bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Theologian as Storyteller and Philosopher
Authors: Burke T. Patrick 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThree theses are offered concerning the nature of theology: (a) In general theology has been the translation of a story into a philosophy in order to preserve the story, which is thought to be necessarily meaningful. (2) This procedure is not defensible, for it subverts both story and philosophy, and the meaningfulness of a story depends on other assumptions, e.g., about the nature of the world. (3) A theology will best serve its tradition not by determinedly ascribing meaning to it, but by evaluating it critically in the light of experience.
Leaf or Chaff: On Poetry in Religion
Authors: Sullivan Francis Patrick 
Published: August 2016

AbstractPoetry, understood the way Icons are, teaches its readers and writers how words make relationships, put people, places, things in one another's presence. In the relationship called religious, poetry takes on a very crucial task, that of mediating an experience, the human of the divine, the divine of the human, in the various traditions, like the Icon in Orthodoxy. Poetry creates nonreligious relationships too, but uses the same manner of making someone present to something or someone. Poetry becomes anti-presence in religious traditions that deny experience of God. In Christianity of a sacramental kind, poetry is the Icon of language, beauty/truth inseparably set out, the loss of one jeopardizing the existence of the other, language refusing to be idolatrous, and equally, refusing to be inane. Religious understanding in sacramental Christianity requires the poetic Icon.
An Approach to Teaching Augustine's Confessions
Authors: O'Brien William J. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThe present article suggests one way a college teacher might finesse some of the pedagogical problems surrounding the autobiography of Augustine by raising a set of interrelated questions calculated to draw the student into the experiential heart of the Confessions. Attention to the literary contexts within which Augustine locates the account of his conversion allows the teacher to relate the theological significance of the work to the life experience of the student.
Horizons on Christology in the Seventies
Authors: Cooke Bernard 
Published: August 2016

The appearance in English translation of E. Schillebeeckx's Jesus is a major contribution to the North American discussion of christology. Because the Dutch original was published in 1974, the book actually provides an excellent vantage point and occasion for looking backward and forward on the 1970's, a decade of rich christological development. Gustav Aulen's Jesus in Contemporary Historical Research (ET, 1976) to some extent provided such an overview; and for its size, G. O'Collins' What Are They Saying about Jesus? (1977) is uncommonly helpful; but to date nothing has matched the scope of Schillebeeckx's volume nor the depth of its analytic appraisal.Much of the value of Schillebeeckx's book lies in its broad synthesis of current scripture exegesis; in particular it distills the wealth of German and Dutch scholarship, much of which is not easily available to theologians this side of the Atlantic. But Schillebeeckx goes far beyond a careful exposition and correlation of contemporary scriptural and theological study about Jesus. He structures in clear, even though complex, fashion the many strains of today's research into christology, and so provides a framework in which issues can be identified and conclusions evaluated. Perhaps, then, the most fruitful way of profiting from the volume is to relate it, in four major areas, to other christological research of this past decade.
A Radical Ethos
Authors: Brackley Dean 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis article analyzes today's global values crisis as a matter of both personal and institutional failure. Social disintegration constitutes humanity's greatest challenge at the turn of the millennium. A viable future requires a new social project which embodies a new ethos—one which includes both traditional and liberal values and which avoids their vices along with the traps of authoritarian socialism. In order to spell out this new social project, the article describes the essential features of the traditional ethos and the liberal ethos: their economies, the understanding of nature, religion, history, politics, and ethics. This article argues that the needed participatory radical ethos incarnates Christian values for our time.
Searching for the Historical Jesus: Examining the Work of John Dominic Crossan and Marcus J. Borg
Authors: O'Keeffe Michael E. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThe movement broadly defined as the “New Quest for the Historical Jesus” represents one of the more important areas where academic scholarship has had a direct bearing on popular religion. Although many forces have been instrumental in this development, perhaps the most important has been the popularizing work of the Jesus Seminar, under the direction of Robert Funk. This essay examines two of the premier scholars associated with the Seminar, namely, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus J. Borg. It examines their methodologies and central christological claims, and gives special consideration to Borg's addition of a “theo-cosmic level” that distinguishes his work from Crossan's.
Ancient Baffles and Modern Times: Teaching Ultimate Questions
Authors: Crews Clyde F. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractA special challenge of theology courses in the private liberal arts college is the ability to maintain an institutional commitment to identifiable moral and religious values while at the same time respecting the personal and academic integrity of a pluralistic student body. The Ultimate Questions course has been constructed to introduce such students to fundamental religious questions, problems and critiques and to demonstrate that these considerations begin in a wide variety of human experiences, activities and conceptualizations. Having depended on such thinkers as Tillich and Rahner to suggest that the religious problem is ultimately the human question, the course turns to an investigation of mainline Christian doctrine, worship and praxis as distinctive responses to the ultimate questions.
Can Orthodox Ethics Liberate? A Test Case for the Adequacy of an Eastern Ethic
Authors: Gaillardetz Richard R. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis article evaluates the adequacy of Orthodox ethics by examining Orthodoxy's response to questions of social justice as they have been raised by the churches of the third world.The Eastern tradition is skeptical of such phrases as “structures of injustice” because it is improper to speak of sin with regard to structures. This does not mean that Orthodoxy is insensitive to questions of social justice, but rather that such questions can only be properly addressed by a personalist ethic grounded in trinitarian theology. It is trinitarian theology that provides the foundation for an understanding of love, community, and human relationship which demands relationships of mutuality and reciprocity and rejects all forms of human domination. This ethic is arrived at by an examination of the mode of being of the triune God in which all Christians participate, a mode of being that is both personal and communal. Orthodox ethics, while still in need of development with regard to the problems of concrete moral decision-making, offers a rich theological foundation often lacking in the more philosophical-ethical tradition of the West.
Teaching Church Teaching: Theological and Pedagogical Reflections
Authors: Hinsdale Mary Ann 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis article describes a process of research and critical analysis of Catholic church pronouncements which I have used with both undergraduate and graduate students over the past ten years. Students are taught a method of “close reading” of Roman Catholic church pronouncements which involves their analysis of such issues as the statement's canonical significance, authorship, audience, historical context, content, and underlying ecclesiology. Through this method, students acquire a working knowledge of theological research methods and tools and learn how to practice a hermeneutics of suspicion and retrieval. They also learn how to recognize the various models of church which underlie particular formulations, the compromise nature of conciliar statements, and become acquainted with recent discussion concerning “reception” and the “hierarchy of truths.” Student awareness of the historically conditioned nature of dogmatic statements and of the need for reforming the way in which universal church teaching is formulated is also heightened.
Does Newman's “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine” Rest upon a Mistake?
Authors: Slusser Michael 
Published: August 2016

