Does Theology Belong in the University? Schleiermacherian Reflections from an Australian Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 484-495
Author(s):  
Ben Myers

Abstract This article argues that theology belongs in the university not because of its relationship to the other disciplines but because of its relationship to the church. It discusses Schleiermacher’s understanding of theology as a practical science oriented towards Christian leadership in society. It argues that Schleiermacher’s account provides an illuminating perspective on the history of academic theology in Australia. Theology belongs in the university not for any internal methodological reasons but because of specific contextual conditions in societies like Australia where Christianity has exerted a large historical influence. The article concludes by arguing that the ecclesial orientation of university theology is compatible with the aims of public theology, given that service to the Christian community is a means by which the common flourishing of society can be promoted.

1973 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-375
Author(s):  
Helen Matzke McCadden

In the Presbyterian burying ground at George Washington's encampment in Morristown, New Jersey, on April 29, 1780, Roman Catholic burial rites were performed for a distinguished emissary from Cuba. Dr. James Thacher, army surgeon, recorded the obsequies in his Journal thus:His Excellency General Washington, with several other general officers and members of Congress, attended the funeral solemnities, and walked as chief mourners. The other officers of the army, and numerous respectable citizens, formed a splendid procession, extending about one mile. The pall-bearers were six field officers, and the coffin was borne on the shoulders of four officers of the artillery in full uniform… A Spanish priest performed service at the grave, in the Roman Catholic form. The coffin was inclosed in a box of plank, and all the profusion of pomp and grandeur were deposited in the silent grave, in the common burying-ground, near the church at Morristown.


1832 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 539-574 ◽  

I have for some time entertained an opinion, in common with some others who have turned their attention tot he subject, that a good series of observations with a Water-Barometer, accurately constructed, might throw some light upon several important points of physical science: amongst others, upon the tides of the atmosphere; the horary oscillations of the counterpoising column; the ascending and descending rate of its greater oscillations; and the tension of vapour at different atmospheric temperatures. I have sought in vain in various scientific works, and in the Transactions of Philosophical Societies, for the record of any such observations, or for a description of an instrument calculated to afford the required information with anything approaching to precision. In the first volume of the History of the French Academy of Sciences, a cursory reference is made, in the following words, to some experiments of M. Mariotte upon the subject, of which no particulars appear to have been preserved. “Le même M. Mariotte fit aussi à l’observatoire des experiences sur le baromètre ordinaire à mercure comparé au baromètre à eau. Dans l’un le mercure s’eléva à 28 polices, et dans Fautre l’eau fut a 31 pieds Cequi donne le rapport du mercure à l’eau de 13½ à 1.” Histoire de I'Acadérmie, tom. i. p. 234. It also appears that Otto Guricke constructed a philosophical toy for the amusement of himself and friends, upon the principle of the water-barometer; but the column of water probably in this, as in all the other instances which I have met with, was raised by the imperfect rarefaction of the air in the tube above it, or by filling with water a metallic tube, of sufficient length, cemented to a glass one at its upper extremity, and fitted with a stop-cock at each end; so that when full the upper one might be closed and the lower opened, when the water would fall till it afforded an equipoise to the pressure of the atmo­sphere. The imperfections of such an instrument, it is quite clear, would render it totally unfit for the delicate investigations required in the present state of science; as, to render the observations of any value, it is absolutely necessary that the water should be thoroughly purged of air, by boiling, and its insinuation or reabsorption effectually guarded against. I was convinced that the only chance of securing these two necessary ends, was to form the whole length of tube of one piece of glass, and to boil the water in it, as is done with mercury in the common barometer. The practical difficulties which opposed themselves to such a construction long appeared to me insurmount­able; but I at length contrived a plan for the purpose, which, having been honoured with the approval of the late Meteorological Committee of this Society, was ordered to be carried into execution by the President and Council.


2005 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 749-753
Author(s):  
JEFFREY T. ZALAR

Postmodern communitarian theory insists that all knowledge is participant knowledge: who we are is at least if not more foundational to learning than any philosophy of what we can know. These two books, one written by Jesuit priests and professors of systematic theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and the other by non-Catholic professional historians working at the University of Reading, invite us to consider this assertion.


2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Terezinha Oliveira

The considerations on the book “VirtuosaBenfeitoria” aim atevaluating the relevance of a social project to guide the actions of the ruler and theindividuals, with a view to practical actions that converge to the common good. The infant D. Pedro, also known as the Duke of Coimbra, wrote the work. The central focus of the book is to address the sense of improvement and how the prince should practice and bestow it and how the subjects would receive and practice it. The arguments of D. Pedro to deal with the good and the society are strongly influenced by classical authorities and authors of scholasticism, especially Thomas Aquinas. In this sense, on the one hand our study seeks to show that such knowledge was essential for him to understand the plots that build human relationships, whose premises, to him, should be the ones leading society towards the common good;on the other hand, the goal is to analyze the work we regard as essential theoretical and methodological principles of history that allow us to recover, through memory, historical events that potentially guide us through paths that show the relevance of the Master of the University, as a vector in the organization of a given society. 


