In this essay, I attempt to think along with Kevin Hart, though improvising on his text in my own way, by suggesting that ‘the way’ is one that calls anyone who wishes to follow, that it is, at heart, all about doing battle with oneself, and that this battle is best thought of as an endless hermeneutic, one inaugurated by Jesus yet also with classical precedents.

In this essay, I attempt to think along with Kevin Hart, though improvising on his text in my own way, by suggesting that ‘the way’ is one that calls anyone who wishes to follow, that it is, at heart, all about doing battle with oneself, and that this battle is best thought of as an endless hermeneutic, one inaugurated by Jesus yet also with classical precedents.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 174-178 [Access article in PDF] Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven. By Tom Chetwynd. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001. 153 pp. Tom Chetwynd brings many strengths to his book of reflections on Zen and Christianity. Because his most obvious strength is his craft as a professional writer, he offers us a book that is well written, carefully organized, and a pleasure to read. He (...) divides his reflections into three parts: "Zen Experience," "Christian Meditation in the Light of Zen," and finally, "Christian Zen Practice." It is especially in the first and third parts that the author is particularly helpful for Christians engaged in interfaith dialogue.In part 1 Chetwynd's reflections on the Zen experience are autobiographical. He tells us that he came to Zen as a committed adult Christian who did not jettison his faith for another but rather labored to integrate his Christian faith and his Zen experience. Those of us who travel this very same path are familiar with the stages of Chetwynd's journey: in the first stage our attention is drawn to Zen by a random phrase in a book or by a friend's interest in Zen; then follows our first attempt to sit in a sesshin with others; then the experience of boredom, pain, and frustration, all of which give birth to the conviction that Zen might very well work for others but not for us. However, our first meeting with a charismatic roshi who inspires, encourages, and launches us back on the journey with the challenging and consoling words: "[You] can do it." These words help us both to ignore our fear and to sustain our resolve to sit with vigor to the last bell.What makes Chetwynd's experience so extraordinary and unique was the rapid opening of his mind. After his very first sitting, he tells us, he experienced his teacup "shining alone in empty space," and immediately following his first sesshin, Chetwynd reveals that his teacher, a Japanese monk, assured him that "he [the teacher] had nothing more to give [him/the student]." Chetwynd's experience very much reminds me of an incident that happened years ago in Tokyo. At a meeting with Kadowakii Roshi, he introduced me to a Mexican Jesuit who, the Roshi revealed, had experienced kensho during his first sesshin. I will always remember the Roshi's expression [End Page 174] of surprise and admiration as he uttered how wonderful and rare indeed was such an experience.Chetwynd is candid about the effect that the Zen experience has on his Christian faith: comparing his Zen experience to the latter, he confesses that his three years of theological study were "all for nothing"; he acknowledges that he believes he has received more insight from one week of Zen sitting than from the twenty-five years he practiced Christianity; he claims that while his Zen experience enables him to return to his Christian prayer and liturgy with new insight, it also makes him aware that while engaging in these spiritual exercises, he finds his heart is elsewhere. He goes on to reveal that he fears losing his faith because the idea of a godless universe "quite simply appall[s him]." Possibly adding to his quandary was Kyudo Roshi's reaction to Chetwynd's question about the value of the prayer of petition. On two occasions the author tells us that his teacher "chuckled" in response to his question about the prayer of petition. One would hope that in interreligious encounters with Christians, Zen teachers in their compassionate outreach would remember that what is amusing to them—the value of the prayer of petition and its opposite, a godless universe—is "quite simply appalling" to their Christian friends.Chetwynd's second part of the book, the story of Christian meditation in the light of the Zen experience, is extremely tentative. In it he builds a case for a number of possibilities: he suggests that the dharma of the Buddha is "not recognizably different" from the Kingdom of Heaven in Christian terminology; that the essential nature of the universe is not... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 174-178 [Access article in PDF] Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven. By Tom Chetwynd. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001. 153 pp. Tom Chetwynd brings many strengths to his book of reflections on Zen and Christianity. Because his most obvious strength is his craft as a professional writer, he offers us a book that is well written, carefully organized, and a pleasure to read. He (...) divides his reflections into three parts: "Zen Experience," "Christian Meditation in the Light of Zen," and finally, "Christian Zen Practice." It is especially in the first and third parts that the author is particularly helpful for Christians engaged in interfaith dialogue.In part 1 Chetwynd's reflections on the Zen experience are autobiographical. He tells us that he came to Zen as a committed adult Christian who did not jettison his faith for another but rather labored to integrate his Christian faith and his Zen experience. Those of us who travel this very same path are familiar with the stages of Chetwynd's journey: in the first stage our attention is drawn to Zen by a random phrase in a book or by a friend's interest in Zen; then follows our first attempt to sit in a sesshin with others; then the experience of boredom, pain, and frustration, all of which give birth to the conviction that Zen might very well work for others but not for us. However, our first meeting with a charismatic roshi who inspires, encourages, and launches us back on the journey with the challenging and consoling words: "[You] can do it." These words help us both to ignore our fear and to sustain our resolve to sit with vigor to the last bell.What makes Chetwynd's experience so extraordinary and unique was the rapid opening of his mind. After his very first sitting, he tells us, he experienced his teacup "shining alone in empty space," and immediately following his first sesshin, Chetwynd reveals that his teacher, a Japanese monk, assured him that "he [the teacher] had nothing more to give [him/the student]." Chetwynd's experience very much reminds me of an incident that happened years ago in Tokyo. At a meeting with Kadowakii Roshi, he introduced me to a Mexican Jesuit who, the Roshi revealed, had experienced kensho during his first sesshin. I will always remember the Roshi's expression [End Page 174] of surprise and admiration as he uttered how wonderful and rare indeed was such an experience.Chetwynd is candid about the effect that the Zen experience has on his Christian faith: comparing his Zen experience to the latter, he confesses that his three years of theological study were "all for nothing"; he acknowledges that he believes he has received more insight from one week of Zen sitting than from the twenty-five years he practiced Christianity; he claims that while his Zen experience enables him to return to his Christian prayer and liturgy with new insight, it also makes him aware that while engaging in these spiritual exercises, he finds his heart is elsewhere. He goes on to reveal that he fears losing his faith because the idea of a godless universe "quite simply appall[s him]." Possibly adding to his quandary was Kyudo Roshi's reaction to Chetwynd's question about the value of the prayer of petition. On two occasions the author tells us that his teacher "chuckled" in response to his question about the prayer of petition. One would hope that in interreligious encounters with Christians, Zen teachers in their compassionate outreach would remember that what is amusing to them—the value of the prayer of petition and its opposite, a godless universe—is "quite simply appalling" to their Christian friends.Chetwynd's second part of the book, the story of Christian meditation in the light of the Zen experience, is extremely tentative. In it he builds a case for a number of possibilities: he suggests that the dharma of the Buddha is "not recognizably different" from the Kingdom of Heaven in Christian terminology; that the essential nature of the universe is not... (shrink)

