Showing papers in "Theology in 2002"

Book Review: The Character of God in the Book of GenesisThe Character of God in the Book of Genesis: A Narrative Appraisal, Lee HumphreysW. (Westminster John Knox Press2001), 284 pp, £20.00 pbk: A Narrative Appraisal

Abstract: This is an interesting and accessible book which looks afresh at the narratives of Genesis from the perspective of 'character', notably the character of God. The author argues that in appraisals of Genesis the character of God has been neglected even though he is the central figure. Humphreys thus brings to bear some of the findings of modern literary theory on characterization and comes up with an interesting set of readings of the text. He is concerned to get away from traditional approaches, notably the historical-critical which found different literary sources in the text. However, it seems to me that his study backs up the findings of source criticism that God is characterized very differently in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 for example. In fact such is the extent of this particular character 'tension' that the depiction of God in Genesis is seen to belong in both of each of the categories that Humphreys draws on from literary theory, e.g. God as a 'type' (Gen. 1), God as a fully fledged character (Gen. 2-3). He does not take into account the question of genre in these different narratives nor the possibility that Genesis 1 has the hindsight of Genesis 2, and so the avoidance of more historical-critical concerns leads to a rather 'flat' reading of the text. However, the chapter on Genesis 1-3 contains an interesting discussion of God's 'ambivalent parenting' and humankind's 'growing-up' process. Humphreys writes when discussing God's interaction with Cain, 'Yahweh's parental engagement with his human creations entails a continued becoming on his part as well as theirs' (p. 61). Humphreys treats the Flood in chapter 3 and Abram in chapter 4 and finds new character traits in God as the stories unfold. He notes that especially in the Abram stories we, the readers, are not privy to Yahweh's thoughts, designs and motives this seems to me to be one problem in this character approach, in that it is harder to 'fill the gaps' in the mind of God than it would be with a human character. Chapter 5 looks specifically at the stories that revolve around Abraham and Sarah. There is no reference in the bibliography to Trevor Dennis's very good Sarah Laughed (SPCK) which treats these same passages, nor is there much engagement with the work of Ellen van Walde who has written extensively on character interaction in the stories of Genesis, especially the Stories of the Beginning. Isaac and Jacob are treated in two separate chapters and it is noted

Book Review: The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel: Issues and CommentaryThe Historical Reliability of John's Gospel: Issues and Commentary, BlombergCraig L. (Apollos2001), 346 pp, £16.99 pbk

Abstract: original Jesus tradition ('oral tradition', 'written source', 'synoptic dependence' and 'developmental') and explains that all of them are represented in the book: no effort has been made to establish consensus. The object was rather to display the range of possibilities which recent study of the Fourth Gospel opens up for Jesus research. For this purpose, accounts of 'history of research' are avoided (with the curious exception of one editor's extensive coverage of the reception of the work of the other!) in order to 'focus instead on the creative presentation of fresh ideas'. Despite the intention to illuminate Jesus research, most of the 'creative' ideas, though they may have historical implications, seem to relate to the evangelist and the Fourth Gospel rather than to Jesus. Some of the essays run on conventional lines, such as that (by Johannes Beutler SJ) which is content to find in John 13-17 merely 'a creative use of the traditional material', or that (by Graham Twelftree) which finds commonsense reasons for the absence of exorcisms in the Fourth Gospel; others introduce relatively new tools, such as the study of orality (Joanna Dewey), or an exploration of metaphorical language (John M. Perry). Perhaps the most 'creative' are two articles (in addition to his Introduction and Conclusion) by the co-editor, Tom Thatcher. In one he explores the function of folk heroes such as Davey Crockett in legend and literature: was the Beloved Disciple such a one for the 'Johannine Community'? In the other, he analyses the riddleform (long identified in a number of passages in the Fourth Gospel) and suggests that the Halsriitsel or 'neck-riddle' (a riddle so dangerous that one literally risks one's neck by undertaking to solve it, like Samson's riddle or the riddle of the sphinx) is the key to the dramatic tension of John 8.21££. (Where I am going you cannot come'). Ideas of this kind bring fresh air into New Testament studies. How far they advance the study of the historical Jesus is perhaps more open to question; but with regard to the Fourth Gospel the volume may well (as the editors hoped) have 'opened up new paths for future study'.

