bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
And God Sat Siva: Biblical tracings of a midrashic text
Authors: Singer Aaron
Published: March 2013

Surface and substratum hermeneutics are at work here in what appears at first blush to be a mythopoetic construct, a whimsical trajectory of the midrashic mind. Surface strategies include gap filling together with stated and unstated word-plays, all to the end of forging a link between the midrashic proposition and the biblical text. Substratum hermeneutics, on the other hand, reveals an interpretation inextricably bound up in Scripture. What strikes us as a blatant dissonance between the biblical narrative and the midrash turns out, upon closer study, to be a substantive, thematic relationship which informs and legitimizes the midrashic reading.

This article will examine the apparent disjunction of the biblical narrative and the midrashic teaching, note the factitious nature of the surface strategies, speculate on the underlying hermeneutic that may not only inform this particular exegesis, but also suggest a more profound understanding of the symbiotic relationship of Scripture to midrash and, finally, meditate on the existential teaching that emerges from the creative nexus between the biblical text and the rabbinic imagination.
Derrida and Lonergan on the Human Subject: Transgressing a Metonymical Notion
Authors: Rixon Gordon
Published: March 2013

Our purpose here is to interpret and appreciate Lonergan's notion of the subject in light of the strength of Derrida's challenge. Both authors share a perspicuous appreciation of the importance of a careful analysis of the human person's cognitive activities as an aspect of the contemporary discussion of the dynamic development and critical evaluation of cultural meanings and values. Many of the issues presented by theological, philosophical and ethical reflection can be refracted to reveal constitutive assumptions arising from diverse understandings of the cognitive operations by which the human person interprets world process. The careful consideration of the human subject's cognitive operations and associated activities remains vital in its significance. With others, I believe Derrida's criticisms of a metaphysics of presence to be substantial but ultimately inadequate in the account they give of the cognitional activity of the human person.
Karl Barth's Critique of Classical Theism
Authors: Schweitzer Don
Published: March 2013

"Classical theism" designates an understanding of God in which God has no need of the world and is not internally related to it. In classical theism, God's joy is not increased by the world's beauty or diminished by its pain. God's being is perfectly and fully actualized apart from the world. Any alternation would only decrease it. In this understanding, God's being is immutable in a static sense, essentially unrelated to the world and unaffected by what happens in and to it. Thomas Aquinas is usually cited as representative of this position. But this concept of God has been present in Christian theology from the patristic. era on, when absoluteness and impassibility came to be seen as basic attributes of God that determined how the revelation of God in Jesus Christ could be understood. Classical theism, this understanding of God as impassible and statically perfect, has been sharply criticized by process philosophers and theologians as logically incoherent, an obstacle to faith and de-valuing creation. Feminist theologians have repeated and extended this, arguing that classical theism is a male idolatry that undermines peoples' humanity, especially women's.
Portraits of Parish Life: Canadian Fiction as a Resource for Historical and Pastoral Studies
Authors: Beardsall Sandra
Published: March 2013

The purpose of this study, then, is to promote the use of fictional narrative in pastoral and church history classrooms by offering a sample method for such studies, followed by a brief "tour" of some Canadian fictional congregations. I also hope to encourage further dialogue of the type that occurs at the "Christianity and Literature Study Group," which meets annually at the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences, bringing theologians and literature scholars together to examine fiction and poetry. The pastoral lens can offer fiction readers yet another angle from which to view their narratives, just as the tools of literary criticism can inform the historical and pastoral enterprise.
The Value of Self-Denial: John Wesley's Multidimensional View of Fasting
Authors: Webster Robert Joseph
Published: March 2013

At the dawn of the eighteenth century the discipline of fasting played a formidable role in the formation of the Methodists in Oxford. William Morgan, an early companion of Wesley and member of the Holy Club, died in 1732. Luke Tyerman eloquently writes of Morgan's death: "William Morgan was not only one of the first Oxford Methodists, but the first of them to enter heaven." Morgan had persuaded John Wesley and the early Methodists to visit the castle prison in Oxford as a part of their disciplined lifestyle. In the summer of 1731, Morgan was afflicted with an illness that eventually led to his death.
Breaking Barriers and Building Boundaries: Christian-Jewish Relations in the Writings of Leo Baeck
Authors: Marmur Dow
Published: March 2013

By the year 1900, many Jews regarded themselves as an integral part of the cultural, economic and political1ife of Germany, even if the non-Jewish population may not have seen them in the same way. In view of the subsequent fate of German Jewry, there is much to suggest that the Jewish perception was wishful thinking rather than an accurate measure of reality. But we can understand how the Jews reasoned: they had lived in Germany even before the country became Christian; some may have settled there in Roman times. By the early Middle Ages, Jews had become well established in the German lands. The impact of the French Revolution and the subsequent unification of Germany had offered them new opportunities for integration. One of the early exponents of modem Judaism, Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), was even recognized as a German philosopher of note. Other Jews had come to play important roles in the life of Germany. A growing number genuinely believed that they had good reason to feel at home in the country in which their families had lived for so many centuries.
Hope, History and Redemption in the Theology of Richard Roberts (1874-1945)
Authors: Bourgeois Michael
Published: March 2013

