The Points and Tasks of Public Theology

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-87
Author(s):  
Chul Ho Youn

The subject of this study is the points and tasks of public theology. First, this study makes an introduction about the definitions of public theology. Second, it clarifies that the theological ground of public theology is offered by the Kingdom of God proclaimed and practiced by Jesus Christ and the universality of divine reality. Third, it explains how public theology is distinguished from civil religion, political theology, and liberation theology. Fourth, it discusses the methodology of public theology. Fifth, it argues that the publicness of public theology is to be found between privatization and politicization. Sixth, it introduces Volf’s concepts of ‘internal difference’ and ‘religious political pluralism’ which he proposes as an alternative strategy against both secularist exclusion and totalitarian intervention. Seventh, it envisions the way toward which public theology is to be directed in the contemporary context of globalization. And finally, as a conclusion, it suggests the points and tasks of public theology in terms of four points of view, especially including the one reflecting Korean context.

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinrich Bedford-Strohm

Abstract The article explains the fundamental features of the Lutheran two kingdoms doctrine and the Reformed doctrine of the Lordship of Christ and finds strong convergences of both in addressing political realities without leaving the Gospel perspective aside. Since Catholic concepts show a similar profile, an ecumenical public theology emerges. Six guidelines for a public church are presented to describe the consequences of a public theological approach to politics for the churches. Authentic faith witness is as much part of these guidelines as ‘bilinguality’, that is, the capability to talk the language of secular discourse and prophetic speech, which is put in relationship to the necessity of concrete daily political processes. Thus, in the end the article explains the profile of public theology in relation to liberation theology and political theology.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 416-439
Author(s):  
David Thang Moe

Abstract This article pays particular attention to the three themes in Barth’s macro-political theology and their contextual significance for a micro-political theology for Myanmar. First, I explore Barth’s renewed doctrine of political Lordship in response to the traditional doctrine of two kingdoms. Second, I examine his hermeneutics of the dialectical relation between church and state and the ethical role of the church in the sociopolitical situation in the light of his theological document of the Barmen Declaration against the evil of Nazism and the errors of the church. Finally, I seek to show how Barth’s political theology and liberation theology are convergent and divergent in their synthetic goals of transforming unjust rulers and liberating the oppressed, reforming and renewing the ethnic church, and establishing an embracive and reconciled community in Myanmar.


2019 ◽  
pp. 15-31
Author(s):  
Věra Barandovská-Frank

Interlinguistics was created in order to help establish standards for auxiliary languages. However, over the course of its hundred-year history it has come to be understood in ever broader ways, generally as an interdisciplinary branch of science including various aspects of communication, including language planning and standardization, multilingualism, language policy, translation, sociolinguistics as well as the history and literature of planned languages. This expanded concept makes it possible for different scholars, researchers, associations and organizations to treat interlinguistics from extremely diverse points of view and for specialists in different sub-fields to work together. On the one hand, there is a clear lack of agreement concerning the subject matter of interlinguistics as can be seen, for example, in Wikipedia entries. On the other hand a broad understanding opens up new horizons for interlinguistics and makes deeper specialization in individual areas possible. It is therefore possible to see the future of interlinguistics in a positive light: there are still many interesting fields to discover whether through a reanalysis of historical documents or following the latest wave in internet-supported language construction and the activity of polyglots or observing the birth of new scientific specializations and sub-branches such as Slavic interlinguistics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 102 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-191
Author(s):  
Ian S. Markham

Public theology is a phrase that has been used both descriptively (like Bellah's civil religion ) and prescriptively (so that public theology is an attempt to recommend policy prescriptions seen through the narrative of faith). After a survey of the evolution of the phrase, I concede that most contemporary theologians use the phrase in a prescriptive way. Many using public theology in a prescriptivist way do so out of a revisionist theological framework. This is problematic because the majority of Christians are much more traditional in their theology. Building on a distinction between “process” and “content” in Christian ethics, the article argues for a particularist account of public theology that is shaped by liberation theology and yet still committed to conversation in a pluralist society.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-335
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Geychenko

Abstract With the collapse of the USSR in 1991 evangelicals received unprecedented opportunity to raise their voices in the public arena. However, as the events during the Revolution of Dignity (2013–2014) in Ukraine demonstrated, most evangelicals could not formulate their attitude towards these events. Instead they assumed existing positions which sometimes were fundamentally opposite to the Christian narrative. This article seeks to explore perspectives of the one of the pioneers of Baptism in the Russian Empire, Vasilii V. Ivanov-Klyshnikov (1846–1919), on the church, Kingdom of God and society with the view to find elements for a public theology. Ivanov’s perspectives are expanded through the concept of the church as visible and political.


