bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Christian‐Marxist Dialogue
Authors: McLellan David
Published: July 2007

Apart from a certain number of discreet and limited meetings between Christians and Marxists, it was not until comparatively recently that these discussions came to the public notice. There was a Catholic participation at the Semaines de la Pensee Marxiste in early 1964 and then a reciprocal Marxist presence at the Semaines des Intellectuels Calholiques at the beginning of the following year. From France, the lead in this field has now passed to Germany, and more precisely to Austria, where in the spring of 1965, the Paulusgesellschaft, an association of German-speaking Catholic university teachers, organized a meeting specifically devoted to a dialogue between Christians and Marxists from both West and East Europe. There have since been two more meetings of this nature; the most recent, in 1967, was held at Marienbad in Czechoslovakia.

Of course, the idea of a meeting between Catholics and atheist movements (of which Marxism is presently the most important) was mentioned quite clearly in 1963 by Pope John XXIII in his encyclical Pacem in Terris. He there made a distinction, since become familiar, between static theories condemned by the Church and the movements inspired by these theories, but which evolve in time. He said: ‘In as far as these movements are in accord with sound principles of reason and are a response to the just aspirations of the human person, who would refuse to recognize in them elements that are positive and merit our approval? It could happen that certain meetings with a view to practical co-operation that had up till now appeared inopportune or sterile, could now produce real advantages or at least contain the promise of such for the future.’
Church and World in Newman
Authors: Holmes J. Derek
Published: July 2007

During recent years, a great deal has been written about Newman as an historian, but, somewhat surprisingly, comparatively little on his deeper understanding of history. This, of course, is a vast subject with many different aspects. In spite of an essential scepticism about the possibility of a philosophy of history, Newman himself did indulge in occasional excursions into this dangerous field, but because he was basically a religious thinker, he ultimately saw history in the light of his belief in a divine revelation. Faith enabled the Christian to see the reality beyond the shadows, the works of divine providence and the manifestations of the sacramental principle. This is the theological background to the apologetic contrast which he made between the nature or permanence of the Church on the one hand, and shifting or temporary human organizations on the other. It is also significant that his historical realism in the context of the nineteenth-century belief in progress, was the result of a theological, in fact an eschatological, position.

There are, however, two particular lines of thought which are of more than specialized interest; the situation of the Church in the world and the role of the individual. The more accurately the history of the world was investigated and put into shape, the more it evidently appeared to advance according to fixed laws both as regards time and place, but this did not interfere with individual responsibility (Sermons Preached on Various Occasions (O.S.), p. 189). Throughout his life, Newman was convinced of the fundamental significance of the individual like the Liberal Anglicans whose philosophy of history was firmly grounded on that ultimate historical reality, the individual will.
The Contempt of Ritual I
Authors: Douglas Mary
Published: July 2007

The Church today is engaged in a great crisis of self-examination. It is looking at its claims, its traditional role, its theology. It is revising its rituals. This reforming effort is intended to bring Christian worship fully into the twentieth century. But, alas, the zeal for coming up to date proceeds without recourse to one of the most relevant critical techniques which this century has produced, I mean sociological comparison. Hence some naivété in the religious reformer about his own role. He seems not to suspect how much his views are the product of his secular environment. Nor does he consider whether the faithful are free to follow his proposals, though they also must be constrained by their own social environment. More important, he does not seem to foresee any difficulty in abolishing some forms of worship and retaining others. Whereas, if the sociological dimension has as much power as I think it has, King Canute had more chance of saying which pebbles should remain dry.
A Theological Perspective on Human Liberation
Authors: Shaull Richard
Published: July 2007

A number of modern historians have reminded us that the history of the West has been the history of revolution. And these revolutions have occurred not merely as the result of an objective crisis in society, but because a crisis was precipitated by the emergence and action of a new dynamic proletariat. In each case, this proletariat had been captured by a new vision of a new social order. Its members found themselves excluded from the benefits of the status quo, or repelled by its injustices. Eventually they reached a point where their consuming passion was to bring the old order down and build a new and they were willing to sacrifice their lives so that this could happen.

