bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Sex and Theology
Authors: Ross Anthony 
Published: July 2007

The other day the members of a Youth Club asked if something could be done to prevent people who came to address them from talking about sex. They said, with considerable feeling, that nearly every speaker seemed to think that youth was interested in very little else; which is, of course, not true. It is not teenagers who are so much concerned with sex as their elders, who continue to produce and read a stream of books and articles. Reaction against secrecy has led to an over-anxious campaign to assert the importance of sex, which in turn is in danger of producing the reaction that sex does not matter much anyway. A good many people have become bored by sexual experience itself, and the last thing they want is to be further bored by reading about it.A balance has to be struck somehow, and the four books listed below illustrate awareness of this in very different quarters. On the whole they illustrate the growing recognition that the fundamental question to be tackled has to do with the nature of human beings; what is being human ? For the Christian this is a theological question, answered in terms of our creation by God in his own image and likeness. Our life, even on the simplest level and at any time or place, must be somehow like God’s own life if it is to be truly human.We are told something of what God’s life is in the doctrine of the Trinity.
Television: Freedom and Responsibility
Authors: Shaw Roy 
Published: July 2007

Just over ten years ago, as now, there were debates about the freedom of television; but they had a very different emphasis. Then, the argument of a commercial pressure group was that the bbc represented ‘state’ broadcasting, too official, too unfree. To counteract this, Independent Television was introduced. Now, the argument of a puritan-christian pressure group is that the bbc is too free and should have the measure of control stepped up to the level already prevailing in Independent Television. How and why has this happened, and for what party is the aid of all good men required ? These are the questions which this article tries to answer.The Clean-up Television Campaign (CUTV) began in January 1964, when Mrs Mary Whitehouse, schoolmistress-wife of a company director, and Mrs Norah Buckland, wife of an Anglican vicar, jointly issued a five point manifesto:1 We men and women of Britain believe in a Christian way of life2 We want it for our children and our country3 We deplore present day attempts to belittle or destroy it, and in particular we object to the propaganda of disbelief, doubt, and dirt that the BBC pours into millions of homes through the television screen4 Crime, violence, illegitimacy and venereal disease are steadily increasing, yet the BBC employs people whose ideas and advice pander to the lowest in human nature, and accompany this with a stream of suggestive and erotic plays which present promiscuity, infidelity and drinking as normal and inevitable5 We call upon the BBC for a radical change of policy and demand programmes which build character instead of destroying it, which encourage and sustain faith in God and bring him back to the heart of our family and national life.
Indirect Communication
Authors: Poole Roger C. 
Published: July 2007

The philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), Professor at the Collège de France as from 1952, radically influenced the course of phenomenology, turning it from Germany towards France. With Merleau-Ponty philosophy is sincere and searchingly intelligent, it begins to try as never before, it really exerts its strength towards a genuine human breakthrough at all levels of our experience. With Merleau-Ponty we find a respite from those traditions of mechanism and intellectualism which, starting from Descartes and Kant, have never ceased to plague the course of the philosophy of perception. With Merleau-Ponty, philosophy speaks simply, simply because things are so very difficult.What interests Merleau-Ponty most perhaps is the classical philosophical problem of the Other, and our possible means of knowing him and communicating with him. In Merleau-Ponty we have a guide who is awake to every level of consciousness in the Other. He sees that communication with the Other is a matter of understanding that area where thoughts and actions are conceived, of moving, that is to say, behind the figure of the Other as he expresses himself in acts and words, in a search for meaning. We need to destroy in psychology and in philosophy the mindless collecting of facts and the refusal of synthesis together with all artificial dichotomising. We need to seek for the reality of the Other in a private or ‘inter-subjective’ space.
The Conservatism of Situation Ethics
Authors: Burtchaell James Tunstead 
Published: July 2007

Englishmen curious about the New Morality, and fatigued by the well-known but amateurishly incompetent exposition it has suffered from certain domestic divines, are benefited by the publication here of Joseph Fletcher’s Situation Ethics (SCM: 1966; 25s). The author is professor of social ethics at the Episcopalian seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has been active in ethical debate since the days when the Old Morality was the Newest thing around.Dr Fletcher, if I understand him correctly, repudiates the Old Morality because it is legalistic. It takes the form of a code, a list of commandments which assign an invariable moral value to certain acts. The circumstances attending these acts may, it is granted, slightly modify their morality. But the ultimate and over-riding source of good and evil is the very nature of the acts. Against such a view Fletcher urges that no action is good or evil in itself. It cannot be judged in isolation from its meaningful and meaning-giving context of circumstances. The morality of any action is correlative to the love it expresses. Admittedly there are many deeds which are usually sinful (e.g., abortion, lying, arson, extramarital intercourse). This is not because they are intrinsically evil acts, but because they most often embody selfishness, exploitation of one’s neighbour, and irresponsibility. In certain extraordinary circumstances these actions might so bespeak commitment and caring and sincerity that, viewed in their contextual totality, they would be adjudged good and virtuous. Since morality is not intrinsic to acts, we can never resort to inflexible ethical laws or norms.
Arthur Lourié
Authors: Speaight Robert 
Published: July 2007