Artifex Novus ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Anna Sylwia Czyż

ABSTRAKT Sprowadzone do Wilna między 1616 a 1618 r. benedyktynki utworzyły niewielką i skromnie uposażoną wspólnotę. Ich sytuacja zmieniła się w 1692 r., kiedy to dzięki bogatym zapisom Feliksa Jana Paca mogły wystawić murowany kościół konsekrowany w 1703 r. Hojność podkomorzego litewskiego nie była przypadkowa, bowiem do wileńskich benedyktynek wstąpiły jego córki Sybilla i Anna, jedyne potomstwo jakie po sobiepozostawił. Z nich szczególne znaczenie dla dziejów klasztoru miała Sybilla (Magdalena) Pacówna, która w 1704 r. została wybrana ksienią. Nie tylko odnowiła ona życie wspólnoty, ale stała się również jedną z najważniejszych postaci ówczesnego Wilna. Po pożarze w 1737 r. Sybilla Pacówna energicznie przystąpiła do odbudowy klasztoru i kościoła, którą kończyła już jej następczyni Joanna Rejtanówna. Wzniesioną wówczas według projektu Jana Krzysztofa Glaubitza fasadę ozdobiono stiukowo-metalową dekoracją o indywidualnie zaplanowanym programie ideowym odwołującym się i do tradycji zakonnej i rodowej – pacowskiej. W fasadzie wyeksponowano ideały związane z życiem benedyktyńskim sytuując je wśród aluzji o konieczności walki na płaszczyźnie ducha i ciała, włączając w militarną symbolikę także konieczność walki z wrogami Kościoła i ojczyzny oraz charakterystyczną dla duchowości benedyktyńskiej pobożność związaną z krzyżem w typie karawaka oraz zOpatrznością Bożą. Jednocześnie przypominano o bogactwie powołań w klasztorze benedyktynek wileńskich przyrównując mniszki do lilii. Porównanie to dzięki obecności w fasadzie herbu Gozdawa (podwójna lilia) oraz powszechnego w XVII i XVIII w. zwyczaju określania Paców „Liliatami” można było odnosić także do ich rodu, w tym do zasłużonej dla klasztoru ksieni Sybilli. Tak mocne wyeksponowanie fundatorów było nie tylko chęciąupamiętnia darczyńców, ale wraz z całym architektonicznym i plastycznym wystrojem świątyni wiązało się z koniecznością stworzenia przeciwwagi dla nowego i prężnie rozwijającego się pod patronatem elity litewskiej klasztoru Wwizytek w Wilnie. Przy tym charakter dekoracji fasady kościoła pw. św. Katarzyny wpisuje się w inne fundacje Paców: kościół pw. św. Teresy i kościół pw. śś. Piotra i Pawła będąc ostatnią ważną inicjatywą artystyczną rodu w stolicy Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego. SUMMARY The Benedictines, who had been brought to Vilnius between 1616 and 1618, formed a small and modest community. Thanks to the generous legacy of Feliks Jan Pac, in 1692 their situation changed as they could erect a brick church, which was then consecrated in 1703. The generosity of the Lithuanian chamberlain was not a coincidence; his two daughters, Sybilla and Anna, the only offspring he left, had joined the Benedictine Sisters in Vilnius. Sybilla (Magdalena) Pac, who became an abbess in 1704, was particularly important for the history of the monastery. Not only did she renew the community life, but she also became one of the most important personalities of the then Vilnius. After the fire in 1737 Sybilla Pac vigorously started rebuilding the monastery and the church, which was completed by her successor, Joanna Rejtan. The facade which was then erected after Johann Christoph Glaubitz’s design was adorned with stucco and metal decorations with a perfectly devised ideological programme which referred to the tradition of the order and to the one of the Pac family. The facade presented ideals connected with the Benedictine life, which placed them among the hints of having to fight at the level of spirit and body, incorporating among the military symbols also the need to fight the enemies of the Church and the state, and the typical for the Benedictine spirituality piety connected with the Caravaca cross and the Divine Providence. At the same time, it reminded of the Benedictine vocations comparing nuns to lilies. This comparison, due to the presence of the Gozdawa coat-of-arms (double lilie) and the common nickname of the Pac family in the 17th and 18th cc. “the Liliats”, could also apply to their lineage, including the abbess Sybilla and her services to the monastery. Exposing founders in such an emphatic way was not only the will to immortalise them, but was also, together with the entire architectural and artistic decor of the church, connected with the need to counterbalance the new and dynamicallydeveloping Visitation Monastery in Vilnius. At the same time, the nature of the facade decoration of the Church of St. Catherine is in line with other foundations of the Pac family: St Theresa’s Church and the St Peter and St Paul Church, and was the last significant artistic initiative of the family in thecapital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania


Slovene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-447
Author(s):  
Petr S. Stefanovich

The article analyzes the history of the concept of a “Slavic-Russian nation”. The concept was first used by Zacharia Kopystenskij in 1624, but its wide occurrence starts in 1674, when Synopsis, the first printed history of Russia, was published in Kiev. In the book, “Slavic-Russian nation” refers to an ancient Slavic people, which preceded the “Russian nation” (“rossiyskiy narod”) of the time in which the book was written. Uniting “Slavs” and “Russians” (“rossy”) into one “Slavic-Russian nation”, the author of Synopsis followed the idea which was proposed but not specifically defined by M. Stryjkovskij in his Chronicle (1582) and, later, by the Kievan intellectuals of the 1620s–30s. The construction of Synopsis was to prove that “Russians” (“rossy”) were united by both the common Slavic origin and the Church Slavonic language used by the Orthodox Slavic peoples. According to Synopsis, they were also supposed to be united by the Muscovite tsar’s authority and the Orthodox religion. The whole conception made Synopsis very popular in Russia in the late 17th century and later. Earlier in the 17th-century literature of the Muscovite State, some authors also proposed ethno-genetic constructions based on Stryjkovskij’s Chronicle and other Renaissance historiography. Independently from the Kievan literature, the word “Slavic-Russian” was invented (first appearance in the Legend about Sloven and Rus, 1630s). Both the Kievan and Muscovite constructions of a mythical “Slavic-Russian nation” aimed at making an “imagined” ethno-cultural nation. They contributed to forming a new Russian imperial identity in the Petrine epoch. However, the concept of a “Slavic-Russian nation” was not in demand in the political discourse of the Petrine Empire. It was sporadically used in the historical works of the 18th century (largely due to the influence of Synopsis), but played no significant role in the proposed interpretations of Russian history.


1910 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 131-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Alfred Faulkner

There are two facts to be borne in mind in regard to Luther's whole attitude to social and economic questions. The first is that ordinarily this was a territory to be confined to experts, in which ministers should not meddle. He believed that a special knowledge was necessary to deal with some of these matters, and that they had better be left to those to whom Providence had assigned them, whether the jurists, those clever in worldly knowledge, or the authorities. The other fact is that the Church after all has social duties, and that Church and clergy must fight flagrant abuses and try to bring in the Kingdom of God on earth. The Church must use the Word of God against sin and sinners, and so by spiritual ministries help the needs of the time. The authorities on their part shall proceed by strict justice against evil doers. But there is another fact here which it is necessary to mention to get Luther's whole attitude, viz., that the State's function is not simply to administer justice, but to secure the general weal. They shall do the very best they can for their subjects, says Luther. “The authorities shall serve their subjects and use their office not petulantly [nicht zu Mutwillen] but for the advancement of the common good, and especially for the poor.” The princes shall give laws which shall limit as far as possible social misery and national dangers. They should listen to the proposals of the Church to this end, and on the ground of wise counsels of churchmen, do away with old laws and make new ones.


Author(s):  
Alexander Murray

People with a logical turn of mind say that the history of the world can be summarised in a sentence. A précis of mediaval historian Richard William Southern's work made in that spirit would identify two characteristics, one housed inside the other, and both quite apart from the question of its quality as a work of art. The first is his sympathy for a particular kind of medieval churchman, a kind who combined deep thought about faith with practical action. This characteristic fits inside another, touching Southern's historical vision as a whole. Its genesis is traceable to those few seconds in his teens when he ‘quarrelled’ with his father about the Renaissance. The intuition that moved him to do so became a historical fides quaerens intellectum. Reflection on Southern's life work leaves us with an example of the service an historian can perform for his contemporary world, as a truer self-perception seeps into the common consciousness by way of a lifetime of teaching and writing, spreading out through the world (all Southern's books were translated into one or more foreign language).


1992 ◽  
Vol 48 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Koekemoer

Dogmatics and Christian Ethics within the Faculty of Theology (Sec A) at the University of Pretoria This article explores the history of the Department of Dogmatics and Christian Ethics within the Faculty of Theology. The focus is on two specific lines in this history, namely the period which ended in 1952 and the period from 1952 onwards. Attention is given to the thoughts of P J Muller, J H J A Greyvenstein, S P Engelbrecht, H P Wolmarans and B J Engelbrecht, and their influence on the study of Dogmatics and Ethics in the Department. The article concludes with a vision for the future of the Department at the University of Pretoria and it highlights the importance of theological research for the doctrine and life of the Church.


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