These movements became disruptive forces in their societies; in some instances, they overthrow the old order and, eventually, organized society on a new foundation, with new structures of economic, social and political life. They often failed to achieve their goals, yet when we look back on our history today, we can see that many of the most significant breakthroughs toward a more human society have occurred as a result of these revolutions.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the emergence of such revolutionary forces is once again the order of the day. In the United States, this new proletariat has made its appearance among the black militants and the radicals of a new student generation. But it is in the Third World, and especially in Latin America, that this phenomenon is most widespread.
The Rediscovery of Newman
Authors: Walgrave J. H.
Published: July 2007

After the third international Newman-Conference of Luxembourg, it had been felt that it was time ‘to bring Newman home’. This led to the first Oxford Newman Symposium at Oriel College (1966). The meeting at Newman’s own college was something of an experience, most moving and inspiring, not only by reason of its significance as an ecumenical event in such an historic place, but also, and mainly, because of the things that were said and discussed. Carefully designed by the editors, and reconsidered after the discussion by the contributors, the whole collection of essays, although written by scholars of so different denominations and habits of mind, shows a remarkable convergence in the appreciation of Newman’s place and importance in contemporary theology. It may be said, indeed, that it constitutes a milestone in the history of Newman scholarships and will for ever remain one of the most outstanding publications on the general subject of Newman’s thought and influence.

Four capital points were made: 1, Newman is not only a great historic figure, a saint, a master of English prose, but one of the foremost theologians of his age and perhaps of all times. He did not enrich us with a new system, but he created a new spirit, a new way of putting theological questions. He opened new paths and brought theology back to its proper tasks and methods. 2, Newman’s theology is a result and a most personal synthesis of various theological traditions.
Clinical Theology
Authors: Gaskell Austin
Published: July 2007

Dr Lake’s achievement over the past ten years or so has been considerable. He has not limited himself to his own clinical work, but has built up the Clinical Theology Centre in Nottingham and led a team of doctors and clergy in organizing seminars throughout the country. It is he more than anyone else who has alerted the clergy in this country to the need for the right kind of personal relationships in pastoral work, and to the psychological blockages which too often present barriers. This book, based on his teaching booklets but going well beyond them, will spread his influence even more widely. Our chief feeling must surely be one of gratitude to Dr Lake, and to the publishers for a splendid piece of book production. One might almost say the book is too well produced. Such a massive volume gives the impression of being a definitive text, and such a bold attempt at synthesis makes criticism seem niggardly. All the same, it would be no service to Dr Lake if readers were to accept his writings uncritically, for he is working in a field where several disciplines intersect, and where development is continuous, so that mutual criticism is a condition of life.

The first doubt concerns the title Clinical Theology itself. This is not just a quibble about words. What is the book really about, theology or psychiatry? Dr Lake has been criticized for not being sufficiently rigorous either in his theology or his psychiatry, according to one’s point of view. The sub-title, A theological and psychiatric basis to clinical pastoral care makes the intention clearer.
Divorce and Remarriage
Authors: Bishop Jordan
Published: July 2007

1. Introduction—the present malaise

One of the effects of the Council has been a clearing of the intellectual atmosphere to the point where honesty is tolerated even when it runs counter to deeply rooted taboos. Dr Victor J. Pospishil, priest of the Byzantine Rite Catholic diocese of Philadelphia, has published an appeal for a profound reform in the marriage discipline of the Roman Communion: Divorce and Remarriage. Towards a New Catholic Teaching (Burns & Oates, London, 1967). A canonist with experience in tribunal work, Dr Pospishil presents a convincing case for a reform in present discipline which would allow for the extension of the power of the Church to dissolve those marriages which are ratum et consummatum, sacramental marriages consummated by the sexual union of the parties. As he points out, these are the only marriages excluded from this power in the Church at present.

There is no doubt that a profound malaise with respect to the ecclesiastical discipline on Christian marriage exists in the Western Church today, a malaise which expresses itself in many ways. There is an ever-increasing number of petitions for nullity or dissolution, and in many cases diocesan tribunals are ill-equipped to handle formal (nullity) cases. The escape provided in the Western Church for people in non-viable situations for the past few centuries is, under present circumstances, clearly inadequate.
Sir Herbert Read (1893-1968)
Authors: Shewring Walter
Published: July 2007

I have just returned from the burial of Herbert Read at Kirkdale Minster, in the same remote churchyard where he himself saw his father buried, by the church of grey stone with slated roof and against the dark wood of firs.

As I try to collect my thoughts about him, I wonder if others will find it easier than myself to say what he stood for most. He had many friends and many audiences, but they were often, I think, isolated from each other. Teachers and children inspirited by his books or presence to find new confidence in their own painting might be dismayed by the bloodless forms of geometrical art which he praised elsewhere; painters and sculptors of the vanguard, who owed him much and who often seemed his predilection, were baffled perhaps by his acceptance of this or that Old Master, by his enjoyment of eighteenth-century porcelain or glass, by his admiration of recent things that were not of the vanguard at all—the early ‘non-abstract’ work of Ben Nicholson, the engravings and paintings of David Jones, the pictures and letters of Stanley Spencer, certain drawings of children by Eric Gill. His continued encouragement of new and experimental writers went side by side with an unquenchable devotion to Shelley and Emily Bronte, to Flaubert and Henry James; and the acute and sensitive interpreter of these classics was perhaps not known also as the masterly and precise and imaginative writer of The Green Child and the autobiographies.
Psycho‐analysis and the Spiritual Life
Authors: Dominian J.
Published: July 2007

