bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Evolutionary Categories of Juan Luis Segundo's Theology of Grace
Authors: Stefano Frances 
Published: August 2016

AbstractJuan Luis Segundo is widely known as a liberation theologian but his use of evolutionary categories to develop a theology of grace is little appreciated. Challenging the pessimistic logic of the second law of thermodynamics, Segundo defines evolution as an ecological project which results in the creation of what is new. Displaying a logic that is dialectical but not linear, the evolutionary project has as itstelosthe continual manifestation of freedom (or whatever is analogous to it) in a universe which, because of the high visibility of suffering, appears tragic and seemingly futile. In the human sphere, freedom is manifested wherever action integrates random elements like suffering and negativity to function efficaciously as love. The sign or mark of evolutionary change which accompanies creation of what is new, freedom is not the cause of love but is manifested gratuitously within it. Love is essential to God's eschatological will to create a world that is good. Wherever it is found, love enjoys ontological causality in the eyes of God and contributes to realization of theeschaton. There, definitively manifested in glory, the blossoming of freedom that accompanies love will be revealed for what it has been all along: substance of a new creation that is the eschatological materialization of grace.
Feminist Theology, Roman Catholicism, and Alienation
Authors: Gillis Chester 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThe topic of this article is the effects that the writings of feminist theologians, many of whom are Roman Catholic, have upon Catholic students. The questions it attempts to answer are: Has feminist theology served to alienate American Catholics further from the church, discouraging them from identifying with the tradition or institution, or has it awakened them to retrieve the tradition in a creative way and to take responsibility within the institution and reshape it? The article further seeks to differentiate between spirituality, theology, and religious institution. How will Catholicism affect the larger culture if this generation is alienated from institutional identification? If they settle permanently on alternative forms of religious identification and spiritual fulfillment the face of Catholicism in the future will be even more conservative than it is today. However, feminist theology may be the basis for hope. Seriously attended to by the church, it could help to inform the consciousness of the next generation.
Panentheism from a Trinitarian Perspective
Authors: Bracken Joseph A. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractClassical models of the God–world relationship tend to emphasize the transcendence of God at the expense of God's immanence to the world of creation. Neo-classical or process-oriented models, on the other hand, tend to emphasize the immanence of God within the world process at the expense of the divine transcendence. Using the distinction originally made by Thomas Aquinas between person and nature within the Godhead, the author offers a modified process-oriented understanding of the God–world relationship in which the transcendence of the triune God to creation is assured but in which creatures derive their existence and activity from the divine nature or ground of being along with the divine persons. Ultimate Reality, therefore, is not God in a unipersonal sense, nor the three divine persons apart from creation, but a Cosmic Society of existents, both finite and infinite, who are sustained by one and the same underlying principle of existence and activity.
The Biblical Heart and Process Anthropology
Authors: Doud Robert E. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis article aims to integrate the biblical theological idea of the heart with Alfred North Whitehead's ideas concerning human selfhood. It begins with a biblical theological description of the heart, drawing to a focus upon Ezekiel's idea of God creating in us a new heart. It then interprets these ideas by correlating them with key ideas of Whitehead, such as actual entity, actual occasion, living person, historic route, the four phases of the actual entity, initial aim, and subjective aim. This correlation peaks in the idea that for process anthropology a new heart is created in us every new instant.
Neither Idolatry nor Iconoclasm: A Critical Essentialism for Catholic Feminist Theology
Authors: Dallavalle Nancy A. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractFollowing the work of gender theorists who find the terms “male” and “female” to be socially constructed, feminist theology has tended to repudiate essentialism. The position that results is one of agnosticism about biological sexuality, a position that is only reinforced by the essentialist excesses that ground the discussion of the “psycho-physical structure” of women found in official Catholic teaching. This article suggests that the polarity of feminist theology and official Catholic teaching on questions of sex and gender can be overcome by using the framework of a “critical essentialism,” a position that retrieves the Catholic theological tradition of reflection on “male” and “female” while allowing its claims to be appropriately winnowed by the insights of gender theorists.