The God of biblical revelation is present everywhere in the Gospel according to Matthew, but often in a self-effacing way, receding behind Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us. God's presence is veiled by divine passives, hidden behind the reverent circumlocution “heavens.” The parable of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God is widely stated in our Gospel of Matthew. Many scholars claim that the Gospel of Matthew reveals more about Jesus as a powerful King.

Thomas Joseph; Secular vs. Orthodox Chaplaincy: Taking the Kingdom of Heaven Seriously, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume.

In this paper I examine the genesis of Kant’s conception of a realm of ends, arguing that Kant first started to think of morality in terms of striving to be a member of a realm of ends, understood as an ideal community, in the early 1760s, and that he was influenced in this by his encounter with the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. In 1766 Kant published Dreams of a Spirit Seer, a commentary on Swedenborg’s magnum opus, Heavenly Secrets. Most commentators (...) take Kant’s attitude towards Swedenborg to have been entirely negative, and argue that, at the most, Kant’s encounter with him had a purely negative impact on Kant’s development, inducing him to reject certain of his early metaphysical positions. I argue, in contrast, that Swedenborg had a positive influence on Kant’s development, particularly on his ethics, for Kant’s conception of a realm of ends is modeled on Swedenborg’s conception of heaven as a community of spirits governed by moral laws. (shrink)

Parable is a literary genre. The knowledge of a literary parable makes us cognizant of the use of a technique used by the great philosophers to make known or transfer new ideas by making analogies or putting on one side a known fact to communicate a new or something incomprehensible. Jesus used the parable constantly, in his preaching and in the proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven.