AbstractNewman, in the famous essay in question, cited the Nicene orthodoxy of the faithful during the Arian controversy as this main, and only extended, argument for the thesis that there were situations in the life of the church where the Christian faith was upheld more consistently by the ordinary faithful than by their pastors. This article shows that historical evidence does not support Newman's claim for the faithful in the Arian controversy, and raises the question as to whether this fact undermines his thesis about the dogmatic importance of the sensus fidelium.
Perichoresis: New Theological Wine in an Old Theological Wineskin
Authors: Lawler Michael G. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThe history of theology demonstrates that theological exploration, seeking to understand fully an already given theological concept, regularly brings forth unexpected insights. This article seeks to do just that. Reflecting on an ancient theological word, perichoresis, coined in its original Greek to express the intimate communion of, first, the two natures in the one person of Jesus and, second, the three persons in one God, the article seeks new theological insight into the communion that is essential in, first, Christian marriage and then, church. The analysis underscores communion-through-perichoresis as essential to the definitions of God, marriage, and church, and relates the three one to the other.
A Universal Religious Experience? Comparative Theology as an Alternative to a Theology of Religions
Authors: Fredericks James L. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis article examines Liberal Theology's claim regarding a universal religious experience and George Lindbeck's rejection of this claim. Since a universal religious experience is frequently put forth as the basis for the transcendental unity of religions, the theological debate regarding such an experience is very pertinent to the current discussion of religious diversity. The author argues that neither Liberal Theology's appeal to religious experience nor Lindbeck's rejection of this appeal is helpful. In lieu of a comprehensive theology of non-Christian religions based on an appeal to a universal religious experience, the author proposes a comparative theology as the best candidate for dealing responsibly and creatively with the plurality of religions.
A Literary Interpretation of the Book of Amos
Authors: Moltz Howard 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis article draws on some of the interpretive strategies of the ancient Rabbis as well as the exegetic writings of some modern literary theorists to present the Book of Amos as an unfolding story of a man of titanic courage who excoriates the powerful of society because of their rebellion against the divine will. Living in the eighth century B.C.E., Amos entered the royal sanctuary at Bethel in the Northern Kingdom to deliver his prophetic message. Speaking in the name of the Lord, he condemned the perversion of justice and the disdain of righteousness. He threatened that a day would come in which all the oppressors would be “plucked out of the land” leaving only a remnant of the people Israel. This remnant, however, will know what the Lord requires: that the weak be sustained and the fallen uplifted, that the stranger be protected and the widow and orphan cared for. Henceforth, a new age will prevail, an age in which the soil will be blessed and all will share in the abundance.
Practicing History, Practicing Theology
Authors: Tilley Terrence W. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis essay argues that “essentializing” history and theology is less useful as an approach to the problems of “faith” and “history” than a more piecemeal and pragmatic approach. It begins by invoking the intellectual virtues learned in communities of character. It analyzes role-specific responsibilities of historians and argues for evaluating historical claims in terms of historians' execution of their professional responsibilities, rather than in terms of the presuppositions they bring to their work. It examines a recent controversy involving the Catholic Theological Society of America and argues that serious confusions in that dispute about the practices of history and theology can be overcome using the approach advocated here. It concludes by arguing that overcoming specific conflicts between historical and religious claims requires exercising one of the virtues of the mind, phronēsis, and by showing how the constructivist epistemology ingredient in this approach is appropriate for a Catholic theologian.
The Marian Tradition and the Reality of Women
Authors: Johnson Elizabeth A. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractAfter a brief explanation of the feminist theological perspective, this essay explores three critiques from that perspective of the marian tradition, highlighting ways in which the symbol of Mary has been used to the detriment of the full humanity and dignity of women. A reinterpretive move than examines three parallel possibilities for a new naming of Mary which would cohere with the full liberation of all human beings. No definitive resting point is arrived at, the conclusion being that a renewed theology of Mary will emerge only with renewed attitude and praxis regarding women in the churches.
Theological Uses of Psychology: Retrospective and Prospective
Authors: McDargh John 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis essay begins with a retrospective survey of theological responses to psychology over the last seventy-five years. These are organized by the way in which they have been shaped by two underlying religious concerns: the necessity to defend against the diminishment of the human as oriented to the transcendent (the “Catholic” position) and the concern to protect the divine against its reduction to the merely human (the “Protestant” position). In the final two sections of the essay I consider how, prospectively, the theological appropriation of psychologymay enter a new phase first with a reformulation of thetask of theological reflection, exemplified by Tracy's model of mutual critical correlation, and secondly by the emergence of neopsychoanalytic theory as a new dialogue partner with theology. The potential significance of the latter is explored by examining its influence on the soteriological projects of Jürgen Moltmann and Sebastian Moore.
In The Mirror of Creation: A Muslim Mystic's View of the Individual in the Cosmos
Authors: Renard John 
Published: August 2016

