This definitive book considers the way in which Christianity relates to the other world faiths. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

This new textbook provides a clear, informative and rigorous guide for students taking Religious Studies GCSE with all the major exam boards. It covers the philosophy and ethics content of the key GCSE specifications and examines these themes from the perspectives of Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Islam. Throughout the book, emphasis is placed on the scriptural basis of each religious view and on other sources of authority in each religious tradition. The development of core ethical and doctrinal (...) questions is explored, and key thinkers and theologians are introduced to give a sound understanding of complex issues. Chapter by chapter, the book covers such topics as religious texts and sources of authority; the existence and nature of God; revelation and religious experience; the problem of evil; science and religion; death and life after death; human nature and personal relationships; human rights, conflict and crime; and global issues. There is also a dedicated chapter on study skills and exam techniques, and each chapter includes student-friendly features such as revision summaries, questions and activities. While the book has been designed with the new GCSE specifications and reforms in mind, it encourages students to see the full significance of these issues by going beyond the narrow confines of their own specification. As such, Religious Studies for GCSE will be the ideal companion for investigating this rich and fascinating area of human life. (shrink)

For centuries, scholars have not doubted that Macrobio Ambrogio Teodosio was pagan. Recently, prof. Alan Cameron in his The Last Pagans of Rome clamied that the late antique writer was actually a Christian. This essay seeks to refute this assumption. --Translated from back cover.

This volume pays tribute to the remarkable scholarship of Hans Dieter Betz, which has combined amazing range with consistency of vision. Defying the traditional boundaries of the academy, Hans Dieter Betz, Shailer Mathews Professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School, has made significant contributions in the fields of New Testament, classics, church history, theology, and history of religions. This Festschrift brings together the work of major scholars of ancient religion and philosophy who are part of Betz's international (...) circle of conversation. The volume also contains a complete bibliography of Hans Dieter Betz's publications from 1959 to 2000. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into (...) existence. This volume covers three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Freud, Archaeology and Egypt: Religion, Materiality and the Cultural Critique of Origins SIMON GOLDHILL In memoriam John Forrester i. With a rhetoric that is as self-serving as it is historically false, scientific writers since the Second World War have insisted that Darwin’s evolutionary biology was the breakthrough that heralded the triumph of secularism and materialism, the very conditions of modernity: the Scientific Revolution. Darwin’s theorizing does have a specific (...) purchase on one crucial aspect of Judaeo-Christian thinking, for sure. Darwin’s theory of evolution challenged the perfection of man, made in God’s image, by proposing instead a theory of continuous and continuing change. The Bible insists on a moment of origin—bereshit, “In the beginning... ” [Genesis 1 1]—and the rabbinical and Christian commentators on this opening demand that creatio ex nihilo is an unchallengeable principle, in the face of the considerable challenge of repeated philosophical rejections of such an idea.1 The Gospel of Luke proclaims that it will narrate the genesis of Jesus and to this purpose opens with a genealogy from Abraham to Jesus, an unbroken line that grounds and authorizes the fulfilment of the messianic prophesy of Isaiah. In aggressive and precisely polemical contrast, Darwin exclaimed: “What an infinite number of generations, which the mind cannot grasp, must have succeeded each other in the long roll of years!.”2 Rather than listing a precise number of generations from Adam and Eve, as the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels would have us do, arion 28.3 winter 2021 76 freud, archaeology and egypt Darwin imagines a narrative for the human race without beginning and without end and without perfection. But when Darwin does this, it was already nothing new. Not only had books like Chambers’ Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation scandalously opened the door to a model of evolutionary change without divine providential causation, but also Charles Lyell’s seminal Principles of Geology back in the 1830s had already revealed this chasm of time.3 “In the economy of the world,” he wrote, “I can find no traces of a beginning, no prospect of an end”—and he had the facts in the ground to prove it.4 James Playfair, who helped popularize Lyell’s stunning discovery of the deep time of the earth, demonstrates an iconic reaction to Lyell’s science: “in the distance of this extraordinary perspective... [t]he mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time.”5 The abyss of past time makes the nineteenth-century scholar giddy, dizzy with an overload of imagination. It was geology, first of all, not biology that challenged the very ground on which Christian theories of time and human development stood. As Ruskin beautifully put it: “If only the Geologists would let me alone, I would do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses.”6 But, more perhaps even than geology, the most challenging threat to the established intellectual and social understanding of things came from critical history. Ernest Renan, renegade Catholic, and one of the most influential and notorious writers on Christianity in the 19th century, was typical when he wrote “My faith has been destroyed by historical criticism, not by scholasticism nor by philosophy.”7 Critical history showed that the earliest stories, on which so much depended, were myths not history. The stories of earliest Greek history, as Grote argued, or Roman history, as Niebuhr had earlier demonstrated, were veined with legends and fantasies, and did not provide access to “wie es eigentlich gewesen hat,” to “what actually happened,” the watchword of empirical Simon Goldhill 77 historiography.8 As Bishop Wilberforce thundered in already too late anticipation, “The alarming question is... whether the human mind, which with Niebuhr has tasted blood in the slaughter of Livy, can be prevailed upon to abstain from falling next upon the Bible.”9 So, terrifyingly to the orthodox, the doubt which undermined Livy, did indeed focus sharply on the bible and even of the lives of the saints from a much later period. A series of horrifying books—Strauss or Renan on... (shrink)

The Orthodox Church is one of the largest religious groups in the world. Yet, it remains an enigma in the West, especially among those who mistake it either for a Greek version of Roman Catholicism or for an exotic mixture of Christianity and eastern religion. Many, however, are coming to recognize the Orthodox Church for what it is: a worldwide community of Christian disciples that has been faithful to the apostolic command, “stand fast and hold the traditions which (...) you were taught, whether by word or by our epistle” (2 Thess 2:15). Consequently, growing numbers of people are finding their true home in the Church that has “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). Among these converts are dozens of contemporary philosophers. Some are accomplished, world-renowned, senior scholars. Others are junior scholars in the earliest stages of their careers. As a group, they belong neither to any particular philosophical ‘school’ nor to any particular Orthodox jurisdiction. What they have in common is a desire to enter deeply into an authentic and loving communion with the Living God, with God’s people, and ultimately with all of God’s creation. Turning East is a collection of autobiographical essays in which sixteen of these philosophers describe their personal journeys to the Orthodox Church, explain their reasons for becoming Orthodox Christians, and offer a sense of how their conversions have changed their lives. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Transcendence and Violence: The Encounter of Buddhist, Christian, and Primal TraditionsSarah K. PinnockTranscendence and Violence: The Encounter of Buddhist, Christian, and Primal Traditions. By John D'Arcy May. New York: Continuum, 2003. 225 + xi pp.In popular media, religion appears as a dangerous social phenomenon with explosive potential. The investigation of transcendence as a source of violence is particularly timely in light of America's war on terrorism targeting extremist (...) Islam. However, this negative dimension of religion is nothing new. Over the course of history, hostility [End Page 231] and killing are intimately connected with religious divisions. The irony of religious violence as a betrayal of religious ethical ideals is both obvious and inescapable.Approaching this hot topic from the perspective of religious imperialism, John D'Arcy May examines violence perpetrated by the Christian and Buddhist traditions against indigenous religions. His investigation covers damaging evidence against these two universalizing traditions using geographically specific case studies in Asia and the Pacific Rim. Situating Christianity and Buddhism in parallel as religions of transcendence, he compares how indigenous localized religions were overpowered by expansionist universalizing religions, although not eradicated. Into his historical narrative, he weaves his personal encounters with otherness growing up in Australia while virtually oblivious to the oppression of Aboriginals by white settlers, and as a Roman Catholic doing ecumenical work in Papua New Guinea for four years.May opens the book with bold admission of the failures of European Christianity, evidenced in anti-Judaism and Holocaust genocide, and Theravada Buddhism's violent involvement in Sri Lanka's civil conflict between Singhalese nationalists and Hindu Tamils. The reader is led to expect elaboration on the moral failings of Christianity, and this proves true; however, May's examination of the Buddhism's expansion and endorsement of violence tempers the tendency to single out Christianity as uniquely imperialist. He suggests that transcendence itself can cause hierarchy and oppression.Part I of the book focuses on Christianity and violence. Chapter 1 studies how European Protestant and Catholic settlers to Australia treated the Aboriginal peoples. The story is grim. Using a psychoanalytic framework, May interprets the European vilification of Aboriginals as stemming from the repression of the primal other, and the repression of bio-cosmic religion in favor of transcendence. Constructively, he proposes that Aboriginal peoples can offer theological insights about the ontology of sacred space. Christians should not only seek reconciliation in society, but also consider new perspectives on the sacred in nature drawn from the dreaming of Aboriginal religious lore.In chapter 2, May deals with colonization in the Melanesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, concentrating on Papua New Guinea. In the indigenous religions of Melanesia, the prosperous community is the measure of religious rectitude, while misfortune is explained by the breaking of taboos and the revenge of enemies or evil spirits. After European colonization, "cargo cults" arose among the islands that promised abundant material goods possessed by European settlers by means of religious rituals and magic. Surprisingly, May points out the positive impulses at the root of these cargo cults that are typically viewed as detrimental and even outlawed outright by local governments for their harmful social impact. At bottom, he argues, cargo cults reflect a positive religious aspiration for wholeness and healing in this life that is a counterpoint to the spiritualization of salvation by European Christianity.May tries to avoid idealizing these primal cultures and their religious insights; nevertheless, he finds them instructive for Christian theology. Native religions in both Australia and Papua New Guinea offer models of immanence that emphasize the religious value of nature and just relationships. It should be mentioned that [End Page 232] there is some nuance to this conclusion. For instance, Melanesian religion is portrayed as less exemplary than Australian aboriginal religion. But May's main point is that violence on a global scale is validated by Christian notions of transcendence that deny the material aspirations of the indigenous community, and promote a superiority that wreaks violence among indigenous peoples. Hopefully, intercultural theology will allow Christians to appreciate the Aboriginal respect for sacred geography and the Melanesian quest for the flourishing of one's local community.Christianity and Buddhism are treated... (shrink)