To be Catholic or Not to Be: Is it Still the Question? Catholic Identity and Religious Education Today
Authors: Phan Peter C. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractRecent social studies have show that there are, especially among young American Catholics, different conceptions of what constitutes a Catholic. Factors contributing to this new understanding of Catholic identity include religious pluralism and the divergent conceptualizations of catholicity and Catholicism in contemporary theology. As a consequence, different criteria are used to define what it means to be a Catholic. These variations pose serious challenges to religious educators whose task is to shape the religious identity of the students.The study begins with a survey of the history of the concept of catholicity as well as of the criteria for Catholic identity. In view of the variations in the understanding of catholicity, the work discerns four challenges for religious education with its task of fostering Catholic identity: how to maintain a fruitful balance between Vatican II's recognition of the ecclesial nature of non-Catholic Christian communities and its claim that the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of the means of salvation; between Vatican II's call for dialogue with non-Christian religions and its insistence on the distinctiveness of Catholic beliefs and practices; between the legitimate concerns of “communal Catholics” and the necessity for all Catholics to participate fully in the Catholic symbol and ethical system; and between the spiritual and institutional, the invisible and visible elements of the church. The article concludes by suggesting an indirect method to develop and strengthen Catholic identity by means of the “deep structures” of the Catholic faith, with particular focus on Christian doctrines.
Postmodernity and Pedagogy: Connecting the Dots
Authors: Downey John K. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis article calls for an acceptance of a constructive postmodernity and links that epoistemology with the use of collaborative learning techniques. If we and our students live in a postmodern world, then our pedagogy must make sense within that same postmodernity. To ignore these epistemological horizons is to split our intellectual commitments from our teaching. The tone of the work is set by a sketch of the muddled term “postmodern.” Four markers are developed to situate postmodernity's ironic sense of reality and to link it to a suspicion of any universal master narrative. Why should teachers care? Because learning should reflect our picture of knowing. We teach a world in what we do. The pedagogical practices most in line with the postmodern vision involve collaborative learning, which itself represents a departure from the classic vision of knowing. The article ends with a coda on the theologies resonant with these commitments.
A Theology of the Religions and/or a Comparative Theology?
Authors: Duffy Stephen J. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractAn important but little-noticed debate is quietly going on between some theologians of the religions and some comparative theologians. The former, without negating the need for comparative theology, insist on the need for a theology of the religions; the latter call for a moratorium on construction of theologies of religion and a focus instead on comparative work. This essay sides with the theologians of religion and argues that contrary to the one-sided position of the comparativists and the premature judgments of some theologians of the religions, there is a need for both a theology of the religions and comparative analysis and synthesis because the two are the distinct but inseparable and integral a priori and a posteriori moments of a single theological project which aims at bringing Christianity into fruitful engagement with the non-Christian traditions. Because this engagement is essential to Christianity, the present debate is an important one even though it goes on in a field little tended, unfortunately, but many theologians.
“No One, Not Even God, Can Take the Place of the Victim”: Metz, Lévinas, and Practical Christology after the Shoah
Authors: Simon Derek 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThe legacy of the Shoah invades christology as one of its most basic postfoundationalist challenges in the demise of modernity. Fackenheim heuristically amplifies the rupture of the metaphysical narratives of soteriology by the radical evil and sufferings in Auschwitz. As a representative instance of reorienting theological discourse through exposure to the trauma of the Shoah and the testimony of its Jewish survivors, Metz grounds practical christology in the biblical memory of suffering and an eschatological delimitation of time. Lévinas' phenomenology of the self counters residual issues in Metz and mediates a postfoundationalist framework for re-visioning christology after the Shoah. The phenomenological transposition of the notion of substitution to the ethical order rehabilitates Metz's practical christology and articulates the messianic significance of human agency as a sociopolitical responsibility for the sufferings of the broken and the dead.
Education for Justice: Stitching a Seamless Garment
Authors: Incandela Joseph M. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis essay aims to present the challenges of teaching Catholic social thought to undergraduates at a Catholic college. It begins with a review of the three foundational principles of the Church's social tradition: dignity, community, and preferential option for the poor. It next moves to three primary obstacles to making these concepts come alive for college students: (1) the prevalence of social and economic stereotypes, (2) a Romanticized reduction of Christianity which emphasizes charity to the neglect of justice, and (3) an unwillingness to allow the resources of one's faith to challenge the policies of one's government. The essay concludes with some reflections on the appropriateness of all of these subjects at a college dedicated to the liberal arts. Throughout this paper, generous use is made of writings by my students that demonstrate the pedagogical principles and pitfalls I narrate.