One of the most welcome features of the contemporary Christian scene is the drive towards ecumenism. This is not only because of the potential achievement of a single united Church which alone makes sense but because the gradual removal of these virulent, self-inflicted wounds of denominational partisanship is likely to free Christians to face alternative urgent challenges. The picture is sombre and no one who really cares about the Christian faith can have any doubts that the majority of our fellow human beings find organized religion as we have known and practised it an irrelevancy. We have now reached the stage when we can no longer take refuge behind stoutly held rationalizations that this massive withdrawal of interest is the responsibility of every one except ourselves. Such anodynes are no longer effective because no one outside the Christian circles believed in them before and now we, too, have rejected them. Stripped of our customary but gradually ineffective defences, we find ourselves in a whirlpool of multitudinous and often contradictory ideologies, explanations and solutions for our difficulties. Like a person who is recovering from concussion, the Christian Church is experiencing the world round it with hazy, dimmed and often blurred reactions desperately longing, at times, to return to the tranquillity of unconsciousness.
The Last Supper: A Study in Group Dynamics
Authors: Maguire Una
Published: July 2007

In 1942 Fritz Redl put forward a paper in which he considered group formation around a central person. He formulated ten categories and one of these seems of especial interest when we consider the formation around Christ at the time of the Last Supper.

One might have thought that the apostolic group would have fallen into Redl’s fourth category, that of a group which has ‘The central person as a love object’. Tentatively it is here suggested that this was not the case and that the apostolic group might more fittingly be considered as falling into Redl’s fifth category, that of a group that has ‘The central person as the object of aggressive drives’.

It must be stated at the outset that the suggestions put forward by Redl concerned a group in which there was recognition of the aggression that was prevalent. For the purpose of this article it is assumed that the apostolic group not only gave no overt sign of their aggression but it is likely that it was so repressed that they did not even know it was there.
‘Let Us Be’
Authors: Peuchmaurd Michel
Published: July 2007

Montevideo still has old buses of 1890 vintage, ‘made in England’ and lovingly maintained. When Europe expanded in the nineteenth century, Latin America quickly caught the imagination of businessmen, whilst Christians were looking towards the new mission fields of Africa, Asia, Oceania. Did they really need to worry about this ‘Christian continent’ which had been baptized when it was colonized in the sixteenth century? But suddenly the spell broke: Latin America was in peril. Communism threatened, there were too few priests, sects menaced the integrity of the churches: all this impinged brusquely about twelve years ago. With the result that Latin America came to the forefront of pre-occupation. New organizations appeared: C.E.L.A.M. (Bishops’ Council for Latin America, 1955) and the pontifical commission for Latin America at Rome in 1960. (We might note in passing that it was also in 1960 that the Alliance for Progress was launched, designed to show that ‘free men, working within the framework of democratic institutions, are better able to satisfy human aspirations than regimes like that of Cuba’: so spoke the Charter of Punto del Este, a year after Fidel Castro’s seizure of power in the January of 1959.) A new channel was opened, with its source in Europe (one need think only of such West German organizations as Adveniat, Misereor, Caritas) and the U.S.A.: money and men, priests, lay people and religious. The Council insisted on the necessary sharing between rich and poor churches, each bishop being responsible for the whole of the Church in virtue of the principle of collegiality.
Forty Shades of Green
Authors: Horgan John
Published: July 2007

It has often occurred to me that if all the books which have been written in the recent past about ‘modern Ireland’ were laid end to end, it would be a very good thing. Certainly the Irish cannot complain of under-exposure. Constantly looked upon as something rather strange and yet attractive, this island has, especially in the past five years or so, been the subject of a considerable number of critiques, both external and internal, which are frequently united by nothing more substantial than the deliberate desire to misunderstand what it is the Irish are up to, and why. In addition, the illusion—created partly by the country’s useful geographical isolation, and partly by the mistaken belief that we speak the English language—that Ireland is a subject which can be rapidly and conveniently assimilated, encourages superficiality. It is difficult to know which is the more offensive: the kind of book which portrays Ireland as a country ruled by the expertly-wielded clerical black thornstick, straining to escape from its thraldom to alcohol and internecine warfare, or its alternative, the book about the brave new Ireland striding manfully into the twentieth century and in the process of escaping the various forms of thraldom already mentioned because it has at long last learned to embrace liberal, middle-class, Anglo-Saxon virtues.
Our Aim of Truth
Authors: McNabb Vincent
Published: July 2007

‘The true speaking absolutely is prior to the good, as appears from two reasons. First because the true is more closely related to being, which is prior to good.... Secondly,... knowledge naturally precedes appetite.’ (Summa, la Q. 16, Art 4, Eng. trans.)