Author(s):  
Julyan H. E. Cartwright ◽  
Simone Giannerini ◽  
Diego L. González

On the one hand, biology, chemistry and also physics tell us how the process of translating the genetic information into life could possibly work, but we are still very far from a complete understanding of this process. On the other hand, mathematics and statistics give us methods to describe such natural systems—or parts of them—within a theoretical framework. Also, they provide us with hints and predictions that can be tested at the experimental level. Furthermore, there are peculiar aspects of the management of genetic information that are intimately related to information theory and communication theory. This theme issue is aimed at fostering the discussion on the problem of genetic coding and information through the presentation of different innovative points of view. The aim of the editors is to stimulate discussions and scientific exchange that will lead to new research on why and how life can exist from the point of view of the coding and decoding of genetic information. The present introduction represents the point of view of the editors on the main aspects that could be the subject of future scientific debate.


2019 ◽  
pp. 162-172
Author(s):  
Evan Francis Kuehn ◽  
Shawn Goodwin

Political theology is an important and growing field of theological research, which has also attracted the attention of political scientists, philosophers, and social theorists. This interest has led to different and often ambiguous definitions of what political theology actually is. In addition, related subfields like liberation theology, public theology, and critical theory are often associated with political theology, making categorization challenging. It is important that theological librarians understand the changing terrain of theological-political inquiry in order to better provide access for their research communities. In this paper, we present findings about the range of current description practices for books and journal articles related to political theology. We share preliminary explorations in mining cataloged resources for subject headings related to political theology, as well as full text of titles in HathiTrust for clusters of words that can be modeled as topics. These tools can help librarians to better understand the research literature they are describing, and engage with it more actively.


Lumen et Vita ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Soledad Del Villar

This paper attempts to offer a theological reflection that compares two concepts from two different religious traditions that deal with a similar concern: guiding humanity and the cosmos to flourishing and abundant life. On the one hand, I will consider the Küme Mongenthat comes from the Mapuche people of Chile and Argentina. On the other hand, I will consider the concept of the reign of God, so central to the Gospels and re-articulated frequently in Christology, specifically, Latin-American liberation theology. First, I will explain the context from which Küme Mongenemerges and give an account of the central ideas of this concept. Second, I will give an account of the treatment of the reign of God in J.A. Pagola and J. Sobrino’s Christology. Finally, I will explore the possible connections between the Mapuche vision of fruitful life and the Kingdom of God, opening possible paths for mutual learning and understanding between the Mapuche and the Christian religious traditions. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-277
Author(s):  
Marina Vladimirovna Batyushkina ◽  

The article presents the results of a study of the functional, formal and substantive features of the texts of Russian laws, which approve program-goal docments (development strategies, concepts, programs, forecast plans, etc.). The article is based on discourse and genre approaches to the study of legislative texts, the legislative text space as a whole. It is noted that, on the one hand, this type of laws reflects the general features of modeling and transроforming of modern legal discourse; reproduces the institutional aspects of the legislative process; broadcasts legislative intentions, strategies and tactics. On the other hand, laws that approve documents of a program-goal nature have distinctive characteristics that allow defining these laws as a separate subgenre type. The subgenre of law is defined by the author on the basis of the following parameters: (1) intention of the uthor; (2) the purpose and functions of the law; (3) the factor of the subject of legal discourse (author/addressee of the law); (4) spatio-temporal and other circumstantially determining characteristics reflected in the text of the law explicitly or implicitly (who adopted and signed the law, during which period and in which territory it is applied, etc.); (5) type of institutional action; (6) the institutional status of the law within the system of laws; (7) subject-thematic “radius” of the text; (8) formal segmentation of text; (9) features of the correlation of functional semantic types of speech; (10) degree of uniformity, subgenre markers and clichés. The formal and informative structures of program-approving laws are analyzed on the basis of the fol-lowing segments: pretext and post-text details, intra-text components, post-text application (approved document). These segments are analyzed from various points of view: obligation, localization, combinatorics, unification, etc. When conducting research, special attention is paid to structural, typological, comparative and other types of analyzes.


Author(s):  
Syromlia N.M.