Although much has been written about the vigorous debates over science and religion in the Victorian era, little attention has been paid to their continuing importance in early twentieth-century Britain. Reconciling Science and Religion provides a comprehensive survey of the interplay between British science and religion from the late nineteenth century to World War II. Peter J. Bowler argues that unlike the United States, where a strong fundamentalist opposition to evolutionism developed in the 1920s (most famously expressed in the Scopes (...) "monkey trial" of 1925), in Britain there was a concerted effort to reconcile science and religion. Intellectually conservative scientists championed the reconciliation and were supported by liberal theologians in the Free Churches and the Church of England, especially the Anglican "Modernists." Popular writers such as Julian Huxley and George Bernard Shaw sought to create a non-Christian religion similar in some respects to the Modernist position. Younger scientists and secularists—including Rationalists such as H. G. Wells and the Marxists—tended to oppose these efforts, as did conservative Christians, who saw the liberal position as a betrayal of the true spirit of their religion. With the increased social tensions of the 1930s, as the churches moved toward a neo-orthodoxy unfriendly to natural theology and biologists adopted the "Modern Synthesis" of genetics and evolutionary theory, the proposed reconciliation fell apart. Because the tensions between science and religion—and efforts at reconciling the two—are still very much with us today, Bowler's book will be important for everyone interested in these issues. Contents: Illustrations Preface Introduction: A Legacy of Conflict? Confrontation, Cooperation, or Coexistence? Victorian Background Science and Religion in the New Century Part One: The Sciences and Religion 1. The Religion of Scientists Changing Patterns of Belief Scientists and Christianity Scientists and Theism Method and Meaning Science and Values 2. Scientists against Superstition Science and Rationalism Religion without Revelation Marxists and Other Radicals Science, Religion, and the History of Science 3. Physics and Cosmology Ether and Spirit The New Physics The Earth and the Universe 4. Evolution and the New Natural Theology Science and Creation Evolution and Progress The Role of Lamarckism Darwinism Revived 5. Matter, Life, and Mind The Origin of Life Vitalism and Organicism Mind and Body Psychology and Religion Part Two: The Churches and Science 6. The Churches in the New Century The Challenge of the New The Churches’ Response 7. The New Theology in the Free Churches Precursors of the New Theology Campbell and the New Theology Modernism in the Free Churches 8. Anglican Modernism Modernism and the New Natural Theology Charles F. D’Arcy E. W. Barnes W. R. Inge Charles Raven 9. The Reaction against Modernism Evangelicals against Evolution Liberal Catholicism The Menace of the New Psychology Science and Modern Life Theology in the Thirties Roman Catholicism Part Three: The Wider Debate 10. Science and Secularism Against Idealism Popular Rationalism The Social Reformers 11. Religion’s Defenders From Idealism to Spiritualism Creative and Emergent Evolution Evolution and the Human Spirit Progress through Struggle The Christian Response Epilogue Biographical Appendix Bibliography Index. (shrink)

The Christian religion shares with all major religions a vision of reality informed by a specific cluster of metaphors. The Christian religion also shares with its parent religion, Judaism, and with the other major Western religion, Islam, the peculiarity that it is a religion of the book. The latter statement demands further elaboration. To speak of Western religions as religions of the book does not mean that they are only religions of a text; indeed, specific (...) historical persons and events are central to all Western religions, and one need not insist upon a "theology of word" as distinct from either a "theology of events" or a "theology of sacrament" to admit scriptural normativity. In fact, not only Reformed Christianity insists that certain texts be taken as normative for interpreting Christianity's root metaphors. Whatever their hesitation over the sixteenth-century Reformer's formulation of Sola Scriptura and however strong their insistence upon uniting Sacrament to Word for a full understanding of the root metaphors of Christianity, Catholic and Orthodox Christians have joined their Protestant colleagues in insisting upon the priority of the Scriptures. Indeed, to interpret the root metaphors of the Christian religion, the Scriptures must function, in the words of the Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner as the norma normans non normata for all Christian theologies. David Tracy, author of Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology and The Analogical Imagination in Contemporary Theology, is professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. (shrink)

The ancient Thracian megalithic and stone-hewn sacred places are full of symbols closely connected with the Thracian mythology and ancient cult practices which were typical for this area. Among them the most numerous are the huge stone-hewn human footprints, which in Bulgarian folklore were regarded as the footprints of the hero Krali Marko, who was thought of as the guardian of the people in Bulgaria. In the contemporary science studying Thrace he is believed to have been the folklore successor of (...) the Thracian Dionysus.Marking the sacred place with a stone-hewn footstep altar of the hero was authentic evidence for the believers in ancient times that the god had been there in primordial mythological times. In this way, through the contact with the divine, the monumental rock turns into sacred and the place turns into a sanctuary. The raw becomes boiled, Nature becomes culture. With the establishment of Christianity as the sole religion in the Roman Empire since the 4th century, some of the Thracian megalithic sanctuaries have been abandoned. Others have been Christianized. Later, others in the Middle Ages were converted into Islamic sacred places. In this way they became permanently sacred places on the Balkans. Part of the signs-symbols in them have a new meaning in the spirit of the new religions.Key words: anthropology; history of culture; religion; mythology; archaeology. (shrink)

Greek philosophy had formed the minds of the educated classes of the Roman Empire for centuries before the early Christians set out to spread their message there. If they wished to gain a hearing, therefore, the language of Greek philosophy was the language they had to speak. This venture was to have a long history and an enduring effect both upon Christianity itself and on the world that it was seeking to convince and convert.

This brilliant and engaging critical encounter between Jean-Francois Lyotard and Eberhard Gruber has as its focus a single punctuation mark-the hyphen connecting "Jew" and "Christian" in the expression "Judeo-Christian." While focusing on the nature, meaning, and function of this hyphen, the authors are able to analyze many of the essential differences between Judaism and Christianity, as well as the most significant historical and political consequences of these differences from the Roman Empire to the Shoah. Beginning with a reading (...) of the Letters of Paul, they contrast the Jewish and Christian positions on a variety of issues ranging from emancipation, history, sacrifice, incarnation, faith, law, and sexual difference to the value that is accorded reading, writing, and interpretation within these two traditions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Introducing Christian Ethics by Samuel Wells and Ben Quash, and: Christian Ethics: An Introductory Reader ed. by Samuel WellsBradley B. BurroughsReview of Introducing Christian Ethics SAMUEL WELLS AND BEN QUASH Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 400 pp. $49.95Review of Christian Ethics: An Introductory Reader EDITED BY SAMUEL WELLS Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 360 pp. $51.95Whether in a semester-long course or a textbook, the task of introducing Christian ethics generally (...) requires one to choose between various competing priorities. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Introducing Christian Ethics is that it eschews such choices. Instead of settling for an “either/or,” Samuel Wells and Ben Quash repeatedly push for “both/and.” Their introduction not only traces the historical development of Christian ethics, examining major historical thinkers and elucidating the larger arcs that connect them, but also treats the work of contemporary Christian ethicists. Moreover, on the one hand, the authors develop a typology of ethical thought that distinguishes various strands according to the audience to which ethical reflection is directed—universal ethics (which addresses all people), subversive ethics (which addresses the oppressed), and ecclesial ethics (which addresses Christians). On the other hand, the authors also show how notable representatives of these strands approach matters of contemporary ethical concern. To this, Wells adds a sourcebook that allows for readers to interact further with many of the thinkers treated in the introductory text as well as helps to shed further light upon these three strands of Christian ethics. The scope of the project represented by these two books is thus exceptionally ambitious: it strives to provide a comprehensive overview of the field and organize it according to an innovative typology.Introducing Christian Ethics proceeds in three parts. In part 1, Wells and Quash tell “the story of Christian ethics,” exploring the biblical, historical, and philosophical sources from which Christian ethics has most commonly drawn and offering brief depictions of a vast array of Christian thinkers, including Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Reinhold Niebuhr, and many others. Part 2, titled “The Questions Christian Ethics Asks,” lays out the threefold taxonomy of universal, subversive, and ecclesial ethics, illustrating each with reference to thinkers both historical and contemporary. Finally, part 3 turns to “the questions asked of Christian [End Page 233] ethics,” treating issues of “good order” (including the role of the state and the nature of justice), “good life” (economics, poverty, and work), “good relationships” (friendship, marriage, homosexuality), “good beginnings and endings” (contraception, abortion, euthanasia), and “good earth” (animals, crops ecology). For each of the issues treated in part 3, the authors offer an overview and an account of how thinkers from each of the strands of Christian ethics have addressed that topic.Wells and Quash bring an admirably broad view of the field to bear upon this project. Famous thinkers factor prominently. And yet the book also treats the work of those less likely to appear in introductory texts, such as Germain Grisez, John Mbiti, and Stephen Clark. Whether they are of the renowned or lesser-known, the sketches of thinkers that occur throughout the book are on the whole quite accurate. Although there are places where experts might wish to call out slight mischaracterizations, the renderings are precise enough to serve introductory readers. Wells and Quash’s broadness of vision also includes both Protestant and Roman Catholic thought. Whereas Introducing Christian Ethics focuses primarily upon papal encyclicals as exemplifying the latter, Wells’s introductory reader adds selections from Gustavo Gutiérrez, Margaret Farley, Dorothy Day, and others to help exemplify the complexity of Roman Catholic ethical reflection. Eastern Orthodoxy gets shorter shrift, an observation offered as a note to potential readers rather than a criticism.Even as its comprehensiveness equips Introducing Christian Ethics for use in a variety of ways and contexts, the quest for comprehensiveness appears to be at the heart of some of the book’s infelicities. Attempting to treat so many thinkers and concepts, it frequently moves at a brisk pace, touching upon complex phenomena and abruptly moving on. In many places, the questions the book answers for the entry-level readers at which it aims... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Divine Grace and the Play of OppositesTrent PomplunIn Prisoners of Shangri-la: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, Donald Lopez treats his readers to a provocative but entertaining history of Western fantasies about Tibet. Lopez discovers at the root of these fantasies a "play of opposites" between "the pristine and the polluted, the authentic and the derivative, the holy and the demonic, the good and the bad."1 Not surprisingly, Catholic missionaries (...) to Tibet play an important role in Lopez's history, and he depicts them as prisoners to the play of opposites par excellence. Truth be told, it is difficult to deny his charges; in a passage quoted by Lopez, the seventeenth-century Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher describes Tibetans' veneration of the Dalai Lama in these words:Strangers at their approach fall prostrate with their heads to the ground, and kiss him with incredible Veneration, which is no other than that which is performed upon the Pope of Rome; so that hence the fraud and deceit of the Devil may easily and plainly appear, who by his innate malignity and hatred, in way of abuse hath transferred, as he hath done all the other Mysteries of the Christian Religion, the Veneration which is due unto the Pope of Rome, the only Vicar of Christ on Earth, unto the superstitious Worship of barbarous people.Whence as the Christians call the Roman High-Priest Father of Fathers, so these Barbarians term their false Deity the Great Lama, that is, the Great High-Priest, the Lama of Lamas, that is, the High-Priest of High-Priests, because that from him, as from a certain Fountain, floweth the whole form and mode of their religion, or rather mad and brain-sick idolatry, whence also they call him the Eternal Father.2Lopez explains this passage in light of what he calls the "doctrine" of demonic plagiarism, a relatively common belief among Christian theologians that resemblances between Christianity and other religions could be explained as parodies of the true faith authored by the Devil. Athanasius Kircher undoubtedly believed in such parodies; in point of fact, he had much stronger views about them than many of his contemporaries. But Lopez continues,Why must this appearance be demonic? The answer derives in part from the Christian Church's claim to historical and ontological particularity. It is the [End Page 159] task of the missionary to transmit the word of particularity to those realms where it has not spread, to diffuse it from its unique point of origin. To carry its accoutrements from Rome in a time and to a place they could not possibly have been taken before, and to find them already there, suggests the workings of a power beyond history, which could only be seen as demonic.3I would like to take issue with this unfortunately misleading presentation of Christian theology. No orthodox Catholic theologian believed that such appearances were necessarily demonic, nor did any think that demonic influences ruled out other, more positive, ones. A cursory reading of the writings of Ippolito Desideri, the Jesuit adventurer and missionary who lived in Tibet from 1716 to 1721, should demonstrate that Roman Catholic theologians developed several complex theories about the resemblances between Christians and non-Christians in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. If we situate the Jesuit missionary squarely in the theological currents of the seventeenth century, especially in debates about the salvation of non-Christians, I think we can come to see that the views of Roman Catholic missionaries about Tibetans, and non-Christians in general, were considerably more complex than Lopez imagines.Ippolito Desideri on the Salvation of Tibetan BuddhistsIppolito Desideri arrived in Lhasa on March 18, 1716. As a result of his acquaintance with Khang chen nas and Don grub tshe ring, Desideri quickly gained access to the court of the Qōśot Mongol chieftain Lha bzang Khan.4 Much to the missionary's delight, the Khan granted his request to preach the Gospel in Tibet with great enthusiasm and—if we are to believe Desideri's account—no small amount of paternal sentimentality. In order to facilitate his preaching, Desideri composed a small book explaining the errors... (shrink)