This volume contains two unusual and appealing satirical works by the well-known European philosopher Kolakowski. The first, _Tales from the Kingdom of Lailonia_, is set in a fictional land. Each story illustrates some aspect of human inability to come to terms with imperfection, infinitude, history, and nature. The second, _The Key to Heaven_, is a collection of seventeen biblical tales from the Old Testament told in such a way that the story and the moral play off each other to (...) illustrate political, moral, or existential foibles and follies. (shrink)

Tells stories about the unusual citizens of an imaginary kingdom, and about important people from the Old Testament.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Guibert of Tournai's Letter to Lady Isabelle:An Introduction and English TranslationLarry F. Field, Jacques Dalarun, Sean L. Field, and Guibert of TournaiIntroductionGuibert, from the noble family of As-Piès, was born near Tournai around 1200. From his hometown he traveled to Paris for his art degree, and completed the curriculum in theology there before entering the Franciscan Order around 1240. He may have participated in Louis IX's crusade of 1248, (...) but, if so, was surely back in Paris by 1254 at the latest, since he preached a cycle of sermons de dominicis et de sanctis to the university community before summer 1255.1 His regency as Franciscan master of theology at Paris was probably around 1259–1261,2 about the time he [End Page 31] completed his Eruditio regum et principum for Louis IX,3 and began his most substantial work, the Erudimentum doctrinae.4 Other significant treatises include his De pace et animi tranquillitate (ca. 1275)5 written for Marie de Dampierre, and the Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae, prepared for the Second Council of Lyon.6 Guibert died in Tournai on 7 October 1284.7Sometime around 1254, Guibert wrote a long letter of spiritual advice to Isabelle (1225–70), the sister of King Louis IX.8 Isabelle was herself a remarkable figure. She had rejected several proposals of marriage, including that with Conrad, the heir to Emperor Frederick II, in 1243, in spite of pressure from her family and Pope Innocent IV. But following a bout of serious illness at about that time,9 her family accepted her [End Page 32] decision to remain unwed. There is no evidence, however, that Isabelle ever pronounced a formal vow of virginity. Through the 1250s she simply remained at the Capetian court as a virgin princess with an increasing reputation for piety and indeed holiness, praised in lavish terms by Innocent IV in 1253 and Alexander IV in 1256.10 This piety took a distinctly Franciscan turn by 1254, when Pope Innocent IV granted her request for Franciscan confessors,11 which would ultimately result in her foundation of Longchamp, a house of Sorores minores just west of Paris, by 1260.12 Guibert's letter shows no awareness of such a project, indicating that it must have been written before spring 1255, by which time the land for Longchamp was being purchased on Isabelle's behalf.13 Guibert thus wrote at the moment when Isabelle was forming her first ties to the Franciscans, but well before her move to Longchamp, where she lived out the 1260s as resident lay patron (but never a nun).Guibert's Letter is really a short treatise of spiritual and moral advice, tailored to a celibate princess. It is organized around Psalm 44:14–15, All the glory of the king's daughter is within in golden fringes, clothed around with varieties. In a five-part structure, the king's daughter stands for a heavenly inheritance; glory within represents internal purity; gold indicates virginity; the fringes are a sign of humility; and clothed around with varieties points to honest comportment. The resulting "royal garment," however, is rather unequally woven together, with section one on the "heavenly inheritance" and the intertwined sections three and four on virginity and humility receiving by far the most space. In fact, section one forms a sort of treatise-within-a-treatise, organized as a ten-step ascent to the heavenly inheritance awaiting the daughter of the king. [End Page 33]The Letter to Lady Isabelle was first edited by Alphonse de Poorter in 1931, from a manuscript which contained only part of the text.14 The full text was brought into print by Sean Field in 2003,15 and translated into French by Jacques Dalarun in 2014.16 Yet in spite of these advances, the Letter has remained little noticed by scholars. Anne-Hélène Allirot offered several perceptive pages in 2010, stressing the way Guibert's treatment of hereditas implies that female members of the royal family might be particularly able to embody Capetian claims to holiness.17 That same year, in the only recent article dedicated specifically to this Letter, Rina Lahav... (shrink)

Since its birth in the mid-nineteenth century, Marxism has had a contentious relationship with religion and Christianity. From the Marxist critique of religion as the “opium of the people” to the secularism of the Soviet Union to the Catholic Church’s “Decree Against Communism, ” the two schools of thought have widely been considered incompatible. Despite this tension, many of the critiques leveled by both sides do not attack the real substance of their opponents’ ideas. As such, this paper sets out (...) to answer two questions: first, whether Christian morality and Marxist thought can be made consistent on the basis of their ideological foundations, and second, what a Christianity consistent with Marxism would look like. It finds that on the level of ideological foundation, there are important consistencies between Christian morality and Marxism. Given these consistencies, a Christianity aligned with Marxist thought is possible, and this paper will conclude by exploring Liberation Theology as a possible avenue for the actualization of that consistency. (shrink)