The object of the intellect (i.e. Truth) ‘is more simple and more absolute than the object of the will’ (i.e. goodness). Therefore the intellect in itself and absolutely is higher and nobler than the will— yet ‘the love of God is better than the knowledge of God; but on the contrary, the knowledge of corporeal things is better than the love thereof. Absolutely, however, the intellect is better than the will.’ (Ibid., Q,. 82, Part 3.)

These two texts from the Summa of the Blackfriar St Thomas Aquinas must outline the attitude of Blackfriars towards truth.

At the risk of failing to express what is in our mind, let us say that we fully accept the consequences of St Thomas’s principle: ‘Truth is more simple and absolute than goodness, therefore the intellect is higher and nobler than the will.’ In our aim of finding and telling the truth we will not primarily concern ourselves with what is good; or only with that highest good, the Truth. This is but to realize that transcendentals, such as truth, must be sought for their own sake or they will not be found in their fullness. Truth-seeking and truthtelling must not be blended and weakened with enquiries into the economic, political, ethical or theological value of the truth.
The Way of the Gods
Authors: Allen Louis
Published: July 2007

Just over a year ago, a sample copy of an English course textbook, New Junior Crown (for third graders) by William C. Clark, was submitted to the Mombusho (Ministry of Education) in Tokyo for approval. To obtain teachers’ reactions to the course, the Ministry sent out a hundred copies of New Junior Crown and asked for their views. A group of left-wing teachers, the New English Research Association, found a number of things in the book tendentious and inaccurate, not from the point of view of English idiom or grammar, but from what was purveyed to the pupil as ‘the Japanese way of life’. Each lesson showed an American family, the Browns, on a tour of Japan, and in Lesson Eleven they were taken to ‘The Grand Shrine at Ise’. The New English Research Association had already pointed out that Mr Clark seemed intent, in other lessons, on glorifying the Emperor-system and over-simplifying religious issues; but in Lesson Eleven he had really gone beyond the mark. After tipping a Shinto priest two thousand yen, the Browns were invited into the shrine, where some dances were performed for their benefit. ‘Now let’s go to the Inner Shrine’, the lesson went on, ‘it’s the most sacred place in Japan. I want it remembered as the high point of your trip. ... A thick white curtain was in the entrance. The Browns stood reverently before the curtain. How peaceful everything was. They prayed for peace in the world.
The Three New Eucharistic Prayers
Authors: Milner Paulinus
Published: July 2007

The decree Prece eucharistica of 23rd May ushers in what will be the most striking and the most effective of all the changes in the Mass. The recital out loud and in the vernacular of the canon of the Mass has made many aware of the defects and poverty of this ancient Roman prayer. The latest reform makes good some of these defects of the Roman formula by adding eight new prefaces to the existing collection in the missal: two of these are for Advent, one for the Sundays in Lent, two for Sundays throughout the year to avoid the repetition of the special preface for the feast of the Trinity, a new preface of the Blessed Sacrament and two new common prefaces. All these will help to add variety and to restore the element of thanksgiving for God’s wonderful works, which should be the essence of every eucharistic prayer, but which is so lacking at present.

A more radical remedy, however, is the promulgation of three completely new eucharistic prayers which may entirely replace the Roman canon except on certain occasions. Two of these new prayers may be combined with the variable prefaces according to the season and thus the central prayer of the Mass will once again take on some of the variety it had in the early centuries of the Church and which is still maintained to a certain extent by the Eastern Churches.
From Jesus to The Gospels
Authors: Lindars Barnabas
Published: July 2007

Three witnesses of the same event hardly ever give exactly the same account of it, but there is usually a sufficient measure of agreement between them to ensure the general veracity of their testimony, even if many of the details remain irreconcilable. This seems to be true of the first three Gospels. The triple tradition at first sight gives reassurance. The differences between them appear to confirm the essential truth of the account, as they suggest that the tradition has been independently attested.

If this is the impression which first strikes the reader of the Synoptic Gospels, more careful study will soon shake his confidence. When the triple tradition is subjected to word-for-word comparison in the Greek, it soon becomes apparent that the similarities are too close to be explained in terms of independent testimony. The Synoptic Gospels are actually interdependent. One evangelist has used the work of another. This means that the differences between them are not due to independent tradition, but are deliberate divergences on the part of the evangelists. And if the two later ones have been so lacking in fidelity to their common source, how can we have any certainty that the original has not been equally unfaithful to the primitive tradition on which it is based ? And if that is so, how can we ever get back to the truth of the matter, and find out what Jesus really did say and do in his life on earth?