While World War I catalyzed the crisis oftheologica1liberalism early in the twentieth century, the crisis had begun well before the summer of 1914. Both contemporary commentators and later historians have pointed to various factors precipitating this crisis, including the rise of secularization, the reassessment of earlier understandings of the relationships among theological, historical and scientific knowledge, and the consequent breakdown of certainty in religious truth, all of which were already apparent by the turn of the century. Nevertheless, World War I sharpened the crisis of theological liberalism, largely because of the shock to previously held convictions about the inevitability of progress and the perfectibility of humanity. In the years during and after the war, many pastors and theologians spoke of the "disintegration" or even the "death" of liberalism. Some looked to the emerging "neo-orthodox" theologies of Barth and Brunner in Europe and the Niebuhrs in North America for theological resources adequate to the crises of the time. Others worked to articulate a theology that retained what they regarded as liberalism's enduring strengths, both discarding the weaknesses of liberalism and rejecting what they regarded as the shortcomings of neo-orthodoxy.
Metaphors We Die by: How Christian Pacificists Make Better Caregivers
Authors: Hovey Craig
Published: March 2013

In what follows, I will advance the thesis that the linguistic philosophy of modernity has left us with such an impoverished account of the role of language— specifically metaphorical language—that it has been nearly impossible to plead the case of those whose suffering is made worse by descriptions of their illnesses that are foreign to their own experience. However, recent developments in the philosophy of language, which some are calling postmodern, have allowed for an articulation of metaphor such that the body and the community can be recovered as significant moral players. I will suggest that the church and not medicine must then become the locus for the defining practices that give rise to any account of suffering which hopes to be intelligible in light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, the greatest moral dilemma facing the church with regard to the sick is how to be a people who are able truthfully to narrate the lives and deaths of those in our midst. I hope to show how a discussion of illness and its metaphors bears significantly on this dilemma.
Remembering Her: Feminist Readings the Christian Tradition
Authors: D'angelo Mary
Published: March 2013

Le Guin' s Eve expresses well the tentativeness of religious feminists facing our own traditions; prodigious rethinking is required before we utter a single word of protest or expectation, much less of apostrophe or proclamation. Nevertheless, the last two years have seen the appearance of a wide variety of feminist works rereading the Christian tradition. While these books are not without predecessors, their publication marks and enables a new stage of feminist interpretation of Christianity. They make work in this area widely and conveniently available and, with older works, more popular works and articles, they create the basis of a scholarly literature.
A Response to Kroeker
Authors: Baum Gregory
Published: March 2013

Travis Kroeker has written an excellent article. I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief critical response to it. That the more recent Catholic social teaching has paid too little attention to humanity'S relation to nature is a criticism that deserves to be taken very seriously. Yet to pin the blame on the biblical injunction to subdue the earth seems superficial to me. The biblical mandate was given in an agricultural society where 'the domination' of nature aimed at the creation of a garden. In the Bible work is seen as a taming of nature. Work enhances nature in accordance with its own inclination. The domination of nature by an economic system that seeks to maximize production, profit and power, has violated the earth and transformed it into a quarry. Reflecting on the contrast between 'garden' and 'quarry' may help Christians to promote a theory and practice of labour that reconciles people with nature. In this context, increasing productivity need not mean making more commodities: it could refer to the qualitative transformation of society, human dwelling in a park.
A Response to Kroeker
Authors: Hutchinson Roger
Published: March 2013

My initial response to Kroeker's article was that in his rejection of Baum's claim that the Bishops' statement reflected a move to the left, and in his concern that the Bishops should be eco-centred rather than human-centred, he moved the discussion in an abstract, ahistorical, depoliticizing direction. Notes 6 and 21 assure us that this is not his intention. His aim is to raise serious theological issues which have a bearing on the adequacy of the Bishops' approach to economic issues.
Canada's Catholic Bishops and the Economy: A Theological Ethical Analysis
Authors: Kroeker Travis
Published: March 2013

In the current Canadian debate on economic issues and policies, it is important to recognise that, despite the deployment of scientific terms and technical prognostications, what is really at stake are particular human values and interests. This has been pointed out by many people, but in doing so none has generated the kind of public response evoked by the statement published in 1983 by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), entitled 'Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis'. Convinced that Canadian economic realities and policies reveal a 'moral disorder' of values, the bishops called for a certain priority of values and strategies to inform economic policy, and for a 'real public debate about economic visions and industrial strategies involving choices about values and priorities for the future direction of this country.’ The document, upon release and since then, has stimulated widespread public debate, not only about economic policies and values, but also about the role of the Church in speaking to socio-economic issues.
Recent Developments in the Discussion Concerning Justification by Faith
Authors: Plevnik Joseph
Published: March 2013