Why. I. Am. Not. a. Christian. This lecture was delivered on March 6,1927, at Battersea Town Hall under the auspices of the South London Branch of the National Secular Society. AS YOUR Chairman has told you, the subject about which I am ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction VIOLENCE AND INSTITUTION IN CHRISTIANITY Robert J. Daly, SJ. Boston College We need both to define our terms and to indicate whether we are using them in a normative or descriptive sense. Thus the question: "Is Christianity"—or, if you will—"Are the institutions of Christianity violent or nonviolent?" can be answered with either a Yes, or a No, or with anything in between, depending on the (...) meaning we attach to theterms "violence," "institution," and "Christianity" (Daly 1997, 321-43). When we speak normatively, or take Christianity and its institutions accordingto its best ideals, Christianity isessentially nonviolent. But when we speak descriptively, i.e., take Christianity according to what the institutions ofChristianity have actually done, and according to how those who call themselves Christian have actually acted, we can make the argument that Christianity is violent, ffanalogous distinctions can be made from within the other four traditions, this might offer a good starting point for discussion. Adapting to my purpose standard dictionary definitions, I understand violence to include in a broad way the justified or unjustified human exertion of internal or external power or force in order to achieve an injurious or abusive end, i.e., an end that is against the will, the good, or the interests of those who suffer it. (This includes all war and avoids, at least at the outset, arguments about whether a war is or can be a "just war.") I understand institution in its ordinary meaning of: any significant or established practice, relationship, structure, system, or organization in a society or culture. I understand Christianity also in its ordinary sense: the Roberti. Daly, SJ.5 religion which, derived from Jesus Christ, and based on the Bible, is professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies. Now, to help set the background for our discussion, I will try to list and briefly describe, relative to this theme, some of the major aspects or "moments" of Christianity (or Christian History), and do this in an approximately diachronic or chronological order. Much of this will be descriptive, but I will not go out of my way to dissociate the descriptions from the effects of all normative claims. I.Violence and Institution in the History of Christianity [1] The biblical foundation of Christianity in the Hebrew Scriptures. [2]The pervasiveness of violence in the Bible. [3]The Christian Scriptures present themselves as a gospel of peace. [4]Jesus and nonviolence. [5]Early Christians and nonviolence. [6]The early Christians and the military. [7]The "Constantinian turn." [8]Caesaro-papism. [9]The relegation ofChristian pacifism to religious and monastic life. [10]The just war theory. [11]The medieval Christian taken-for-grantedness of violence. [12]The Crusades. [13]Medieval Christian peace movements [14]Christians and heretics. The Inquisition. See [11] above. [1 5]Christianity and the witches. See [U] above. [16]The Reformation. [17]The Radical Reformation and the Peace Churches. [18]St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (August 1572). [19]The religious wars. [20]Absolutism. [21]Modernity. [22]The Quakers—Religious Society of Friends. [23]The Enlightenment and Modernity. [24]Christianity and world mission; Christianity and colonialism. [25]Slavery. [26]Christianity and the "war" against native cultures. [27]Christianity and the First World War. [28]The Second World War. [29]The Holocaust. 6 Violence and Institution in Christianity [30]Christianity and the modern peace movement. [31]Christians and the "seamless ethic of life." [32]Christianity and International Communism. [33]Liberation theology. [34]The liberation of women. [35]Christianity and the resurgence of tribal and nationalist violence. [36]Christianity and human rights. [1] The biblical foundation of Christianity in the Hebrew Scriptures. Christians and Jews have the same family origins. Since believing Christians no less than believing Jews accept and revere the Hebrew Scriptures as the inspired word of God, Christians and Jews are indeed, to paraphrase Pope John XXIII, siblings. There is, beyond this, fromJudaism to Christianity, a significant parent-child relationship. In recent years (but not early enough to have prevented the Holocaust), the main line churches ofChristianity have rejected the supersessionism (the doctrine that the Old Testament has been abrogated by the New Testament) that used to characterize Christian attitudes towards the Jews and that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:TAKING OTHER RELIGIONS SERIOUSLY: SOME IRONIES IN THE CURRENT DEBATE ON A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY OF RELIGJ:ONS * 1GAvIN D'CosTA West London Institute of Higher E'ducation Isleworth, Middlese111 HE QUESTION oi Christian attitudes to the world eligions is becoming increasingly important. An lnterpretatwn of Religion is emblematic of a growing trend, which runs across 1denominational lines, that attempts fo take other,religions seriously. John Hick.argues that for (...) most of its ihistory Christianity has hrud a rpolitioaUy and theologicrully imperialist attitude towards the ireligions of the world. Superiority :and uninformed arrogance have generally prev:ailed with the accompanying attitude that the religions of the world 1aire 1 generally sinful and incapable of being 1 salvific. The 1 time has come foT a change of a;ttitude: the wol"ld reHgions must be taken seriously :and this means ·affil"ming them as alternative paths to salvation, possibly neither worse nor better than·Christianity. This Hick cru1ls a "pluralistic" outlook. The agenda is irrudical and Hick's Vioice is not solitary. Hick'1 s hook!is a ma;gisteri:al 4rn paiges and is ibrused on his Giffol'ld Lectmes of 1986-87. It contains cons!i.derruble indological, philosophicail and theological material, hut in what follows I shall,be dea1ing with one aspect oll!ly, his argument for p1uiialism. Hick is acknowledged :as a leading irepresentative of this pluralistic approach. Initially he began as a conservative,and exclusivist Christian,and has over the years enoompassed a wide!l.'ange of thoofogica1 positions now,culminating *John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 519 520 GAVIN D'COSTA in this p11esent rbook.1 In :this review discussion I propose that many o[ the most mdical strategies in the theology of re1ligions in 'Spite 0£ their wish to take other rreligions seriously have an il'!Onic tendency to do just the opposite! In attempting to be genuinely accommodating to the 11eligions 0£ the world, Hick, I will argue, unwittingly ends up in danger of accommodating none, including Christianity. This tendency, which iI believe to 1be clearly illustrated in Hick's rrecent rbook, is shared in various degrees hy numerous theologians pursuing a, pluralist p111oject similar to that of Hick's.2 It would he foolish to assume they are " all the 'Saime," hut they certainly share common theological and philosophical tendencies which I wish to isolate and comment on. I should 1state dearly that iby such a critique I do not intend to discount the possibility that 1 a:ll religions ma,y lead fo God, but that the stmtegies often employed to a111g111e.for this are deepJy problematic. ~o put Hiok"s new rbook into :perspective it will he helpful to wace its genesis 1briefly. In 1973, using an astronomical analogy, Hick suggested a Copernican revolution in the Christian theoology of rreligions whereby Christians should "shift from the 1 He began, in his own words, as a "strongly evangelical and indeed fundamentalist " Christian: see God Has Many Names (London: Macmillan, 1980), p. 2. See also my analysis of his entire pilgrimage in John Hick's Theology of Religions (London/New York: University Press of America, 1987). 2 For some of those on Hick's trajectory, see A. Race, Olllristians and Religious Pluralism (London: SCM, 1983); Paul Knitter, No Other Name'! (New York: Orbis, 1985); Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1978); R. Ruether, Pluralism and Ohristology; the latter three and other influential co-contributors (including Hick) are to be found in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Towards a Pluralistio Theology of Religions, ed. J. Hick and P. Knitter (New York: Orbis, 1987). More recently, we can see the extremely thin line between pluralists and essentialist "inclusivists" in E. Hillman, Many Paths·: A Oatholic Approach to Religious Pluralism (New York: Orbis, 1989), who marries K. Rahner and W. C. Smith, divorces faith from history and tradition, and thereby provides an essentialist analysis. See the pertinent comments of K. Surin on Smith's essentialist project in "An Examination of the Discourse of John Hick and Wilfred Cantwell Smith", in Religious Pluralism and Unbelief, ed. I. Hamnett (London, Routledge... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Love of Country and Love of God: The Political Uses of Religion in MachiavelliBenedetto Fontana*This paper will discuss the place of religion in Machiavelli’s thought. 1 The traditional and generally accepted interpretation presents Machiavelli’s religion as a belief system whose value is determined by its functional utility to the state. In this he is said to resemble Cicero, 2 Montesquieu, 3 and Tocqueville, 4 among others. This view is (...) based on the proposition—one that is now fundamental to a modern understanding of Machiavelli—that his political theory develops a politics without moral, theological, and religious foundations (what Benedetto Croce 5 calls the “autonomy of politics” and Sheldon Wolin 6 the “autonomy of political theory”). Students of Machiavelli who ascribe to him an instrumentalist theory of religion rest their interpretation on this conception of politics: a distinction is established between religion viewed as religio, and religion conceived as fides, where the former is used to develop and cement social bonds and the latter is a faith based on a transcendent “truth.”A reading of the texts shows that Machiavelli discusses various kinds of religion. He refers, for example, to multiple forms of Christianity, such as “primitive” [End Page 639] or original Christianity, 7 official, medieval Christianity, the ecclesiastical principality of the papacy, as well as to ancient Judaism, 8 paganism, and to Islam. 9 However, it is possible to discern in Machiavelli two principal or distinctive types. One is based on the opposition Machiavelli sees between the religion of the Romans (which instills virtù) and the religion of the post-classical and post-Roman Christian world (which teaches humility and passivity). The other is prophetic religion, in which Machiavelli contrasts the prophet armed to the prophet unarmed. Thus, we have prophetic religion and non-prophetic religion; the former is either armed or unarmed, and the latter is either immanent (natural) or transcendent. 10Machiavelli’s stress on the importance of virtù (whether of the prince or of the people) suggests that religion is not simply religio—that is, a political technique to rule and to control the masses. Rather, it presupposes a concern for a moral fides which, though certainly not transcendent, is nevertheless necessary to the construction of a political order based on virtù. His concern with civil and military virtue links the armed prophetic religion with that of the ancient Romans, such that ancient Judaism, Islam, and a reformed Christianity (a kind of Lutheranism ante litteram) all stand opposed to primitive and post-classical Christianity.Machiavelli anticipates in theory the national, anti-papal, and anti-imperial movements that were later realized in history by the Lutheran and Calvinist Reformations. He attempts to infuse the corrupt and decadent Christian conception of the world with a new, innovating spirit, one opposed to the prevailing medieval and scholastic conception of the world. In the past Christian philosophers and thinkers revised the classical notions of virtus and arete, transforming them into Christian concepts of value. Machiavelli attempts a similar “transvaluation of values” (Nietzsche), but for different ends and in a different direction: he reinterprets the Christian religion in order to assimilate it into his conception of virtù and his vision of a vivere civile.In the first part of this paper the relation Machiavelli establishes between “speaking with God” and the founding and/or reforming of states is explored. Parallels between Christian and pre-Christian (pagan and biblical) rulers reveal a basic ambiguity in Machiavelli’s belief that religion—that is, the claim of having spoken with God—is necessary to effective rule. In the second part [End Page 640] Machiavelli’s teaching (“new ways and methods”) is compared to Christ’s message of the “good news.” The contrast between the two is presented in terms of an opposition between different “ways of living,” each with its specific moral claims and political consequences. The opposition is not, the section argues, between logos and kratos, ethos and kratos, but rather between diverse ways of understanding logos and ethos. The final section argues that Machiavelli uses biblical, pagan, and Christian forms of religious symbols and metaphors in order to reevaluate the concepts of patria and amore. In so doing... (shrink)

