Showing papers in "Theology in 1986"

Christianity and Other Religions: Is Inclusivism Enough?

Abstract: established in Britain. Sangha-the community ofthose who practise the way ofthe Buddha-is often used to refer to the members of the ordained Sangha, but more accurately it includes those who practise in ordinary life as well. The Christian concept of the Church is thus similar. Lay members of the Sangha 'take refuge' in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, and are guided by five moral precepts. 3 Dhamma is the ultimate truth, the way things are, that which the Buddha realized and sought to teach through words and action but which goes beyond words and action. 4 Higher ordination: bhikkhus (monks), literally those who live on alms, and dasasilavanti (nuns), literally those living by the Ten Precepts, follow the detailed guidance of the Vinaya, the Discipline. The men wear a yellow robe, the women a brown robe. They are considered junior for their first five years after ordination. 5 Anagarikas: literally, a homeless one. A white-robed man or woman who takes eight of the Ten Precepts, but remains free to cook, drive, buy and sell (and own property), and so can help the ordained. They are expected to give themselves at least a year living under the Precepts, and before proceeding to higher ordination should complete two years.

Innocence Renewed: The Divine Images of Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Abstract: 27 For 'Mythology Today' see Roland Barthes, Mythologies, pp. 109-5g. Reading Barthes is immensely enjoyable, as also Jonathan Culler's short but excellent introduction, Barthes (London Ig83). For weightier commentary see Annette Lavers, Roland Barthes: Structuralism and After (London 1982). Barthes' model has a linguistic foundation in Ferdinand de Saussure's (1857-1913) notion of the sign. Thus our model is an appropriation of an appropriation. 28 Roland Barthes, Mythologies, pp. I 12-13. 2g ibid., p. I 17. 30 ibid., p. 128. 3 I Ricoeur, Ope cit., pp. 15-16.

Dean Farrar and the Quest for the Historical Jesus

Abstract: personal dialogue whose outcome may subsequently be given some institutional recognition by a formal act of the Church. One such institutional act which the Church should consider adopting would be a formal 'unbinding of vows'. It would be psychologically therapeutic if we had available for use in appropriate cases a ceremony for the dissolving of promises as solemn as the making of them. Do we not have power to bind and loose? It should, finally, be made absolutely clear that this pastoral working out of the theology of forgiveness should not be taken to be a weakening of the Church's stance. What troubles the conscience of many parish priests is that our present practice is not morally sensitive enough, and sometimes feels uncomfortably close to the institutional rules of Judaism, and too far from the personal interaction of Jesus with the men and women he encountered. I feel as if I am being asked to do something less than the best, morally, for the people coming to ask my care and blessing if I cannot help them to launch out on a renewed voyage of fidelity, not necessarily being sure they will avoid shipwreck, but at least being able to assure them with a clear conscience of God's total goodwill towards them and their marriage.

The Collapse of the SCM

Abstract: enough, and when we try to go beyond it we may err, but sometimes splendidly. Job will serve the argument as a book which always was and always will be enigmatic, which will always attract interpretation. A mysteriousness pervades the whole book, and is felt also in isolated verses like the ones I have discussed. The more deeply we consider what time and the world have made ofJob's wife, the more obvious it becomes that the mysteries of such stories, and perhaps of language itself, are familiar to us from our interpretations of our own lives. The reasons why Nicodemus comes to be called wise are very curious reasons: because an earlier poet wrote about the night in a different way from Stjohn, and because a later poet could imagine that a lover waiting, his hair wet with dew, outside his girl's room, could be a figure for the starry heavens; and that the Song and the Gospel story belonged wholly, though mysteriously, together. It was, if you like, an act of genius; but it is what, in our more humdrum way, we all habitually do-make new combinations of disparate experience, settle for ambiguity, confront the antithetical senses. So I think that there is a peculiar truth in Job's wife when we cannot decide whether she is tender or cruel, blessing or cursing; and a peculiar truth also in a poem which, on the face of it, falsifies the Gospel itself. We bring ourselves and our conflicts to words, to poems and pictures, as we bring them to the world; and thus we change the poems and the pictures, or perhaps it is ourselves we change.

Towards a Fully Systematic Scepticism—In the Service of Faith:

Abstract: I The tribute ofa Frenchman, E. Charpentier, How toRead the New Testament (SCM Press 1982), p. 123. 2 Saint Mark (1963a), p. 15. 3 cf. Explorations in Theology I (1977 a), p. 79· 4 Saint Mark, p. 173· 5 op cit., p. 3° 1. 6 op cit., p. 73. 7 In A. Hanson (ed), Vindications: Essays in the Historical Basis ofChristianity (SCM Press 1966), pp. 74-102. 8 P. K. Walker, present Bishop of Ely, Theology, 69 (1966), pp. 508f. 9 'et hoc genus omne', 1967b. 10 Vindications, p. 78. II 'Mark's Preservation of the Tradition' (1974), reprinted in W. Telford (ed.), The Interpretation ofMark, Issues in Religion and Theology 7 (SPCK 1985), p. 123. 12 Saint Mark, p. 50 and p. 5 I. 13 The Use and Abuse ofthe Bible (1976a), p. 202. 14 op. cit., p. 220. 15 Ope cit., p. 22 I. 16 Explorations, p. 54. 17 The Church's Use ofthe Bible (1963b), p. 159· 18 Use and Abuse, p. I 10. 19 Echoes now, not so much of Collingwood and Knox as of Troeltsch and Schweitzer. 20 The Myth of God Incarnate (1977b), p. 202. 2 I In response Professor J. Macquarrie tried to recall Nineham to his former allegiance to Knox, see A. E. Harvey (ed.), God Incarnate: Story andBelief(SPCK 198 I), p. 78. 22 Saint Mark, p. 30. 23 op. cit., p. 37. 24 op. cit., p. 46. 25 Ope cit., p. 243. 26 Explorations, p. 90. 27 Use and Abuse, p. 196.