In 1961 E. Kiisemann published his ground-breaking article 'Righteousness of God in Paul' in which he parted company with Bultmann and showed a new approach to this issue. Much subsequent exegetical discussion on this topic took place in the wake of E. Käsemann. Here we can mention the dissertations of C. Müller and P. Stuhlmacher which E. Käsemann directed, the ecumenical contributions ofK. Kertelge, J.A. Ziesler, J. Reumann andJ. Fitzmyer, and the commentaries on Romans by H. Schlier and U. Wilckens. In the present article we shall attemptto give a critical review of the scholarly debate that is in some way in dialogue with Käsemann's proposal, as well as to broaden it to include also the contributions of E.P. Sanders, K. Stendahl and N.A. Dahl.
'Justification by Faith': The Canonical Principle
Authors: Demson David
Published: March 2013

The most interesting proposal about the canon of Scripture since Barth's discussion of the canon in the 1930's is Ernst Kasemann's proposal that 'justification by faith' be the canonical principle. He advanced this proposal during the 1950's and early 1960's in several articles. Perhaps the three most significant among them are: (a) Bergrundet der neutestamentliche Kanon die Einheit der Kirche?; (b) Zum Thema der Nichtobjektivierbarkeit; (c) Zum Gegenwiirtigen Streit um die Schriftauslegung. This proposal could and must be examined from many sides. Since Kasemann advances this proposal against Protestant orthodoxy's identification of canonical Scripture with the Gospel, on the one hand, and against the tacit dismissal of a canonical Scripture by historical criticism, on the other hand, and says that he is able to do so by following the theology of the reformation, a first avenue of examination is to ask the question whether or not his proposal accords with the understandings of Luther and Calvin.
Political Philosophy & Theology: George Grant, Leo Strauss and the Priority of Love
Authors: Athanasiadis Harris
Published: March 2013

This essay is about George Grant and his relationship to the political philosopher Leo Strauss. Many will know George Grant as a significant political philosopher in his own right, and one who was uniquely Canadian. Many will have read or heard his sweeping criticism of globalization through technology and his concern over the increasing tyranny such globalization was imposing on the diversity and otherness of life, forcing large-scale conformity toward cultural sameness of the most shallow variety. Many will have read or heard his lament over the loss of what is noble, good and worthy of love and pursuit in the more primal and ancient traditions over against the individual consumerism and aggressive militaristic and corporate domination of the powerful imposed by globalization through technology. Yes indeed, Grant was one of those unique and somewhat rare prophetic voices of Canada. We need to be attentive to his voice if we hope to resist what many of us witness as the tyranny of a relentless necessity toward globalization.
Catholicism in Dialogue with World Religions: The Value of Self-Denial
Authors: Mohammed, S.J. Ovey
Published: March 2013

The encounter of Catholicism with world religions can be treated from more than one perspective. For example, it can be studied from the perspective of proclamation, which aims at converting those of other faiths to Catholicism, or from the perspective of dialogue, which aims at a deeper conversion of the followers of all religions to God. As the title indicates, this paper will treat the topic from the perspective of dialogue. It will attempt to do two things: show that the church's attitude to religions other than Christianity has depended on the historical circumstances in which she has found herself; and, highlight where the church is today in her relationship with Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.
Cultural Restoration/Revitalization of Oppressed Indigenous Peoples: The Role of the Churches
Authors: Stogre Michael
Published: March 2013

In this article, I have been invited, on the occasion of a Festschrift for Fr. Carl Starkloff, S.J., to explore the theme of cultural restoration/revitalization demanded by the contemporary situation of aboriginal peoples. I will address the historical context for revitalization, some insights on revitalization drawn from anthropological literature and, finally, the Roman Catholic Church's perspective on revitalization.
The Meeting of the Rivers: Being Native and Christian in Canada
Authors: Peelman Achiel
Published: March 2013

Since the end of the Second Vatican Council, religious pluralism has become the unavoidable context for any serious reflection on Christian theology and spirituality. The Roman Catholic Church and many other Christian denominations now consider dialogue with the other religions and spiritual traditions as a constitutive dimension of their mission, even though the relationship between the proclamation of the Gospel, the main objective of mission, and dialogue remains a controversial question. In this article, written in honour of Jesuit theologian Carl Starkloff, I would like to reflect on how this evolution affects the First Nations peoples of Canada. As both a participant and a theological observer, I have been able to witness their commitment to the development of their own Christian communities as well as their efforts to build bridges between their traditional spirituality and the Christian faith. My reflections are inspired by regular meetings with aboriginal persons at the Anishinabe Spiritual Centre in Anderson Lake, Ontario, a place where Carl Starkloff is remembered as a great theologian and spiritual companion.
Indigenous Leadership in the Church: The Experience of the Diocese of San Cristöbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
Authors: Andraos Michel
Published: March 2013