The authors of this volume elucidate the remarkable role played by religion in the shaping and reshaping of narrative forms in antiquity and late antiquity in a variety of ways. This is particularly evident in ancient Jewish and Christian narrative, which is in the focus of most of the contributions, but also in some “pagan” novels such as that of Heliodorus, which is dealt with as well in the third part of the volume, both in an illuminating comparison with Christian (...) novels and in an inspiring rethinking of Heliodorus's relation to Neoplatonism. All of these essays, from different perspectives, illuminate the interplay between narrative and religion, and show how religious concerns and agendas shaped narrative forms in Judaism and early Christianity. A series of compelling and innovative articles, all based on fresh and often groundbreaking research by eminent specialists, is divided into three large sections: part one deals with ancient Jewish narrative, and part two with ancient Christian narrative, in particular gospels, acts, biographies, and martyrdoms, while part three offers a comparison with “pagan” narrative, and especially the religious novel of Heliodorus, both in terms of social perspectives and in terms of philosophical and religious agendas. Like the essays collected by Marília Futre Pinheiro, Judith Perkins, and Richard Pervo in 2013, which investigate the core role played by narratives in Christian and Jewish self-fashioning in the Roman Empire, the present volume fruitfully bridges the disciplinary gap between classical studies and ancient Jewish and Christian studies, offers new insights, and hopefully opens up new paths of inquiry. Contributions by (in alphabetical order): Cathryn Chew, Mark J. Edwards, Erich Gruen, Vincent Hunink, David Konstan, Karen King, Dennis MacDonald, Laura S. Nasrallah, Judith Perkins, Richard Pervo, Ilaria Ramelli, Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta, Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, and Lawrence Wills. (shrink)

Given the largely Eurocentric nature of moral theology in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, what will it take to invest the theological community in the history and moral challenges of the Church in other parts of the world, especially Africa? What is to be gained for the whole Church when this happens in a deep and lasting way? In this timely and important study, Paulinus Ikechukwu Odozor brings greater theological clarity to the issue of the relationship (...) between Christianity and African tradition in the area of ethical foundations. He also provides a constructive example of what fundamental moral theology done from an African and Christian moral theological point of view could look like._ Following a brief history of the development of African Christian theology, Odozor examines responses of African theologians to African tradition and Christian responses to the reality of non-Christian religions. In a context where the African religious experience and heritage are powerful sources of meaning and identity, Christian evangelization raises questions both about the African primal religions and about Christianity itself and its claims. Odozor takes up the subject of moral reasoning in an African Christian theological ethics and concludes with case studies that show how the African Church has tried to inculturate moral discourse on a religiously pluralistic continent and relate the healing gospel message to African situations. Students and scholars of moral theology and ethics and church leaders will profit from the issues raised in _Morality Truly Christian, Truly African_. "This is an ambitious book. The scholarship is sound and the author engages a range of authors and their views. Odozor takes seriously the critical and moral demands of Christian theology as well as those of African indigenous religions and their cultures. There is perhaps nothing so thoroughgoing on this topic since Bénézet Bujo’s _Foundations of an African Ethic: Beyond the Universal Claims of Western Morality_." — M. Shawn Copeland, Boston College_. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Republicanism, Religion, and Machiavelli’s Savonarolan MomentMarcia L. ColishMachiavelli’s readers often take at face value his claim that Christianity has weakened Italy’s civic spirit and martial valor, leaving it open to priestcraft and foreign invasion. Some scholars see this critique of Christianity as an expression of the irreligious, immoral, neopagan, or scientific Machiavelli, making it the chief index of his modernity. 1 One subset within this group treats (...) Machiavelli’s [End Page 597] anthropology as a secularized version of Augustine on original sin, absent an Eden behind it and a redemption before it. 2 Another view of Machiavelli on religion sees him as treating religion, whatever its teachings, functionally, as an instrument promoting desirable political behavior. 3 This is why they regard [End Page 598] Machiavelli as original and modern; although Maury D. Feld notes rightly that Machiavelli is here simply imitating the ancient Roman historians, who all treat religion in just this way. 4 For some proponents of the functionalist interpretation, it does not preclude Christian belief on Machiavelli’s part. For them his brief is not against Christianity itself but against clericalism, the papacy, and Christianity as it is currently interpreted. 5 Still others recognize Machiavelli’s acceptance of signs and portents, saintly behavior and miracles, and other indices of God’s existence and action in human history. They also note Machiavelli’s praise of biblical leaders seen as divinely inspired and his inclusion of them among the founders of religions and states who head his list of heroes. 6 Going farther, some scholars argue that Machiavelli was a conventional, if not an ardent or impeccable, Christian, who joined a religious confraternity before which he preached his Exhortation to Penitence, and the apparent recipient of the last rites of his church after a deathbed confession. 7 [End Page 599]Can these conflicting assessments of Machiavelli and religion be integrated? To some extent, yes. Once, that is, we consider a number of issues not always brought to bear on this question. Machiavelli recognizes that the foreigners who have overrun Italy and deprived Florence of the republic he had served are as Christian as the Italians. At home and abroad, their Christianity has not undermined their military strength or the civic virtue Machiavelli associates with republics. Within contemporary Florence there were three kinds of republicanism on offer, for those unhappy with the Medici restoration of 1512. One group sought to restore the pre-Medici governo stretto constitution dominated by the ottimati. Their opponents defended governo largo republicanism. Machiavelli advocated this type of polity, informed by his reading of ancient history and his assessment of human nature. But another, competing version of governo largo was put forth by Girolamo Savonarola during the Dominican friar’s stormy career as de facto head of the Florentine state from 1494 to 1498. Savonarola’s republican theory combined a number of ideas that Machiavelli loathed: the appeal to the Venetian Great Council as a model, the wish to purge Florence of her sins so that she could serve as the New Jerusalem in the coming apocalypse, and the notion that governo largo was a means to these religious ends, since the more broad-based the government, the more readily could it legislate and enforce moral reform. And, far from self-destructing after the friar’s ashes had been strewn on the Arno, Savonarolan republicanism continued to draw support from a diverse and substantial group of Florentines. Equally alarming, the agents [End Page 600] of this protracted Savonarolan moment seemed to have preempted Machiavelli’s own anticlerical, antipapal, antioligarchic, and antiMedicean positions, as well as a theory of governo largo. If we foreground Machiavelli’s desire to defend his own version of republicanism by undermining the Savonarolan alternative and if we recall that he treats Christianity positively in other contexts, it becomes possible to read those passages where he criticizes Christianity as practiced in Italy as texts with an antiSavonarolan subtext. Read this way, they are not incompatible with his acceptance of Christianity as true or as politically constructive elsewhere. In approaching this topic, we should also remember the longstanding associations that bound Christianity to politics and warfare.Addressing this last point... (shrink)

Lectures on evolution -- On the physical basis of life -- Naturalism and supernaturalism -- The value of witness to the miraculous -- Agnosticism -- The Christian tradition in relation to Judaic Christianity -- Agnosticism and Christianity.