Purpose. The article is dedicated to a linguistic approach to analysis of symbolic meanings of the element of Fire in the poetry of Russian symbolist A. Bely.Methods. Symbolism of the element of Fire is studied from linguistic and linguoculturological points of view. The descriptive method was used to select and describe citation material, linguistic and statistical analysis allowed to determine the most frequent constructions, comparative analysis of symbolism of fire was used to identify the author's symbolic meanings on the background of traditional ones.Results. On the one hand the subject of the studying is traditional symbolism of the element of fire conditioned by German-Scandinavian mythology and by binary archetypical oppositions. On the other hand, we defined new author’s symbolism conditioned by the author’s poetic worldview.Archetypes are represented with binary oppositions actualizing the semantics of vertical direction, ambivalence, animism and anthropomorphism. The main traditional meanings of the culturological symbol “Fire” are as follows: a living, mobile element, a symbol of divine energy, the myth world of divine essences, a substitute for God on Earth, characterized by the properties of ambivalence – a symbol of creation and destruction, life and death, also a symbol of fertility, a symbol of passion, strong feelings and desires, a symbol of transformation, rebirth, interaction of the elements, a symbol of purification and healing, light, masculinity, a symbol of creativity, inspiration. The author’s symbolic meanings are expressed according to his rethinking of the myths and archetypes and explication of the meaning in the nearest surrounding of the concept Fire in the texts. So, A. Bely’s individual semantics of the element of fire is: symbol «Fire» is interpreted as a retribution, a challenge, correlates with the symbolist visionary “experience”, fabric, celestial phenomena – “dawns” and “sunsets” as the embodiment of information of a subtle world, the human body and his mental world, artifacts, precious stones on the basis of shades of red and yellow colours and the properties of transparency, “earthly” fire symbolizes physical-vital experiences, “heavenly” fire – “the ignition of a spiritual man”.Conclusions. Thus, the use of the mythologeme Thor, the author’s understanding of archetypal oppositions in the semantic circle of the image of fire led to the expression of traditional and individual-author interpretations of the symbolism of fire in the lyrics of A. Bely.Key words: Russian symbolism, poetry, element of Fire, A. Bely, traditional and author’s semantics. Мета статті – дослідити експлікацію символічних значень образу вогню в поезії російського символіста А. Бєлого.Методи дослідження. В даній студії символізм стихії вогню вивчається з лінгвістичної та лінгвокультурологічної точок зору. За допомогою прийомів описового методу відібраний та описаний цитатний матеріал, лінгвостатистичний аналіз дав змогу визначити найбільш частотні конструкції, порівняльно-зіставний аналіз символіки стихій використовувся для виявлення авторських символічних значень стихії вогню на тлі традиційних, які були знайдені у культурологічних словниках, енциклопедіях.Результати дослідження. Виявлені та описані механізми, що дозволяють експлікувати традиційні та індивідуально-авторські символічні значення образу вогню в ліриці А. Бєлого: це є взаємодія міфологем та архетипів, виявлених у най-ближчому оточенні образу, експлікованого лексемою «вогонь». З одного боку, предметом вивчення є традиційна символіка стихії вогню, зумовлена німецько-скандинавською міфологією та бінарними архетипічними опозиціями, визначеними у поетичному мовленні автора. З іншого боку, проаналізовано індивідуально-авторську символіку, зумовлену поетичним світогля-дом поета-символіста. Архетипи представлені бінарними опозиціями, що актуалізують семантику вертикального напрямку, амбівалентності, анімізму та антропоморфізму. Основні традиційні значення культурологічного символу «Вогонь» пред-ставлені у словниках та енциклопедіях символів, міфологій: живий, рухливий елемент, символ божественної енергії, світ божественних сутностей, субститут Бога на Землі, що характеризується властивостями амбівалентності – символ створення і руйнування, життя і смерті, символ родючості, символ пристрасті, сильних почуттів і бажань, символ перетворення, від-родження, взаємодії стихій, символ очищення і зцілення, світла, мужності, символ творчості, натхнення. Індивідуально-авторські символічні значення формуються відповідно до його переосмислення міфів та архетипів. Отже, індивідуально-авторські символічні значення стихії вогню А. Бєлого такі: символ «Вогонь» трактується як відплата, виклик, він корелює із символістичним візіонерським «переживанням», тканиною, небесними явищами – «світанками» та «заходами сонця» як втілення інформації тонкого світу, людського тіла та його психічного світу, артефактів, дорогоцінних каменів на основі від-тінків червоного та жовтого кольорів та властивостей прозорості, «земний» вогонь символізує фізично-життєві переживання, «небесний» – «займання духовної людини».Висновки. Таким чином, використання міфологеми Тор, авторське осмислення архетипних опозицій у семантичному колі образу вогню зумовило вираження традиційних і індивідуально-авторських інтерпретацій символіки вогню в ліриці А. Бєлого досліджуваного періоду.Ключові слова: російський символізм, поезія, стихія вогню, А. Бєлий, традиційна та авторська символіка.


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