant by the word of God is that Allah heralds Mary with a child whose name is Christ, Jesus and the son of Mary. While it is said in the Qurʾān that Jesus is the word of God, it is not meant that the word is embodied and transformed into Jesus; however, it is meant that Jesus was created and brought to life with a word that came from Allah. The fact that Jesus is the word of God can also mean that he will speak to people in the name of Allah when he is in the cradle and then with the words that were revealed to him, and he will notify the way of the Lord in his message. As his birth is a miracle, his talking to people while in the cradle is also a miracle. Allah put His words in the mouth of Jesus like as He put them in the mouth of Prophet Muḥammad, and He also revealed the Gospel to Jesus. Thus, the words of God and the messenger who speak in the name of Allah became synonymous. Because when he speaks in the name of Allah, the words coming out of his mouth are not the words of Jesus himself, but the words of God. All prophets, including Jesus, are a single ummah sent on Islam. The essence of the books they brought from Allah is one. Although there are some differences in details arising from history, culture and social conditions, there is no difference between them in terms of the basic principles, norms and decrees brought from Allah in matters of faith, worship, morality and law, and especially the principle of unification. According to the Qurʾān, the Bible is the name of the divine book that Allah sent down to Jesus who was held responsible for His message, and that confirms the previous books. Contrary to the common belief among Muslims, the Qurʾān does not abolish the Gospel sent down to Jesus, but endorses it. In fact, all the books that God sent through the prophets confirm each other in terms of their essence, as well as the basic principles and provisions they contain. Allah taught Jesus the book, the wisdom, the Torah and the Bible, and sent him to confirm the Torah. He also sent down the Qurʾān to Prophet Muḥammad as confirming the Torah and the Bible. The purpose of these books sent down by Allah is to provide guidance and light to humanity. It is emphasized in the Qurʾān that all the prophets are actually one ummah, and that God who sent them is the true Lord of the people and that worship should be done only to Him. The verse in the Qurʾān "The only religion in the sight of Allah is Islam" should be understood in this context. In this respect, the common understanding among the scholars who study in the Islamic tradition that Qurʾān abrogated the divine books sent to humanity before, which is incompatible with the Qurʾān and turned into a common belief, should be reviewed and evaluated. (shrink)

Matthean scholars have predominantly viewed Jesus’ healing ministry through the lens of ‘fulfillment of prophecy’, which connects his healings to David the shepherd and the fulfilment of the covenant, the restoration of the covenant people, and the establishment of the new covenant. This interpretation has largely emerged from an analysis of Jesus’ healing ministry as a singular event. However, it is necessary to revisit previous studies that have posited that the stories of Jesus’ healings were arranged in a larger context (...) and theological perspective, rather than as a disjointed list of individual events. In particular, the healing events in Matthew 8–9 appear to have been arranged with the intention of teaching discipleship, indicating that the healing stories in the Gospel of Matthew, while scattered, are part of a cohesive pattern of theological themes. These themes include the forgiveness of sins, compassion and mercy, healing through faith, and confession of Jesus as the Messiah. The author of Matthew employs this pattern to systematically present a theological perspective that acknowledges Jesus as divine and confesses him as the Messiah. Contribution: This study aimed to analyse the pattern of these theological themes as they appear in Jesus’ healing narrative. The repetition of these themes serves to establish Jesus’ divinity and reinforce the confession of him as the Messiah. Furthermore, the pattern of theological themes in the healing narrative suggests that it was constructed during a period of transition for the Matthean community, as they moved from Judaism to Christianity. The pattern highlights the community’s confession of Jesus as God and their efforts to solidify their faith. (shrink)

Novello, Henry The New Testament is undoubtedly a book of joy. The verb chairein, which means to rejoice, occurs seventy-two times in the New Testament and the noun chara, which means joy, occurs sixty times. The word chairein is found both at the beginning of the gospel story and at the end: at the annunciation the angel greets Mary by saying, 'Joy be with you', and on the resurrection morning the risen Jesus greets the women who had come to (...) mourn him by saying, 'Joy be with you'. The triumphant message of joy forms the framework of the gospel story and rings resoundingly throughout the pages of the New Testament. Paul makes it very clear in his letters to the Corinthians that he is committed to helping them in their progress and joy in the faith and almost the last thing that he writes to the Corinthians is: 'Joy be with you!'. When Paul writes to his Philippian friends, again joy is a constant theme: 'Rejoice in the Lord'. This command is repeated in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. In a key text in his letter to the Colossians, Paul prays that they may increase in their knowledge of God and live a virtuous life worthy of the Lord, and his prayer ends with the words 'with joy'. The hallmark of the Christian life for Paul is that every virtue and every tribulation and all knowledge should be irradiated with joy. (shrink)