The claim of the early church is one that the creative and saving power of God, embodied in the Lord Jesus, calls into being a community which is always trying to live out the implications of the divine refusal to accept cultural, ethnic, political, or other boundaries.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 151-155 [Access article in PDF] Buddhism and Christianity: A Multicultural History of their Dialogue. By Whalen Lai and Michael von Bruck. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2001. xiv + 265 pp. This book is an abridged translation of Buddhismus und Christentum: Geschichte, Konfrontation, Dialog, first published in 1997 by Verlag C. H. Beck in Munich. I do not know how much has been lost in the (...) abridgement, but this English version remains a treasure trove that deserves to be read and digested by everyone engaged in Buddhist-Christian dialogue.From the English title, I expected a somewhat dry work of intellectual history, summarizing dated doctrinal debates. This book provides much more than that. Most valuable is its emphasis on the historical and cultural context of Buddhist-Christian encounters, especially the poisonous legacy of Western colonialism (which still survives today as economic neocolonialism). These quite varied contexts have usually been decisive for the success or failure of the encounter, and as this nuanced but frank study shows, the failures have been at least as notable as the successes. Here, too, we must remember the past if we want to do more than keep repeating it. As well as identifying specific problems, there is a perceptive analysis of the obstacles to openness and dialogue in each case.The penultimate chapter includes a discussion of our Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, its conferences, and this journal. As a relative newcomer to the conversations, I found this particular example of contextualizing fascinating. In just the few conferences I have been able to attend, there have been so many facets to the dialogue that it has been difficult to gain a sense of the whole, to understand how the main threads have developed and interwoven. How well do we remember what has already been discussed, and often agreed upon? It is important that we do not just keep repeating ourselves, and I know of no other book that conveys the historical dimension of the dialogue so well. The silent, contemplative aspects of the encounter are also addressed: cross-cultural meditation groups, Christian Zen teachers, and visits to each other's monastic centers.A useful foreword by Hans Kung reviews his own contributions, including his [End Page 151] paradigm analysis of six different "general constellations" found in the Christian tradition (the original Jewish-apocalyptic paradigm, the ancient ecumenical-Hellenistic paradigm, the medieval Roman Catholic paradigm, the Reformation Protestant-evangelical paradigm, the modernist progress-oriented paradigm, and now the postmodern ecumenical paradigm) and six other constellations in the Buddhist tradition (Gautama's original paradigm, the Theravada- sravakayana paradigm, the Mahayana paradigm, the tantric Vajrayana paradigm, a defensive modernist paradigm, and most recently an emerging postmodernist paradigm), with the implication that we need to be careful to clarify which of the paradigms we are comparing.Inevitably, the focus is limited: India and Sri Lanka are discussed at length, but not southeast Asia; China and Japan, but not Korea; Germany, but not the rest of Europe. The Indian chapter is mostly about Tibetans in exile. I was intrigued by the generation gap between older, conservative Tibetan monks and more freethinking younger ones. Otherwise, the Indian dialogue seems not to have been as intensive as many other places in Asia, which makes sense since there are relatively few Buddhists in India today. Given the mass conversions of Dalits, the social context has usually been the emancipation of disadvantaged social groups, and is further complicated now by the increasing influence of neo-Hindu political movements, which makes all interreligious exchange more sensitive.The Sri Lankan dialogue, perhaps more than any other, has been preoccupied with the heritage of colonialism. Sinhalese take pride in being citizens of the only country to have shaken off colonial rule with a successful Buddhist revolution, which reversed the power relationship between the two religions. Evidently most Sinhala Buddhists, including much of the sangha, accept the need to defend Buddhism and Buddhist culture militarily, if necessary. The ruling political class that succeeded the British, a largely Buddhist- and Marxist-inspired elite, opted for constructing a national identity... (shrink)

Introduction -- The language of supersessionism -- Aquinas and the question of supersessionism -- Israel and the church in Aquinas's Pauline commentaries -- The ceremonial law as a shadow of the night (Hebrews) -- The ceremonial law as present spiritual benefit for Jews (Romans) -- The ceremonial law as fulfilled, dead, and deadly (Galatians) -- The replacement of Israel as societas sanctorum (Ephesians) -- Rival versions of Christ's fulfillment of the law: the tension in Aquinas's thought between Galatians 5:2 and (...) Romans 3:1-2 -- Aquinas as resource for Jewish-Christian relations. (shrink)

The Matthean pericope of the Magi and the star of Bethlehem prompted a variety of responses among early Christian commentators of the second to the fifth centuries. These responses reflect a range of attitudes among the early Christians towards astrology, which was a fundamental and pervasive aspect of ancient Greco-Roman religion and culture. Some early Christian writers repudiated astrology absolutely, while others sought to grant it some degree of accommodation to Christian beliefs and practices. Interpretations of the Matthean pericope (...) offer an index to the range of such views. This paper examines the motifs of the Magi and of the star in Matthew 2.1-12 as well as a number of early Christian interpretations of the pericope as evidence of a pattern of ambivalence in early Christian attitudes toward Greco-Roman astrology. Résumé La péricope matthéenne sur les Mages et l’étoile de Bethléem a suscité des réactions variées chez les commentateurs chrétiens du iie au ve siècle. Ces réactions reflètent, chez les premiers chrétiens, une diversité d’attitudes envers l’astrologie, qui était un aspect fondamental et omniprésent de la religion et de la culture gréco-romaines. Certains auteurs chrétiens de l’époque répudiaient absolument l’astrologie alors que d’autres cherchaient à l’accommoder jusqu’à un certain point aux croyances et aux pratiques chrétiennes. Les interprétations de la péricope matthéenne permettent de prendre la mesure de ces opinions divergentes. Cet article examine les thèmes des Mages et de l’étoile en Matthieu 2,1-12, ainsi qu’un certain nombre d’exégèses anciennes de la péricope. Celles-ci fournissent autant d’indices de l’ambivalence de l’attitude chrétienne face à l’astrologie. (shrink)

