bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Politics Of The Spirit
Authors: Ruston Roger 
Published: July 2007

This is a fresh attempt to come to grips with the question of Christian involvement in politics. The object will be to decide if possible what involvement Christians ought to have with politics in virtue of their commitment to Christianity. I do not expect the conclusions to apply to all Christians, whatever their stage of life or position in society. I expect to come to general conclusions which will have to be separately applied by individuals to their own lives, as one would expect in an ethical enquiry of this sort, which intends to use the gospel as a source. The political context of this enquiry is that of Britain in the 1970s rather than say, Latin America or Southern Africa, though our very political relationships with those parts of the world will not be forgotten.One of the difficulties of the discussion is the ambiguity of the notion of politics. In a general sense politics has to do with the distribution and use of power in society. So politics in one sense is simply a matter of engaging in the operation of the accepted institutions of society which are to do with the distribution and use of power. Here conflicts are institutionalised, as in the two-party system of British politics or the union/management structure of industry. The institutionalisation of conflict is typical of Western liberal democracies, which owe their continued existence to the successful achievement of it. It is politics in this sense that Catholic laymen of the recent past were urged to take part in, i.e. to play their part in the institutions of democracy such as the political party or the trades union.
Christians or Capitalists ?
Authors: Smith Lewis 
Published: July 2007

I had better start by declaring an interest: Cosmas Desmond (hereinafter CD) is a friend from South African days, and it is in his flat that I write this review, of his book. Readers will be able to allow for any possible loss of objectivity; in another way the location is a positive advantage since CD’s flat is a centre of South African contacts and involvement. This is directly relevant to the work done in the book, since it is self-confessedly a committed work and a socialist work, not a piece of arm-chair theorizing but a thoughtful statement arising directly out of work in a traditional communalist (President Nyerere’s useful word, see p. 131) society, ruined as it is by White political and economic exploitation, work that is for a future African socialist state. It is refreshing to read a marxist argument in which “theoria” and “praxis” do not bespatter the pages till towards the very end, and this refreshment is directly related to the rootedness of the book: I remember a weary paper on “Theoria and Praxis” delivered by an Afrikaner philosophy teacher at Wits University, but the South African philosophical association is not the locus out of which any revolution, even a peaceful one, will come.The thesis of the book is that the only Christian option in South Africa now is a socialist one. This is carefully argued both theologically-politically and politically-theologically (Part I and Part II); only theology has the right and duty to confess the emptiness of theology when faced with positive political option, only politics can argue positively for a particular political option — for one thing it has to be a realistic possibility, and theology can hardly calculate that.
The Future of Democracy in South Africa
Authors: Hill Edmund 
Published: July 2007

“The struggle of the African National Congress is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by theiT own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. During my life-time I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”These are the last public words of Mr Nelson Mandela before he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. He evidently thought then that democracy had a future in South Africa, though he had already been driven to the conclusion that it could only be achieved by some kind of revolutionary violence.
Agreed Statements. Hazards and Possibilities
Authors: Moonan Lawrence 
Published: July 2007

At the end of their frank and comradely talks, the Presidents issued an agreed statement. . . . Not only politicians, it would seem, should concern themselves with such things. Official custodians of doctrine in Churches which claim to teach truth on an important range of issues are showing marked enthusiasm for talks — le dialogue even, in some places — and for issuing agreed statements. Precisely what, however, is being agreed on in an agreed statement? Or, what is it that political negotiators or separated brethren are to be understood as really doing when issuing an agreed statement? That question will not quite be answered in the present inquiry, but enough hazards risked by the well-intentioned when they make such statements will be exposed, to make it easier for someone with enough real knowledge of a wide enough and fair enough sample of agreed statements in doctrine and in politics alike to work out a good answer. My direct interest is in theological doctrines here, and in hazards arising from inadequate analysis. It may well be, however, that in producing agreed statements in doctrine that are of real worth, the crucial issues are neither theological nor analytical, but rather political. I conclude therefore by discussing some of the significant points raised by a jurist only a few years ago in a paper which should be taken into account by those concerned before a new wave of agreed statements comes out.Agreed statements, it should be acknowledged, have played no inconsiderable part in Christian doctrine and in Christian theologies: ‘It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us ...’, ‘This sacred synod decrees . . .’ ‘We believe in God . . .’, and so on. They have played their part in Heilsgeschichte too: There came false witnesses, but their witness did not agree. . . . Then came two false witnesses, who said . . . Simply by agreement false witness does not become true, nor false doctrine trustworthy.
The Challenge of the Gospel Miracle Stories
Authors: Robinson Bernard 
Published: July 2007