"The meetings of minds between missionaries and native leaders in the past mission history of the Church," writes Carl Starkloff, "have generally taken the form of 'power encounters' and contests, ... " In his significant work, A Theology of the In-Between, where Starkloff examines the history of "syncretism," he articulates his hope that in future encounters, "marginalization and identity conflicts suffered by local cultures at the hands of 'catholic' Christianity" will be avoided.! The recent experience of the indigenous communities in the diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, is an important case study of an encounter that engendered a new synthesis between the Catholic faith and indigenous cultures. Since the 1970s, the diocesan organizations in San Cristobal de Las Casas opened a new space for the participation of the indigenous communities in the leadership of the local church. In this paper, I will briefly examine the historical background and context of the shifts in ecclesiology and missiology that prepared the way for the emergence of the new indigenous leadership in this local church, describe the stages of its development, and mention some of its present challenges. and cultural diversity?
Ignatian Themes in the Thought of Bernard Lonergan
Authors: Doran Robert
Published: March 2013

What I hope to do in this essay is twofold. First, I have selected some themes and currents in Bernard Lonergan's work that have correspondences in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and may very well be Ignatian in inspiration, and second, I have identified in Lonergan a language, a contemporary idiom, that I believe helps us understand what Ignatius himself is up to. So I will try to identify a movement, a dynamism, from Ignatius to Lonergan, and then in Lonergan a set of contributions to the clarification and development of the Ignatian charism in the Church. These two tasks do not divide the sections of the paper. There are four sections, and these two tasks are present in all of them.
"The Glory ofGod Gives Life": Unmasking Subjugation for a Post-Colonial Missionary Ecclesiology in Canada
Authors: Fensham C.J.
Published: March 2013

Those who define what is acceptable within churches most often operate from the point of view of the dominant within the church subculture. Those who are different find themselves defined by those who dominate, control, exercise power and set the agenda. The dominated often seek to join dominance and to suppress their difference. This process is pernicious because it appears benign and because it never requires the dominant to reveal or examine assumptions.

It reflects the process of one-way definition identified by Edward Said, another post-colonial theorist, in the relationship between the Western world and its perception of the Orient.

There are many powerful challenges before churches in Canada in the twentyfirst century. I frame several issues here to propose the scope of post-colonial missionary ecclesiology. Challenges include external influences such as globalization, new technologies, environmental destruction, consumer capitalism and mass media; and internal struggles with hermeneutics, ethics, leadership and traditions of violence and domination.
The Irony of Rorty's Lack of Theological Irony
Authors: Grant Colin
Published: March 2013

The subtlety that characterizes Richard Rorty's pragmatic postmodernism eludes him when it come to matters theological. There he clearly demonstrates precisely what his writings are meant to expose and discard—realism, representation and foundationalism. He has no doubt about the unreality of God; he presents this knowledge as a direct representation of the way things are; and he does so in a way that makes this atheistic vision foundational for his whole approach. This is directly contrary to the tentativeness that should characterize ironists, who, by definition, are "always aware of the contingency and fragility of their final vocabulary." This raises questions about why Rorty does not deal with theology with irony, rather than in the absolutist and dogmatic terms he does use; it also suggests that Rorty himself, and perhaps postmoderns generally, are not as superior to reality, representation and foundations as they would have us think, including theological realism, representation and foundations.
Eberhard Jungel and Wolf Krotke: Recent Contributions toward a Trinitarian Doctrine of God's Attributes
Authors: Holmes Christopher
Published: March 2013

Wolf Krötke and Eberhard JUngel are among the most sophisticated theologians writing in Germany today. Both have recently retired, the former from Humboldt University in Berlin and the latter from the University ofTübingen. Their theology is marked by a common and rigorous yielding to God's self-disclosure in Jesus Christ. While their respective writings include extensive comment on and work in a variety of different doctrinal themes—most notably, the doctrine of God—and theologians—most notably, Karl Barth—each has demonstrated an abiding interest in the doctrine of the divine attributes. Their focus has been on describing, albeit with different emphases, what the doctrine of the divine attributes looks like when it begins with the God who comes low in Jesus Christ, rather than a God who more resembles some kind of supreme being.
Leonardo Boff's Ecological Theology and Christian Tradition
Authors: Dunham Scott
Published: March 2013