This essay tries to develop a thoroughly critical method of evaluating religious beliefs presented to us in classic texts, illustrating this method by critical interpretation of the Dao of the Daodejing and the God of the Gospel of Mark. -/- The essay treats religious beliefs "theologically," that is, as views about what finally matters in life. In its emphasis on critical reason, it departs from the dogmatism usually associated with theology. It is also historicist and pluralist, departing from the usual (...) association of theology with a focus on absolute truths transcending all culture. -/- In the first part, I trace modern difficulties in subjecting religious faith to rational critique, to the cognitive "imperialism" of traditional religious thought -- the tendency of believers to allow their religious beliefs to govern knowledge in many other areas we now recognize as non-religious, due to the modern development of physical and cultural sciences. This tendency has misled modern thinkers into regarding religious claims about literal facts and universal truths as the epistemological basis of religious faith, and therefore the claims that should be the focus of rational critique. I offer instead a pragmatist view, which focuses on the pragmatic implications believers draw from their beliefs, and tries to correlate these implications with contextually conditioned perceptions believers might plausibly have had that might support these implications. -/- The second part of the essay proposes a very revisionist version of Plato’s "Socratic" reasoning, as one way of subjecting theological beliefs to rational critique. This model of Socratic reasoning is broadly empiricist, regarding direct perceptions of what is admirable, illustrated in unproblematic concrete narratives, as the epistemological basis for moral knowledge. Platonic "Ideas" are the result of extracting the essence of what is admirable from these concrete perceptions, and gradually refining them through sustained questioning. This account differs fundamentally from "Platonism" as it is traditionally conceived, especially in that it allows for the existence of a very great many ways of leading a great human life, exemplified today in the many different cultures we have gained an appreciative awareness of. The multiplicity of these different ways prevents any one small set of concepts from being regarded as a singularly and exclusively authoritative norm for judging all people everywhere. At the same time, this approach to moral reasoning avoids nihilist relativism by providing a procedural way of distinguishing rationally between the essence of what is admirable, and mere concrete appearances that often accompany what is admirable, but which can exist separately and so mislead people into a focus on things that do not finally matter. -/- The final part of the article applies this approach to a critical interpretation of the Dao of the Daodejing and the God of the Gospel of Mark. In the case of Dao, for example, we must attend to the way that aphorisms in the Daodejing evoke life experiences in which we ourselves can perceive specific contrasts between what is admirable and what is not. Dao in the Daodejing should then be interpreted, following suggestions given in the Daodejing itself, as a summary reference to this kind of admirability in its most pure form, conceived of in contrast to accompanying appearances. Similarly, in the case of the Gospel of Mark, we must attend to the way that episodes in Mark’s Jesus-story evoke life experiences in which we can perceive specific contrasts between what is admirable and what is not. Mark’s God is a focus for personal commitment to this kind of admirability in its most pure form, conceived of in contrast to accompanying appearances. The historicist character of this critical method is evident in the fact that in the Daodejing the particular contrasts defining what is admirable differ so radically from the particular contrasts defining what devotion to God means in the Gospel of Mark. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks, and: The Buddha's Gospel: A Buddhist Interpretation of Jesus' WordsJohn D'Arcy MayThe Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks. Edited by Ray Riegert and Thomas Moore. London: Souvenir Press, 2004. 140 + xi pp.The Buddha's Gospel: A Buddhist Interpretation of Jesus' Words. By Lindsay Falvey. Adelaide: Institute for International Development, (...) 2002. 108 pp.Since Roy C. Amore's Two Masters, One Message (1987) revived the hypothesis of Buddhist influence on Christian origins and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit's research established links between Nestorian Christianity, Gnostic Manichaeism, and Mahayana Buddhism in Central Asia, there is scope for further reflection on commonalities between the two traditions over and above the purely doctrinal and philosophical. The two books under review, though intended for a general readership, are indications that interest in these matters is very much alive.Riegert and Moore preface their selection of texts with the story of Bishop Aleben (A-lo-pen), who travelled the Silk Road from Persia and was received with honour at the imperial capital of Xian (Chang-an) at the beginning of the Tang dynasty (635 CE). The emperor Taizong was sympathetic to what he called the "Luminous Religion," a Nestorian version of Christianity, possibly in Syriac, as presented by Aleben. It seems that these teachings were translated into Chinese in the form of sutras. One of them, preserved in stone as the Monument Sutra, features the cross rising from the lotus, the symbol chosen by Karl Reichelt for Tao-fung Shan, his Christian center in Buddhist style at Sha-tin outside Hong Kong, many centuries later. Thousands of Buddhist texts were preserved in the library cave at Dunhuang monastery, about one thousand miles west of Xian, where they were rediscovered by the Taoist priest Wang Yuanlu, who arrived there in the 1890s and became the self-appointed guardian of the scrolls.Included in this treasure trove were the Jesus Sutras, which are now scattered in museums and private collections, largely inaccessible to the public. But if the selection published here in a very elegant translation is anything to go by, they are [End Page 190] extremely significant religious documents with a spiritual value all their own. For the uninitiated, there is no way of checking the authenticity of these translations. The commentaries that accompany them could be slightly tendentious in that they nudge us in the direction of the editors' particular holistic worldview. But the texts themselves have a beauty and integrity that speaks for itself. They represent a Higher Dharma of perfect purity (p. 86), which, like a mirror, reflects the world with no trace of self: no desire, no action, no virtue, no truth (pp. 80–83, 126–129). The Jesus story is retold, and Jesus is portrayed as the teacher of this Higher Path. The sutras speak of One Spirit who is self-created, One God who is creator of the world, and One Lord, the Messiah who will return. There are prayers, too: "O Loving Father, Enlightened Son, Holy Spirit King"; "Lamb of Love and Bliss"; "O Holy Sage, Universal Lord, Messiah" (pp. 110–113). The texts obviously bear witness to a Buddhist-Christian dialogue much earlier and at a far deeper level than many would have thought possible. Whether they represent the religion of the future, as the editors suggest, remains to be seen.Lindsay Falvey's project of interpreting the canonical texts of Buddhism and Christianity in reference to one another has a similar orientation. In the course of agricultural development work in Thailand he came to realize "that the striking similarity between the two teachers may well be a seamless cloak of congruence beneath the mantle of culture and lore" (p. 13); the texts, in other words, may be quite literally translatable into one another's terms. Though aware that Q, the collection of Jesus' sayings that is supposed to have been available to the synoptic evangelists, is a hypothetical reconstruction, he still feels able to use a version of it as a basis for his experiment. He prefaces this with what he calls "A... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks, and: The Buddha's Gospel: A Buddhist Interpretation of Jesus' WordsJohn D'Arcy MayThe Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks. Edited by Ray Riegert and Thomas Moore. London: Souvenir Press, 2004. 140 + xi pp.The Buddha's Gospel: A Buddhist Interpretation of Jesus' Words. By Lindsay Falvey. Adelaide: Institute for International Development, (...) 2002. 108 pp.Since Roy C. Amore's Two Masters, One Message (1987) revived the hypothesis of Buddhist influence on Christian origins and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit's research established links between Nestorian Christianity, Gnostic Manichaeism, and Mahayana Buddhism in Central Asia, there is scope for further reflection on commonalities between the two traditions over and above the purely doctrinal and philosophical. The two books under review, though intended for a general readership, are indications that interest in these matters is very much alive.Riegert and Moore preface their selection of texts with the story of Bishop Aleben (A-lo-pen), who travelled the Silk Road from Persia and was received with honour at the imperial capital of Xian (Chang-an) at the beginning of the Tang dynasty (635 CE). The emperor Taizong was sympathetic to what he called the "Luminous Religion," a Nestorian version of Christianity, possibly in Syriac, as presented by Aleben. It seems that these teachings were translated into Chinese in the form of sutras. One of them, preserved in stone as the Monument Sutra, features the cross rising from the lotus, the symbol chosen by Karl Reichelt for Tao-fung Shan, his Christian center in Buddhist style at Sha-tin outside Hong Kong, many centuries later. Thousands of Buddhist texts were preserved in the library cave at Dunhuang monastery, about one thousand miles west of Xian, where they were rediscovered by the Taoist priest Wang Yuanlu, who arrived there in the 1890s and became the self-appointed guardian of the scrolls.Included in this treasure trove were the Jesus Sutras, which are now scattered in museums and private collections, largely inaccessible to the public. But if the selection published here in a very elegant translation is anything to go by, they are [End Page 190] extremely significant religious documents with a spiritual value all their own. For the uninitiated, there is no way of checking the authenticity of these translations. The commentaries that accompany them could be slightly tendentious in that they nudge us in the direction of the editors' particular holistic worldview. But the texts themselves have a beauty and integrity that speaks for itself. They represent a Higher Dharma of perfect purity (p. 86), which, like a mirror, reflects the world with no trace of self: no desire, no action, no virtue, no truth (pp. 80–83, 126–129). The Jesus story is retold, and Jesus is portrayed as the teacher of this Higher Path. The sutras speak of One Spirit who is self-created, One God who is creator of the world, and One Lord, the Messiah who will return. There are prayers, too: "O Loving Father, Enlightened Son, Holy Spirit King"; "Lamb of Love and Bliss"; "O Holy Sage, Universal Lord, Messiah" (pp. 110–113). The texts obviously bear witness to a Buddhist-Christian dialogue much earlier and at a far deeper level than many would have thought possible. Whether they represent the religion of the future, as the editors suggest, remains to be seen.Lindsay Falvey's project of interpreting the canonical texts of Buddhism and Christianity in reference to one another has a similar orientation. In the course of agricultural development work in Thailand he came to realize "that the striking similarity between the two teachers may well be a seamless cloak of congruence beneath the mantle of culture and lore" (p. 13); the texts, in other words, may be quite literally translatable into one another's terms. Though aware that Q, the collection of Jesus' sayings that is supposed to have been available to the synoptic evangelists, is a hypothetical reconstruction, he still feels able to use a version of it as a basis for his experiment. He prefaces this with what he calls "A... (shrink)