This is the essence of the Synoptic Problem, and it has been the central issue before New Testament scholars for the past 150 years.
The Medellin Statement
Authors:   The Bishops of Latin America
Published: July 2007

On 24th August the Pope solemnly opened the general assembly of all the Bishops of Latin America in the Cathedral of Bogota, Columbia. This was the second general episcopal conference to be held on the soil of South America, and the first meeting of a local Church on a continental scale since Vatican II. This assembly had been carefully prepared for over a year by bishops, theologians and experts from the whole of South America, in accordance with an express mandate from the Episcopal Commission of Latin America, created in the wake of the fast general assembly of the Bishops of Latin America held in 1955. The text which we publish below (thanks to the kind permission of the editor of ‘Informations Catholiques Internationales’) is the first half of the first part of the entire document, which consists of three parts in all: this description of the situation in the continent, a theological reflexion, and pastoral directions.

The general theme of the Medellin assembly was ‘the Church in the present transformation of Latin America in the light of the Council’. The conclusions of the assembly have since been published, but this comprehensive diagnosis of the facts remains striking from many points of view: the catching of a historic moment of awakening on the part of a whole continent, the detail and social awareness, the sense that ‘the difficult progress towards development and integration [in Latin America] could become an important catalyst in the process of unification to which the whole human race is converging today’, and the vivid realization that ‘the upheaval we are experiencing demands new attitudes of us so that we can carry through an urgent, global and profound reform of structures’ (from the Introduction to the Statement)—all these are remarkable in an ecclesiastical document.

‘The description could appear to be pessimistic, since we do not dwell on the positive factors, which do of course exist. But it is, nevertheless, a reflexion of the reality of Latin America, which is tragic, and which demands a swift and effective response.’
Fables and Symbols—II
Authors: Sharrock Roger
Published: July 2007

It was suggested in the first part of this essay that in the modern period concentration by critics and others on the importance of the poetic symbol has had consequences that are unexpected and sometimes unfortunate. We are constantly being told in the most intellectually refined ways that the poet’s function is different from that of the moralist or the philosopher; however, constant repetition is bound to suggest that the poet’s role bears some analogy to theirs.

I want in this second part to look at the history of the literary symbol and the changes in its involvement with religious symbolism and belief. In doing so it will, I think, become obvious that just as the post-Romantic critic has, by exalting the symbol run the danger of simply offering, with a ritual gesture and a whiff of incense, a paraphrasable content, so the modern theologian has tended to reduce and translate symbolism on the assumption that what is for salvation must be expressible in immediate historical and social terms (Christian Marxism, aspects of the translated liturgy, the New English Bible, etc.). It is to be suspected that this is another version of the fallacy which would see the image as a mirror-image of some ordinary human experience.
The Indefiniteness of Moral Issues
Authors: McDermott Timothy
Published: July 2007

Those who cannot conceive of change in the Church’s attitude to contraception rely, according to Mr Dummett’s February article in New Blackfriars, on two main lines of argument. One is described as the ‘Where do we draw the line ?’ form of argument—if contraception is lawful, then perhaps so also are sterilization, abortion, sodomy, masturbation, fornication or even adultery. The other argument is also of the same form (though Mr Dummett does not so describe it) for it asks ‘Where do we draw the line?’—if the Church’s moral teaching is untrustworthy here, how can we be sure that it is to be trusted on any other subject ?

Both arguments, it seems to me, presuppose the asking and answering of a more fundamental question: to what extent can lines be drawn at all when moral issues are at stake ? The encyclical takes its stand on ‘what is called the “objective” moral order laid down by God’, and reminds parents that ‘they are not free to define an honest course of action in any way whatsoever that they choose (modo omino proprio ac libero), since they are bound, on the contrary, to act in accordance with the plan of the divine creator’ (para. 10). This again, it seems to me, presupposes a fundamental question: what sort of ‘objectivity’ is here being referred to, in what sense has God indeed got a ‘plan’ ?
Authority and Democracy—I
Authors: Hay David
Published: July 2007

‘In the hands of my Superior, I must be a soft wax, a thing, from which he is to require whatever pleases him, be it to write or receive letters, to speak or not to speak to such a person or the like; and I must put all my fervour in executing zealously and exactly what I am ordered. I must consider myself as a corpse which has neither intelligence nor will; be like a mass of matter which without resistance lets itself be placed wherever it may please anyone; like a stick in the hands of an old man, who uses it according to his needs and places it where it suits him.’

