The Work of Memory

2021 ◽  
pp. 158-184
Author(s):  
Kevin G. Grove
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
In Christ

Chapter 6, on the work of memory and the life of grace, shows how remembering and forgetting form a binary construction that images and supplies language for Augustine to hold together any number of oppositions in Christ. Highlighting how Augustine applies remembering and forgetting, imagery, concepts, and language, the chapter revisits four central Augustinian binaries that emerged in chapter 1: lyre and psaltery (Christology from below and above), labor and rest, solitude and communion, and praising and groaning. The work of memory, for Augustine, extends to all created reality and structures the life of grace within the body of Christ.

scholarly journals Mission to the Gentiles: The construction of Christian identity and its relationship with ethics according to Paul

2012 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Nicklas ◽  
Herbert Schlögel
Keyword(s):  
Coordinate System ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
The Body ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
In Christ

Paul allowed pagans to become members of the newly founded communities of Christ-believers and thus members of God’s covenant people, Israel, without becoming circumcised. However, even if many of the ‘pagan Christians’ who became members of the new messianic movement had a background as God-Fearers in the frame of diaspora synagogues, the radicalism of their ‘step in faith’ can hardly be overestimated. With their turn from different pagan cults and their gods to the mysterious God of Israel and his crucified and risen Son, Jesus Christ, a whole coordinate system of human relationships, expectations, hopes and norms must have changed. This paper explores the construction of Christian identity and its relationship with ethics according to Paul. It is illustrated how Paul himself describes the system of changed relationships: turning away from the idols towards the living God, being in Christ or – together with others – part of the ‘body of Christ’. Moreover, these three dimensions of new relations – to God, to Christ and to the fellow believers in Christ – correspond to three reference points for ethical decisions in Pauline communities: the command to love one another, the idea of human conscience (as a voice coming from God) and the idea of the ‘ethos of Christ’.

Die kerk in die Nuwe Testament

1995 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
G. M.M. Pelser
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
People Of God ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The People ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Church

The church in the New Testament The article explores the documents of the New Testament in search of the concept church' and finds that,  in a nutshell, the answers are as follows: the  Spirit-controlled, charismatic togetherness of people 'in Christ' (Paul); cross-bearing followers of Jesus (Mk); the people of God on their way through history (Lk-Ac); the faithful locked in battle with Satanic powers, but with the expectation of occupying the heavenly Jerusalem (Rv); the  community with which Christ became solidary, and which is heading for its heavenly place of rest (Reb); the poor but pious community, putting their faith into practice (Ja); the body of Christ in which his universal reign can be experienced (Col); the sphere in which salvation is  realized (Eph); disciples following Jesus as God-with us, experiencing the  rift between synagogue and church (Mt); friends and confidants of Christ, living at loggerheads with the synagogue (In); the household of God, governed by householders (Pastorals); and the socia-ly ostracized elect of God whose way of life should be a demonstration of their otherness as Christians (1 Pt).

Reply to Panelists

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Andrew Loke ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
The Body ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Alternative Models ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
In Christ

I explain why my model of the Incarnation avoids the problems with alternative models and reply to objections concerning my model’s coherence with scripture (for example, Heb. 4:15), the understanding of personhood and natures (using resources from Islamic tradition concerning Jesus’s human nature), the concrete–abstract distinction, the human soul of Christ, the lack of the unconscious in Christ, and the incompatibility with a strong sense of immutability and simplicity. I conclude that my model stays faithful to scripture and can help to secure unity in the body of Christ concerning the doctrine of the Incarnation.

The Singular Grace of Division's Wound

Ecclesiology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-27
Author(s):  
Christopher Wells
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
The Body ◽  
Spiritual Intelligence ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Church

AbstractGiven the persistence of ecclesial unity—that the Church is one—as a fact of grace, is it possible to understand the concurrence of division between Christian communities as a provision of providence? A hallmark of the ecumenical movement has been its consciousness, at least, of this uncomfortable question, granting, as it does, the evangelical authenticity of various self-differentiated 'churches'. In this context, one may understand the spiritual intelligence of the Catholic Church's solution to the problem at and after Vatican II, writ in terms of the body of Christ. Christian divisions are wounds, Catholic leaders have suggested, that would form the faithful in their vocation of mutual self-offering and -emptying 'in' Christ crucified, 'in' one body. Such an approach to ecumenical reconciliation seems both requisite and promising, as may be seen with reference to the present 'lexicon' of Anglican-Catholic engagement.