I selectively and critically review the state of knowledge about human evolution and the place of humans vis-à-vis living apes, with emphasis on bipedal posture and locomotion, expansion of the brain and associated cognitive capacities, speech, tool behavior, culture, and society. I end with a personal perspective on God and Heaven.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Communicating Conversion:Penitential Turn Transmission in the Early Franciscan FraternityKrijn PanstersIntroductionThe literature on religious conversion shows that there is no comprehensive inventory of individual conversion stories that may provide the basic materials for a genealogy of Christian conversion, or of a further examination of its tradition.1 The scholarly interpretations that we have almost exclusively concern conversion narratives about anonymous masses, such as the Saxons under Charlemagne, or the conversions of (...) a limited number of famous people.2 These include the "usual suspects" such as St. Paul, whose conversion led him to become a follower of Jesus,3 St. Augustine, who also converted to Christianity,4 John Wesley, whose conversion led him to begin his own ministry,5 and Thomas Merton, who converted to Catholicism and became a priest.6 To this exclusive crowd of icons of Christian conversion certainly belongs St. Francis of Assisi (†1226), [End Page 171] whose exemplary conversion experience centers on penance (recognition of himself as a sinner, conversion of the heart, rejection of worldly life, imitation of Christ) and whose case is special and exceptional in that the event of the commencement of his penitential life remains the essence of the core of his spiritual preaching and teaching.In this article, I will therefore deal with Francis's penitential turn transmission—his communication of a spiritual propositum based on conversion from sin to virtue—and thus with his main spiritual message.7 I will start with a short description of how Francis turned his conversion experience, an episode that has been studied extensively as an important part of his biography, into the cornerstone of his spiritual transmission, viz., his promotion of a new religious program. I will continue with a contextualization of Francis's communication of conversion from a broader historical-theological perspective. I will then analyze the deeper dimensions of his call to conversion, viz., his instruction of "doing penance" in terms of turning from sin to virtue. I will conclude with a reflection on the continuation of his spiritual transmission within the Franciscan order and, furthermore, on the comparison with other "conversional communications" in the Christian tradition.Francis's Communication of ConversionFrancis described his conversion to a life of "doing penance" as the outcome of an encounter with outcasts, after which "what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body" and he "delayed a little and left the world."8 In this confession, he conceptualized his religious [End Page 172] turnabout as the start of the penitential life and, with this, as an invitation to his readers to also change the orientation and direction of their lives and to switch from worldliness to otherworldliness—to the realization, from now on, not of worldly but of heavenly goods. It is very likely that Francis had already heard the call to conversion and penitential life in the encounter with certain Gospel texts.9 As is evident from his conversional account, however, he truly "first recognized himself as a sinner"10 in an encounter with lepers. It was this spiritual event, causing a moral shift from selfishness to social concern,11 that brought about a radical reorientation toward a life of faith, a remarkable religious renewal, and a rapid replacement of sin with salvation. It was also this existential experience, this self-perceived transition "from damnation to redemption," that came to represent the essence of the evangelical program that Francis developed in the following years. In the words of André Vauchez:The text of the Gospel to which Francis and his companions never ceased referring in their preaching included this dimension: "Do penance! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (or "is coming," according to the other version of Matthew 4:17 then in circulation). But the conversion to which they were inviting [End Page 173] their listeners was not presented as a simple preparation or preliminary step that was necessary to pass through in order to attain perfection. It already included entry into this "kingdom of heaven," which it was helping to create here and now (hinc et nunc). Far from any millenarian speculation or complex divisions of the history of salvation which certain ecclesiastical authors... (shrink)

The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, founded in Seoul in 1954 by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, has been more popularly known as the Unification Church or ‘the Moonies.’ Following revelations that he reports having received as a young man, Moon devoted his life to preaching and eventually publically proclaiming himself to be the Messiah, or Lord of the Second Advent, come to fulfil the mission of restoring God’s Kingdom of Heaven on earth. (...) His early struggles in Korea clearly had a considerable influence on the trajectory of his life and the development of the UC into a world-wide movement that reached into a wide variety of areas, such as anti-communist politics, the media, the arts, the sciences and vast businesses. Following Moon’s death, the movement has split into three separate factions, the largest of which is run by his widow, and the other two by, respectively, his oldest living and youngest sons. (shrink)