St Ignatius’s ideals about the nature of authority were derived from sixteenth-century Spanish culture and although perhaps not quite so drastically expressed today, his view of the Superior/Subordinate relationship still constitutes a central element in the thought pattern of many participants in the modern debate in the Church. This dialogue should be of interest to social psychologists, because it illustrates one of the recurring themes of that discipline, the forms of authority and people’s perception of them.

Before the war, Kurt Lewin and his associates Ronald Lippitt and Ralph White tried to compare the effects of three kinds of adult leadership on the behaviour of a group of American boys. The setting for the experiment was a number of small ‘clubs’, ostensibly set up to carry out a variety of craft and recreational activities, and the adult leaders of the clubs were described as Authoritarian, Democratic and Laissez-faire.
Education for a New Society
Authors: Haughton Rosemary
Published: July 2007

It is presumably comparatively simple to overthrow a régime and start a new one if you have sufficient resources, either of good-will, of money or of arms, or a judicious mixture of the three. Whether this is likely to be a practical method of ushering in the millennium, as opposed to more limited goals like making things a bit better for some people, is a debatable problem. The evidence is not coercive, and in any case I have no intention of debating it. My point, to put it crudely, is that in England and America, at least, this method of changing society doesn’t seem likely to be possible for some time to come, and that to assume it is the only way must lead either to the abandonment of effort, or the watering down of aims, or to a lot of self-delusion about what the possibilities actually are. This last is quite prevalent, because if you deeply believe that drastic change is essential, and that life is scarcely bearable except in the hope that it will come, there is a strong motive for persuading oneself that it will come soon. This is bolstered up by much discussion among groups of like-minded people, especially young ones.

The trouble about this is that when someone with this kind of belief moves out of the inner circle of the faithful, and comes up against the ignorance, indifference or sheer perverseness of other people, he is appalled and disgusted, and often very much surprised. This is especially likely when the people concerned are very young.
World Religions and Christian Theology
Authors: Ernst Cornelius
Published: July 2007

It seems to me only fair to begin this paper by inquiring whether the topic indicated by the title actually exists in any serious sense, or whether it has simply been conjured up by a trick of language within the general and familiar process of academic over-production and waste-making. The fact that a considerable literature more or less concerned with the topic does undoubtedly exist provides no guarantee of the existence of a genuine problem; for some at least of this literature tends to heighten one’s suspicions rather than to assuage them.

The title is, at any rate, ‘World Religions and Christian Theology’, not ‘World Religions and Christianity’. By ‘world religions’ I understand those religions which have not been confined to a particular ethnic or political unit but are found in more or less diversified forms remote from their place of origin. It is clear enough that Christianity is one of these world religions, in so far as we allow ourselves to use the word ‘religion’ with an appropriate looseness; we need do no more than declare ‘religion’ a family-word, where the different items all to be called religions need not share a single definition but form an irregular network. Now this paper does not attempt to consider the place of Christianity among world religions. This is not only because my own equipment for such a task would be wholly inadequate, but also because I suspect that no one’s equipment would be.
The Four Types of Gospel
Authors: McDermott Timothy
Published: July 2007

Dr John Marsh, in his excellent Penguin commentary on St John’s gospel, remarks that ‘the gospels read so very much like historical narratives of what took place that it requires effort not to treat them exclusively as such, but to understand them as much more concerned to indicate what was going on in the narrative provided’ (p. 52). One must make the same effort when faced with the differences between the four gospels: these are not simply re-editions, revisions, expansions of one basic ‘life of the historical Jesus’. As Dr Marsh puts it:

If even Mark is not constructed chronologically but theologically (i.e. is not concerned simply to report what took place but always to make plain what was going on), then any correction of Mark made by John could not, in the nature of things, be simply chronological. Any ‘correction’ would primarily be concerned with theology, with meaning, with what was going on and only secondarily by implication, as it were, with chronology, with what took place (p. 49).

This is well said, and nowadays commonly recognized. But is it enough? Is one merely shifting from the idea that later gospels were written to correct earlier gospels’ facts, to the idea that later gospels were written to correct earlier gospels’ theological ideas? To shift from thinking of gospellers as biographers to thinking of them as theologians seems still to perpetuate the idea that the gospels are four examples of one type of writing.
The Transcendental or the Political Kingdom?—II
Authors: Mann Peter
Published: July 2007