AbstractIn the encyclopedic poetry of one of Islam's most prominent mystics, Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī (1207-73), one can discover a great deal about the main lines of classical Islamic cosmology and psychology. Conceiving of all of creation as a mirror with two sides, both of which have their reflective values, Rūmī describes both the macrocosm and the microcosm as theaters of divine revelation. In the end, one must come to know God's reflection in the intimacy of the solitary heart; but the cosmos will do for a start. Through his classic understandings of space, time, causality, the evolution of consciousness, and the attractive power of like beings in creation, Rūmī tells of Creation's potential for making known the Creator. And in his images of body, spirit, intellect, and heart, the poet limns the outlines of the essentially human. In the process, he proceeds from macrocosm to microcosm and back; for just as the heart of the individual is the locus of God's reflection in the person, His prophets are as Heart to the Body of the cosmos, in their function of revealing the divine presence and word.
Christian Hope: Messianic or Transcendent? A Theological Discussion with Joachim of Fiore and Thomas Aquinas
Authors: Moltmann Jürgen 
Published: August 2016

AbstractHenri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar have criticized my “Theology of Hope” as being written “messianically” in the spirit of Joachim de Fiore and grounded from an Old Testament-Jewish perspective, whereas they claim true Christian hope is “present” in character and oriented vertically: not the future but the heavenly eternity is its fulfillment. Because both of them call upon Thomas Aquinas I have undertaken in this article a dialogue with Joachim de Fiore and Thomas Aquinas in order to elucidate my own position in conversation with them: the biblically grounded Christian hope is directed toward the parousia of Christ and sees in it future for Israel and future for the world. Chiliasm and eschatology designate the immanent and the transcendent sides of this future of Christ. Christian hope is messianic hope in the horizon of eschatological expectation.
Was the Incarnation Redundant? A Catholic and an Evangelical Respond
Authors: Trembath Kern R. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractAlthough Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism characteristically view each other only at great distance, the present article finds evidence of methodological similarity between leading figures of each tradition. The similarities between Karl Rahner and Edward John Carnell may be traced not to mutual influence, but rather to a common desire to overcome the epistemological weaknesses of Kant by means of beliefs and categories expressive of the Christian tradition which nonetheless appreciate the subjective beginning point of the modern period. In particular, this article explores the significance of Jesus within a theological approach broadly construed as transcendentalism It asks what role is played by an incarnate God in a theology whose distinctive mark is that all moral and cognitive progress is possible only on the presupposition of the existence of God, thus seemingly making an incarnation of God redundant. Through different perspectives, both Rahner and Carnell show on the contrary that it is only because God's character is to transcend Himself that the phenomenon and the question of human transcendence arise as possibilities at all. A summary critique suggests that Carnell's emphasis on cross is not as successful in making this point as is Rahner's on cross and resurrection.
The Pyramid or the Raft: Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and Bernard Lonergan in Dialogue about Foundational Theology
Authors: Drilling Peter J. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractHow different from each other are transcendental method and reconstructive hermeneutics as approaches to foundational theology? Not so different that there is no room for dialogue between Bernard Lonergan and Francis Schüssler Fiorenza. Some parallel areas of concern which Lonergan and Schüssler Fiorenza develop idiosyncratically include the self-correcting process of learning, the role of faith in foundational theology, the relationship between experience and interpretation, and the specific connection within Christian foundational theology of inferiority with the data on Christianity. Imagining how the authors could be open to each other's theory yields points of complementarity.