The growing recognition of humanity's pervasive destruction of the earth has not yet issued in significant reforms in practice or in the mindset that allows such destruction to continue. Theological interaction with ecological ideas has grown substantially in the last decade, but the degree of its impact on the practices of churches is still open to question. One means by which ecological sensitivity might be received Into the practices of churches is provided by contextual theologies, theologies able to articulate clearly the link between theological beliefs . and the life of church communities. Leonardo Boff, a leading Latin American theologian, has produced two books, as well as several articles and essays, on the relationship between ecology and theology in which he attempts to establish such a link between Christian beliefs about the world and the practices of churches. His method for establishing a dialogue between theology and ecology provides a helpful way to articulate the challenges that ecological destruction poses for churches and how those challenges can be a basis for transformative practices within churches. At the same time, his attempts to work out an ecological theology also reveal limitations in the use he makes of biblical thought and theological tradition for accomplishing this task. The primary task in this essay will be to explore the promise of his theological method for incorporating ecology into theological thought, as well as the limitations that result from his lack of nuance in the use of scriptural and theological traditions.
Book Reviews
Authors: Trites Allison , Hawkins David , Black Steve , Fox Kenneth , Wettlaufer Ryan , Mitchell Matthew , Irwin Brian , Keough Shawn , Spilsbury Paul , Wiebe Donald , Chambers Stephen , Oegema Gerbern , Elphick Marilyn-Ann , Kindred-Barnes Scott , Gordon Dorcas , Konig Robin , Delicata Nadia , Rixon Gordon , Duggan John , Schweitzer Don
Published: March 2013

Peter Balla, The Child-Parent Relationship in the New Testament and Its Environment, reviewed by Allison A. Trites

John J. Collins, The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a PostmodernAge, reviewed by David J. Hawkin

Charles H. Cosgrove, Herold Weiss, K.K. (Khiok-Khng) Yeo, Cross-Cultural Paul: Journeys to Others, Journey to Ourselves, reviewed by Steve D. Black

Philip F. Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul s Letter, reviewed by Kenneth A.Fox

Craig A. Evans, Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies: A Guide to the Background Literature, reviewed by Ryan D. Wettlaufer

Alan David Crown and Reinhard Pummer, A Bibliography of the Samaritans: Third Edition Revised, Expanded and Annotated, reviewed by Ryan D. Wettlaufer

Jeffrey P. Greenman, Timothy Larsen, eds., Reading Romans through the Centuries: From the Early Church to KarlBarth, reviewed by Allison A. Trites

Bruce J. Malina and John J. Pilch, Social-Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul, reviewed by Matthew W Mitchell

J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1, reviewed by Brian P. Irwin

Cristian Badilita and Charles Kannengiesser, eds., Les Pères de l'Église dans Ie monde d'aujourd'hui, reviewed by Shawn W.J. Keough

Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason and James Rives, eds., Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, reviewed by Paul Spilsbury

Thomas Albert Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University, reviewed by Donald Wiebe

Clayton N. Jefford, The Apostolic Fathers and the New Testament, reviewed by Shawn W.J. Keough

Paul Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius, reviewed by Stephen L. Chambers

Leif E. Vaage, ed., Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise o/Christianity, reviewed by Gerbern S. Oegema

Augustine Meier, Thomas St. James O'Connor, Peter L. Van Katwyk, eds., Spirituality and Health: Multidisciplinary Explorations, reviewed by Marilyn-Ann Elphick

David Self, Struggling with Forgiveness, reviewed by Marilyn-Ann Elphick

EndNote X., reviewed by Brian P. Irwin

Stephen Edmondson, Calvin's Christology, reviewed by Scott N. Kindred-Barnes

Jeannine Hill Fletcher, Monopoly on Salvation? A Feminist Approach to Religious Pluralism, reviewed by Dorcas Gordon

Dwight N. Hopkins, Being Human: Race, Culture, and Religion, reviewed by Robin Koning

Marshall McLuhan, The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of his Time, reviewed by Nadia Delicata

Neil Ormerod, The Trinity: Retrieving the Western Tradition, reviewed by Gordon A. Rixon

Arvind Sharma, Religious Studies and Comparative Method: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination, reviewed by John F. Duggan

Miroslav Volf and Michael Welker, eds., God's Life in Trinity, reviewed by Don Schweitzer
Simply "Christian": Canada's Newest Major Religious Denomination
Authors: Clarke Brian , Macdonald Stuart
Published: March 2013

Statistics Canada's release in May of 2003 of the religion data for the 2001 census generated a flurry of media coverage. Among the leading stories was one on the number of Canadians who claimed to be Jedi Knights (some 20,000 in all). And the rise of those claiming No Religion (from 12.5 % in 1991 to 16.2% in 2001) attracted much cominentary. All but one observer, Joe Couto, a columnist with Christian Week, missed a startling new development. What Statistics Canada classifies as "Christians not included elsewhere" or "Christians n.i.e." had risen, in Couto's words, to "an eye popping" level. Some 780,400 Canadians are now included in this category. If these people constituted a denomination, they would represent the fifth largest denomination in the country. And, in Couto's view, this trend is a reflection that many "may be turned off by 'traditional' church groups."
Debating Same-Sex Marriage in Canada: The Contribution of the Canadian Council
Authors: Appleby Brenda
Published: March 2013