Cohen deals with the question of the possibility for art to represent God or the divine in some of his works, throughout all his philosophical production, but obviously above all in his main aesthetic work, sthetik des reinen Gefhls. We can state that in Cohen's works this problem is posed with reference to three different religious fields: Greek polytheism, Jewish monotheism and Christianity. The topic of this essay will be Cohen's thought about the artistic representation of the divine in Christianity (...) or in Christian art through the representation of Jesus. This topic will be examined with reference both to Kants Begrndung der sthetik and to sthetik des reinen Gefhls ; whereas in Kants Begrndung der sthetik Cohen devotes to the representation of Jesus just a short consideration in the historical introduction of the book, in sthetik des reinen Gefhls the representation of Jesus is object of far more attention. Here, Cohen's answer to the question of the possibility to represent the divine through the representation of Jesus is that Jesus' divinity, in the artistic representation of his figure, can only have a metaphorical value, the real meaning of which is that Jesus' story is the ideal story of the human being; in Kants Begrndung der sthetik and in other writings of the 80s, on the contrary, the idea of incarnation and of the divinity of Jesus is object of a different appreciation by Cohen. The comparison between these different stances can be a contribution to the comprehension of the changes in Cohen's view of Christianity through the years. (shrink)

Syncrisis as literary motif in the story about the grown-up child Jesus in the temple (Lk 2:41–52 and the Thomas tradition): The article explores hermeneutical solutions for the negative response from the child Jesus towards his biological parents in the Lukan temple story (Lk 2:41–52). The ‘wisdom’ of the child who acts in an ‘adult-like’ way is interpreted as a syncrisis. This literary motif is explained by an analysis of the contrasting positive and negative acts of the child (...) Jesus towards teachers of the Torah in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. (shrink)

As a young gay man, David Bennett saw Christianity as an enemy to freedom for LGBTQI people, and his early experiences with prejudice and homophobia led him to become a gay activist. But when Jesus came into his life in a highly unexpected way, he was led down a path he never would have predicted or imagined. A War of Loves investigates what the Bible teaches about sexuality and demonstrates the profligate, unqualified grace of God for all people. David describes (...) the joy and intimacy he found in following Jesus Christ and how love has taken on a radically new and far richer meaning for him. (shrink)

This study takes a Christian perspective on the entire Bible, rather than simply the New Testament. David Wenkel asks: Why did Jesus have to be beaten before his death on the cross? Christian theology has largely focused on Jesus' death but has given relatively little attention to his sufferings. Wenkel's answer contextualizes Jesus' crucifixion sufferings as informed by the language of Proverbs. He explains that Jesus' sufferings demonstrate the wisdom of God's plan to provide a substitute for foolish sinners. Jesus (...) was beaten as a fool - even though he was no fool, in order to fulfill God's loving plan of salvation. This analysis is then placed within the larger storyline of the whole bible - from the Garden of Eden to the story of Israel and beyond. (shrink)