Limping Principles A Reply to Brian Hebblethwaite on ‘The Impossibility of Multiple Incarnations’:

Abstract: Most of our profound theological convictions we have to take on trust. There is so much to do and explore that we are not in a position to begin from first principles every time we address a practical theological issue. But as Mascall says, and as Hebblethwaite demonstrates in his fine article.' there is much to be said for taking out established beliefs from time to time for 'a scamper in a field where the paths are few and boundaries undefined'r' Apparently abstruse theological concepts have profound and far-reaching effects on the way we live out our faith, and should not be left unexamined for too long at a time. So it is for the doctrine of the incarnation. There was a flurry of theological activity a generation ago; arguments were made; conclusions were drawn. The focus of theological interest moved on to other issues, and the debate stirred up by The Myth of God Incarnate slipped quietly into the background. Fortunately, we have Brian Hebblethwaite to remind us that the fundamental questions have not gone away, and that our answers to them need regularly to be reviewed. For this service, I for one am most gratefuL That said, and pressing Mascall's image to its limit, Hebblethwaite's essay left me with the disturbing impression that the principle of a single incarnation not so much scampered as limped across the theological landscape. This was not because of a shortfall on his part, I decided: rather, the argument itself seemed wrongly conceived. It seemed to answer the wrong questions, and arrive at its answers by the wrong sort of reasoning. In what follows, I will develop these themes by unpacking Hebblethwaite's argument to expose its assumptions, as I understand them. I will interrogate these assumptions in, I hope, both a critical and constructive way. Finally, I will suggest a possible reconstruction of the doctrine of the incarnation which, I argue, better responds to the theological questions that are now current.

The ‘Linguistic Physics’ of Church: Introducing Critical Postliberalism

Abstract: Did you hear the one about the traditional evangelical (TE) after the 10.30? It sounds unusual, but it also provides one avenue along which to begin to explore the 'linguistic physics' of church. This can help to explain religious phenomena across evangelicalism and well beyond, especially in relation to social issues. At coffee after the Sunday 10.30 in a TE church, you explain to any mother present (this only works every time with mothers) that her church's invisible noticeboard features the downgrading of the domestic-self vis-a-vis the group-self. She always replies: 'That's interesting.' Non-TE mothers don't say this. This universal response from TE mothers (TEMs) reflects the fact that the proposition resonates with their intuitive outlook. TEM intuits that church can be understood as a dialogue between the groupor church-self and the domestic-self, in which the latter is backgrounded. Outside traditional evangelicalism the situation can reach beyond dialogue to the full-blown, neo-Marxist site of struggle between these two selves. This is our first general principle of the 'physics of church': those regularities underlying religious discourse at the popular level which produce the surface 'sentences' of belief, practice and language.

Book Review: Anyone for Alpha?Anyone for Alpha? Evangelism in a Post-Christian Society, HuntStephen (Darton, Longman & Todd2001), 127 pp, £7.95 pbk: Evangelism in a Post-Christian Society

Abstract: It is in the final section that something more like a 'celebration of Christian living' takes place. There is moving and (one feels) personal writing on self-sacrifice and suffering, and the final word is about the supreme generosity of Christ's forgiveness of sinners. A section warns us that our experience of 'the community of love' may well not be very satisfactory. But the quiet, resolute cultivation of the spiritual life has its own reward; 'with each step those who try to love Jesus will discover how great is his love for them' (p. 153). Will the book work as a catechism? The content is at least Anglican in being both Catholic (on the sacraments and the BVM) and Protestant (on authority and original sin). On the other hand the voice is unquestionably that of the Edward Norman we know, even if an Edward Norman on a diet of severe self-restraint. Characteristically he tells us that he consulted no one in the writing of it; and I realize that it was not written for the likes of me. We shall not know whether it achieves its object until it is tried. Meanwhile the (very Anglican) advice of Gamaliel seems irresistible.