Johann Baptist Metz has broken with this Rahnerian programme for a transcendental theology because of what he calls its ‘tendency to privatization’ (Privatkiemngstendenz). He denies thereby the universality of this transcendental experience from which Rahner builds up his system. This experience can be seen rather as the product of a particular philosophy (which is itself determined by theology) that the individual is always determined by a basic attitude towards ‘Being’, ‘death’, etc., always exists in an enduring relationship to God as ‘horizon’, etc. But these are religious presuppositions and products of a society which assumed man to be ultimately ‘religious’, the only question being whether he would explicitly accept this or deny it. In a non-religious, secular and pluralistic society, these assumptions can no longer be made.
The Role of the Church in Asia
Authors: Caspersz Paul
Published: July 2007

There is no easy way of resisting the impression that of the five continents the Asian has been the least responsive to Christian missionary endeavour. While in Africa the Christians today account for over 20 per cent of the total population, in Asia not even 4.5 per cent are Christians. Yet Asia has a population which is nearly three times that of Europe and Russia, and nearly twice that of Europe, Russia and the Americas. Over Asia’s vast and densely inhabited territory, seventy-three million Christians live (except perhaps in the Philippines) in a diaspora situation—scattered, small in relative number, seemingly of little civic consequence. The question then is whether these Christians who form the Church in Asia have any relevant function towards their far more numerous non-Christian fellow citizens, and whether, beyond the boundaries of Asia, they have anything to say and to contribute to the Church Universal and to the world.

Since it is such a little flock, it may seem futile and pretentious to speak of the role of the Church in Asia. Indeed, the claim is advanced—even though the title of this paper may be misleading—that this role spans not only Asia, but the whole world. The title might of course have been framed less ambiguously as the Role of the Asian Church. But this could have carried certain never-intended separatist overtones. For it is the one Church of God which exists in Asia as in all the other continents.
Christian Materialism Reconsidered: An Exchange
Authors: Grave S. A. , Hibbert Giles
Published: July 2007

We have become used since the Renewal began to seeing the Church slashed at by those who belong to it and might easily take the remark at the end of Father Hibbert’s article, ‘Christian Materialism’ (New Blackfriars, May, 1969), to be only a further, though notable, instance. There is something Christians will be hindered from doing, the article ends by saying, ‘until the Christian Church has put its house into better order and made it look less like what Christ himself referred to as “a den of thieves” What is it that cannot be effectively done at present? Christianity has just been stated to be ‘radically a materialist humanism’ and also ‘something more’. ‘For Christians it is essential to nurture, cultivate and explore their “more”, so that they may be able to offer something in their own right to the world’ (p. 431). It is this nurturing, cultivating and exploration that cannot be effectively done while the Church is like a den of thieves. It might reasonably be taken to be part of what Father Hibbert is implying, that the propagation of some such version of Christianity as his is hindered while the Church is like this.

At the risk of appearing as one of the wicked, I am drawing attention to the meaning of Father Hibbert’s materialism. I shall also mention again, but not ambitiously explore, his something more. The following passage shows us plainly the meaning of the materialism but the other thing darkly.
Colour and Citizenship: The Rose Report
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: July 2007

The publication of Colour and Citizenship, the report on British race relations prepared by E. J. B. Rose, Nicholas Deakin and seven others, and published by the Institute of Race Relations, was registered by the Press as a major event. It was the first occurrence of a kind favourable to those who hope for the defeat of racialism to have been so registered by the mass media since the publication of the P.E.P. Report on Discrimination. Those who prepared the Rose Report did so with a sense of urgency. The Survey of Race Relations, which did the work on which the Rose Report is based, had originally intended a series of detailed studies, of which four, including Rex and Moore’s Race, Community and Conflict, have already appeared. But, as the situation so rapidly and palpably deteriorated, they saw this response as inadequate: what was needed was a single comprehensive study, to make an impact on public awareness and official policy, and not a library of volumes which only the ‘experts’ would read.

The initial response must have been encouraging to the authors. The Press, that very haphazard and often insensitive seismograph for measuring the importance of what occurs, recorded the publication of the Report as an event of the first magnitude. But already disappointment must have settled on those who worked at desperate speed to get the book out before it became pointless to publish such a book at all. The columns devoted in The Times and The Guardian to summarizing the book’s contents have initiated no debate, in the correspondence columns or elsewhere, on Britain’s racial policy; the speeches of politicians contain no reference to it, nor do they seem in any way altered in tone as a result of it.
Underdeveloped Countries and Manufactured Exports
Authors: Bliss Christopher
Published: July 2007