Some few years ago I received a letter from Jacques Maritain, asking me if I could do anything to promote the performance in England of Arthur Lourié’s opera Le Maure de Pierre le Grand. This was based on a tale by Pushkin and extracts from it had been given by Stokovski with the Philadelphia orchestra. I did not know the work, and I had no influence in such matters. In the same letter Maritain declared that the time would come when Louri? would be recognized as the greatest composer of the century. That time has not come yet: Lourié’s work remains practically unknown, except to a few initiates. Until more performances of it have been given, and recordings from it made, it is obviously difficult for the rest of us to confirm Maritain’s opinion – whether we are musicians, or people like myself who are extremely fond of music. In the meantime curiosity is stirred by the publication of Lourié’s occasional writings under the title of Profanation et Sanctification du Temps.Louri? and his wife are now living in Maritain’s house at Princeton and Maritain’s opinion is that of a close friend to whom this book is dedicated. It is supported, however, by independent and competent judges, like Henri Marrou, an eminent humaniste, and the musical critics Fred Goldbeck and Boris de Schloezer. Their testimony is printed as an appendix to this volume, which is admirably prefaced by Jean Mouton. The title is taken from a lecture given in 1963 at the Dominican monastery of La Tourette where the problem of Dieu et le monde moderne was under discussion. Lourié has no illusions about the monde moderne!
Obedience and Responsibility
Authors: Angela Mary 
Published: July 2007

It is, by now, a truism to state that one of the major problems in the traditional forms of religious life is that they tend to attract and conserve immature personalities. So does marriage, of course. In both cases the state of life entered upon is not viewed objectively in all its stark reality, but as offering an immediate assuagement of the craving to be loved. It is an effort, not to give love, but – without necessarily earning it – to get love and, through it, an assurance of personal value which, for one reason or another, was denied in the earliest formative years.Whatever names psychologists give to the various compensations and defence mechanisms which the ego develops in reaction to primary experiences, the trouble is always born of fear out of devaluation. Whatever ideal self-image the individual sets up, and for which he seeks recognition and affirmation, the burning question in every relationship is always, at bottom, ‘Do you love me, accept me, value me . . . ?’ When the proffered ‘me’ is not the actual person but a ‘persona’, a construct based on who knows what borrowed notions, the quest is bound to be a disappointment for all concerned.A mature person is one who is free from the compulsion to play a part, who is content to be himself to the best of his ability and who is, therefore, free to pour himself out in love of others, and of another in particular. Maturity is developed by accepting and exercising responsibility.
Africa from Within
Authors: Hindmarsh Roland 
Published: July 2007

The purpose of this article is to give some evidence of the kind of understanding we can win through reading African prose writers, and of the misconceptions we can clear up in so doing; and to make some suggestions as to what authors and what books we might begin by reading. A good deal of the prose writing done by Africans is biographical, either directly or derivatively. One of the best known examples is Camara Laye’s autobiography The African Child. In it he tells the story of his childhood and youth until the time he leaves Guinea, his home country, to go to France for higher studies. The extract below, which must be about a time when he was six or seven years old, shows the warmth and charm of the book. At that time he lived in Kouroussa, a large up-country town, and the incident described is a visit to his relatives at Tindican, a small village to the west of Kouroussa.Whenever I went to Tindican, it was always with my youngest uncle, who used to come and fetch me. He was younger than my mother and was not much more than an adolescent; and so I used to feel that he was still very close to my own age. He was very good-natured, and my mother did not have to tell him to look after me; he was naturally kind, and needed no telling. He would take me by the hand, and I would walk beside him; he, out of consideration for my extreme youth, would take much smaller steps, so that instead of taking two hours to reach Tindican, we would often take at least four. But I scarcely used to notice how long we were on the road, for there were all kinds of wonderful things to entertain us.
Personal Testament
Authors: Kelly Michael 
Published: July 2007