Arguing that religion is both false and harmful, Russell asserts the prerogative of the scientific intelligence over dogma, faith and custom. The editor has written and appended an account of how Russell was excluded from teaching at the City College of New York.--C. L.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Peter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization by Charles E. CamosyWerner WolbertPeter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization CHARLES E. CAMOSY Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 278 pp. $29.99Peter Singer’s “Copernican revolution” against a sanctity of life ethic may be regarded, from a Roman Catholic viewpoint, as an expression of the “culture of death” denounced by John Paul II. One must keep in mind, however, that “we (...) know that historically there have been times where those participating in discussions about ethics disagree deeply about theory, but nevertheless come to important and even broad agreement about applied or practical ethics” (179). The aim of Camosy’s book is to sketch the various areas of agreement and disagreement between Peter Singer and Catholic moral theology as well as the possibilities of working together.There are issues even about the subject of abortion on which Singer and the Church agree: that moral relativism is wrong; that it is seriously wrong to kill a person; that the right to privacy (see Roe vs. Wade) does not apply to acts harming others; and that the right to abortion is not a constitutional matter (chapter 1). Both positions see a connection between abortion and infanticide, but both draw different conclusions. The disagreements between them are about who is to count as a person, which Camosy comments on in the rest of chapter 1 (27–37). In the area of euthanasia, the Church and Singer share some skepticism about brain death (chapter 2). Camosy discusses the church’s position on one’s moral status at the end of life and the Roman Catholic understandings of ordinary and extraordinary means, acts, and omissions. Commenting on public policy in that field, Camosy gives some useful and convincing illustrations of the slippery slope effect in different countries that have legalized active euthanasia or assisted suicide (68–81).With regard to problems of killing, however, Helga Kuhse’s The Sanctity of Life Doctrine in Medicine (Oxford University Press, 1987) should perhaps have been considered. On the subject of acting and refraining, I would recommend Dieter Birnbacher’s Tun und unterlassen (Reclam 1995).Commenting on Singer’s championing of the moral status of nonhuman animals, Camosy points to elements in the Christian tradition that may support Singer’s issue of animal liberation (chapter 3). I wonder why the discussion concentrates on domestic animals and the problems of eating meat or [End Page 225] vegetarianism but omits problems of environmental ethics (e.g., ecological balance). Would the aim of avoiding animal harm include saving animals from predators? And if some animals are to be regarded as persons, we may get in trouble with our basic conviction of the equality (of the dignity) of human beings—as the debate on the margins of human life shows.Duties to the poor are not in dispute except for “partial preferences” (166) for members of our family, kinship, or country (chapter 4). Speaking of “partiality” in this context is, however, a bit misleading. Since no one can care for all people, preferences of an ordo caritatis (order of love) are a necessary part of a system of coordination from which—ideally—all humans can benefit. (Recall Augustine in De doctrina Christiana, 1.28–29: “The interests of society, however, and its common bonds will be best conserved if kindness be shown to each individual in proportion to the closeness of his relationship.”) Chapter 5, which compares Singer’s ethical theory with Catholic moral theology, would need more discussion (e.g., on double effect, object, and act), which I cannot cover within the limits of this review. Overall, Camosy’s book makes a valuable contribution to the dialogue between Christian and secular ethics.Werner WolbertUniversity of SalzburgCopyright © 2014 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Many contemporary writers misunderstand early Christian views on philosophy because they identify the critical stances of the ante-Nicene fathers toward specific pagan philosophical schools with a general negative stance toward reason itself. Dariusz Karlowicz's Socrates and Other Saints demonstrates why this identification is false. The question of the extent of humanity's natural knowledge cannot be reduced to the question of faith's relationship to the historical manifestations of philosophy among the Ancients. Karlowicz closely reads the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, (...) Clement of Alexandria, and others to demonstrate this point. He also builds upon Pierre Hadot's thesis that ancient philosophy is not primarily theory but a "way of life" taught by sages, which aimed at happiness through participation in the divine. The fact that pagan philosophers falsely described humanity's telos did not mean that the spiritual practices they developed could not be helpful in the Christian pilgrimage. As it turns out, the ancient Christian writers traditionally considered to be enemies of philosophy actually borrowed from her much more than we think-and perhaps more than they admitted. -- back cover. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Culture by Richard B. MillerBill BarbieriFriends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Culture Richard B. Miller new york: columbia university press, 2016. 416 pp. $60.00In his studies on casuistry, war and peace, pediatric ethics, and other occasional topics Richard B. Miller has for some time been a leading source of creative impulses in the (...) field of religious ethics, so it is a welcome event to have this volume organizing past essays of his into a thematically cohesive presentation. His book sets out a vision of the character and concerns of religious ethics that helps counter critics, such as Stanley Hauerwas, who have expressed skepticism about the field.The governing conception of Friends and Other Strangers is that the study of religious ethics is properly shaped by attending to how "our lives ineluctably oscillate between experiences of intimacy and otherness" (5). Accordingly, Miller seeks to guide the field beyond either a one-sided focus on matters of friendship and special relations or a preoccupation with alterity and heterology. To grasp how the dialectic of intimacy and alterity shapes the normative character of personal and public life, he recommends religious ethicists should employ "the category of culture as an organizing rubric" (6).In the book's initial section Miller elaborates on his view of the enterprise of religious ethics and its place in the broader intellectual landscape. In a discussion drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, and James Gustafson, Miller first offers his account of the characteristic concerns and history of the field. He then presents the case for a "cultural turn" in religious ethics, arguing not only that practitioners would benefit from incorporating anthropology and cultural studies into their work but that they should extend their ambit to normative questions throughout the academy. Responding to the problems of ethnocentrism and the moral authority of outsiders in criticizing cultural practices, Miller rounds out the section by proposing constructive norms for nonchauvinistic social criticism in multicultural contexts.Among the remaining essays are several that showcase Miller's appreciation of Augustine as a principal source of ethical insight. In a chapter scrutinizing the case for replacing disembodied patterns of moral reasoning with an "ethics of empathy," he proposes that Augustine's ethics of love can sharpen our grasp of both the possibilities and pitfalls of empathy as a moral value. Writing on friendship and evil, Miller invokes the Augustinian "theocentric imaginary" as a guide to how intimacy and alterity are balanced in friendship. And taking [End Page 194] up the ethics and social psychology of war, he presents Augustine's writings on the morality of killing as a source for just war standards that can be applied in cross-cultural normative criticism. That Augustine's seminal reflections on time and memory do not appear in a further chapter on "the moral and political burdens of memory" is a slight disappointment, no doubt attributable to the chapter's origins as a review essay.Other topics tellingly subjected to Miller's characteristically nuanced and sharp analysis include indignation and solidarity, responsibilities to children, and democracy and public reason. A bonus chapter collects six lengthy reviews of recent books—five on topics related to Islam—touted by Miller as exemplary in their embodiment of a cultural turn in religious ethics.Given its endorsement of a "cultural turn" in ethics, the book would have benefited from deeper reflection on discrete meanings of "culture," "cultures," and their various cognates. In addition, the individual chapters, originating in diverse settings, are not all equally well integrated into the book's governing themes. Overall, however, Miller's book amply succeeds in its Geertzian task of presenting both a model of and a model for the field of religious ethics. A fine distillation of the thought of a leading figure in the guild, it is essential reading for serious students of ethics.Bill BarbieriCatholic UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Buddhists and Christians Through Comparative Theology and SolidarityPaul O. IngramBuddhists and Christians Through Comparative Theology and Solidarity. By James L. Fredericks. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004. xiv + 134 pp.This elegantly written book is not only a call to Christians to act in solidarity with persons of other faith traditions as well as persons professing no religious identity inmatters of social, economic, and ecological injustice. It is (...) also a challenge posed directly to Christians to create new forms of interreligious solidarity that can empower political and social solidarity with other religious communities. Of course, interreligious solidarity requires interreligious dialogue, but Fredericks seeks to [End Page 223] deepen the Christian theological underpinnings of interreligious dialogue by delineating a model of theology of religions that moves beyond the usual exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist models. He calls this model "comparative theology of religions."Given the fact of religious pluralism that necessitates living out one's own particular faith tradition surrounded by faithful persons who religiously dwell in other faith traditions, and given the emerging realities of globalization, no religious tradition can remain in isolation from any other religious tradition nor from the growing secularization that challenges persons of faith wherever persons of faith are found on this planet. The issue is not the emergence of a new global religion that will supercede Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or Hinduism. Fredericks argues that the contrary is the case: as globalization and secularization erodes national, civic, and religious identity everywhere, interreligious solidarity that does not wash over the diversity of religious traditions becomes more important as a source of personal and communal identity, meaning, and purpose.Since the meaning of "solidarity" depends on how one understands the practice of interreligious dialogue and the theological models through which interreligious dialogue is practiced, Fredericks expends much effort describing and critiquing the exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist models of theology of religions. Strictly speaking, as Fredericks notes, "theology of religions" is not an issue for other religious traditions. Appropriating the words of Martin Luther, "this is most certainly true." Given the universal claims of Christian theology about the significance of the Incarnation and the notion that Christ is the only way to salvation, non-Christian traditions do not face the same exclusivist or inclusivist issues in their dialogues with other religious persons. This traditional Christian claim makes theology of religions a distinctively Christian problem.Fredericks's main criticism of exclusivist and inclusivist theologies are that both models are "replacement theologies" because (1) they either argue for the "replacement" of all non-Christian traditions with a form of Christian tradition, either Catholic or some form of Protestant tradition, or (2) they replace non-Christian traditions by assuming that what is good and true in these traditions is found most completely in Christian tradition. Much Protestant theology is exclusivist, and the current theological stance of Roman Catholicism is inclusivist. Both approaches are thoroughly nondialogical and thereby incapable of promoting Christian solidarity with non-Christians, and Fredericks's arguments in this regard are exceptionally cogent.But the trouble with pluralist theologies of religion, Fredericks argues, is that they "require Christians to recognize that Jesus is not the full revelation of God to the World. God is always more. Christians need to pay attention to other religious traditions in order to learn more of God" (p. 9). The idea of the incompleteness of God's revelation in Jesus doesn't make this revelation less true. But theological pluralism does make it difficult for Christians to be faithful to the depth and fullness of Christian faith and experience. In so doing, it fosters a debilitating theological relativism that often falsifies both Christian traditions and the non-Christian traditions with which one is engaged in dialogue. Given the relativist theology inherent in pluralist [End Page 224] theologies, it is difficult to see, Fredericks concludes, how theological pluralism can promote interreligious solidarity.So how should Christians understand the nature of religious pluralism and thereby enter into dialogue with faithful non-Christians in order to create religious solidarity, a sort of unity in diversity that aids all religious persons in confronting issues of injustice that are not religion-specific and haunt all religious human... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 157-161 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. By Jacques Dupuis, S.J. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. 1997. xiv + 433 pp. There may not be another individual more qualified than Jacques Dupuis to write this book. He has not only spent a lifetime teaching and serving in a part of the (...) world where the encounter between Christianity and other faiths has been particularly pressing (India), but he has also previously reflected intensively and published widely on this topic. Even more impressive, however, is the fact that the scholarship that emerges in this volume reflects Dupuis as a faithful Catholic Christian, both in the sense of paying sincere heed to the wide range of the Roman Church's official teachings on this and related topics (he taught for years at the Gregorian University in Rome and edited, with Josef Neuner, the massive The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church 1 ) and in the sense of thinking along with others in the universal community of faithful Christians. Here we have a master theologian practicing his craft, working within a community of theological inquirers, bringing out, displaying, and putting to work old things and new in the effort to understand one of the most crucial issues of our time.The result is a comprehensive and lucid discussion of Christian theology of religions that is indispensable as an introduction to students without any knowledge of the landscape even while it also serves as a handy status questionis to those already [End Page 157] familiar with the terrain. The first half of the book (part 1) is an overview of the history of Christian approaches to other faiths, beginning with the biblical material, continuing through the Logos spermatikos theology of the early Fathers, the developments surrounding the Extra ecclesiam nulla salus ("no salvation outside the Church") axiom over the centuries, and the pre- and post-Vatican II attempts to develop a theology of religions in the Catholic Church. This part concludes by summarizing the paradigm shifts from ecclesiocentrism to (in order) christocentrism, theocentrism, and regnocentrism/soteriocentrism. Throughout the discussion--especially of the pre-twentieth-century history that focused much more so on the fate of the unevangelized--Dupuis manages to provide important connections to developments in Christian thinking about the role of the religions in the divine scheme of things.The second half of the volume (part 2) presents seven of the most difficult theological questions in Christian theologia religionum today. First, concerning the covenant: is there only one, or are there many? Is salvation history particular, or universal? Dupuis' provisional response is that there is one cosmic covenant that is never revoked. This covenant is revealed according to what he calls a "trinitarian rhythm" whereby God covenants through his Word, in his Spirit, and this covenant includes the witnesses of God left in other religions as well. Second, concerning revelation: does revelation come to us from "without," or emerge from "within" ourselves? What about the sacred texts of other traditions? How are Christians to understand the fullness of the revelation in Jesus Christ vis-à-vis other faiths? Dupuis' answer is that divine revelation is indeed scattered among the various religions, even if fully captured only in Christ, and that these revelations are thereby differentiated but complementary. 2 Third, concerning the divine mystery: is the "Real" beyond the categories of "personal" and "impersonal"? Is God one, or many (triune)? Dupuis responds that the religions have complementary and converging insights into the divine reality. Fourth, concerning Jesus Christ: is he one among many savior figures? What does the uniqueness of Christ mean? Is there a distinction or an absolute identity between Jesus and Christ? Is the Christ particular, or universal? Dupuis posits a "searching christology" whereby God reveals Godself in and through the images and symbols of the religions and through which humankind therefore responds to the divine graciousness. Jesus' uniqueness is thereby both "constitutive" (of universal significance) and "relational" (inserted in the overall plan of... (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public (...) domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reflections on Jewish and Christian Encounters with BuddhismHarold KasimowA thousand years hence, historians will look back at the twentieth century and remember it not for the struggle between Liberalism and Communism but for the momentous human discovery of the encounter between Christianity and Buddhism.—Arnold ToynbeeBeginning in the 1960s many American Jews and Christians have become fascinated with the Buddhist tradition and have immersed themselves in the study and (...) practice of Buddhism. In this presentation I will examine how Christian and Jewish leaders have responded to this phenomenon. Some have been quite suspicious of such interreligious and cross-cultural encounters, claiming that Buddhism is a great threat to their religions. However, others have argued that their encounters with Buddhism have led them to deeper insight into their own traditions and have helped them to become better human beings. Their practice of Buddhist meditation has been a way for them to develop sensitivity to God and greater commitment to their own traditions. Still others have converted to Buddhism; it is estimated that of the three million Buddhists in America, fully one million are converts from Christianity and Judaism.Because of the complexity and diversity within Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism, I will focus on the responses of leading Orthodox Jews and Roman Catholic Christians to Theravada Buddhism and to the Zen school in Mahayana, the two forms of Buddhism to which many Americans are drawn and with which I have some personal experience. I will first examine how members of the Jewish and Christian traditions view other religions, because an individual’s perception of the encounter is shaped by how their religion views the Buddhist tradition. This will help us understand why religious authorities find this fascination with Buddhism so problematic.the jewish-buddhist encounterHistorically, Judaism has largely been interpreted by its thinkers as the only true religion. However, this does not mean that members of other faiths may not attain [End Page 21] salvation. According to the Talmudic Doctrine of the Seven Commandments of the Sons of Noah, “the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come,” that is, all human beings can attain salvation who establish courts of law and who refrain from idolatry, murder, blasphemy against God, incest, theft, and eating the limb of a live animal. Jewish authorities claim that because Christianity and Islam worship God they are not to be considered idolatrous, although some question the monotheistic nature of Christianity because of the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation. However, there is no question that members of Asian religions are practicing idolatrous worship, avodah zarah (“strange worship”). They are therefore in violation of the Noahide Law not to worship idols.With some exceptions, Orthodox rabbis in recent times agree with Rabbi Avigdor Miller (1908–2001) that “Buddhism, Shintoism, and all other religions of the Far East are forms of idol worship.”1 For Rabbi Miller the Torah contains all the knowledge that is necessary for Jews, and to even study another religious tradition is an affront to God. That this attitude toward the study of alien texts is common today is evident from the reaction of Rabbi Chaim Zvi Hollander to the suggestion of Rabbi Zalman Schachter that it is permissible to explore Asian forms of spirituality. Hollander charges that “Zalman Schachter’s incredible advice is a direct contradiction of the Almighty’s request that we not seek out and explore the spiritual modes of the Goyim, even if it is for the purpose of enhancing our spiritual experience in the service of our God.”2 He further states that “the practice of any religion other than Judaism is for a Jew an act of Avoda Zara.”3For Rabbis Miller and Hollander, blending Judaism with the Buddhist tradition, which is not concerned with a creator God and which rejects the idea of self, is inconceivable and more dangerous than Jews who convert to another religious tradition. However, even among the Orthodox, there are divergent views. Irving Greenberg, one of the outstanding liberal Orthodox rabbis of our generation, after meeting with the Dalai Lama wrote, “the Dalai Lama taught us a lot about Buddhism, even more about menschlichkeit... (shrink)