This essay centers on a storyteller's performance of ritual in stories to draw associations between the life of the Biblical Mary with her son Jesus and the subjectivities and dispositions of people living in impoverished conditions. The storyteller explores these subjectivities and dispositions, characterizing the exploration as a journey. She also defines an ethical position where the self meets otherness—both sacred and cultural—to engender positive human relations. The essay combines the storyteller's performance with the author's to reproduce the effects, advance (...) the ethics, mitigate the politics of representation, and provide an understanding of the journey's end—a place called home. (shrink)

Living more than four centuries apart in very different cultures, Jesus and Socrates wrote nothing themselves, but they inspired their followers to set down words that continue to shape Western consciousness. In this deeply personal and provocative meditation, Paul Gooch reflects on enduring themes that arise from the lives of these two pivotal figures: death and witness, silence as the limit of language, prayer, obedience, and love. Focusing on the Jesus of the Gospels and the Socrates of Plato's dialogues, Gooch (...) does not debate the historical realities of either figure, but seeks to understand their fundamental commitments to philosophy and to God, drawing parallels and contrasts that invite deeper reflection upon our own lives and experiences. Throughout this book, Gooch tells and retells the stories of Socrates and Jesus as he examines perennial human issues: why would anyone willingly die? To what do these two martyrlike deaths bear witness? What are the limits of words in explanation and defense? Why was Jesus silent during his trial? Why did Socrates' most powerful apologia fail? What words, if any, work in prayer? Do words work against the fear of death? Out of this philosophical and religious questioning, Reflections on Jesus and Socrates throws new light on these two compelling figures and on the continuing meanings of their stories for us today. (shrink)

The Christian and Islamic doctrine of the VIRGIN BIRTH claim God asexually impregnated the Virgin Mary with Jesus, Mary’s impregnation was fully consensual (VIRGIN CONSENT), and God never acts immorally (DIVINE GOODNESS). First, I show that God’s actions and Mary’s background beliefs undermine her consent by virtue of coercive incentives, Mary’s comparative powerlessness, and the generation of moral conflicts. Second, I show that God’s nondisclosure of certain reasonably relevant facts undermines Mary’s informed consent. Third, I show that a recent attempt (...) by Jack Mulder to rescue VIRGIN CONSENT fails. As DIVINE GOODNESS and VIRGIN CONSENT are more central to orthodoxy, Christians and Muslims have powerful reason to reject VIRGIN BIRTH. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Was Jesus a Buddhist?James M. HansonWas Jesus a Buddhist? Certainly he was many things—Jew, prophet, healer, moralist, revolutionary, by his own admission the Messiah, and for most Christians the Son of God and redeemer of their sins. And there is convincing evidence that he was also a Buddhist. The evidence follows two independent lines—the first is historical, and the second is textual. Historical evidence indicates that Jesus was well (...) acquainted with Buddhism. If Jesus did not go to India, then at least India went to Judea and Jesus. The real historical question is not if he studied Buddhism, but where and how much he studied Buddhism, especially during his so-called "lost years."Historical accounts aside, many textual analyses indicate striking similarities between what was said by Jesus and by Buddha and between the prophetic legend of Jesus and ancient Buddhist texts. The conclusion is that, although not identifying himself as a Buddhist for good reasons, Jesus spoke like a Buddhist. The similarities are so striking that, even if no historical evidence existed, we can suspect that Jesus studied Buddhist teachings and that the prophecy and legend of Jesus was derived from Buddhist stories.Historical Evidence of Buddhism in JudeaHistorical evidence indicates that Jesus knew about Buddhism, simply because both he and it were in Judea during the same time. Other evidence, while perhaps apocryphal, indicates that he spent most of his so-called lost years outside Judea, possibly in Kashmir to study Buddhism exclusively.I owe thanks to the barbed but benign comments of my friend, Dale Bengtson.Regarding Buddhism in Judea, Jesus did not live in a pastoral, ethnically isolated place and time. On the contrary, non-Jewish political and cultural influences permeated Judea, which was an important shipping center for trade between India and the West and the military gateway to invade Egypt via land. Both land and sea trade routes had run through Jerusalem for centuries. Overland routes extending to Persia and western India were especially active after Alexander's invasion of western India 360 years earlier; most of the routes, whether connecting to wealthy cities in Egypt or in Greece and Rome, came through Jerusalem, where goods for Greece and Rome were shipped via the Mediterranean Sea. Sea routes from Bombay and the mouth of [End Page 75] the Indus River went through the Persian and Red Gulfs, the distance between the mouths of the Indus and Tigris and Euphrates rivers being only about three hundred miles; much of the trade came up the Gulf of Aquaba and overland up to Jerusalem (actually nearby Jappa) as the shipping point to the Mediterranean.During Jesus' time, Judea was a Roman dominion and most of the trade was Roman. Being the wealthiest empire of the time, Rome sent tons of gold-minted sesterces eastward for goods from India and other places. Most of this trade came over the Mediterranean and through Judea, making Jerusalem a cosmopolitan shipping center. Because of trade alone, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism were well known to the people in Judea. News from other lands was naturally of great interest. Most traders provided detailed accounts of the events of cities and states along their routes, often in the form of eloquent verse. Easterners in Judea were as anxious to hear news as were Jews in Persia or western India.In addition to trade, Zoroastrians and Buddhists settled in northern Arabia, including Judea, which was only two hundred miles from Mesopotamia. The story of Jesus' birth attracting the three Magi priests, if true, demonstrated close ties with Zoroastrians. Settlements occurred especially during Alexander's invasion of the East after 330 BCE. This included Jews who welcomed Alexander's overthrow of Egyptian rule and who joined Alexander's army. Many settled along the invasion route through Persia and what is now Afghanistan and Kashmir/Punjab, a practice encouraged by Alexander to maintain his empire. About 360 years later, Jesus dispatched Thomas, perhaps his closest and most loyal apostle, to practice Christianity in India. The descendants of these Jews continue today to reside in Kashmir or Punjab.Were Buddhists really in Judea, as Jews were in India? In Jesus' time Buddhism was already... (shrink)