The Power to Create: Sacraments and Men's Need to Birth
Authors: Gudorf Christine E. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThe sacraments represent some of the ordinary activities involved in sustaining daily life, activities which are understood to contain meaning and therefore power. These activities are for the most part the province of women in human societies, probably because of the biological role of women in procreation. One of the ways that men have responded to the connection between women and life sustaining activities is to claim the sacramental reenactments of those activities for themselves, and to maintain that the sacramental reenactments, not the ordinary activities, contain meaning and power. The task for the church is to reconnect sacraments with ordinary life by involving men in direct nurture of life and involving women in sacramental administration, so as to demonstrate the reality of divine meaning and power in life.
Dorothy Day and Gender Identity: The Rhetoric and the Reality
Authors: O'Connor June 
Published: August 2016

AbstractDorothy Day's sense of herself as a woman and as a mother feature prominently in her writings. In light of recent inquiries into gender identity and gender ideology, and given Dorothy Day's prominence as editor, social activist, anarchist, pacifist, and religious author, questions about her views regarding woman's role and related feminist concerns invite investigation. The paper argues that although Dorothy Day did not become a vocal advocate nor public ally of the women's movements in twentieth-century American life because of some fundamental differences in viewpoint and loyalty, she did share a number of affinities with feminist perspectives. To investigate her thought on this topic enables us to understand Dorothy Day more fully and to bring a critical eye to selected features of feminism, discerning (from Day's standpoint) both strengths and weaknesses.
4. A Reexamination of the Link Between the Bronzes of Shang Civilization and the Northern Region
Authors: Yun Lin 
Published: August 2016

ABSTRACTThe northern border of Shang culture moved south during the Yinxu period. At the same time bronzes belonging to the Northern complex spread through a vast region to the north of the Shang cultural area.The appearance of Northern bronzes, characterized by specific types of short swords, fu battle-axes and daggers -- which we may take to represent the Northern bronzes of Period 1 -- must predate the Yinxu culture. During the early Yinxu period they exerted a fairly consider able influence. Analysis of the bronzes unearthed from the Fu Hao tomb reveals that, at the time of Wu Ding, the Shang were already using some Northern bronze articles. The Shang artisans not only copied Northern bronzes, they also adopted their chemical composition to improve traditional Shang tools and weapons.On the other hand, bronzes from the Shang culture area exerted a similar influence on Northern bronzes. Some of these influences were limited to relatively close areas, whereas the ripples of other influence extended far into the distant regions. For example, the Northern “beak halberd” the creation of which was influenced by the Shang ge-halberd, was diffused as far as the Minusinsk Basin. The origin of the bronze bow-shaped article, however, which has, in the past, been taken as strong evidence for the extension of Shang influence as far as this basin may very well be in the region to the north of the Shang culture, and the Yinxu style bow-shaped bronze may, on the contrary, have been a variant of the Northern article which developed during the early Yinxu period. The influence of the authentic Yinxu style bow-shaped article only extended as far as the area of Jibei . The lobeless, geometric-patterned, hollow-socketed fu-axe, which developed from the hollow-socketed fu of the Erligang to Yinxu periods, may have early on exerted an influence as far as the southern edges of the Eastern Siberian forest.A reexamination of the ties between the Karasuk and Yinxu cultures is needed. The theory that Seima bronzes exerted an influence on the Yinxu culture must be abandoned.