Beyond acedia and wrath: life during the climate apocalypse

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-207
Author(s):  
A. Robert Hirschfeld ◽  
Stephen Blackmer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Prodigal Son ◽  
Rightful Place ◽  
The People ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Ecological Disturbances

In a time when climate change and other ecological disturbances wreak havoc upon both human and natural “households,” how can the people of God respond beyond anger and acedia, or sloth? Easy as it is to be paralyzed by the magnitude of the problems, and tempting as it is to resort to anger and blame, could we follow the prodigal son in “returning to ourselves” and being restored to our rightful place in the household of God? The authors’ experiences with the River of Life Pilgrimage and Church of the Woods provide concrete examples of how the human members of the Body of Christ can be restored to kinship with our non-human sisters and brothers in Christ through immersion, song, praise, and sharing of bread and wine.

scholarly journals A Baptismal Theology of Accountability

2021 ◽  
pp. 095394682110097
Author(s):  
Andrew Torrance
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Church ◽  
Do So

This article addresses the question of what it means to be accountable to God based on a baptismal theology that we find in the New Testament. It argues that various passages in the New Testament lead us to the view that we are accountable to God in Christ. Such a view is not straightforward, and so much of this article will be spent unpacking what this could mean. To do so, I elaborate on what it means for God to create humanity to find fulfilment in and through Christ. This leads me to argue that humans experience fulfilment in and through the body of Christ into which baptism initiates a person. It is by participating and finding belonging in the life of the Church that humans can begin to discover what it means to be accountable to God in Christ, and, in so doing, form the virtue of accountability.

Jonathan Edwards on Men and Trees, and the Problem of Solidarity

1974 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Weddle
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
The Body ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Covenant Theology ◽  
Biological Images ◽  
In Christ

This essay addresses the problem of the relation between membership and moral responsibility in the interpretation of the doctrines of original sin and atonement by Jonathan Edwards. Focusing on his image of a tree and its branches to typify the solidarity of men as sinners (“in Adam”) and as saints (“in Christ”), I will argue that Edwards defines the “nature” of man in organic and historical terms which modify significantly both the biological images of infection and regeneration in the Augustinian-Calvinist tradition and the juridical terms of federal headship in Puritan covenant theology. Edwards defines “membership” in the race of Adam, as well as in the body of Christ, as a form of participation in a history which is decisively shaped by the disposition of its organizing figure. Yet, in formulating the doctrines of original sin and atonement, Edwards is careful to maintain the balance between disposition as a generic characteristic and action as an individual responsibility. Edwards' theory of solidarity, informed by a sense of history as the medium of ethical relationship, is an instructive attempt to clarify the relation between curse and disobedience, as well as that between grace and faithfulness.

Double Affirmation: Medievalism as Christian Apologetic in the Arthurian Poetry of Charles Williams

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-96
Author(s):  
Sørina Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
European History ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Female Figure ◽  
Century Poetry ◽  
Charles Williams ◽  
Embodied Theology

In his unfinished cycle of Arthurian poems, Charles Williams developed a totalizing mythology in which he fictionalized the Medieval. First, he employed chronological conflation, juxtaposing events and cultural references from a millennium of European history and aligning each with his doctrinal system. Second, following the Biblical metaphor of the body of Christ, Blake’s symbolism, and Rosicrucian sacramentalism, he embodied theology in the Medieval landscape via a superimposed female figure. Finally, Williams worked to show the validity of two Scholastic approaches to spirituality: the kataphatic and apophatic paths. His attempts to balance via negativa and via positiva led Williams to practical misapplication—but also to creation of a landmark work of twentieth century poetry. . . . the two great vocations, the Rejection of all images before the unimaged, the Affirmation of all images before the all-imaged, the Rejection affirming, the Affirmation rejecting. . . —from ‘The Departure of Dindrane’ —O Blessed, pardon affirmation!— —O Blessed, pardon negation!— —from ‘The Prayers of the Pope’

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