This paper utilizes the Jesus Seminar Database in order to construct a profile of Jesus's words and deeds concerning women-as far as this can be constructed from the biblical evidence. The thesis is that those gospel stories that are thought to be fairly reliable historically and which include women as major characters capture the authentically historical Jesus. Furthermore, the stories that concern women-starting with the unmarried pregnant woman Mary and ending with a woman's vision of the resurrected Lord-when set down (...) together, provide the essential and complete Gospel. (shrink)

After highlighting Søren Kierkegaard's emphasis on the absolute difference between God and humans, this article presents his explanation of why we can readily embrace our inferior position to God, which appeals to his understanding of love as involving the desire to be the guilty party. But this argument can be turned around to make a case that God would desire to be the guilty party in relation to us. This fits well with the story of God's love in Kierkegaard's (...) pseudonymous writing Philosophical Fragments, in which divine incarnation is interpreted as God's descent in history to establish equality with humans. After arguing that such a kenotic Christology is not incompatible with the absolute God-human difference because it accentuates the fact that only God can cross the divide, the author points out its similarity with Marilyn Adams’ view that God became the curse in Jesus to cancel out the power of the curse of sin. He finishes by dealing with the worry that, despite divine descent, some humans may be unable to stand boldly confident before God because of their memory of what their sinfulness has caused. One way to alleviate this worry is to adopt the Irenaean affirmation of God's ultimate responsibility, and the author claims that this would complete Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments by adding an interpretation of the crucifixion in line with its story of divine descent. (shrink)

In the article, I demonstrate how realistic philosophy of religion can be employed in order to obtain a preliminary verification of the truthfulness of the doctrine proclaimed by a particular religious community. The first element of a religious doctrine that qualifies for philosophical evaluation is its non-contradictory character. For this reason I endeavour to reconstruct one such doctrine and show how it is possible to demonstrate, through philosophical analyses, that such a doctrine does not meet the aforementioned criterion. For the (...) object of my studies I chose the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (called the Mormon Church for short), as I find it particularly interesting among the religious movements alternative to Christianity. Among new religious movements currently in existence the Mormon Church stands out in several respects. First, this religious community utilises a variety of sources of revelation. Furthermore, although their sacred story, that spanning a dozen or so centuries, begins in Israel it mostly takes place on American soil. Finally, the Mormon Church sets forth a vision of a future ‘holy land,’ and the concept of salvation that is essentially different from those of other Bible-based religious movements. The Mormon concept of salvation, referred to as the plan of eternal progress shows both unique goal and unique means to achieve it. People are to become gods and populate multiple worlds. According to Mormons there will be different levels of salvation associated with what life a person lived on earth. Reconstruction and philosophical analysis of the main elements of the Mormon doctrine shows its weak points, inconsistencies, and oversimplifications. From this perspective, the Mormon ‘sacred story’ hardly could be regarded as something more than a colourful and interesting myth. But the question of reasons why Mormons still put their faith in such an inconsistent doctrine lies outside the scope of these considerations. (shrink)

The kingdom of God was a central theme in Jesus' vision. Was it meant to be understood as Utopian as Mary Ann Beavis views it, or existential? In 1st century CE Palestine, kingdom of God was a political term meaning theocracy suggesting God's patronage. Jesus used the term metaphorically to construct a new symbolic universe to legitimate a radical new way of living with God in opposition to the temple ideology of exclusivist covenantal nomism. The analogies of father and king (...) served as the root metaphors for this symbolic universe. They are existential root metaphors underpinning the contextual symbolic universe of God's patronage in reaction to the collapse of the patronage system which left peasants destitute. Jesus' paradoxical use of the metaphor kingdom of God had a therapeutic value and gave the concept new meaning. The initial motivation for proclaiming God's patronage originated in Jesus' primary identity formation by Mary as single parent and was reinforced in his secondary identity formation by John the Baptist. From these results can be concluded that kingdom of God was not meant to be understood as utopian, but existential. In order to clarify the meaning of kingdom of God and God's patronage for the 21st century, demythologisation and deconstruction can be helpful especially by highlighting the existential meaning of the kingdom of God. (shrink)

