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Volume 11, Issue 3, October 1998
Editorial
Daniel Madigan, iii
With this issue, Pacifica witnesses the end of an era. At the beginning of 1999, our Book Review Editor, Professor Francis J. Moloney S.D.B., will take up an appointment as Professor of New Testament in the Department of Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. After having taught at Catholic Theological College in Clayton, Frank became the foundation Professor of Theology at the Australian Catholic University. His prestigious new appointment, succeeding Professor John P. Meier, will free Frank from a substantial burden of administration and enable him to devote much more time and energy to his research and writing. Though he will surely be missed by Pacifica and by his colleagues in Australia, we cannot but recognise the honour this appointment represents and we rejoice with Frank that at the height of his powers as a scholar of the New Testament he is to have the opportunity to make an even more substantial contribution to biblical studies than he has already done. With Frank’s departure for Washington, Pacifica farewells the last of the three editors (John Honner and Mark Coleridge were the other two) who together founded it and then saw it through its first ten years, helping it become established on a firm footing as one of the foremost ecumenical journals of theology in Australia. Those who now follow them know only too well the debt they are owed. Beginning with the first number of 1999, Dr Maryanne Confoy R.S.C., a member of the faculties of Jesuit Theological College and Boston College, will take over the task of Book Review Editor. Maryanne is already a valued member of the Editorial Board and we are grateful to her for accepting this appointment. The last issue of Pacifica was devoted to the major papers for the conference Beyond 2000: Theological Education in an Ecumenical, Global and Plural Context, and it served as the basic text for the discussions there. One of the most engaging of these was the session in which Professor Mark Brett of Whitley College responded to Frank Moloney’s “To Teach the Text: The New Testament in a New Age”. Frank himself then offered a response to Mark’s paper. We present both of these contributions in this issue, but hope that these will not be Frank’s last words in Pacifica.
Articles
Touching the Sacred Text: The Bible as Icon in Feminist Reading
Dorothy A. Lee, pp.249-264
This article proposes that the understanding of icons within Eastern Orthodoxy provides a model for feminist hermeneutics in developing a poetics of sacred reading. The two major periods of icon dispute within church history are briefly reviewed (the icon controversies of the eighth and ninth centuries and the Protestant Reformation) and iconoclasm and iconophilia are discussed as competing yet ultimately complementary dynamics in theology. Christian feminism can acknowledge the value of both in understanding the place of the Bible avoiding either fundamentalist or expulsive readings of the text. Icon-veneration has an important place, alongside iconoclasm (as distinct from iconophobia), in developing a feminist biblical poetics.
The Ties that used to Bind: A Fresh Look at the History of Australian Anglicanism
David Hilliard, pp.265-280
This article questions the widely accepted idea that the history of Anglicanism in Australia has been dominated by warfare between three church parties: Anglo-Catholic (high), evangelical (low) and liberal (broad). In fact, among lay Anglicans and at the parish level party strife was much less important than is often assumed. Until recently Australian Anglicans shared a number of common institutions, attitudes and social characteristics, and there was a large body of “moderate” Anglicans – exemplified in this article by the Rev R. P. Hewgill of Adelaide – who did not identify with any particular party.
Some Disputed Questions about Confirmation
John Hill, pp.281-302
The sacrament of confirmation has been for some time the subject of much theological debate and diverse pastoral practice. Across the Christian spectrum, and within individual churches, there has been little agreement on the meaning of the rite, on its sacramental status, on its minister, on the appropriate age and preparation of the subject, and so on. While some of this confusion is gradually yielding to increased awareness of the history and evolution of the rite, there is evidence that the problem has been exacerbated by common logical fallacies, an understanding of which may clarify the issue.
Locating Readers: A Response to Frank Moloney
Mark G. Brett, pp.303-315
Frank Moloney’s appropriation of Nicodemus is more justifiable if it is considered in the light of the original socio-historical context of John’s Gospel. The world behind the text can be seen to provide an analogy with the world in front of the text. There are , indeed, more layers of practical relevance which could be considered, and it may well be the case that the future of biblical studies in Australia will depend on our capacity to relate the narrow and technical features of the discipline to the wider concerns of religion and society.