Among the many questions raised by the Gospel stories of Jesus’ miracles, half a dozen are perhaps particularly pressing. How do the miracles differ from magic (if they do; Morton Smith’s recent book Jesus the Magician argues that they do not)? What criteria is one to invoke to distinguish authentic from inauthentic miracles in the Gospels? What have Form and Redaction Criticism to say about the miracle narratives? Do the Gospels see the miracles of Jesus in a different light from the oral tradition and from the historical Jesus? Are the ways that Jesus, the oral tradition and the evangelists saw the miracles valid and/or mandatory for Christians today? I hope to say something by way of answer to each of these questions, but my method will not be to examine the questions in the abstract, but to look at three specific miracle stories and to attempt to cope with the problems that each throws up.First, though, one general point. Namely, that the New Testament evidence makes it very difficult to subscribe to the view that Jesus did not work any miracles at all. In the Gospel of Mark, 209 out of 666 verses (the figures come from Richardson) deal directly or indirectly with miracles. Press back into the Gospel sources, if you will, and look in turn at Q, Mark, special Matthew, special Luke, and John and in each (probably independent) source Jesus is seen as a miracle worker.
Father Vincent McNabb ‐ Pioneer Ecumenist
Authors: Keldany Herbert 
Published: July 2007

Towards the end of his many sided life Fr Vincent wrote “God knows how much I have striven and prayed to mend the shattered unity of Christendom”, words that may seem strange to those who only knew him in his later days, for he had developed other interests. But a study of his writing shows him to have been among the early Catholic ecumenists and to have kept up his interest throughout his life. His labours in this field span the formative years of the movement which is one of the glories of the Church in this century. Indeed it is plain that he not only laboured but suffered in the cause of Reunion -as it was known, and sometimes dreaded by many of his contemporaries.In retrospect he traced his interest to lessons learnt at his mother’s knee, where he acquired “his first desire, never since quenched of seeking to love, even more than to convert, his separated brethren”. The uphill path he trod not only shows that ecumenism did not begin with Vatican II but how he dealt with problems that are still with us. While Prior at Woodchester, in the first years of the century, he was in correspondence with Anglicans on both sides of the Atlantic. He was host to his Cotswold neighbour, the Rev Spencer Jones, Rector of Moreton-in-Marsh, who became a leading Anglo-Catholic after the publication of his classic England and the Holy See. He was also writing in the early issues of The Lamp, a paper edited by Fr Paul Wattson, who after his reconciliation was to promote the Unity Octave through it for almost half a century.
Faith And Experience: X The incomprehensibility Of God
Authors: Tugwell Simon 
Published: July 2007

Traditional Christian theology draws on a remarkable number of terms to express its conviction that God is beyond reach of human concepts and language. More than forty different words have been noticed in the works of Gregory of Nyssa, for instance, referring to the incomprehensibility of God in one way or another. Some of them derive from scripture, others from Philo, others from Greek philosophers; some of them find their way into the liturgical texts of eastern Christendom. They leave us in no doubt that it is radically impossible for the mind of man, or of any other creature, to fathom God. “The being of God is incomprehensible to the whole creation”, as Chrysostom concludes.Not surprisingly, the theological tradition of divine incomprehensibility overlaps to a considerable extent with the kind of philosophical speculation we have been considering in the previous articles. But the theologians have their own slant on the matter, and it is with this that we shall be concerned in this article.In the first place, the theologians are convinced that it is an essential part of Christian doctrine to assert that God is unfathomable; it is part of revealed truth.This comes out in the orthodox response to the claim made by the Anomocans in the fourth century. Apparently they were saying, “I know God just as he knows himself’ Eunomius is quoted as saying, “God knows nothing more of his own essence than we do”. This provoked St John Chrysostom to preach a series of sermons in Antioch on the incomprehensibility of God's nature, as being an article of Christian faith. Though he does sometimes use simple arguments of a more philosophical kind, he concentrates chiefly on scriptural and doctrinal evidence.
Killing With Kindness ?
Authors: Visocchi Tony 
Published: July 2007