Most contributors approach the secularization question out of concern with intolerance and repression. But a peculiar kind of religion may impinge upon secular life in a different way: a prophetic religion may generate the solidarity and will-to-sacrifice that oppressed peoples need to fight for freedom and equality. The tradition of the Hebrew Prophets played a key role in the American civil rights struggle. Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, and other exponents of the tradition rejected the idea that minority rights (...) could ever be secured automatically or predictably. They viewed their fellow Americans' faith in progress with severe skepticism. The distinction between prophetic religion and normal religion will clarify the secularization debate, because it helps us see that some forms of religion are skeptical of official and/or popular beliefs. A prophet may reject the prevailing religion as strongly as an atheist does. Members of the prevailing religion will often call the prophet irreligious. Pagan Romans, for example, called the early Christians "atheists," since they believed in a mere man. There are sometimes religions that foster skepticism and critical thinking, that is. These Prophetic religions may at times be more effective against repression than secular efforts to organize opinion. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: INTRODUCTION 1 -- Focus of the Sections and Sub-sections 1 -- East Asian Internet Resources 1 -- A Note on Using the Index 2 -- GENERAL WORKS ON PHILOSOPHY& RELIGION IN ASIA 5 -- BUDDHISM 37 -- Primary Sources 37 -- Buddhist Ethics 38 -- Buddhism and Judeo-Christianity 52 -- Zen Buddhism 69 -- Other Works on Buddhism 76 -- CONFUCIANISM 95 -- Chinese and Confucian Classics 95 -- Translations of the Four Books 95 (...) -- Translations of other Chinese Classics 97 -- Secondary Works on Confucianism and/or the Chinese Classics --00 -- Neo-Confucianism 136 -- Confucian Ethics 150 -- Works on Confucianism and Judeo-Christianity 172 -- TAOISM 191 -- Primary Sources in Translation 191 -- Secondary Works on Chuang-tzu, Lao-tse and/or Taoism192 -- Taoism and Judaeo-Christianity 205 -- CHINESE/ CONFUCIAN UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION 209 -- BUSINESS & ECONOMIC ETHICS IN ASIA 223 -- General, Miscellaneous, and/or Background Material 223 -- Business & Economic Ethics: China 225 -- Business & Economic Ethics: Japan 226 -- Business & Economic Ethics: Korea 228 -- HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE EAST ASIAN CONTEXT 231 -- ASIAN WOMEN'S PHILOSOPHY &THEOLOGY 247 SELECTED COUNTRIES OF EAST ASIA 2. -- CHINA2 -- China and Christianity2 -- Jesuit Approach to Evangelization in China2( -- Other Works on China and Roman Catholicism2 -- China and Protestantism2 -- Other Works on China and Christianity28 -- Other Works on Chinese Culture and Philosophy 29 -- JA PA N 32 -- Buddhism in Japan32 -- Shintoism and Confucianism in Japan 33 -- Christianity in Japan33, -- Other Works on Japanese Culture, Philosophy and Religion34' -- KOREA35! -- Buddhism in Korea 35! -- Christianity in Korea 36' -- Confucianism and Christianity in Korea 36: -- General Works on Christianity in Korea 36E -- Korea and Catholicism 38C -- Korean-American Christianity 390 -- Confucianism in Korea 394 -- M injung Theology 404 -- Women's Issues and Feminist Theology in Korea 423 -- Shamanism in Korea 432 -- Other Works on Korea, Including General Works on Religion --437 -- EAST ASIAN INTERNET RESOURCES 455 -- SUBJECT-AREA WEB-SITES 455 -- MISCELLANEOUS PHILOSOPHICAL/RELIGIOUS -- STUDIES SITES456 -- EAST ASIAN ART, GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND/OR -- CULTURE SITES 466 -- OTHER ASIAN INTEREST WEB-SITES 471 -- CHINA471 -- JAPAN 480 -- KOREA 481 -- SINGAPORE 486 -- DISCUSSIONAND/OR NEWS GROUPS 486 -- ONLINE (ELECTRONIC) JOURNALS AND NEWSLETTERS488 -- EAST ASIAN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NEWSPAPERS 494 -- LIBRARIES AND/OR UNIVERSITY WEB-PAGES496 -- SEARCH ENGINES 501 -- INDEX 503. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Religion, Modernity, and Politics in Hegel by Thomas A. LewisVincent LloydReligion, Modernity, and Politics in Hegel THOMAS A. LEWIS Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 277 pp. $135Religion, Modernity, and Politics in Hegel explicates Hegel’s account of religion and contends that Hegel offers important insights for contemporary conversations in religious studies. Specifically, Thomas Lewis argues in this book that Hegel’s thought enriches discussions regarding the relationship between philosophy and (...) religion, religious pluralism, the meaning of tradition, and the concept of religion itself.Lewis is careful and reasonable in his explication of Hegelian texts, cognizant of recent scholarship on Hegel in both English and German, but also attentive [End Page 226] to Hegel’s location in German political history and the history of ideas. The young Hegel, we learn, was primarily a social theorist and not a philosopher. Concerned with social fragmentation in the context of the late Holy Roman Empire, Hegel saw religion as a means to unify. He understood civil religion (not just philosophy or natural religion) as capable of engaging the imagination in a way that motivates people to act in line with reason and so to act morally. In Hegel’s mature thought, religion is integrated into his broader philosophical system; it is an entry point into the dialectical movement beyond immediacy. Yet Hegel continues to think that religion inculcates crucial intuitions about what matters most to us as we live together. While some philosophers have recently emphasized Hegel’s deep debt to Kant, others hold that Hegel’s account of religion demonstrates his distance from Kant. For Lewis, Hegel’s account of religion, as the entwined beliefs and practices representing a community’s sensibilities, demonstrates his close relation to Kant and his continuing struggle to bring together sensibility and understanding, worldly objects, and human thoughts.Lewis occasionally ventures beyond the explication of Hegel, although these forays sometimes feel brief and thin. Like Alasdair MacIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jeffrey Stout, Lewis presents Hegel’s view of religion as essentially mixing—or synthesizing—history, narrative, community, and identity. Lewis understands Stout to be in agreement with Hegel, extending Hegel’s account of religious tradition to include the broader array of traditions that we encounter in the contemporary world. He suggests that Hauerwas could learn to better appreciate religion’s conceptual aspect from Hegel. Hegel and MacIntyre share what might seem to be a Christian triumphalism, but Lewis reads this more sympathetically as a self-awareness that rejects relativism. They both argue that (certain versions of) Christianity can account for the insights of other worldviews and can address contradictions in those other worldviews. But MacIntyre requires that such judgments be based on deep knowledge of two traditions in a comparison; Hegel paints non-Protestant traditions with very broad strokes. Indeed, this is the point where Lewis himself is the most critical of Hegel. He charges that Hegel’s attempt to survey all major world religions (in his account of “determinate religion”) is overly ambitious, and he argues that Hegel would be more successful had he detached this survey from his argument for Christianity’s status as the “consummate religion.” Hegel’s conception of consummate religion should be understood more broadly, Lewis argues, to include nonreligious beliefs and practices, such as civic education, that reflect the spirit of a community.Lewis claims that Hegel complicates the supposed Protestant bias of religious studies scholarship with its focus on belief at the expense of practice. Although unequivocally Protestant, Hegel’s approach to religion emphasizes the inextricability of practice and belief. But what was Hegel’s approach? Was it an [End Page 227] alternative Protestant tradition? Was it a theological movement or simply a philosophical one? Further, it is unclear whether Lewis’s Hegel would find any use for religious ethics other than as an idiom for ethical reflection suited to those who are not capable of advancing to philosophical heights.Vincent LloydSyracuse UniversityCopyright © 2014 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This book, first published in 2000, is a general and comprehensive treatment of the political thought of ancient Greece and Rome. It begins with Homer and ends in late antiquity with Christian and pagan reflections on divine and human order. In between come studies of Plato, Aristotle and a host of other major and minor thinkers - poets, historians, philosophers - whose individuality is brought out by extensive quotation. The international team of distinguished scholars assembled by the editors includes (...) historians of law, politics, culture and religion, and also philosophers. Some chapters focus mostly on the ancient context of the ideas they are examining, while others explore these ideas as systems of thought which resonate with modern or perennial concerns. This clearly written volume will long remain an accessible and authoritative guide to Greek and Roman thinking about government and community. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity by Rob Arner, and: Christ at the Checkpoint: Theology in the Service of Justice and Peace ed. by Paul Alexander, and: Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy by Eli Sarasan McCarthyBrian D. BerryReview of Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity ROB ARNER Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010. 136 (...) pp. $15.56Review of Christ at the Checkpoint: Theology in the Service of Justice and Peace EDITED BY PAUL ALEXANDER Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012. 182 pp. $19.80Review of Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy ELI SARASAN MCCARTHY Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012. 259 pp. $27.00In Consistently Pro-Life, Rob Arner (who teaches at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia) makes the case that Christians should not kill other human beings—regardless of the circumstances. Taking as his point of departure the vigilante killing of abortion doctor George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, in 2009, he argues not only that abortion is always morally impermissible but so also is [End Page 217] the murder of abortion doctors and the use of the death penalty to punish those who murder them. In addition, he turns to the early church fathers to contend that, prior to Constantine, “without exception, the church strongly condemned the taking of human life in any form whatsoever”—thus rejecting abortion and infanticide, the blood sport of the Roman games, suicide, and killing in war (120). This was because the New Testament witness to Jesus and his death on the cross required early Christians to view “the means as just as important, if not more important, than the ends” (xiii).Arner supplements this deontological argument for Christian pacifism, which he learned from John Howard Yoder, with a brief consideration of the virtue of patience cultivated in the early churches, reflecting the influence of Stanley Hauerwas on his thought. This “cardinal virtue” connoting “longsuffering, forbearance, patient endurance”—as found in Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:38–48)—enabled early Christians to practice non-violent resistance “deferring personal revenge in favor of God’s vindicating justice” (98). If Christians were to adopt this same consistently pro-life ethic today, argues Arner, it would “lead to greater healing and peace in our blood-soaked world” (121). The book closes with three appendices—one of which is a chart of terminology that dehumanizes vulnerable victims, including unborn human beings. Unfortunately, the book does not have an index.Christ at the Checkpoint, edited by Paul Alexander (professor of Christian ethics and public policy at the Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University), includes thirteen plenary addresses delivered at a conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict organized by Palestinian Evangelical Christians at Bethlehem Bible College in March 2010. Almost all of the contributors to this volume—including biblical scholars, theologians, ethicists, pastors, activists, and others—criticize the ideology of Christian Zionism and its support of a theology of dispensationalism that, in their view, distorts the scriptures and fosters violence rather than reconciliation between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In his own presentation titled “What Can Pentecostals and Charismatics Do for Peace with Justice in Israel and Palestine?,” Alexander—who describes himself as a former “one-sided” Christian Zionist who later discovered the writings of Yoder and Hauerwas—appeals to Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and urges Pentecostals to create church communities “that cultivate persons of character and conviction, who through habits, practices, and action live out the core of our faith” (69). Along with being faithful to the “greater challenges” of love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, he argues that they should publicly declare that Jesus does not want Israel to continue the occupation of Palestine, and they should engage in the “easier tasks” of promoting human rights, lending support to United Nations Resolutions, and working toward a two-state solution (72). “The time has come in human history,” writes Alexander, “for Pentecostals to speak and act prophetically regarding this present injustice … [End Page 218] and to use every nonviolent weapon in our arsenal—stories, preaching... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Capitalism as Religion and Religious Pluralism:An Approach from Liberation TheologyJung Mo Sungreligious pluralism and the struggle of the godsReligious pluralism as a social fact, namely, the coexistence of different religions within a social system, be it a country or an empire, is not anything new. The mere contact with other people and their various religions, for example, through commerce, still does not indicate religious pluralism. In (...) this case, each group of people has its religion and its gods, and recognizes that other groups of people exist with other religions and other gods. Religious pluralism occurs when, because of immigration or the conquest of one people over another, groups of people with different religions live together in the same social space.Whether by immigration or by conquest, the resulting religious pluralism does not occur in an egalitarian or harmonious manner. Immigrants are forced to live out their religion within their group as a marginal religion in society, or even in hiding when it is not accepted in the society where they went to seek a livelihood. In the case of conquest or expansion of empires, the conquering power imposes its cultural values and religion on the conquered peoples. The empire can try to extinguish the religions of conquered peoples and impose their own as if it is the only one acceptable, or tolerate them as long as these religions do not question the imperial order. This means that the coexistence of different religions within the empire takes place in a hierarchical relationship: The religion of the empire is the ultimate and the others are tolerated provided they accept their place as subordinate. The Roman Empire was an example of an empire that tolerated the religions of subject peoples as long as they didn’t question the absolute power of the empire, with its own empire religion and emperor worship.In this historical context, it is empirically impossible to live out a third way: recognizing the otherness of the other and respecting their religion as we respect our [End Page 155] own. That’s because the “encounter” between religions takes place in a situation of colonial conquest and domination. Expecting that there could be a relationship of respect and dialogue among equals would ignore the role of religion in premodern societies, especially in the processes of domination.In these societies, religion has the function of being the foundation of the world-view that legitimized the existing social order, as well as the process of external conquest. Religion fulfills the function of legitimizing and justifying the conquest and consequent exploitation and oppression of the conquered people. Therefore, religion performs a key task for systems of oppression, the reversal of evil into good: conquest as peace; exploitation as the path to salvation or integration into civilization. Furthermore, religion transcendentalizes the imperial system of oppression and presents it as eternal or as an expression of divine will. Therefore, how to classify religions and manage their coexistence is not just a problem for religious leaders, but also a matter of the state, a matter of interest for the king or emperor. The limits of religious tolerance are determined by the interests of the dominant social system, even when they are often discussed in religious or theological language.Of course, no religion, even those that perform the function of legitimizing an empire, is totally homogeneous. Within a religion, there is or can be a certain “theological pluralism.” The figure of Las Casas in the Spanish conquest of America is an example of the contradictions that are in all religions. But the defense of the Indians and their religion that was made by Las Casas had to be made in the court of the king of Spain. The means of evangelization and the ways of seeing the culture and religion of the Indians (i.e., the other) is a problem of the state, and not just the Church.Before thinking about the ideal of a religious pluralism that makes possible “a fraternal living together of religions as also a covenant of all those in favor of Peace and the Common Good of Humanity and the Planet,”1 we must also remember that the Bible... (shrink)