Being a Body

Abstract: Anyone who is now reading this must be an embodied being. How else could you be reading? Since what I want to write about is the body, it is important to acknowledge at the outset that being bodies is a condition we all share. It may be obvious, but that very obviousness is significant: we take it for granted because we have all been bodies for so long. We have together a mass of experience of being bodily, and that ought to mean something. Yetwe do not often think about what it means to be bodily. In fact thinking about it at all is a bit embarrassing. We avoid the subject, on the whole, unless circumstances force it on us, as when we are ill. It seems we are constitutionally uneasy about being bodily. There are reasons for this. Like all of us, Christianity is marked by the circumstances of its birth, its formation in the culture of the late Hellenistic world that was growing steadily more pessimistic about life and the body. Stoic philosophy had cultivated detachment from passions; gnostic speculation taught that the soul is a divine spark trapped in matter, striving to break free; someone noted the irony that the Greek words for body and tomb are very similar soma sema, the body is a tomb. In all this, matter was seen as something inherently dangerous and inimical to fullness of life. Under such influence, the Jewish eschatology which had hoped for the renewal of the cosmos began to look for new life, instead, in some heavenly or disembodied realm.1 It was into this growing confusion and gloom about bodily being that Christianity was born, preaching good news about a Christ who had come in the flesh, and who gave hope of the raising up of dead bodies into eternal life. What joy! Yet within a century, Christians were sharing the unease about the body that was in the air of late antiquity. Some were saying the incarnation was a necessary evil God endured incarnation to enable humanity to achieve the desirable state of disincarnation and others, who could not stomach even that, wondered if Christ had not just appeared to be enfleshed. Thus pessimism overcame joy, in part at least, and we are all the heirs of that shift. We avoid thinking about corporeality, because it reminds us we shall all one day be corpses; we ignore the

Book Review: Reconciling Science and ReligionReconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early Twentieth-Century Britain, BowlerPeter J. ((University of Chicago Press2001), xiii + 479 pp, £25.00 hbk: The Debate in Early Twentieth-Century Britain

Abstract: introduction, conveying a clear sense of the range of his unstoppable activity and the ambivalent reactions it provoked from contemporaries. Johnson is also good on the personal characteristics of a bishop who remained something of an enigma to many who encountered him. Johnson is less secure when it comes to historical contextualization. Eminent Victorians are trooped across the stage to star in anecdotes of dubious relevance to the matter in hand. Neither the Diocese of London in 1831 or the Victoria Embankment in 1845 were quite in the condition here described (the latter was not constructed until 1864-70), while the retail price index used to convert monetary values to modern equivalents is not as safe as its apparent source, the Bank of England! Even given its intended readership, however, johnson's book represents a missed opportunity. We badly need a reassessment of Blomfield that draws on a now considerable body of recent scholarship on the later Hanoverian Church, Tractarianism, Christian Political Economy, Church Reform and the dynamics of urban religion that seems largely to have passed Johnson by. It would certainly have provided a very different context for an overall assessment than that presented here. Moreover this scholarship would have given Johnson some vital tools with which to address the various apparent tensions between different aspects of Blomfield's writings and work that fuelled the strong feelings that 'the high priest in the temple of expediency' generated among his peers.

Unjust War?: The September Attacks and the Attack on Modernity

Abstract: Historical precedent suggests the calm logic of working party reports has not brought about structural change in ordination training in the Church of England. Financial anxieties have reduced the numbers of colleges. Meanwhile the initiatives of determined individuals have led to a proliferation of courses and local ordained ministry schemes, and bishops have been unwilling to surrender diocesan responsibility for 'post-ordination' training, and have lacked funds to invest in improving it. Sensible though some of the current Working Party's 'significant and, in part, bold' recommendations may be, historical precedents suggest the vested interests of dioceses, party interests, and the apathy towards ordination training in the Church of England, may allow them to run into the sand. In any case, apart from creating larger, perhaps more viable institutions, they do little to address the 'common themes' noted by the Bishops' Inspectors, and in the review of curates' theological skills.