Vatican Council II and the post-colonial period in Africa dovetailed chronologically very neatly and the resultant euphoria witnessed the growth of funding agencies (hereafter F.A.) established by various national hierarchies dedicated to playing a role in alleviating poverty and ignorance in the less developed countries. The F.A.’s range from the small but effective Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development of the hierarchies of England and Wales, to the large and wealthy “Misereor” of the German Bishops and the even wealthier Catholic Relief Services of the United States. Apart from these there are other funds of a more private, voluntary and ecumenical nature. It is mainly through missionaries that the first group channel their funds, but the latter group also to a large extent, make use of missionaries. As a result, the traditional image of the poor missionary bringing the Gospel and ministering to’ the world’s poorest is rapidly being challenged. In this article we would like to examine the effects that this is having on missionary activity, and some of the implications.The operating procedure of the F.A.s is relatively simple, through advertising and appeals they collect funds from those Christians in the more developed countries interested in helping alleviate misery and encourage development in the Third World. This is mainly done through advertising and making appeals through the parish, school or other Christian groups in the hope that they will also be able to solicit not just a one-off donation, but a continuous commitment from interested parties. It should be stressed that the aim is not limited simply to collecting money but also to educate the Christian public of their responsibility to help the Third World more than just financially, and that their donations do not absolve them from cutting down on waste and attacking rampant consumerism in their own lives. Advertising is also used to assure the donors that their contributions are being correctly and wisely used.
Contemporary Christianity as a Religion of Nature
Authors: Edwards Adrian 
Published: July 2007

While my cook is preparing chicken soup, to be followed by the actual chicken and some yam cakes, I ought to fill in the interval of anticipation by explaining my situation and my problem. I might perhaps equally well fill it in by drinking some sherry, but it might be better to keep that luxury for the guests who may come at the week-end.My situation is this; I am a Catholic priest, with some training in anthropology, in charge of a mission in a rural area of the Rivers State of Nigeria. For the article I want to write, my library is extremely limited. I beg my readers not therefore to grumble at inadequate, nay minimal, footnoting, and the absence of exact quotations.My problem is this; how correct is the claim that contemporary Christianity differs from all other manifestations of religion in being unconcerned with nature? It may be seen, in an approach which goes back, I think to German Idealism, as a historical religion, the moment of the Incarnation marking the beginning of the end for the nature religions; or it may be seen as a religion essentially concerned with relations between persons, having, with the progress of science, sloughed off the cosmological ideas on such absorbing questions as the exact date of the Creation, the topography of Hell, and the necessary function of mosquitoes in the designs of a benevolent Providence, which were found so fascinating in earlier centuries.
The Ideology of National Security
Authors: Westow Theo 
Published: July 2007

Because every single nation talks about national security, it is necessary to point out that the national security this article is concerned with is that particular kind of philosophy which at present is the basis of the justification of most Latin American military dictatorships.In so far as these Generals and ‘Colonels’ are concerned, national security is simply the national expression of what they see as the permanent and irreconcilable conflict between capitalism (act. ually : neo-classical capitalism) and Marxism (actually: the Russian interpretation of it). So here we have our ‘black and white’. No grey can be allowed in. The military governments in South America which have, each in their own way, adopted the doctrine of ‘national security’ are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. There are other regimes which are more crudely dictatorial in the sense that they are simply based on family ambition. The most glaring example is Nicaragua where until recently President Somoza tried to maintain his position in the face of world-wide protest.
Faith And Experience: XII Christian Experience
Authors: Tugwell Simon 
Published: July 2007

In the past few articles we have been tracing some of the ways in which philosophers and theologians have used the idea of the ineffability and incomprehensibility of God. They warn us insistently not to suppose that we know more about God than we actually do. Whether our understanding of God derives from philosophy or from revelation or from our own experience, they remind us that he is still largely unknown to us, mysterious and transcendent.Those who are drawn by the idea of that “infinite ignorance” which was proclaimed by Evagrius may find all this quite delightful. But may not some people rather feel that they are left with almost no God at all? We may recall the tragic conclusion of Cassian’s account of the anthropomorphite controversy in Egypt. When at last old Paphnutius is convinced of the truth of the anti-anthropomorphite theology, he throws himself on the ground, howling. “Poor, poor me!” he cries out. “They have taken away my God and now I have no God to hold on to. I do not know whom I am to worship now or whom I am to pray to” (Coni. 10,3).As Bowker says, “No matter how ‘God’ is constituted, if there is no feedback at all into the actual situations and experiences of life, plausibility is under maximum strain; if no effect of God can ever be discerned or specified, then in effect God is nowhere” (The Sense of God p. 84). Now maybe there is good reason for saying that that is precisely where God is. But does our negative theology not tend to make God so remote from our actual situations and experiences, does it not make it so difficult to accept anything at all as an “effect of God”, that it eventually ceases to be plausible to talk of God at all?
A Note On AQuinas And Ordination Of Women
Authors: Miller Jeremy 
Published: July 2007

