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Volume 3, Issue 3, October 1990
Articles
The Teaching of Church History
Peter Matheson, pp.251-256
Too often the teaching of theology becomes a specialised, purely professional occupation, or, on the other hand, a confessional or utilitarian exercise. We need to rediscover a way of teaching which involves the whole person. One way forward in church history may be to use dramatic techniques such as role-play. These techniques are particularly helpful in bridging the imaginative chasm between, for example, our modern Pacific society and early Church History.
Edward Coleridge: Forgotten Australian Anglican
Austin Cooper, pp.257-268
Edward Coleridge, cousin of the famous poet, senior master at Eton, and friend of the Tractarian leaders at Oxford, was well placed to exercise a wide influence on the Anglican Church overseas, in which he had a life-long interest. Although he never visited Australia, his friendship with Bishop Broughton of Sydney enabled him to exercise a profound and formative influence on the Anglican Communion in Australia.
Bernard of Clairvaux: The Man Behind the Image
Michael Casey, pp.269-287
This article marks the ninth centenary of the birth of St. Bernard and offers a new reading of his character and the context in which he lived. While acknowledging the grounds for Bernard’s apparent hard-nosed right-wing piety, the author also shows Bernard to be a sensitive reformer of the Church. In Bernard’s subtle and passionate writings a thousand years of western tradition came alive.
A Barthian Theology of Interfaith Dialogue?
Robin Boyd, pp.288-303
Karl Barth is often blamed for holding up interfaith dialogue for more than twenty years (c. 1938-1962). Yet his scriptural approach to theology may in fact be a more acceptable and useful instrument for fruitful dialogue than the Christological reflections of Hick and Knitter. David Lochhead’s The Dialogical Imperative is a useful pointer towards a dialogue-in-community in which the indigenous Christian partner’s role is valued at least as highly as that of the Western theological observer. Such dialogue demands an “I-Thou” relationship between the partners, but does not pre-require a subjectivisation of the Christian faith in which the self rather than the self-revealing God is at the centre.
What has Asia to do with Australia? Reflections on the Theology of Aloysius Pieris
Andrew Hamilton, pp.304-322
Aloysius Pieris has recently published two collections of articles written over the last ten years: An Asian Theology of Liberation and Love meets Wisdom. Pieris focuses on dialogue between Christianity and other religions, and in particular with Buddhism of which he is a scholar. In this article I discuss the dominant themes of Pieris’ work as they are revealed in these two collections. Then, after putting some general questions to his theological conclusions, I ask how his theology illuminates issues which face the Australian church. In my reflections I shall refer to Australian attitudes to the relationship between church and politics, which have similarities to those developed by Richard Neuhaus in the United States.
Towards a Christology of Grace
Frank Nichol, pp.323-334
This paper explores an account of the centrality and uniqueness of Jesus Christ, taking the grace of God as its central feature. Jesus’ uniqueness consists in his being particularly claimed, designated, destined, invited, expected “from the foundation of the world” to bear and to represent God’s reality. He can “rise to the invitation” only because the Father thus addresses him. The Father calls, designates, invites Jesus to be the Christ, and invites no one else. The God of faith is not the God of Deism.
Book Reviews
The Ethics of the New Testament
Wolfgang Schrage
Mark Coleridge pp.335-339
The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement
Martin Hengel
Francis J. Moloney pp.340-341
Israel's Praise: Doxology Against Idolatry and Ideology
Walter Brueggemann
Howard Wallace pp.341-344
The Fourth Gospel and its Predecessor
R.T. Fortna
John Painter pp.344-346
The Johannine Approach to Mission: A Contextual Study of John 4.1-42
Teresa Okure
John Painter pp.347-349
Israel's Law and the Church's Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters
Stephen Westerholm
Brendan Byrne pp.349-351
God Within
Oliver Davies
David Ranson pp.352-353
God in South Africa: The Challenge of the Gospel
Albert Nolan
Campion Murray pp.353-355
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
Lesslie Newbigin
Bruce L. Barber pp.356-358
An Asian Theology of Liberation
Aloysius Pieris
James Haire pp.359-361
Mary, Mother of God, Mother of the Poor
Ivone Gebara and Maria Bingemer
John Wilcken pp.361-363
Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope
David Tracy
John M. Rickard pp.363-365
Contributors
Peter Matheson was born and educated in Scotland, then studied in New Zealand and Germany. After teaching in the Faculty of Divinity in Edinburgh, he became Professor of Church History at Knox Theological College, University of Otago, in 1982. His publications include Cardinal Contarini at the Diet of Regensburg (1972), The Third Reich and the Christian Churches (1981), and The Collected Works of Thomas Müntzer (1988).
Austin Cooper, O.M.I., has been lecturer in Church History at Catholic Theological College, Melbourne, since 1971, prior to which he was a member of the History Department at Monash University. His doctoral work was on the influence of the Oxford Movement on the Anglican Church in Australia. He has written articles on modern church history, and has published two books on medieval mysticism, Julian of Norwich (1986) and The Cloud (1989).
Michael Casey, O.C.S.O, is a Cistercian monk of Tarrawarra Abbey, Victoria. He studied Scripture in Louvain and subsequently completed a doctorate, on Bernard of Clairvaux, at the Melbourne College of Divinity. In this anniversary year he has travelled widely, speaking on St. Bernard as a model for contemporary Christians. He delivered the keynote address at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in the United States in May 1990.
Andrew Hamilton, S.J., B.A., B.D., D.Phil., is a member of Jesuit Theological College in Melbourne, teaching Church History and Systematic Theology in the United Faculty of Theology. He has recently published “Alongside the Poor”: the churches facing the challenge? (Melbourne: VCCE, 1990) and has been a fortunate friend among refugees and refugee services in Thailand and Australia.
Robin Boyd, B.A., B.D., Ph.D., D.D., is parish minister of Wesley Uniting Church, Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. As a missionary of the Irish Presbyterian Church he taught theology in Gujarat State, India, and wrote An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Madras: CLS, 1975). After parish service in Toorak, Melbourne, he was, from 1980-87, Director of the Irish School of Ecumenics in Dublin, and published Ireland: Christianity Discredited or Pilgrim’s Progress?ˇ(Geneva: WCC, 1988).
Frank Nichol was Principal and Professor of Systematic Theology at the Presbyterian Theological Hall, Knox College, Dunedin, New Zealand, and taught in Otago University’s Faculty of Theology, having studied for the ministry there (M.A., B.D.), later gaining Ph.D. at St Andrews in Scotland. He was minister in South Canterbury, N.Z., and South Perth, Western Australia, before being appointed Principal of W.A.’s Theological Hall. He returned to Dunedin in 1963, where he now lives in retirement since 1986. In July, 1990, St Andrews conferred on him the honorary degree of D.D.
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