The Spirituality Revolution and the Process of Reconfessionalisation in the West
William M. Johnston, pp.1-16
The author aims to clarify varieties and functions of Christian spirituality in the West in our time. It interprets the explosion of “spirituality” as both a cause of, and a response to, the process of “reconfessionalisation” that is affecting major churches or “confessions”, notably the Roman Catholic church and Eastern Christian churches. The article examines first the concepts of “confession”, “reconfessionalisation”, and “deconfessionalisation”, arguing that the latter two trends tend to “deconfessionalise” loyalties. In respect to “spirituality” (defined as any individual’s personal process of selecting and rejecting resources from one or more religious traditions), the article differentiates “macrospirituality” as institutional from “microspirituality” as personal, viewing them as dual dimensions of a “Spirituality Revolution” that can be seen as democratising the imperative of personal choosing which French existential philosophy celebrated. The article concludes by examining how individual quests are giving rise to variants such as “interspirituality”, “protospirituality”, and the “spirituality of mass calamity”, all of which are growing in appeal.
Augustine and the Trinity: Whose Crisis?
Neil Ormerod, pp.17-32
This article analyses criticisms made of Augustine’s Trinitarian theology by Colin Gunton. It demonstrates that many of these criticisms are unfair, or are based on inconsistencies and inadequacies in Gunton’s own position. More constructively, it shows that Augustine’s account of human consciousness is not that of an isolated monad, but of a consciousness always in relationship with the world.
The Christology of Isaak Dorner Revisited
Gordon Dicker, pp.33-44
Isaak Dorner was a major German theologian of the mid-nineteenth century. His major work was a history of the doctrine of the person of Christ, but his own constructive Christological proposals have largely been overlooked. Dorner postulates a universal human capacity for the divine and an eternal will of the Divine to become human through the Logos. He denies that the human nature is either abstract or general. Jesus is a special human being created by God, a Second Adam with a unique responsiveness to the Divine. The special aspect of Dorner’s Christology is his contention that the incarnation must be progressive. As the human life of Christ developed there must have been also development of the God-humanity as the Logos continually appropriated new capacities generated by the human development. His Christology sought to protect the full humanity of Christ as expressed by the young Luther, yet also protect the changeless glory of the Divine as expressed in Reformed theology.
Contextual Method in Theology: Learnings from the case of Aotearoa New Zealand
Neil Darragh, pp.45-66
The author looks at contextual method in theological reflection using the four elements or “sources” of experience, tradition, Scripture, and reason as a framework for analysis. It examines the case of local theology in Aotearoa New Zealand to illustrate the kinds of relationships among these elements that occur and the process issues we face when we do theology with particular attention to the local context.
Religion, Science, and Environment
Michael T. Seigel, pp.67-88
Much theological discussion of ecology has focussed on responding to criticism such as that of Lynn White, but there are aspects of Christian tradition that need more attention: the loss of a sense of symbiotic relationship between humanity and nature, and the belief that human beings can effectively and harmlessly manipulate nature to their own ends. The viewpoint of White and many other ecological thinkers that our be-haviour derives from our world-views and religiosity has set substantial portions of the environmental movement in search of a new world-view and a new religiosity. If, however, our world-views and religiosity derive, even in part, from our social structures and therefore ultimately from our behaviour, then we must also focus on changing these. The question of science then is not only whether it is sufficiently holistic but also whether it can contribute to determining appropriate behaviours and social struc-tures. Dialogue between science and religion has already come a long way in terms of developing new world-views. It is necessary now that they work together to guide and motivate the real decision-making processes in politics, economics, and so forth
The Ethics of Using Embryonic Stem Cells
Rufus Black, pp.89-100
The ethics of the use of embryonic stem cells can be determined in three stages. First, the ethical framework needs to be established. For this purpose, a renewed form of moral realism should replace the logically-flawed utilitarianism that is widely used in discussions today. Second, the ontological status of the embryos from which stem cells are removed needs to be determined. An approach that sees embryos as personal bodies offers a middle way between the polar traditions that see embryos either as mere human tissue or as full human persons. Finally, particular ethical obligations can be deduced. It is ethical to use embryos surplus to the needs of assisted reproduction in research whose purpose is to enhance life substantially where appropriate consent is obtained and the bodily material not utilised in research is disposed of respectfully but not otherwise
Wrestling with Doubt: Theological Reflections on the Journey of Faith
Frank D. Rees
Anthony J. Kelly pp.105-107
A God for this World
Scott Cowdell
Graeme Garrett pp.108-112
What Anglicans Believe in the Twenty-first Century
David L. Edwards
Rosemary Howard Gill pp.120-121
Let the Scriptures Speak
Dennis Hamm
Jill McCorquodale pp.121-122
WILLIAM M. JOHNSTON taught Modern European Cultural History and Religious Studies at the University of Massachusetts from 1965 to 1999. He is now a Faculty Associate in Church History at Yarra Theological Union, Melbourne. He edited the Encyclopedia of Monasticism, 2 vols. (Chicago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000).
NEIL ORMEROD lectures in theology at the Catholic Institute of Sydney. He has published articles in Theological Studies, Pacifica and Australasian Catholic Record, and is author of Introducing Contemporary Theologies, recently re-printed by Orbis, Maryknoll. He is married to Thea and they have four children.
GORDON DICKER is a Uniting Church minister who, before his retirement, was for twenty years lecturer in Historical Theology at United Theological College in Sydney and for the last six of those years Principal of the College. His interests include Australian contextual theology, Christology and the theology of the Christian life.
NEIL DARRAGH teaches theology in the University of Auckland and the Catholic Institute of Theology in Auckland, New Zealand. His theological interests and publications are in the areas of ecotheology, liturgy, missiology and contextual theology. He combines theology with pastoral work in Auckland.
MICHAEL SEIGEL is an Australian Divine Word Missionary priest and is currently research associate at the Nanzan Institute for Social Ethics at Nanzan University in Japan. After 17 years of pastoral work in Japan he studied at the University of Birmingham where he completed a doctoral degree in theology in 1993. Subsequently he spent six years as the coordinator for Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation at the generalate of the Society of the Divine Word in Rome, returning to Japan in 2001.
RUFUS BLACK, B.A., LL.B.(Hons), Dip.Theol., M.Phil., D.Phil. is an ethicist, theologian and management consultant. He chairs the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute Human Research Ethics Committee, is a member of the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Clinical Ethics Committee and provides ethical advice to Australian corporations. Oxford University Press recently published his Christian Moral Realism: Natural