George Herbert and the Eucharist

Abstract: George Herbert's short life (1593-1633) was lived during a time of bitter controversies in the Church and of growing unrest in the State, culminating in the Civil War. Coming from a great and aristocratic family, he seemed set for a career as a courtier or perhaps as a statesman. But beneath the veneer of the courtier was a spirituality of depth and sensitivity. Ordained as priest in 1630, his ministry at Bemerton was short and unremarkable. The genius of his considerable and lasting influence lies in his English poems, written probably between 1619 and the mid or late 1620s, and published after his death as The Temple.1 In these poems Herbert rises above the controversies of his day and takes us to the heart of the God of love. Commentators have sought to present Herbert as shaped by specific contemporary influences, but he cannot be so constrained.i It is his personal, spiritual journey which shapes his theology, a journey of rare sensitivity, an exploration of the vast territory of the human spirit, yet earthed in the reality of everyday experience. And at the heart of that journey is his experience of the Eucharist. It has been said of George Herbert that 'the Eucharist is the marrow of his sensibility'r' He wrote two poems with the title 'The Holy Communion', and many of his other poems are rich in reference and allusion to the sacrament. His emphasis upon a real presence clearly reflects a depth of personal experience and reverence which undergirds Herbert's joy in the love of God for his creation. He speaks of the sacrament as refreshment, renewal and confirmation of the grace of God. He shares with us his reverence and his joy. Herbert had both a sense of awe before holy things and an awareness of the God who comes to us in the ordinary and the mundane.\" In 'The Priesthood', he writes:

Jesus the Bread of God The Eucharist as Metaphor in John 6

Abstract: The suggestion that some of the language in chapter 6 of St John's Gospel (in particular vv. 51-58) should be interpreted metaphorically, usually sets off alarm bells in the minds and hearts of Christian believers. The idea that the words of Jesus 'unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you' (6.53) are metaphorical, is tantamount, they say, to denying the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. This widespread misunderstanding arises largely because of a popular assumption that metaphors are basically false, and also because of a lack of familiarity with the place of John 6 in the Fourth Gospel as a whole. It also arises because fundamental connections between Jesus, the eucharist and baptism are overlooked. My aim in this article is to show that the bread, flesh and blood language in John 6 should be interpreted metaphorically, and that this is a 'theological gain' rather than a loss. I will also indicate that Christology; eucharist and baptism are all fundamentally related in the Fourth Gospel. I shall briefly consider, therefore: first, the background and content of John 6; second, the nature of metaphor; and third, the eucharist as metaphor in John 6. I shall conclude that it is Jesus himself who is the bread of God in John 6, and that the eucharistic language there is used of him metaphorically.

Amazing Grace: The Experience of Grace in Hindu and Christian Bhakti

Abstract: In different cultures and in different periods, the experience of divine grace has set on foot some of the most powerful and influential movements in human religious history. Men and women captured by grace have turned their worlds upside down. Often such people have given expression to that overwhelming experience by composing and singing hymns. Their followers have taken up those hymns and sung them with fervour as expressions of their own experience also. A familiar example of such a treasury of hymns originating within a particular historical context in the Christian West is to be found in the work of John and Charles Wesley, founders of the Methodist movement in eighteenth-century England. The corpus of devotional hymns composed during the Hindu revival in southern India from the sixth to ninth centuries AD provides another example. In this essay, I shall take one hymn from each of those contexts in order to make a comparative study of the experience of grace to which they give expression. The text of the two hymns is given at the end of the essay. Since the life and work of the selected Tamil poet Manikkavasagar is likely to be less familiar to English-speaking readers than that of the Wesleys, it is necessary at this point to give some explanation of his background. Manikkavasagar lived in the south Indian city of Madurai, probably in the ninth century AD. Some three hundred years before his day, at the beginning of the sixth century, the dominant religions among the Tamil people of southern India were Buddhism and [ainism. But at that time theistic Hinduism in both its Saivite and Vaishnavite forms underwent such a widespread, popular revival that the adherents of the two previously dominant religions were reduced to small minorities. The revival was led by a succession of itinerant poet-saints who travelled about the country singing their hymns, engaging in debate with their religious adversaries and thereby winning their contemporaries to the allegiance and service of the Hindu gods. Manikkavasagar was one of the last of the Saivite line. In his early adult life he was a minister at the court of a king of the Pandiyan dynasty in the city of Madurai. While on an errand for the king to a distant town, he fell in with a Saivite guru, believed to