When the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC) was initiated more than sixty years ago, the guiding vision was one of "full structural unity" for Canada's Christian churches. Within the global context, the World Council of Churches (WCC) similarly envisioned a full world communion of Christian traditions. The inaugural meeting of the CCC, held at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church in Toronto in May 1944, brought together ten Canadian church traditions. Four years later, in August 1948, the first meeting of the WCC was convened in Amsterdam with 140 traditions represented. At its 1950 convention in Toronto, the WCC produced The Toronto Statement, "The Church, the Churches, and the World Council of Churches." As the document laid to rest the utopian vision of "full structural unity" and explicitly repudiated the "super-church" model, the ongoing dilemma of the Christian ecumenical movement was identified: by what vision and means would it be possible to simultaneously respect each member tradition's uniqueness and foster ecumenical unity?
The Current State ofthe Individual: A Meditation on "The Falling Man," a Photo Taken by Richard Drew
Authors: Boutin Maurice
Published: March 2013

Richard Drew's photo, taken on September 11,2001, was published in a few newspapers on September 12 (see http://wtc10048nyc.free.fr/071.htrnl). It shows a man who jumped from a window of the restaurant Window to the World and is in free fall alongside one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Because the picture was deemed too violent by a good number of newspaper readers, it quickly disappeared from the material used in reports on the disastrous event in New York City. And yet the photo, simply entitled The Falling Man, offers the opportunity to restart both anamnesis and critical distanciation instead of needless contemplation of building debris.
Religious and Theological Dialectics: Kierkegaard and Tillich
Authors: Slater Peter
Published: March 2013

Although tomes have been written on Paul Tillich's "method of correlation" as an organizing principle of his systematic theology, his own understanding of his procedure, absorbed from writing two dissertations on Schelling, is more accurately labelled "dialectics." Tillich's importance in the history of twentieth century theology rests in good part on his critical and systematic appropriation of existential insights in theology, which turn on the philosophical sense of dialectics that he imbibed from Schelling and Kierkegaard. This paper, more expository than argumentative, is especially for those who, like me, were educated in an Anglo-American history of philosophy which took seriously only Hegelian and Marxist versions of dialectics. In what follows, I shall (1) note some notions of the term "dialectics" in the history of philosophy leading up to Tillich; (2) reflect on some motifs in Soren Kierkegaard's existentialist responses to Hegelianism; and (3) consider Tillich's early conception of theonomous culture and related components of his systematic theology. I do not go into other possible readings of the Kierkegaardian corpus, which focus more on Kierkegaard's later work.
Telling One's Story: Tools for Theological Reflection on Autobiography
Authors: Ruttan Brian
Published: March 2013

In the process of qualifying for professional ministry, autobiography is frequently a component in assessing a candidate's suitability. Seldom, however, are guidelines or form prescribed for such an exercise. The student is left to intuit what is required and the assessor reads the material according to his or her own prejudices about how a given story does or does not contribute to the judgment of a candidate's suitability. It is, quite literally, hit and miss. Students of theology are also routinely asked to ''tell their story" as part of theological reflection associated with field education placements. Just what is theological about such an exercise is seldom spelled out. Is it a recitation of religious experiences? A theological understanding of ordinary events?.
Biologizing Religion: Dennett' Breaking the Spell
Authors: Wills Bernard , Hynes Darren
Published: March 2013

In his recent book Breaking the Spell, the influential philosopher and secular humanist Daniel Dennett argues, in a hard-headed but breezy manner, that religion has enchanted believers into living under an antiquated cosmology that is dangerous in its demands for allegiance. This spell can only be broken, according to Dennett, by a more up-to-date and naturalistic cosmology, revealed by the light of free-thinking modem science, that accounts for religion itself in natural and evolutionary terms: "if we want to know why we value the things we love," he writes, "we need to delve into the evolutionary history of the planet."
Reading the Divine Drama: A Sketch of Etemity and Time/s in Barth
Authors: Langdon Adrian
Published: March 2013

The discussion of eternity and time in the Christian tradition has been structurally controlled by the delineation of the issue as found in Greek philosophy. Plato in his Timaeus described the creation of time by the demiurge as the moving image of the eternal forms: "he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heavens, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity, and this image we call time" (Timaeus, 37 d). In the beginning there was the eternal, immovable and immutable, and time is a part of that which is created movable and changing, imitating the eternal. Clearly, the relationship between that which is eternal and that which is in time is asymmetrical. Yet the eternal is defined by what it is not, by the via negative: time is moving; therefore, the eternal must be unmoving. This procedure of juxtaposing and contrasting the immovable, immutable and eternal to that which is in time became the standard approach to the God and time problem in Christian theology as well. Major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Boethius and Aquinas adopted it. Opposing eternity to time led to the odd idea that the living God is timeless. Contemporary theologians have asserted that it seems incoherent to claim that a timeless God acts in time, even becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ. The problem arises from the refusal of traditional discussions to define eternity with reference to the particular life and movement of the triune God.
The Relationship of Biblical Studies to the History of Religions School, with Reference to the Scientific Study ofReligion
Authors: Lüdemann Gerd
Published: March 2013