A major theme in René Girard’s work involves the role of the Bible in exposing the scapegoating practices at the basis of culture. The God of the Bible is understood to be a God who takes the side of victims. The God of the Qur’an is also a defender of victims, an idea that recurs throughout the text in the stories of messengers and prophets. In a number of ways, Jesus is unique among the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an. It (...) is argued here that while the Quranic Jesus is distinctly Islamic, and not a Christian derivative, he functions in the Qur’an in a way analogous to the role Jesus plays in the gospels. In its depiction of Jesus, the Qur’an is acutely aware of mimetic rivalry, scapegoating, and the God who comes to the aid of the persecuted. Despite the significant differences between the Christian understanding of Jesus as savior and the way he is understood in the Qur’an, a Girardian interpretation of the Qur’anic Jesus will suggest ways in which Jesus can be a bridge rather than an obstacle in Christian/Muslim dialogue. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Sharing God’s Company: A Theology of the Communion of Saints by David Matzko McCarthyMark RyanSharing God’s Company: A Theology of the Communion of Saints By David Matzko McCarthy GRAND RAPIDS: WILLIAM B. EERDMANS, 2012. 182 PP. $28.00What is the meaning of “communion” as it occurs in Christian references to the “Communion of Saints”? It clearly implies a particular social bond, but of what sort? David Matzko McCarthy observes (...) that recent attempts to account [End Page 192] for the saints and Christians’ relations with them tend to thin out the meaning of communion. Modern approaches turn saints into exemplars intended to inspire us as we live within egalitarian, leveled societies, whereas postmodern approaches turn the lives of the saints into texts, subject to interpretive play. In both approaches the possibility of real relationship is left behind as the saints become subservient to our modern sensibilities. What McCarthy seeks to revive is substantial, real relationships with saints that can draw us out of ourselves.In chapters 1 and 2 McCarthy uses the family to indicate the strong bonds signified by the Communion of Saints (COS)—bonds that respond to our “social desire.” The COS extends such kinship across time and space, without banishing ordinary time and particular places. Yet the kind of social tie embodied in the COS has been rendered a problem by our modern biases with regard to knowledge, representation, and social life—in short, our sense of reality. If we are to enrich our participation in the COS, McCarthy implies, we must work the metaphysical ground to make it a little more hospitable to the lives of the saints. The remaining chapters consider how the reality embodied in the COS challenges modern sensibilities with regard to what is real. They do so by allowing literary and visual representations of the saints—in hagiography, scripture, statues, and painting—to interrogate modern forms of representation and the assumptions about reality and time that underlie these forms.McCarthy uses Beverly Donofrio’s Looking for Mary to exemplify the trajectory of his book. Donofrio weaves together her own life and her pilgrimage to Medjugorge with the story of Mary from the Annunciation to the present day. Of particular importance, she narrates a transformation whereby her personal stories are engrafted into the life of Mary, rather than the other way around. In this, her story illustrates how Mary becomes the key agent in de-centering the author’s life as an autonomous agent, and resituating it in the COS with Mary as her patron and route. It shows the difference between an approach to the saints that domesticates them for use in our world and one where we surrender and become part of theirs.McCarthy’s previous work is notable for its concern with family and neighborhood as the practical context, or “home,” for the Christian life. In this book, “the question of home goes deeper. Does our life together here and now have any connection to the course of things and to life as a whole?” (8) In his introduction to the inaugural issue of the Journal of Moral Theology, which he edits, he mapped out the terrain of moral theology between “hyper-enchantment,” which seeks a magic bullet for modern ills, and impersonal mechanism, which posits a “nature” abstracted from human meanings. In this book, he begins to present a fuller vision of this terrain in the form of a kinship that stretches across time and place. As he writes, “The saints and their lives embody an [End Page 193] incarnational reality; they populate the borderlands between the future and now, there and here, and heaven and earth. … They bring ordinary life and people into a real experience of communitas” (53).The book is relevant to Christian ethics, then, because of its account of what we want most, and the moral ecology in which such desire could be at home. It is tempting to treat the COS as an optional “extra” to be added to the “factory model” of moral goodness in the Christian life. McCarthy’s exceptional gift is displayed in showing us how ordinary and basic is our desire to be part... (shrink)

On the God of the Christians tries to explain how Christians conceive of the God whom they worship. No proof for His existence is offered, but simply a description of the Christian image of God. The first step consists in doing away with some commonly held opinions that put them together with the other "monotheists," "religions of the book," and "religions of Abraham." Christians do believe in one God, but they do not conceive of its being one in the same (...) way as other "monotheists," like the first of them, the pharaoh Akhenaton (18th century before J.C.), like some philosophers, e.g., Aristotle, or like Islam. Christians admit the authority of a Holy Book, but don't consider it as being the peak of God's revelation. For them, revelation culminates in the person, life, and doings of Jesus - including his passion and resurrection. Christians acknowledge the exemplary figure of Abraham, but the stories they tell about him they share with Jews, but not with Muslims, who see in him the first Muslim. The Trinity is not a way to loosen the exclusivity of the only God. It is the very way in which God is one, i.e., in the inner richness and fecundity of love. The God of the Christians is Father, but not male. Human males become fathers through the mediation of a female. God is so radically the Father of everything and, in a very special sense, of the eternal Son, that He is not in need of a partner. His fatherhood can in no way legitimate the superiority of the male over the female sex. The God of the Christians doesn't want us to obey Him in order to enslave us; He expects us to act freely according to what is good for us. Now, the Good is not something that He has in store and bestows on His creatures. The Good is what He is and He is the Good of His creatures. The God of the Christians is merciful, but He takes seriously man's freedom, even when man doesn't accept Him. Hence, He doesn't content Himself with forgiving fromthe outside. He has to contrive a system (technically speaking: salvation history or "economy of salvation") that will enable Man freely to accept His love. (shrink)

How many times have you wanted to convey to someone the joy and excitement of the basic gospel messagebut stumbled in the process? Here is a book that explains the kerygmathe proclamation of the gospelin a simple way. Dr. Bergsma, a professor at Franciscan University and noted biblical scholar, uses both words and illustrations to tell the story of the Bible. In this short book, he brings the gospel to life for believers and nonbelievers alike. Readers will want to (...) buy multiple copies of this book to give away to friends and family so that they can truly understand the amazing good news of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus." -- Amazon.com. (shrink)

Buddhas, gods, prophets and oracles are often depicted as asking questions. But what are we to understand when Jesus asks “Who do you say that I am?”, or Mazu, the Classical Zen master asks, “Why do you seek outside?" Is their questioning a power or weakness? Is it something human beings are only capable of due to our finitude? Is there any kind of question that is a power? -/- Focusing on three case studies of questions in divine discourse on (...) the level of story - the god depicted in the Jewish Bible, the master Mazu in his recorded sayings literature, and Jesus as he is depicted in canonized Christian Gospels - Nathan Eric Dickman meditates on human responses to divine questions. He considers the purpose of interreligious dialogue and the provocative kind of questions that seem to purposefully decenter us, drawing on methods from confessionally-oriented hermeneutics and skills from critical thinking. -/- He allows us to see alternative ways of interpreting religious texts through approaches that look beyond reading a text for the improvement of our own religion or for access to some metaphysically transcendent reality. This is the first step in a phenomenology of religions that is inclusive, diverse, relevant and grounded in the world we live in. (shrink)