I should like to record something of the result of an experience which I had from 1961-1964. I was working as a schoolmaster in Ghana for that time. The school was in routine and academic syllabus an imitation of European, mainly English, practice but we were fortunate in being far removed from the main centres of European expatriate concentration. To be precise we were 130 odd miles from Accra and 70 odd from Akosombo which were the nearest and most accessible European centres. In a town of 10,000 inhabitants throughout our stay at most 40 were expatriates, at the least 20. They included from two to four priests, the Presbyterian missionary and his wife, the two mission doctors and their team of from four to six nurses. This situation could mean virtual isolation in a tiny social world where contacts with Africans and adaptations of ways to theirs were kept to a minimum, or it could provoke a more or less natural interchange between African or expatriate which the circumstances made easy and spontaneous, rather than condescending, folkloristic or exotic. It would be untrue to say that it did not involve a conscious decision, but the decision was an easy one.Old attitudes die very hard even in so out of the way a place. Many of the Europeans did choose to huddle together to lick over each other’s sense of isolation endlessly; contacts with Africans were kept to a minimum, formality of occasion was encouraged, any crossing over of racio-customary lines was seen as daring and by no means habit-forming.
Concerning Virgins
Authors: Consolata Sister 
Published: July 2007

Those of us who are anxious to implement as fully and as quickly as possible the Constitutions and Decrees of the Second Vatican Council have enough and more than enough to inspire, encourage and occupy us. So much to be done, and each of us has only a life-time in which to do our utmost — so that the less obvious and less exciting things, which will apparently have little immediate result, are liable to pass unnoticed. For example, since 1936 there have been numerous pronouncements concerning vocations to the priestly and religious life. It is only in the past year or so, in England at any rate, that it has ceased to be bad form to refer to the appalling shortage of vocations, so that now there is no need to speak of it in veiled and polite terms, and we can face it for what it is, a rapidly accelerating process which will take all our prayer, determination and ingenuity to arrest. The first necessity of course is that we should want to do something about it, and not, as living members of the Church, exempt ourselves from the responsibility.On April 26th, last year, speaking on Good Shepherd Sunday, which is the annual World Prayer Day for Vocations, Paul VI said:‘This most noble work of promoting sacerdotal and religious vocations, so essential to the life of the Church and so beneficial to the whole world, demands profound attention in all aspects. In other words it must be promoted with infectious enthusiasm, supported by ardent prayers, stimulated by intense desires, pursued with constant zeal and sustained by universal charity.’
Hell
Authors: McDermott Timothy 
Published: July 2007

It is the somewhat tentative conclusion of this article that there are three different, though related, notions of hell in Christian tradition. A first might be called Hell as Sheol (since this was what the Hebrews called it) or Hell as Hades (which was the Greek tran-lation). Another is Hell as Gehenna, the hellfire of the New Testament. And a third is something I shall call Hell as Tartarus for reasons which will later appear.SheolWhat man can live and never see death?Who can save himself from the power of Sheol?(Ps 89.49)Sheol, in the Old Testament, means nothing more nor less than death. The word hardly ever occurs in prose except in the phrases ‘to go down to Sheol’, which means ‘to die’, and ‘to bring down to Sheol’, which means ‘to kill’. These phrases account for over a third of all the Old Testament references to Sheol. Well over half of the remaining references explicitly couple Sheol with death as parallel concepts.Sheol then, for the Hebrew, is not a place of torment for the wicked after death, but the state of death itself which overcomes both just and wicked alike. The only difference between people is in the way they go down to Sheol, the way they die. The great blessing granted to Abraham and Jacob was to breathe their last in a great old age, surrounded by their sons; this was ‘to go down to Sheol in peace’. But at one period of his life, when he had lost both Joseph and Benjamin,
The New Left: Christians and Agnostics
Authors: Wicker Brian 
Published: July 2007

The comments by Martin Green in the October Mew Btackfriars editorial, Raymond Williams’s article (November) and the appearance of Terry Eagleton’s book1 mark, perhaps, a new stage in the debate about the ‘catholic left’. Beyond the mud-slinging and the taking to the ramparts (useful though such antics have been recently in helping to publicise the importance of the catholic left as a distinctive movement); and also beyond the appeal to history (Donald Nicholl in the Clergy Review, August 1966) and to received notions of church structure (Michael Dummett in Mew Blackfriars, December 1965) we now come to a fundamental problem. The definition of this problem is difficult, and can be approached from a number of points of view. But I think the basic question the catholic left has to answer is this: is the commitment to a political order, the concern with the restructuring of the human community, part of a homogeneous continuum which will simply inaugurate the kingdom of God as its final term, or is it rather a means by which the essentially gratuitous character of the kingdom can be most clearly revealed by having the obscuring clutter of merely human obstacles removed ?Perhaps I may begin a review of Mr Eagleton’s book by registering one note of disagreement with Martin Green. This is that I feel he is trying to evade a problem, when he speaks of the need to ‘attune’ ourselves to war and peace simultaneously.
Kierkegaard on Irony
Authors: Poole Roger 
Published: July 2007

Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony with Constant Reference to Socrates, submitted at the University of Copenhagen in 1841 for the degree of Magister Artium, has at last appeared in English translation.1 Not before time. It is the last of his major works to reach the English speaking public, and certainly the one without which all the rest of Kierkegaard’s work is in danger of being misunderstood. It is interesting to note that 1841 is the year when Marx took his doctorate at Jena. Marx has been accorded every kind of critical attention, but Kierkegaard, discovered late, is still emerging into his full importance. Last summer Gallimard of Paris issued Kierkegaard vivant. Comprising papers read at a recent U.N.E.S.C.O. conference by such figures as Sartre, Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel etc, it forms an eloquent proof that the thought of Kierkegaard is being revalued by those very thinkers who ‘discovered’ him thirty years ago. Collins, in publishing The Concept of Irony, adds one further work of ‘the living Kierkegaard’ to their previous excellent output in the field.Lee Capel has rendered us great service in letting us have at last his polished and erudite translation. It has taken a long time, at least six years in the correcting. The difficulties of this work are famous. Now the work is available to anyone who, while interested in the enigmatic thought of Kierkegaard, has not a ready command of a fluent and punning Danish.The Concept of Irony deserves to be well-known, hailed, read and enjoyed. Rarely can such a witty, good-humoured, mature, intelligent and ferociously yea-saying work have appeared as an academic dissertation.
Professor Grisez and Natural Law
Authors: Lawler Justus George 
Published: July 2007

Professor Germain Grisez of Georgetown has written his criticism of contraception from the viewpoint of a natural-law theorist. He goes about his task in a tidily business-like way, first setting forth some of his own credentials:‘My wife, Jeannette, and I married thirteen years ago. At that time I was just entering studies for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. We now have four children, the oldest twelve and the youngest six. Life has not been easy during all of these years. Yet we have survived without contraception, and we think the conviction that we had to survive and could survive without it has been essential to doing so’.Husband and wife, to use some earlier imagery of the book were not ‘goaded on to wrong paths by enthusiasm over the greener pastures projected in an illusory light by the latest phantasms of secular thought.’ Being thus armored in these durable orthodoxies, Professor Grisez adds a kindly admonition for many of his readers, ‘Those not accustomed to subtle argument, as well as those who do not respect reason, will be little moved by what I have to say. Against the heart reason has little power, and it is just as impotent against sentimentalism which has become confused with charity as it is against plain ill will.’The subtlety of the argument is immediately evident in Professor Grisez’s derivation of the fundamental and absolutely basic principles of morality from our knowledge of man’s intrinsic inclinations.
The Welsh Religious Tradition
Authors: Mullins D. J. 
Published: July 2007

Towards the end of the sixth century, the invading pagans were pushing their way northwards along the eastern coast of Britain. At this period too, Aneirin the poet was singing his verses in the court of Mynyddawg Mwynfawr at Edinburgh. He was to sing the lament at the death of the brave three hundred who lost their lives in the desperate attempt to retake Catterick, and so halt the pagan advance. Farther to the west, about his time too, Taliesin was celebrating the victories of Urien Rheged and of his son Owain. He also sang their elegies. These two are the earliest Welsh poets of whom we can say with reasonable certainty that we have some of their authentic work. Both of them can use the word bedydd (baptism) to mean the world. To them, the only world they knew was the baptised world. All outside that was darkness and barbarism.In 1823, at meetings at Aberystwyth and Bala, the Welsh Calvin-istic Methodists met and agreed on the forty four articles of their Cyffes Ffydd, their confession of Faith. It was published in book form in the following year, and literate Wales could read and learn by rote the restrained and powerful language, the finest prose of the nineteenth century written to give glory to God and to instruct His people.It is a long cry from the sixth to the nineteenth century. The earliest Welsh literature was written in Southern Scotland, before Wales as an entity had come into existence.
Redemption and Revolution
Authors: Stein Walter 
Published: July 2007

Raymond Williams strives to unite fidelity to tragic realities with an absolute secular revolutionary faith. On the social plane this leads him, as we have seen, to a highly problematic, indefinitely recessive, conception of ‘total redemption’ – and to attendant moral risks. And, so long as ‘so absolute a conception’ of some actual social future is envisaged, it is proper to ask how much is included in this conceptual absoluteness. There is a story about a conference of French writers, soon after the last war, in which a Marxist, discussing the mastery of human suffering under socialism, was asked what he thought of the problem of, for instance, a child run over in a traffic accident. His reply was that, in a truly socialist society, there would be no traffic accidents. It is not necessary to approach these problems with a similar ingenuousness in order to recognize the pertinence of such simple questions. Social injustices aside – and can we really envisage an era when all injustice and alienation will belong to the past? – accidents will never be wholly avoidable (at any rate, there will always be floods and earthquakes). It surely cannot be mere pedantry, or paralysis, that continues to find such problems to the point.There would of course be no such problem if the theoretic future were not called upon to redress past and present actualities so absolutely. But in that case the whole imaginative universe of the ‘total redemption of humanity’ by revolution – and the whole moral calculus going with it – would wither away.