What is secularity? Might it yield or define a distinctive form of reasoning? If so, would that form of reasoning belong essentially to our modern age, or would it instead have a considerably older lineage? And what might be the relation of that form of reasoning, whatever its lineage, to the Christian thinking that is often said to oppose it? In the present volume, these and related questions are addressed by a distinguished group of scholars working primarily within the (...) class='Hi'>Roman Catholic theological tradition and from the perspectives of Continental philosophy. As a whole, the volume constitutes a conversation among thinkers who agree in their concerns but not necessarily their conclusions. Taken individually, each essay concentrates on a range of historical developments with close attention to their intellectual and sometimes pedagogical implications. Secular reason, they argue, is neither the antipode of Christian thought nor a stable and well-resolved component of it. Christian thinking may engage with secular reason as the site of profound difficulties, but on occasion will also learn from it as a source of new insight. _Christianity and Secular Reason_ contributes to the contemporary discussion of secularity prompted especially by Charles Taylor’s book _A Secular Age_. Unlike Taylor's work, however, this collection concentrates specifically on secular _reason_ and explicitly on its relation to Christianity. In this sense, it is closer to Michael J. Buckley’s _At the Origins of Modern Atheism_ or, to a lesser degree, Louis Dupré’s _Passage to Modernity_, which concern themselves with broad cultural developments. "This volume offers a variety of perspectives, some historical, some normative/constructive, on the questions of the relations between politics/culture/religion and the relations between selfhood/humanity/world. The essays are, without exception, of high quality in both scholarly-exegetical terms, and constructive-normative ones. The writers are learned, sometimes witty, and often interesting." —_Paul Griffiths, Duke Divinity School _ "This is no other volume I know of that covers just this ground. There is a substantial literature on, for example, the Habermas/Ratzinger exhange, and on Kant's view of the relation between philosophy and religion, and on the twelfth century background for thirteenth century reflection on this relation. The merit of _Christianity and Secular Reason_ is that it holds these threads together, and others besides, in a new and fruitful way." —_John E. Hare, Yale University_. (shrink)

UMI Number: 3319553 This study is a historical ethnography of religious diversity in post-revolutionary Nicaragua from the vantage point of Catholics who live in the city of Masaya located on the Pacific side of Nicaragua at the end of the twentieth century. My overarching research question is: How may ethnographically observed patterns in Catholic religious practices in contemporary Nicaragua be understood in historical context? Utilizing anthropological theory and method grounded in Weberian historical theory, I explore Catholic ritual as contested politico-religious (...) cultural terrain. The patron saint celebration of Masaya becomes a contested symbol in 1999 as those who carry Saint Jerome in street procession refuse to honor a sitting president, challenging his right to rule. The deep Marian devotion of the Nicaraguan people is reflected in the household and neighborhood celebrations of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, while nation-building elites have a long history of claiming the Virgin as patron saint of the nation. While these traditional Catholic saint celebrations figure in imagining a nation, three "new" Catholic movements also compete for attention, while the polity is increasingly exposed to Protestant and Pentecostal groups. When Anastasio Somoza Debayle was overthrown in 1979, ending the 40-year family dictatorship, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) ruled for a decade with the attention of the world placed on its religion of revolution, the Christian base community and liberation theology. At the same time, however, two other movements began growing quietly. They, like liberation theology, draw their justification from the second Vatican Council. In Masaya, Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the Neocatechumenal Way are "exemplary" prophetic movements gaining ground within the Catholic Church in competition with the "ethical" prophets of the Christian base community. Selectively adopting "protestant-like" forms of worship through these modern movements, the Nicaraguan Roman Catholic Church reacts to the challenge to its cultural hegemony coming from evangelical competitors. New history is continuously being made as people in this part of Nicaragua struggle over the direction of their country within a complex terrain of religious competition. (shrink)