Book Review: The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian ImaginationThe Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination, AndersonGary A. (Westminster John Knox Press2001), 257 pp, £20.00 hbk

Abstract: In this very interesting and unusual reading of Genesis the author explores Jewish and Christian accounts of Adam and Eve. His purpose is to show them not simply as figures of the fall of humanity, but also as the beginning of a movement towards human completion. He maintains that, within Judaism, the creation account is always understood in the light of the revelation at Mount Sinai; and within Christianity, always in the light of the advent and the passion of Christ. More generally, this thesis means that it is the end that always governs the beginning, and this accounts for the title of the book as 'the genesis of perfection'. Because it is intended for an audience larger than that of purely academic specialists, he places the treatment of the text in a much wider context than that of the narrower historicalcritical approach to Scripture found in many commentaries. Besides early Christian and Jewish use of the materials, he includes the literary (especially Milton), artistic (particularly Michelangelo), musical (Handel) and liturgical traditions of interpretation. Nevertheless, because the book is also offered as, and indeed is, a work of scholarship, much space is devoted to the analysis of the history of interpretation, and to theoretical problems of method. This can hardly be avoided, given the influence upon theology of current discussions within literary theory concerning the problem of narrativity, and the bias towards the historical reconstruction of the Pentateuch which has dominated Old Testament studies for so long. But within terms of scholarship, this makes its classification somewhat problematic: it can be seen as falling either into the category of cultural studies or into that of biblical criticism. In this sense it is a very modern book, reflecting within its own compass the larger crisis within the field of biblical studies itself. It is this amalgamation of methods which accounts for some of the book's difficulties. It makes the structure of the work appear episodic, rather than historical. And because of a bias towards what the author describes as the normative treatment of the texts within the tradition, some important interpretative material is sacrificed. There is no discussion of the accounts of Philo and the Gnostics; and the impression is given that there was only one theology of baptism in the early Church. Indeed the early Church seems to be envisaged as embracing the Byzantine and medieval periods for

Why Were the Disciples Ever Called Disciples

Abstract: 'Discipleship' has become a big word in Christian parlance. It signifies adherence, commitment and serious membership; but it has the additional quality of being slightly archaic and in a religious way. People speak of a person being a 'disciple' of someone, perhaps in a political, academic or artistic context; and it seems to convey a sense of initiation without servility, attachment without absorption. It is a friendly word, but that is partly because of its archaic flavour; and its friendliness comes from its biblical associations. It suits the English fondness for appropriating religious words for secular purposes: think how politicians like to talk of broad churches and singing from hymn-sheets. As for 'the disciples', we know who they are: they are those who gave themselves to be 'with Jesus' (Mark 3.14) and then to represent him (6.7-13). Yet the word has its problems. There is first its use in the New Testament itself. It is both wider and narrower than that central reference might lead one to expect. Wider, in that not just Jesus but also Moses (John 9.28), the Pharisees (Mark 2.18), John the Baptist (Matt. 11.2; John 1.35; Acts 18.24) and Paul (Acts 9.25) are said to have 'disciples'. So it isn't a monopoly of Jesus or the Jesus-community. Even for disciples of Jesus indeed, it can go wider than the Twelve: Joseph of Arimathea (Matt. 27.57; John 19.38), Nathanael (John 21.2). And in Acts it occurs 27 times, to refer to Christians, members of the community (e.g. 11.26); and indeed it has this wider sense of Jesus' adherents already in Luke 19.37. Luke partly makes up or clarifies by using 'the apostles' regularly for 'the Twelve', leaving 'disciples' free for its wider Christian role. It is narrower, in that, as a term for adherents of Jesus (or indeed of anybody else), it is confined, in the New Testament, to the Gospels and Acts. Paul, for example, writing before any of these books, never referred to Christian adherents, whether founders, leaders or anybody else, as 'disciples'. Even in the Gospels and Acts, the term has no monopoly. In Acts, for instance, Jesus' adherents are often called 'brothers' (see also Matt. 28.10; John 20.17). But second, there is the use of the term 'disciple' itself in this context. Is it right or sensible? We shall find that in some ways it is peculiar and almost perverse, and that its modern use is perhaps rooted in a degree of confusion. A 'disciple' (mathetes) is a pupil or