Although exports of underdeveloped countries (UDCs) are currently for the most part primary products, with manufactured exports accounting for only about 15 per cent of the total, the future growth of these exports is crucial to the success of efforts to achieve economic development in these countries. This proposition holds regardless of whether one accepts the widely held view that the outlook for primary product exports is extremely bleak. That view may turn out to be too pessimistic. The proposition that there is a secular tendency for the prices of primary products to decline relatively to those of manufactured products is not well supported by either the empirical evidence (unless that evidence is presented rather selectively) or by theoretical argument. The claim that prices have a long-run tendency to move against primary products and in favour of manufactured products is often the premise to an argument that the UDCs will have to move out of specialization in primary products towards the production and export of manufactured products. But the conclusion does not depend upon this premise. Production of primary products will not be a sufficient basis for economic development even if the trends in primary product prices turn out to be extraordinarily favourable. A few countries in specially favourable circumstances may be able to raise income per head to high levels by achieving high levels of productivity in the production of primary products and obtaining their requirements of manufactured products through international trade.
The Natural Selection of Hierarchies
Authors: Hay David
Published: July 2007

With all its attendant weaknesses, the current popularity of drawing parallels between the findings of animal ethologists and human behaviour may well prove to be a fruitful aid to our understanding of the human condition. I would like to take one rather commonplace example: It frequently happens in ethology laboratories and poultry farms that a group of hens meet each other in a fairly confined space for the first time. In the case of grown birds which are strangers, a series of single combats is engaged in, with each bird pairing off with every other in a way which to the casual glance appears random. Actually, what is developing is a ‘peck-order’ in which the leader of the flock can peck any other hen without herself being pecked, the second hen can peck all but the top hen, and the rest are arranged in a descending hierarchy ending with a hen which is pecked by all, but pecks no one. The amount of aggressiveness shown in the contests varies with different individuals, but once the peck order has been determined, pecking starts to decrease, as individuals recognize their superiors, and eventually simply raising or lowering the head can be sufficient to register dominance or submission respectively.
Church: Brotherhood and Eschatology
Authors: Kerr Fergus
Published: July 2007

The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea that there has been some change in our understanding of the nature of the Church in the last ten years or so. I suggest that we are being encouraged to think now more in terms of the Church as the people of God and as mystery, but that these two themes finally converge. There is, of course, no prospect of tying up all the loose ends that there must inevitably be in a paper as brief and ambitious as this.

My first thesis is that we are in the middle of discovering a new sense of the Church as a community, as a community with a mission, as a ‘movement’, and that this springs from our retrieval of the original primitive Christian insight that the Church is nothing if it is not the people of God, and should then issue into a renewed belief in the fraternal structure of the Church. I should emphasize that this is a discovery of what the Church should be, not of what it actually is.

It is clear that the documents of Vatican II have made it respectable to talk about the Church in terms of the people of God. It was not always so. While it is, of course, impossible that any single concept could ever catch what one means by any phenomenon as complex as the Church, it is important to decide which to start from, for this will govern one’s whole understanding of the Church.
Faith of the Fathers
Authors: Gilby Thomas
Published: July 2007

The tide has gone out, and the great constructions of Christian thought seem to lie in their harbours like capital ships no longer in commission for active service, some destined for the breaker’s yard, others to be reprieved and to lie at their buoys, moth-balled and landlocked. Is St Thomas’s Summa among them ?

This is where the comparison between theological architecture and naval construction begins to limp. Or rather, where we should be careful about committing our idea of a capital ship to one image. For it has a constant meaning under shapes as diverse as a three-decker, a super-dreadnought, an aircraft-carrier, and a nuclear submarine, and the force of its meaning has to be brought to bear so long as sea-power is required for the life of a nation. Likewise, so long as a grasp on the reasons for things is required in the life of the Church, for in this world it must know what it means and be able to show what it means, the need will remain for the systematic and coherent articulation of the implications of divine Revelation in terms of human experience.
Act and Meaning
Authors: Melling David John
Published: July 2007

The foundation on which any adequate moral theology or philosophy must be built is an anthropology which does justice to the complexity of human life. The picture of the human agent enshrined in the manuals of moral theology on which the clergy of past generations were reared showed man as an intelligent being making rational decisions. Manualist man was a free agent bound in conscience by various hierarchically ordered systems of law. The ultimate ground of all morally significant law was the positive will of God. This picture has lost its credibility. The insights of contemporary philosophy have shown it to be an arid and distorted representation of the human condition, and moral theologians have already begun to enrich their understanding of man by incorporating into the picture they use elements drawn from existentialist, phenomenologist and even logical positivist analyses.

For moral theology as such, not only must an adequate picture of man be developed, there must also be a serious reconsideration of the traditional images of God. The God of the Divine Plan, Lawgiver, Judge, is no more credible in this century than is homo manualensis. Once again the work of demolition and reconstruction has already begun: philosophers and theologians (in this country one is tempted to add ‘respectively’) have already gone far in the work of dissecting and reconstructing or replacing the outmoded images of God. As yet, there is little sign of the more radical aspects of theological revaluation having a transforming influence on many moral theologians.