A Response to Mark Brett’s “Response”
Francis J. Moloney, pp.316-323
no abstract
Book Reviews
The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature
Roland E. Murphy
Alan Moss pp.324-326
The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism
Joan E. Taylor
Mark Harding pp.326-328
The Second Epistle to the Corinthians
Paul Barnett
Nigel Watson pp.329-330
Covenant and Sacrifice in the Letter to the Hebrews
John Dunnill
Romuald J. Barry pp.331-332
Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel
D. M. H. Tovey
Francis J. Moloney pp.333-335
The Christology of the Fourth Gospel
Paul N. Anderson
Francis J. Moloney pp.335-338
Tertullian, First Theologian of the West
Eric Osborn
Graeme Clarke pp.338-339
Four Methods in Search of Meaning: “Philosophy in Christian Antiquity”
Christopher Stead
Eric Osborn pp.339-344
The Reformation of the Twelfth Century
Giles Constable
David Parnham pp.345-346
Beyond the Written Word: Preaching and Theology in the Florence of Archbishop Antoninus 1427-1459
Peter Francis Howard
Ian Breward pp.347-349
Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man who became Pope John Paul II
Rocco Buttiglione
Tim Costelloe pp.349-352
Through a Woman’s Eyes
Christine Burke
Maryanne Confoy pp.352-353
The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion
John D. Caputo
Terry A. Veling pp.354-357
Protestantism in Contemporary China
Alan Hunter and Kim-Kwong Chan
Paul Rule pp.357-360
Life and Morality: Contemporary Medico-Moral Issues
David Smith
Norman Ford pp.360-362
Has God Many Names?
Graham English pp.362-363
Opala: A Search for Desert Water
Rod Cameron
Michael Goonan pp.363-365
Travels in Sacred Places
Geoffrey Robinson
Michael Goonan pp.363-365
Fundamental or Fanatical? An analysis of fundamentalism in contemporary society
Charles Hill
Gideon Goosen pp.365-365
Morris West: A Writer and a Spirituality
Maryanne Confoy
Edmund Campion pp.365-366
Has God Many Names? An Introduction to Religious Studies
Dewi Arwel Hughes
Graham English pp.362-363
Contributors
DOROTHY A. LEE is Professor of New Testament in the Uniting Church Theological Hall and the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne. Her research interests are in feminist biblical studies and New Testament theology, particularly in the Fourth Gospel. She has recently co-edited both Feminist Theology: The Next Stage, a special edition of Pacifica 10/2 (1997), and Freedom and Entrapment: Women Thinking Theology (Melbourne: Collins Dove, 1995). DAVID HILLIARD, MA (Otago), PhD (ANU), is Reader in History, The Flinders University of South Australia. He has published widely on the religious and social history of Australia. This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the first Australian Anglican History Seminar, New College, University of New South Wales, 27-28 September 1997. JOHN HILL is a priest of the diocese of Broken Bay in Sydney and was formerly on the staff of the Catholic Institute of Sydney, of which he was President. He has published The Ethics of G. E. Moore: A New Interpretation, and numerous articles in philosophy and theology, including “The Wound in the Right Foot: A Second Opinion” in Pacifica 8 (1995) 274-90. MARK G. BRETT teaches Old Testament and hermeneutics at Whitley College, where he is Professor in the Evangelical Theological Association in Melbourne. Recent publications include Biblical Criticism in Crisis? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), “Biblical Studies and Theology: Negotiating the Intersections”, Biblical Interpretation 6/2 (1998), and “The Political Ethics of Postmodern Allegory” in M. D. Carroll et al. (eds), The Bible in Human Society (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1995). FRANCIS J. MOLONEY, S.B.D., is foundation Professor of Theology at the Australian Catholic University and a founding editor of Pacifica. At the beginning of 1999 he takes up the position of Professor of New Testament at the Catholic University of America in Washington. Recent publications include Belief in the Word: Reading John 1-4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Signs and Shadows: Reading John 5-12 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996); Glory not Dishonor: Reading John 13-21 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998); and The Gospel of John (Sacra Pagina Series 4; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1998).
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