On 20 January 1977 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the “Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood,” reaffirming the Catholic position barring women from priestly ordination. The issue is complex and thorny. The major argument of the Declaration was that the restriction is founded on an “unbroken tradition” possessing a “normative character”. Later in the Declaration other arguments from fittingness, described as being in themselves non-demonstrative are brought forth.One set of these arguments developed the sacramental idea of natural resemblance, listing in support various theologians, among whom was Thomas Aquinas. Because this latter part of the Declaration, with its attendant idea of maleness as a prerequisite for priestly ordination, attracted so much interchange in newspapers and periodicals, it behooves us to take a more careful look at the position of Aquinas referred to by the Declaration. While it is our opinion that the real strength of the Declaration hinges on the idea of “unbroken tradition”, and on which we are not commenting in this essay, it remains instructive to understand the context within which Aquinas’ views on ordination are elaborated. For this reason the essay is termed a Note and simply wishes to make a small contribution to a much wider discussion engaging theology today.
Liverpool 1980 The National Pastoral Congress
Authors: Kerr Fergus 
Published: July 2007

The young couple, both teachers, one at a Catholic school in the city, did not know that the National Pastoral Congress would be taking place that week-end in Liverpool until they agreed three or four days before to put me up. On the Saturday afternoon thousands of people were left outside when the gates were locked at Anfield long before the kick-off: that Liverpool FC retained the First Division championship obviously stirred far more hearts far more deeply, Catholic ones no doubt included, than the NPC’s deliberations ever had any chance of doing. With all such qualifications duly noted, however, the Congress was nonetheless the most important event in the history of the Catholic Church in England and Wales since the restoration of diocesan bishops in 1850. On the Sunday afternoon the Liverpool Orange Lodge held a march, with several bands and plenty of Union Jacks, so they at least had an idea of what was going on.The Congress, in effect, took the form of seven three-day conferences of about 300 people each, dispersed at centres all round the suburbs of Liverpool. The Congress gathered in plenary session only at the beginning and the end, for the inaugural Act of Reconciliation and Renewal in the Cathedral on the Friday evening, and then again on the Tuesday morning, first in the Philharmonic Hall, simply to receive the reports and resolutions of the seven conferences, and finally for the concluding celebration of the Eucharist, again in the Cathedral.
Measure for Measure and the Epistle to the Romans
Authors: McCombie Frank 
Published: July 2007

In the period in which Shakespeare wrote Measure for Measure, he was regularly investigating ways in which the drama might reflect and explore matters in doubt. In the Histories he had attempted to support certitudes upon which Man might depend, or at least find it useful or even necessary to depend; but after Henry V he was more interested in what was the experience of living with a philosophy or belief than in how it might be justified and made to work. Julius Caesar is a play of “isms”: stoicism, epicurism, absolutism, and so on; Hamlet, as a Renaissance scholar-prince, seeks a place to stand between the “isms” of chivalry and those of the new politics. In Measure for Measure, a morality play warping towards tragedy, it was the “isms” of practical Christianity which came under scrutiny.Shakespeare’s working knowledge of the Bible has long been recognised, though he seems to have been more familiar with some books of the New Testament than with others. Matthew is more extensively quoted than the other three Evangelists together; Romans is more extensively quoted than even 1 and 2 Corinthians together. Romans was, of course, the great “Protestant” letter, and Shakespeare could be expected to know it more intimately than any other. Echoes of Romans, in terms of quotation, paraphrase, and shared terminology, are notably denser in Measure for Measure than in any other of Shakespeare’s plays. That this is not an accident, but rather evidence of a carefully planned investigation of Paul’s terminology and dialectic is what I am proposing in this paper. Whatever else he is doing, Shakespeare is testing out Romans.