scholarly journals A House with Many Mansions

2015 ◽  
Vol 95 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 293-314
Author(s):  
Dries Bosschaert

This contribution engages in presenting the underdeveloped thematic cluster of twentieth-century theological research designated by the umbrella-term, ‘Christian anthropology’ and in particular, the contribution of the Louvain Faculty of Theology to that field. It proposes a new structure for this (international) field of Christian anthropology by focusing on theological reflection of the human being (Christian humanism), the temporal order as such (Théologie des réalités terrestres), the history in which humanity is placed (theology of history), the social context (theology of society), as well as the identity of the laity and their role within the Church and society (theology of the laity). In each section the active efforts of different members of the Belgian Faculty of Theology to make progress in these different areas shall be presented for the period 1942–1962.

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Alexey L. Beglov

The article examines the contribution of the representatives of the Samarin family to the development of the Parish issue in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The issue of expanding the rights of the laity in the sphere of parish self-government was one of the most debated problems of Church life in that period. The public discussion was initiated by D.F. Samarin (1827-1901). He formulated the “social concept” of the parish and parish reform, based on Slavophile views on society and the Church. In the beginning of the twentieth century his eldest son F.D. Samarin who was a member of the Special Council on the development the Orthodox parish project in 1907, and as such developed the Slavophile concept of the parish. In 1915, A.D. Samarin, who took up the position of the Chief Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, tried to make his contribution to the cause of the parish reforms, but he failed to do so due to his resignation.


Author(s):  
Gabriel Flynn

This chapter describes the contribution of a group of (initially French) theologians known for promoting the work of ressourcement: renewal of the Church through recovery of biblical and Early Christian sources. The work of Henri de Lubac and Yves Congar receives particular attention (although the contributions of others, such as Marie-Dominique Chenu and Jean Cardinal Daniélou are also discussed), and the group as a whole is placed against the background of the social, political, and ecclesiastical context of France in the first half of the twentieth century. This chapter highlights the centrality of ressourcement theologians to the work of Vatican II. The final sections of the essay focus on one of the most important consequences of their work at the council, the development of accounts of the Church as ‘communion’.


Author(s):  
Beverley Haddad

The field of theology and development is a relatively new sub-discipline within theological studies in Africa. The first formal post-graduate programme was introduced at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa during the mid-1990s. In the early years it was known as the Leadership and Development programme and since 2000, as the Theology and Development programme. Over the past twenty years, this programme has graduated over 160 BTh Honours, 100 MTh, and 15 PhD students. This article outlines the history of the programme, addresses its ideological orientation, its pedagogical commitments and preferences in curriculum design. It further argues that theological reflection on “development” must seek to understand the prophetic role of the church in responding to the complexities of the social issues facing the African continent.  Key to this discussion is the contested nature of “development” and the need for theological perspectives to engage this contestation through a social analysis of the global structures of injustice. This requires an engagement with the social sciences. It is this engagement of the social sciences with theological reflection, the essay argues, that has enabled the students who have graduated from the Theology and Development Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to assist the church and faith-based organisations to become effective agents of social transformation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leepo Johannes Modise

This paper consists of five parts. Firstly, a brief historical background of reformation will be discussed as an exercise to remember reformation. Secondly, we review the role of the ecumenical church (SACC) prior to democracy in South Africa. The purpose for focusing on the role of the church from this period is that it gives us a model to follow in our involvement in socio-economic transformation. Thirdly, the social and economic challenges facing the church and society in democratic South Africa will be discussed. Fourthly, we debate the role of the ecumenical church (SACC) in democratic South Africa. Fifthly, the article explores what role the Uniting Reformed Church in South Africa (URCSA) is playing (descriptive) and ought to play (normative) through all her structures to transform the socio-economic situation in South Africa.


Author(s):  
Bogdan Gulyamov

Orthodox social doctrine as a discipline is formed without the elements of scholastic thinking that are characteristic of Catholicism. This is due to the fact that social doctrine in Orthodoxy is thought of as an expression of tradition, not the teaching of the church. Also, the methodology of the social doctrine of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was significantly influenced by the fact that the initial principle for all reflections was the value of the dignity of the individual. The absolutization of this value has made it possible to create a Christian humanism that opposes the ideological extremes of modern cultural wars, including the abuse of the idea of human rights. The ROC uses methodological anti-scholasticism in the construction of social doctrine to legitimize the ideas of Orthodox fundamentalism. Against this background, the social doctrine of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is becoming a worldview alternative, critical to the development of Ukrainian theology and education.


Author(s):  
Sana Murrani

The temporary in architecture is a state of territorial instability that emerges out of interactions between transdisciplinary narratives and architectural theory and its practice. This article extends this notion to the socio-temporary, which is a state arising from constant synergies between the social context and worldmaking. Such narratives were originally influenced by the field of cybernetics and later on by second-order cybernetics reflected in the emergent participatory art practice of the mid-twentieth century through transdisciplinary research. Derived from the theoretical underpinning of this article a simulation is exhibited, which illustrates theoretically elements of Varela and Maturana’s autopoietic system behaviour and its close relation to temporality in the worldmaking of architecture. This is a theoretical article – with an element of practice – that seeks to highlight the temporality of the process of worldmaking in architecture.


Modern China ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-371
Author(s):  
Liping Wang

Early twentieth-century China, as with other post-imperial states, faced the challenge of creating a nation encompassing different social groups and cultures. How to identify ethnic groups living in the borderlands and generate nationwide social cohesion became a fundamental question that concerned multiple intellectual communities. This article traces the formation of two approaches to ethnicity—ethnology and sociology—at that time. These two approaches, configuring “ethnic differences” in dissimilar ways, were received differently by the public. In the end, the ethnological approach prevailed and the sociological approach was marginalized. This outcome exemplifies a possible hierarchy of knowledge, but also involves the politics of knowledge. This article shows that the disparate visions of “ethnic others” were produced by intellectuals differently positioned within the social context of post-imperial China. The positionalities of these disciplines explain much of their intellectual alignment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-333
Author(s):  
Jonathan Kangwa

The history of Christianity in Africa contains selected information reflecting patriarchal preoccupations. Historians have often downplayed the contributions of significant women, both European and indigenous African. The names of some significant women are given without details of their contribution to the growth of Christianity in Africa. This article considers the contributions of Peggy Hiscock to the growth of Christianity in Zambia. Hiscock was a White missionary who was sent to serve in Zambia by the Methodist Church in Britain. She was the first woman to have been ordained in the United Church of Zambia. Hiscock established the Order of Diaconal Ministry and founded a school for the training of deaconesses in the United Church of Zambia. This article argues that although the nineteenth- and twentieth-century missionary movement in Africa is associated with patriarchy and European imperialism, there were European women missionaries who resisted imperialism and patriarchy both in the Church and society.


1961 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Edward R. Tannenbaum

The Action Française was the most notorious reactionary movement in twentieth-century France. From the Dreyfus Affair to the fall of the Vichy Regime it carried on its campaign against “the principles of 789”, which many Frenchmen (and other Western Europeans) mistakenly blamed for the “evils” of modern industrial society. But it represented neither the frustrated lower-middle classes that were attracted to fascism, nor the genteel bien-pensants who pined for the good old days” under Louis XVI or Charles X. Its leaders were café intellectuals who flaunted their newly acquired devotion to the monarchy and the church. They were professional nativists clamoring or a return to the traditional virtues of a golden age that never insisted. Their utopia was a highly intellectualized daydream invented by charles Maurras.


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