Excellence in Teaching and a Spirituality of Desire
Authors: Lane Belden C. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThree-fourths of the 180 Centers for Teaching Excellence found in U.S. colleges and universities have been developed over the last decade. Excellence in Teaching has never been discussed more. Yet clarity about what actually constitutes quality in teaching is not at all apparent. This essay suggests a contrast between two ways of conceiving excellence in teaching—an excellence of achievement as compared to an excellence of desire. The one, based on a marketing model of education, stresses measurable outcomes, with an emphasis on the acquisition of information. The other, drawing from themes in the history of Christian spirituality, evokes a wisdom tradition that nourishes unsatisfied desire as a principal goal. In the latter, less importance is ascribed to the teacher's self-conscious need to call attention to his or her particular competence. Set free from “the maintenance of control,” the teacher can be more open to a common search (and excellence) to which everyone contributes.
Feminist thought and Systematic Theology
Authors: Turner Pauline , Cooke Bernard 
Published: August 2016

Trying to answer the question, “How can a teacher of systematic theology incorporate the insights provided by feminist thinkers?”, we faced several major problems and made a few rather arbitrary choices. Ultimately it is impossible to separate systematic theology from biblical or historical studies or distinguish it satisfactorily from the study of spirituality or morality. What we say here, then, must be complemented by the other essays in this series. Besides, the impact of feminist thought on Christian theology is not a peripheral or additional thing; incorporating feminist theology into systematics does not mean only an addition of topics. Rather, the research and reflection of feminist scholars demand revision of our basic approach to doing theology; they recast the basic evidence on which we must reflect; they challenge the presuppositions and methodology with which we previously approached the classic topics of theology.What we are talking about is not how to teach a special branch or brand of theology, but simply teaching systematic theology more adequately and critically, trying to lead students to understand accurately and personally what is meant by “grace” and “salvation” and “Jesus as the Christ” and “Church” and “God.” In our trying to reach this goal, present-day feminist thought has proved a rich and indispensable resource—this we will try to explain in relation to four large areas of what generally is thought of as “systematic theology.” Rather than sketch a course in “Systematic Theology from a Feminist Perspective,” which would be both interesting and valuable, we will try to indicate ways in which the entire content of theology needs to be changed by feminist understandings.
Native American Shamanism and the American Mind-Cure Movement: A Comparative Study of Religious Healing
Authors: Porterfield Amanda 
Published: August 2016

AbstractBoth Native American shamans and mind-cure practitioners dispel disease by visualizing it in symbolic form and enable recovery by invoking symbols of well-being. This paper shows how comparative study of shamanism and mind-cure furthers understanding of the techniques of symbolic healing characteristic of each religious tradition. Mind-cure techniques of hypnotic suggestion illumine the Native American idea that prayers, songs, and stories are spiritual forces. Conversely, the performing arts practiced by Native American shamans contribute to further understanding of the effective healing techniques practiced by Mary Baker Eddy and her teacher, Phineas P. Quimby. The paper also comments on the implications of studying particular forms of Christian theology and practice, such as the mind-cure movement, in light of shamanism.
The Foundations of the Professions and of Professional Ethics: A Critical and Constructive Study
Authors: Walter James J. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to study critically the positions of six authors on the foundations of the professions and of professional ethics. These positions are placed along a continuum which is created by correlating two variables that appear in each author's writings. The implied or explicit anthropology and metaethical theory of the authors are central concerns of the study. The issue whether the professional is governed by role-specific duties or by role-distinctive duties is analyzed in depth. In the end, the author cannot accept any of the six positions and so the final section of the article fashions a constructive proposal grounded in a social metaphysics of the human person.
The American Catholic Bishops' Peace Pastoral: A Critique of its Logic
Authors: Murnion William E. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractA critique of the distinction in the Peace Pastoral between stating moral principles and addressing concrete questions. The distinction seems to be an example of the invalid dichotomy between analytic and synthetic truths; it is also inapplicable to the bishops' condemnation of nuclear war as a concrete action immoral in principle. Thus the use of the distinction introduced confusion into the bishops' interpretation of the principles of just war and obscurity into their conclusion about the concrete question of nuclear deterrence. A dialectical methodology, critically sounder and implicit in much of the pastoral, would have made their argument more consistent and more cogent.
Autobiographical World Theology
Authors: Kramer Kenneth P. 