Feminist opposition to the use of cohabitationcontracts for the private regulation of personalrelations has been predicated on the classical readingof contract as commerce. On this reading,cohabitation contracts construct cohabitants'obligations as commercial and typically detrimental towomen because of their weaker bargaining power. Butthe premisses of classical contract theory are beingundermined by radical critiques which emphasize theimportance of relationality in the reading ofcontract. On such critiques, the obligationsconstructed by cohabitation contracts need no longerexclude considerations of the parties' differentfinancial status and social circumstances. (...) Theconstruction of cohabitants' obligations canaccordingly foreground fairness and equality, both indrafting and in enforcing cohabitation contracts. Inthis way, the conceptualization of contract asrelationality encourages the use of cohabitationcontracts as progressive mechanisms for thedemocratization of personal relations. (shrink)

I argue that Norman's thesis works in sofaras one is prepared to be lax about the alleged congruency between “ecological” and “dorsal,” and unconcerned by the results of recent studies showing that grasping movements are subject to the same geometric distortion illusions as perceptual judgements.

Why has power in the West assumed the form of an "economy," that is, of a government of men and things? If power is essentially government, why does it need glory, that is, the ceremonial and liturgical apparatus that has always accompanied it? In the early centuries of the Church, in order to reconcile monotheism with God's threefold nature, the doctrine of Trinity was introduced in the guise of an economy of divine life. It was as if the Trinity amounted (...) to nothing more than a problem of managing and governing the heavenly house and the world. Agamben shows that, when combined with the idea of providence, this theological-economic paradigm unexpectedly lies at the origin of many of the most important categories of modern politics, from the democratic theory of the division of powers to the strategic doctrine of collateral damage, from the invisible hand of Smith's liberalism to ideas of order and security. But the greatest novelty to emerge from _The Kingdom and the Glory _ is that modern power is not only government but also glory, and that the ceremonial, liturgical, and acclamatory aspects that we have regarded as vestiges of the past actually constitute the basis of Western power. Through a fascinating analysis of liturgical acclamations and ceremonial symbols of power—the throne, the crown, purple cloth, the Fasces, and more—Agamben develops an original genealogy that illuminates the startling function of consent and of the media in modern democracies. With this book, the work begun with _Homo Sacer_ reaches a decisive point, profoundly challenging and renewing our vision of politics. (shrink)

What is colour vision for? In the popular imagination colour vision is for “seeing the colours” — adding hue to the achromatic world of shape, depth and motion. On this view colour vision plays little more than an ornamental role, lending glamour to an otherwise monochrome world. This idea has guided much theorising about colour within vision science and philosophy. However, we argue that a broader approach is needed. Recent research in the psychology of colour demonstrates that colour vision is (...) integral to a variety of visual processes, helping us to perform many types of visual tasks. We discuss some of this research and consider its implications for philosophical theories of colour. (shrink)

The article discusses two historical events taken from texts from the Holy Scripture – the Old and the New Testaments, and a spiritual view on human soul, as found in the Holy tradition of the Orthodox church: they support the thesis that, according to the method of allegorical interpretation, the three evidences point to three inner stages through which human soul passes in its transition to a holistic spiritual development: from the act of the Holy Baptism to the entry into (...) the Kingdom of God. (shrink)

Discusses heaven, the Creation, forgiveness, vanity, the theology of romantic love, responsibility, and the life of Jesus.

In this chapter, we take stock of existing critiques of contemporary migration research and bring these debates into contact with ongoing debates among decolonial scholars and in feminist social epistemology. We illustrate how the ethical and epistemic concerns voiced by migration scholars in regard to the socio-epistemic functioning of their field can be understood using the conceptual apparatus that has been developed around the notions of epistemic injustice and oppression. In so doing, we illustrate the relevance and usefulness of both (...) feminist social epistemology and of decolonial theory for theorising the socio-epistemic challenges that migration scholars face. The conceptual framework of epistemic injustice and oppression not only offers clarity in what is at stake within migration studies both ethically and epistemically, but also elucidates moral and epistemic reasons for why these issues should be addressed. This framework both calls attention to issues of undue epistemic marginalisation, and centres these issues as a core concern as migration scholars critically reflect upon the knowledge production and dissemination practices of their field. Understanding the processes through which this happens, rather than just the epistemic outcomes, can help us to identify ways to address the structural inequalities with which the production of migration knowledge is often associated. (shrink)