Volume 14, Issue 2, June 2001
Articles
“Born of the Virgin Mary”: Toward a Sprachregelung on a Delicate Point of Doctrine
Frans Josef van Beeck, pp.121-143
This essay offers an interpretation of the traditional catholic teaching that “Jesus Christ, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, was born of the Virgin Mary”. The author reviews recent exegesis and theology, then revisits the tradition of the church, then discusses the contrast between the physiological “facts” involved in human conception as they were understood in the classical periods – and thus at the place and time of the composition of the infancy narratives – and the accepted modern, scientific account of the same “facts”. He argues that neither the New Testament nor the Church teaches that Jesus’ virginal conception is a cosmological miracle: rather this is a conclusion of the data of the faith, not an article of faith in and of itself. This should guide our speech in ministry
“Bringing Their Gods in Their Hands”:Job and Absolute Orthodoxy
Martin Sutherland, pp.144-158
Orthodoxies of all sorts can assume an unhealthy power. This essay proposes a reading of Job that discovers a challenge to the role of dogma. The story demonstrates the failure of the friends’ rigid adherence to the sapiential orthodoxy of retribution and reward. It is suggested also that a similar censure of religious practice is implied. Job’s integrity is not confirmed through wisdom or cultic ritual but in meeting YHWH. An essential twist is that, if placed within a framework of encounter, or-thodoxy can, after all, play a valid role.
What do I do with Contexts? A Brief Reflection on Reading Biblical Texts with Israel and Aotearoa New Zealand in Mind
Judith E. McKinlay, pp.159-171
How does one “do biblical studies contextually? If I begin by asking who am I
Portraying the Face of the Nazarene in Contemporary Indonesia: Literature as Frontier-Expanding Mission
John Mansford Prior, pp.172-190
Religious conflict is a key element in the ongoing turmoil in Indonesia. Reconciliation calls for authentic yet open religious identities. This essay introduces examples of Christian literature by socially engaged activists and politically aware mystics. These authors are creating a new language in which to re-picture the Jesus of the Gospels as authentically Asian at the heartbeat of popular Indonesian culture.
Interculturation: Exploring changing Religious, Cultural, and Faith Identities in an African Context
Thomas G. Grenham, pp.191-206
Inculturation, as a theological concept, needs more under-standing. An improved understanding suggests invoking the term inter-culturation to describe the dialogical process between Christian religion and other cultures with diverse religious worldviews. This article suggests that evangelisation and educating in faith encompasses a mutual reciprocal partnership between religious and non-religious cultures in order that the gospel can transform them to reveal God’s vision for humankind. This vision is manifested for Christians in the Reign of God. The Turkana nomads of Kenya are a case study in which an exploration of religious interculturation takes place to effect significant changes in Christian and Turkana religious identity. The gospel is proclaimed through dialogue and witness that expresses itself through appropriate cultural materials that have the capacity for transcending the particularity of cultures. The article concludes with some reflections on the implications of inter-culturation for worldwide religious education.
Book Reviews
The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature
Joseph A. Fitzmyer
Mark Harding pp.207-210
The Law and the New Testament: the Question of Continuity
Frank Thielman
Vic Pfitzner pp.212-215
A Believer’s Search for the Jesus of History
Phillip J. Cunningham
Merrill Kitchen pp.210-212
Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Andreas Pangritz
Bruce Barber pp.215-217
Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St Thomas Aquinas
Bernard Lonergan
Neil Ormerod pp.220-222
The Twentieth Century: A Theological Overview
Gregory Baum (ed.)
Bruce Duncan pp.217-220
The Changing Face of the Priesthood
Donald B. Cozzens
Gerard Kelly pp.222-225
The Continuing Conversion of the Church
Darrell L. Guder
Peter Janssen pp.225-228
Christian Social Witness and Teaching: The Catholic Tradition from Genesis to Centesimus Annus. Volume 2: The Modern Social Teaching Contexts
Rodger Charles
Bruce Duncan pp.228-232
Cardinal Ratzinger: the Vatican’s Enforcer of the Faith
John L. Allen Jr.
Bruce Duncan pp.232-236
The Ground Beneath the Cross: The Theology of Ignacio Ellacurìa
Kevin F. Burke
David Pascoe pp.236-238
Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches
Walter Wink (ed.)
John Henley pp.238-239
God, the Father of Mercy
Theological-Historical Commission for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000
Michael A. Kelly pp.240-241
Crossways: Forming Ourselves in the Mind of Christ
James Hogan
Michael A. Kelly pp.241-243
Praising God: The Trinity in Christian Worship
Ruth C. Duck and Patricia Wilson Kastner
Patrick Negri pp.243-244
Contributors
FRANZ JOSEF VAN BEECK S.J., a native of the Netherlands, has lived, learned and taught since 1968 in the United States, first at Boston College and most recently at Loyola University, Chicago, where he is now a senior professor. He is the author of God Encountered: A Contemporary Systematic Theology (Collegeville MN: The Liturgical Press), of which five instalments have seen the light, with three more in the darkness of conception and incubation.
MARTIN SUTHERLAND is Academic Dean at Carey Baptist College in Auckland, New Zealand. He lectures in Systematic Theology at the University of Auckland and is editor of the New Zealand Journal of Baptist Research.
JUDITH MCKINLAY teaches biblical studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Otago University, New Zealand. Her current interests focus on the intersections of feminist and postcolonial readings of the Bible.
JOHN PRIOR, a member of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) and missiologist, has worked in Indonesia since 1973. Based at St Paul’s Major Seminary Ledalero in Flores, he is Vice Chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Indonesian Bishops’ Conference and a member of the Theological Commission of the same Conference. He is a Consultor on the Pontifical Council for Culture and is currently Secretary of Candraditya Research Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture, Maumere, Flores-NTT, Indonesia.
THOMAS G. GRENHAM S.P.S. is an Irish missionary priest who has lived and ministered in Kenya for ten years, particularly among the Turkana people of the Northwest. He is currently pursuing doctoral research at the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College, Massachusetts.