Theologians both Catholic and Protestant have consistently assumed theology to be related to the Church. This reflects the idea that theology is a confessional discipline. In Germany the close binding of theology to the Church was strengthened after the First World War and persisted through the Nazi era. Since then this bond has in fact underpinned the growing significance of Church development worldwide: The roots of this correlation of Church and theology are found as early as the nineteenth century. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) decreed: "Even the scientific activity of the theologian must have for its object the promotion of the Church's welfare-and partakes, therefore, of a clerical character." In a similar vein, Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) remarked that "theology is only conceivable as service to the Christian religious community."
Secularism and Christianity: Caritas in the Thought of Gianni Vattimo and Pope Benedict XVI
Authors: Zathurezcky Kornel
Published: March 2013

In the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe for a generation, with the subsequent accession of former Eastern Bloc countries to the European Union and the drastic changes within the demographics of Western Europe, Europe has witnessed an unparalleled intensity of debates about its own identity. The question of religion and its role in modern, secular European, societies has emerged as a virtually ubiquitous component of these debates. Although the renewed controversy about the role of religion in European public life is a multi-layered and complex phenomenon, the discussions inevitably allude, often implicitly, to the function of Christianity in the construal of European identities.
Wind and Anchor, Roots and Wings
Authors: Wyatt Peter
Published: March 2013

Yesterday afternoon, this year's gold medallist in the Emmanuel M. Div. program was ordained in Hillcrest Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). When it came time for the act of ordination, various elders and ministers were invited to join in laying on hands with prayer for our sister Jennifer. But so were all members of the congregation who cared to. So imagine about a dozen of us robed, with hands on Jennifer's head or shoulders and others with their hands on our shoulders, and still others with hands touching their shoulders. Then came the prayer to the Holy Spirit that Jen would be filled with gifts and graces to minister faithfully in Christ's name. .
A Biblical Basis for a Critical Christian Theology
Authors: Zub David John
Published: March 2013

Yesterday afternoon, this year's gold medallist in the Emmanuel M. Div. program was ordained in Hillcrest Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). When it came time for the act of ordination, various elders and ministers were invited to join in laying on hands with prayer for our sister Jennifer. But so were all members of the congregation who cared to. So imagine about a dozen of us robed, with hands on Jennifer's head or shoulders and others with their hands on our shoulders, and still others with hands touching their shoulders. Then came the prayer to the Holy Spirit that Jen would be filled with gifts and graces to minister faithfully in Christ's name. .
What Did Easter Say about Suffering?
Authors: Wells Harold
Published: March 2013

As we look back on Good Friday and Easter our memories are often focused upon the grimness of the picture. We behold our Lord bearing his cross through the streets lined with the people who had hailed him as the Messiah only a week before. We witness his silent affliction at the hands of rude and rough soldiers, who strip him and affix him to the cross. Here are broken flesh, flowing blood, the jarring crash ofthe hammer, loud cries and tears. We hear his terrible cry, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Here is a picture of the deepest of human agony and absolutely innocent suffering.

The suffering of the innocent is the darkest of mysteries. Human pain and anguish would make some sense if it were only the most evil among us who suffered. But that's not the way it is. The pain of disease, the sorrow of early death and of loneliness, the hardships of poverty and unemployment, fall upon all kinds of people regardless of how good or bad they are. The suffering of the innocent is sometimes bad enough to shake our faith in God. Sometimes it makes people hate God with righteous indignation. Jesus' experience offorsakenness is a common one for humanity. It is not a matter of physical suffering only but is accompanied by mental anguish, the fright and terror of doubt, doubt of God's goodness and love, which is the very ultimate in human misery and despair. Like Job of the Old Testament, many of us may yet cry out before we die, "better that I had never been born! Better dead at birth! Why is death withheld from me now?"

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Another History Is Possible: Christologies from Below
Authors: Cormie Lee
Published: March 2013

At the end of the 1990s, the resurgence of popular movements and emerging global coalitions, in addition to signalling a new stage in social justice and eco-justice struggles worldwide, are contributing to the vast expansion of epistemological horizons, creating broader bases for dialogues on every issue and deepening awareness of the shifting horizons of hope and faith in history. They confirm the growing sense that we are already caught up in epochal transitions in which we are significant actors, and that our responses involve leaps of faith which contribute to tipping the balance among divergent possible futures. They are also opening new horizons on Jesus not only as a great man but as a member of a movement. And, given the looming sense of apocalypse in Jesus' time as well as in ours, they invite the expansion of christological horizons in recovering the symbols of creation and apocalypse, new creation and second Adam.
Shifting Identities and the Mission ofthe Church
Authors: Shepherd Loraine MacKenzie
Published: March 2013