Published: August 2016

Traditionally, western theologies have been systematic, orthodox, dogmatic, and ecclesiastical. Recently, however, liberal, neo-orthodox, philosophical, and radical theologians have begun to reform the theological enterprise, and in turn to prepare the way for what has been called “world theology.” Whereas the traditional theologian viewed other faith communities as less truthful than his or her own, the world theologian is the Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist who views other theologies and world views non-exclusivistically, and from within the other's viewpoint.W. C. Smith captures the Janus-nature of this emerging world theology in one sentence—“All theology is self-theology, and yet it must exclude no one.” According to this assessment, today's theological task must be autobiographical (self-theology) and world-oriented (excluding no one). Each person's life-story is significantly related to each other's, for without personal history (autobiographical and biographical) theology reverts to a scholasticism of structures, rules, and restrictions, and without a world-orientation, theology retreats into exclusivistic, specialized edifices, and thereby surrenders any claim to speak to and for all humans.
Object Relations Theory, Mothering, and Religion: Toward a Feminist Psychology of Religion
Authors: Jonte-Pace Diane 
Published: August 2016

AbstractAlthough psychoanalytic object relations theory has been acclaimed for its ability to revitalize the psychological understanding of religion, the implicit sensitivity of object relations theory to feminist concerns has not been recognized. This paper suggests that object relations theory shares with feminist thought three central foci: relationality, mature dependency, and a revaluing of the mother-infant relationship. Through this coincidence of concern object relations theory can move toward a feminist psychology of religion which avoids not only Freud's reductionism toward religion, but also his patricentrism. The psychological antecedents of religious experience, ritual, and the image of God are examined from the object relational perspective, and are located in the maternal-infant matrix. It is suggested that this linkage of culture and mother offers a radical challenge to the psychoanalytic perspective.
Horizons on Bernard Lonergan
Authors: Shea William M. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractBernard Lonergan's importance to Catholic theologians is existential as well as theoretic. For many he bridged the culture and the church. Three of the themes prominent in his recently published A Third Collection exemplify his service to his colleagues: community, history, and praxis. Lonergan shared the burden of alienation of his fellow Catholics from the culture, and in his struggle to understand and change, illuminated a path for them. Recent literature displays his influence: David Tracy's Plurality and Ambiguity, Tad Dunne's Lonergan and Spirituality, Vernon Gregson's Lonergan, Spirituality, and the Meeting of Religions, Hugo Meynell's The Theology of Bernard Lonergan, and the essays in the Festschrift, Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Bernard Lonergan.
John Dunne's Journey of the Mind, Heart, and Soul
Authors: Collinge William J. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis paper looks back over the eight books of John S. Dunne as forming a unified theological project in two phases, each comprising four books. Dunne's first phase is a “journey of the mind,” in which Dunne is concerned with knowing and unknowing, with understanding and insight, and his basic epistemological stance is developed. His second phase is a “journey of the heart,” in which he moves from the basic loneliness of the human condition, to the “heart's desire” for God, to the presence of God in the desiring. Several changes in Dunne's understanding of the human relationships with God, others, and self are traced here. Dunne's most recent book adds a “pilgrimage of the soul” to those of mind and heart, so this paper moves to a discussion of the meaning and development of Dunne's idea of “soul.” It concludes by considering Dunne's work as spiritual writing and as theology.
Integrating Feminist Perspectives with the Religious Studies Curriculum: Setting the Question
Authors: Carmody Denise Lardner 
Published: August 2016

My assignment is to set the question for our teaching workshop on integrating feminist perspectives into the religious studies curriculum. In reflecting on this assignment in light of the full program sketched in the brochure for the workshop, I found three journalistic questions coming to mind. The six specialized sub-workshops seemed to deal quite comprehensively with the question of how to effect the integration of feminist perspectives into the religious studies curriculum. Mary Jo Weaver's plenary address promised to treat from the perspective of American religious history where American women now are and may hope to arrive tomorrow. That left the matter of why we should be assembled here this evening, and though I'm sure that many of the other presenters will address it substantially, I have taken it as the proper focus for this kick-off presentation. Inevitably, speaking about why it is important to represent women's voices will imply how we may best accomplish this, but let us begin by reminding ourselves of the telos of our workshop—the prospective good that brings us together. My ruminations on this topic will have three sub-topics; students' needs, intellectual justice, and fidelity to God.This past semester I taught two typical courses: “Women and World Religions” and “The New Testament and Literature.” Both courses are part of the Tulsa Curriculum, our general education sequence. Each course had about thirty students, but only two of those in “Women and World Religion” were men, while “The New Testament and Literature” had about fifteen men. It is hard to say, though, which sex was more in need of feminist perspectives.