On the God of the Christians tries to explain how Christians conceive of the God whom they worship. No proof for His existence is offered, but simply a description of the Christian image of God. The first step consists in doing away with some commonly held opinions that put them together with the other "monotheists," "religions of the book," and "religions of Abraham." Christians do believe in one God, but they do not conceive of its being one in the same (...) way as other "monotheists," like the first of them, the pharaoh Akhenaton (18th century before J.C.), like some philosophers, e.g., Aristotle, or like Islam. Christians admit the authority of a Holy Book, but don't consider it as being the peak of God's revelation. For them, revelation culminates in the person, life, and doings of Jesus - including his passion and resurrection. Christians acknowledge the exemplary figure of Abraham, but the stories they tell about him they share with Jews, but not with Muslims, who see in him the first Muslim. The Trinity is not a way to loosen the exclusivity of the only God. It is the very way in which God is one, i.e., in the inner richness and fecundity of love. The God of the Christians is Father, but not male. Human males become fathers through the mediation of a female. God is so radically the Father of everything and, in a very special sense, of the eternal Son, that He is not in need of a partner. His fatherhood can in no way legitimate the superiority of the male over the female sex. The God of the Christians doesn't want us to obey Him in order to enslave us; He expects us to act freely according to what is good for us. Now, the Good is not something that He has in store and bestows on His creatures. The Good is what He is and He is the Good of His creatures. The God of the Christians is merciful, but He takes seriously man's freedom, even when man doesn't accept Him. Hence, He doesn't content Himself with forgiving fromthe outside. He has to contrive a system (technically speaking: salvation history or "economy of salvation") that will enable Man freely to accept His love. (shrink)

From the Qur'an, Surah Maryam: -/- (21) So she conceived him, and went in seclusion with him to a remote place. (22) And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree: she cried (in her anguish): "Ah! would that I had died before this! Would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight!" (23) But (a voice) cried to her from beneath the (palm tree): "Grieve not! for thy Lord hath provided a (...) rivulet beneath thee;" (24) "And shake towards thyself the trunk of the palm tree: it will let fall fresh ripe dates upon thee." (25) "So eat and drink and cool (thine) eye. And if thou dost see any man say 'I have vowed a fast to (Allah) Most Gracious, and this day will I enter into no talk with any human being.'" -/- This Surah depicts a human being in unbearable pain. What makes the pain tolerable is the sympathy that God shows for Mary. Hearing her inner voice, understanding her suffering and her grief, God is moved to provide her with practical and substantive support to help her bear her agony. For me this story portrays a God who is active in the world, hears the supplications of humanity, and has empathy with the needy, the oppressed, and those who are suffering. -/- Yet I am concerned that our theological traditions in the Islamic world (as also in Christendom) have developed through the centuries such that God is now seen, by overwhelming theological consensus, as an immutable being, a being outside time who has determined our providence from the standpoint of eternity, who has foreknowledge of every free action of his creations and has designed all according to His plan for past and future events; who knows in advance even the timings and contents of our petitionary prayers and has decided already whether to answer them. (shrink)

Scripture is somehow normative for any bioethic that would be Christian. There are problems, however, both with Scripture and with those who read Scripture. Methodological reflection is necessary. Scripture must be read humbly and in Christian community. It must be read not as a timeless code but as the story of God and of our lives. That story moves from creation to a new creation. At the center of the Christian story are the stories of Jesus of (...) Nazareth as healer, preacher of good news to the poor, and sufferer. The story shapes character and conduct and enables communal discernment. (shrink)