In honour of Harold Wells' significant contributions to liberation and critical theology both in Canada and abroad, I offer a critical examination of the identity and mission of "sideline" Protestant denominations within the Canadian context. Although we share a common passion of Christ-inspired justice and social wellbeing, Wells and I differ in our appreciation of postmodern contributions to this peaceable kin-dom on earth. Within this article, I suggest that poststructural and postcolonial theory can help the church understand its own complicity in the marginalization and colonization of the very people it is intending to "help." I will begin with a portrait of the mission of the modem, mainstream Protestant church, followed by an examination of the effects of this mission. I will then offer a poststructural analysis of the church's mission based on questions of individual and communal identity. I wi11look at how these questions can transform the Church and suggest a vision for the postcolonial church in our Canadian context.
The Theology of the Eucharistic Prayers in The Book of Alternative Services of the Anglican Church of Canada
Authors: Crocket William
Published: March 2013

One of the most important developments in liturgical studies in recent decades has been research into the origins and development of the Eucharistic Prayer, the great Prayer of Thanksgiving over the bread and the cup in the eucharistic liturgy generally known in the Christian east as the anaphora, in the Latin west as the Canon of the Mass, and in the Anglican Prayer Book tradition as the Prayer of Consecration. The Eucharistic Prayers in The Book of Alternative Services of the Anglican Church of Canada (the BAS) reflect the results of this research both in structure and theology.
Spirit of life and truth: the doctine of the holy spirit in the fourth gospel
Authors: Beare Francis
Published: March 2013

The Gospel according to John is commonly called the Fourth Gospel, not primarily because it is fourth in order in the printed texts which we use, and in most of the ancient manuscripts which contain all four Gospels, but because church traditions going back to the second century affirm that it was the latest of the four to be written. The same traditions claim that it was composed by John the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve apostles, and so an eyewitness of the events which he describes and auditor of the sayings which he reports.
Eugene Fairweather as Ecumenical Partner
Authors: Fennell William
Published: March 2013

My first encounter with Eugene Fairweather occurred in the early 1940s at an intercollege Theology Society meeting. I cannot now remember the subject of the paper Eugene had read. He expected to be challenged on his 'high church, catholic views', especially by United Church students, all of whom, he suspected, were under the influence of moralistic understandings of the 'social gospel'. My most influential mentor at Emmanuel was Dr. John Line. He had felt the challenge of the neo-Reformation theology of Brunner and Barth, with what seemed to be its profounder understanding of the reality of God and its more sober, realistic understandings of the plight of man than his former liberal views had afforded. Much in his teaching seemed sound to me and from it I derived the ammunition to challenge, yet with more evident accord, Eugene's theological understanding. The direction of the attack, he confessed then, and often since, took him by surprise. But there began that night a friendly partnership in theological dialogue that has continued for more than forty years
Fondements ecclesiologiques de la 'reception' oecumenique
Authors: Tillard J.M.
Published: March 2013

Nous sommes entres dans une nouvelle phase du mouvement oecumenique. Elle est marquee par deux traits majeurs, qui a premiere vue paraissent contradictoires. D'un cote on remarque un peu partout une baisse de ce qu'il y a dix ans on decrivait comme 'la passion oecumenique'. Par ailleurs, les Eglises sont invitees a se prononcer sur des textes d'accord, des documents de convergence, des projets d'union dont Ie nombre ne cesse de croitre. Seul ce demier point nous interessera dans cette etude. Mais il est clair que Ie climat que nous evoquions constitue comme l'arriere-fond sur lequel s'inscrit cette 'reception'. Qu' implique aujourd' hui pour I 'Eglise catholique la 'reception' oecumenique? Telle est la question a laquelle il nous parait urgent de repondre.
Reception as Key: Unlocking ARCIC on Infallibility
Authors: O'Gara Margaret
Published: March 2013

One of Eugene Fairweather's many important contributions to ecumenical dialogue was his work on The Final Report of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). The meaning and depth of that contribution have become evident to me in the courses on Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue which he and I taught together in the Toronto School of Theology , and in meetings over many years as colleagues on the Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue of Canada. Again and again he has guided students and colleagues to deeper appreciation of The Final Report's meaning and of the theology that stands behind it. In gratitude for our time together in the classroom and on the Dialogue, I would like to show how ARCIC's understanding of reception contributes to breaking an impasse in ecumenical discussions of infallibility.
Ecumenical Dialogue, Ecumenical Council, and Constantinople II
Authors: Gray Patrick
Published: March 2013

In the ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, the issue of the status of the Ecumenical Councils of the undivided early Church has been of fundamental importance. All Roman Catholics and a great many Anglicans accord considerable authority to those councils as the 'Voice of the Church' on matters of doctrine. The point at which their differences was revealed in earlier stages of the dialogue, as the Canadian Anglican champion of Anglican/Roman-Catholic dialogue Eugene Fairweather pointed out on the eve of Vatican II, was the question of how an ecumenical council's authority was to be recognized.