Don Cupitt's Religion of Language

Abstract: Don Cupitt has published some twenty books since he launched the 'Sea of Faith' movement with a book of that title. His critics have called him a 'moving target', and he himself declares that each of his books 'tends to begin from a perceived fault in the one before'.' Yethis overall purpose has remained constant, namely to retain religion, but to divest it of all supernaturalism. To this end he has consistently opposed any systematic theology which makes absolutist claims. In an amusing anecdote he tells how a 'dogmatic theologian' read a paper in Cambridge setting out his 'whole gospel'. In the ensuing discussion Cupitt asked him how he accounted for the widespread and intractable disagreements which plague theology, and received the short answer: 'Sin' spoken, no doubt, says Cupitt, 'with people like me in mind'r' In 1996he resigned his lectureship in the Cambridge Divinity School not because his colleagues thought him sinful, but according to Trevor Beeson 'because he felt that they were not taking him sufficiently seriously'r' But so prolific a scholar should not be ignored, and the basis he gives to his ideas merits scrutiny. Cupitt bases his theology on his view of language. Like the behaviorist psychologists, he holds that what most people call thinking is in fact only talking, either audibly or in the form of muttered soliloquy, 'a sotto voce talking to oneself', so that 'concepts are just words' and thought 'an ordering of words into sentences'.' The behaviorists took this view in order to base psychology on something tangible, not on states of consciousness which could be argued about inconclusively and were all too often linked with metaphysical speculation about the 'soul'. Cupitt likewise holds that there must be no 'occultism', no 'appeal that goes beyond the manifest in talking about minds'r' and for this reason he too reduces 'pure thought' to 'merely a movement of words that are not quite spoken out loud'. This doctrine that our thinking is 'nothing more than the language in which it is conducted' leads him to renounce all claims to 'lay hold of absolute speculative knowledge'.\" I am dividing this article into three sections in order to show, first, in more detail how Cupitt tries to justify his rejection of absolutist claims, second that his equation of thought with language is quite erroneous, and third that it has pernicious consequences, evident in his own writings.

Book Review: Christ in Eternity and Time: Modern Anglican Perspectives

Abstract: In a generous Foreword to this book, based on Nial ColI's doctoral dissertation submitted to the Gregorian University in Rome, John Macquarrie commends this study as a contribution to a genuine dialogue between Roman Catholic and Anglican theologians. In the current, rather conservative, ecumenical climate between the two churches, this is an appropriate, if generous, gesture from the Anglican side. In this climate, it was courageous of Coll to embark on a serious, theological study of the pre-existence of Christ in the thinking of four Anglican theologians. The main value of the book for Anglicans is his careful summarizing of the views of the four under study. Each theologian is carefully introduced, briefly set in his time and then his theological and/or philosophical approach is set out in outline, before his view of Christ's pre-existence is examined. Dr Cell's qualities as a teacher are very evident here: clarity and simplicity of exposition are his hallmarks, with the reader being given just enough background material to make sense of his complex and demanding subject. This is a remarkably easy book to read, a considerable feat particularly in the chapter on Thornton, whose sustained attempt to do theology through a philosophy indebted to A. N. Whitehead is notoriously demanding. At the same time, Coll's criterion for evaluating the Anglican views is simply the standard of orthodoxy as set out in an uncontextualized interpretation of Nicaea and Chalcedon. As a result, two Anglicans pass the test Lionel Thornton and Eric Mascall while two are judged wanting, John Robinson and the writer of the Foreward, John Macquarrie. This criticism of the latter pair is entirely fair but becomes rather futile. The study acknowledges the proper attempt to articulate the full humanity of Christ, but after that the arguments become circular. This is particularly the case with Macquarrie and his stated dependence on James Dunn's wellknown case that key New Testament passages, for example the much debated 'Christ hymn' in Philippians 2, do not affirm the preexistence of Christ in a straightforward way. Coll treats this claim as if it is easily dismissed by reference to some moderate and scholarly Roman Catholic exegetes. Systematic theologians inevitably incline