Prologue 1. To begin with, the first principle from Whom all illumination descends as from the Father of Light, by Whom are given all the best and perfect gifts, the eternal Father do I call upon through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that by the intercession of the most holy Virgin Mary, mother of God Himself and of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and of the blessed Francis, our father and leader, He may enlighten the eyes of our mind to (...) guide our feet into the way of that peace "which surpasses all understanding", which peace our Lord Jesus Christ has announced and given to us; which lesson our father Francis always taught, in all of whose preaching was the annunciation of peace both in the beginning and in the end, wishing for peace in every greeting, yearning for ecstatic peace in every moment of contemplation, as a citizen of that Jerusalem of which that man of peace said, with those that hated peace he was peaceable, "Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem". For he knew that the throne of Solomon was nowise save in peace, since it is written, "His place is in peace and His abode in Sion". 2. Since, then, following the example of the most blessed father Francis, I breathlessly sought this peace, I, a sinner, who have succeeded to the place of that most blessed father after his death, the seventh Minister General of the brothers, though in all ways unworthy--it happened that by the divine will in the thirty-third year after the death of that blessed man I ascended to Mount Alverna as to a quiet place, with the desire of seeking spiritual peace; and staying there, while I meditated on the ascent of the mind to God, amongst other things there occurred that miracle which happened in the same place to the blessed Francis himself, the vision namely of the winged Seraph in the likeness of the Crucified. While looking upon this vision, I immediately saw that it signified the suspension of our father himself in contemplation and the way by which he came to it. 3. For by those six wings are rightly to be understood the six stages of illumination by which the soul, as if by steps or progressive movements, was disposed to pass into peace by ecstatic elevations of Christian wisdom. The way, however, is only through the most burning love of the Crucified, Who so transformed Paul, "caught up into the third heaven", into Christ, that he said, "With Christ I am nailed to the cross, yet I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me" ; who therefore so absorbed the mind of Francis that his soul was manifest in his flesh and he bore the most holy stigmata of the Passion in his body for two years before his death. Therefore the symbol of the six-winged Seraph signifies the six stages of illumination, which begin with God's creatures and lead up to God, to Whom no one can enter properly save through the Crucified. For he who does not enter by the door but otherwise, he is a thief and a robber. But if anyone does enter by this door, he shall go in and go out and shall find pastures. Because of this John says in his Apocalypse, "Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, that they may have a right to the Tree of Life and may enter in by the gates into the City"; as if he were to say that one cannot enter into the heavenly Jerusalem through contemplation unless one enter through the blood of the Lamb as through a gate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Deep Mysteries: God, Christ, and Ourselves by Aidan NicholsGerard T. MundyDeep Mysteries: God, Christ, and Ourselves by Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2020), vii + 133 pp.Basic Catholic teaching declares that God's will must be trusted and that perfect knowledge of all that is resides in the Creator. An implication of this claim is that all of God's work within time and history—in man's linearly conception of (...) time and history—is meaningful. For, as perfect order himself God's work is neither random nor coincidental. God's perfect understanding means that he is able, colloquially speaking, "to connect the dots" perfectly. Thus, the historical particulars of the New Testament events are not random and coincidental, but they connect perfectly within God's plan.In terms of biblical events, then, what are the significances of the time periods during which, and places at which, they occurred? "Why was Jesus born on a particular date, at a particular time, and in a particular manger in Bethlehem? Why was the womb of Mary, Mater Dei, chosen at that exact time, and at that exact place? Why did Jesus stand on that particular mountain and not upon another? There are perfect answers to all of those questions and more, for, as Proverbs declares in this vein: "The LORD has made everything for a purpose" (16:4).In Deep Mysteries: God, Christ, and Ourselves, Father Aidan Nichols, O.P., meditates on questions related to the potential reasons for some of the historical particulars of "the principal Christological mysteries." Fr. Nichols defines the mysteries as these: "the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Baptism, the Transfiguration, the Passion and Death, the Descent into Hell, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost, and the Second Coming." (41).Attempting to understand how all of the parts of the New Testament fit together perfectly in an historical sense—as God's mind would see it—is a fascinating intellectual endeavor. The primary difference between the innocent inquirer and the vain one, however, is that the former understands that God's reason is infinite and that only the First Mover has the ability to see and to put together all particulars. Thomas Aquinas elucidates the essence of the endeavor to connect the particulars when, in reference to man's ability to understand "the truth of faith," he argues: "Yet it is useful for the human reason to exercise itself in such arguments, however weak they may be, provided only that there be present no presumption to comprehend or to demonstrate. For to be able to see something of the loftiest realities, however thin and weak the sight may be, is... a cause of the greatest joy" [Summa contra gentiles I, ch. 8).Posing the question of what the particulars of history might mean brings immediately another question. As Fr. Nichols asks: "How can the Eternal [End Page 386] and time be conjoined in a phrase, and the truth of such conjoining made credible?" (29). Indeed, if God transcends the man-conceived conception of time, how can man even understand God's movements if man can see time only in linear fashion? Fr. Nichols contends that Christ's "mystery-events are not just historical occurrences that, like all such events, belong to the human past" (31). Rather, argues Fr. Nichols, the mysteries "are permanently able to affect the intended beneficiary of the mysteries: namely, the human race" (31). In other words, contends Fr. Nichols, the mysteries are past, present, and future, in the human conception of time.Attempting "to connect the dots" in Christological historical particulars is a subjective endeavor that requires a great deal of individual deciphering, with reliance especially on the interpretation of perceived symbolism. Fr. Nichols's broad theme-based meditations can provide starting points for further study on more concentrated topics.The most exceptional part of the book is Fr. Nichols's discussion on how Jesus's mysteries exist, simultaneously, in the past, in the present, and in the future. This point is of great significance for both theology and philosophy. For, until the Second Coming, God, not being tied to man's limited experience of time, simultaneously, and... (shrink)

The Qur’an contains many miracle stories, from Moses’s staff turning into a serpent to Mary’s conceiving Jesus as a virgin. In _Understanding the Qur’anic Miracle Stories in the Modern Age_, Isra Yazicioglu offers a glimpse of the ways in which meaningful implications have been drawn from these apparently strange narratives, both in the premodern and modern era. It fleshes out a fascinating medieval Muslim debate over miracles and connects its insights with early and late modern turning points in Western thought (...) and with contemporary Qur’anic interpretation. Building on an apparent tension within the Qur’an and analyzing crucial cases of classical and modern Muslim engagement with these miracle stories, this book illustrates how an apparent site of conflict between faith and reason, or revelation and science, can become a site of fruitful exchange. This book is a distinctive contribution to a new trend in Qur’anic Studies: it reveals the presence of insightful Qur’anic interpretation outside of the traditional line-by-line commentary genre, engaging with the works of Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, and Said Nursi. Moreover, focused as it is on the case of miracle stories, the book also goes beyond these specific passages to reflect more broadly on the issue of Qur’anic hermeneutics. It notes the connections between literal and symbolic approaches and highlights the importance of approaching the Qur’an with an eye to its potential implications for everyday life. (shrink)

The Qurʾan contains many miracle stories, from Moses’s staff turning into a serpent to Mary’s conceiving Jesus as a virgin. In _Understanding the Qurʾanic Miracle Stories in the Modern Age_, Isra Yazicioglu offers a glimpse of the ways in which meaningful implications have been drawn from these apparently strange narratives, both in the premodern and modern era. It fleshes out a fascinating medieval Muslim debate over miracles and connects its insights with early and late modern turning points in Western thought (...) and with contemporary Qurʾanic interpretation. Building on an apparent tension within the Qurʾan and analyzing crucial cases of classical and modern Muslim engagement with these miracle stories, this book illustrates how an apparent site of conflict between faith and reason, or revelation and science, can become a site of fruitful exchange. This book is a distinctive contribution to a new trend in Qurʾanic studies: it reveals the presence of insightful Qurʾanic interpretation outside of the traditional line-by-line commentary genre, engaging with the works of Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, and Said Nursi. Moreover, focused as it is on the case of miracle stories, the book also goes beyond these specific passages to reflect more broadly on the issue of Qurʾanic hermeneutics. It notes the connections between literal and symbolic approaches and highlights the importance of approaching the Qurʾan with an eye to its potential implications for everyday life. (shrink)