The Myth of Anamnesis

Abstract: Theories of what happens at Eucharist generally depend upon some phrase or word of Scripture taken literally. The medieval doctrine of transubstantiation states that God, acting in the Eucharist, effects a change in the inner reality of the bread and wine. It depends upon the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, 'This is my body', 'This is my blood', and was often buttressed by the phrase of Ignatius of Antioch, 'the eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ'.' But the modern theory of anamnesis, based on St Paul's addition to the institution narrative, 'Do this in remembrance (anamnesis) of me', refuses to admit the plain and literal meaning of anamnesis. The theory states in general that anamnesis means Ire-calling' or Ire-presenting' before God an event in the past, so that it becomes here and now operative by its effects'.2 But in all the dictionaries and lexicons, anamnesis, both in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, means 'remembrance', 'recollection'. The Hebrew parallel, zkr, in the hiphil, causative, sense of the verb, can often mean not just 'cause to remember' but 'cause to do something about'. C. F. Evans, in his commentary on Luke, translates eis ten emen anamnesin as 'have me in mind'r' Linked with this conception of anamnesis as a Ire-calling' of an event from the past is the notion that in the five occurrences of the word in the Septuagint" it reflects a Jewish sacrificial ritual. So Darwell Stone, after reviewing the evidence, concluded,

Theodicy in a post-Holocaust world: the work of Dorothee Soelle

Abstract: reasoning which bears no relationship to the 'God of the prophets who cares for his creatures and his thoughts are about the world. He is involved in human history and is affected by human acts.,28 Soelle's critique of the patriarchal God also challenges our understanding of free will. If God is in control of everything then free will is a myth. But if we continue to believe that it has been given to us by God then we must face the challenge and responsibility it gives us: 'Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach ... This day I call heaven and earth as witness against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live' (Deuteronomy 30.11, 19). Soelle believes that God is in human history and that his purpose and presence is made possible through what we do. Thus, she reminds us that much suffering happens because we fail to do what God has commanded to make the choice between life and death. She writes: 'We can change the social conditions under which people experience suffering. We can change ourselves and learn in suffering instead of becoming worse.,29 Finally, Soelle's use of Christ's death and resurrection as the source of hope that death has been conquered and in the new

‘Types and Symbols of Eternity’: How Art Points to Divinity

Abstract: In an age that is supposedly secular, post-Christian and postmodern, increasing numbers of people are searching for spiritual meaning, value and truth through the creation and appreciation of works of art. Indeed, for many their encounters with words on a page, paint on a canvas, or sounds from an orchestra provide the most profound spiritual insights they have ever experienced. Yet because they lack a credible way to interpret such insights as evidence for a reality beyond the material, those who have had them tend to relegate them to the realm of the private, arbitrary and subjective, since such insights seem to lack the certainty and universality usually associated with science. Unlikely as it might seem, recent developments in the growing dialogue between science and religion and in particular the revival, in a revised form, of natural theology provide the opportunity to understand artistic insights as genuine revelation of spiritual reality. Previously, natural theology was thought to consist of deductive 'proofs' (in which form they have been demolished by philosophers, scientists and theologians respectively). Now this search is thought to operate by means of what Michael Polanyi calls tacit understanding in which 'we know more than we can tell', 1 through intuitive acts of apprehension that go beyond strictly logical inference. If this is the case, then works of art, which themselves work by intuitive acts of apprehension, could in fact be what so many people experience them as being namely, vehicles for the presence of God. Indeed, if God the Son is 'the art of the omnipotent God' as Thomas Aquinas maintains.i then we should expect works of art by their very nature, and not just when they are explicitly religious, to point to the presence of the divine.