scholarly journals Christian ethics in the face of secularism

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakobus M. Vorster
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Ethical Approach ◽  
Book Of Nature ◽  
The Face ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
Written Word ◽  
Meta Theory

This article deals with the implications of modern secularism for the concept of Christian ethics. How does the decline of Christianity in modern Western societies impede the validity of a Christian ethical approach to contemporary social issues? The concept secularism is explained. The argument then moves to the meta-theory of Christian ethics, namely the revelation of God as it is expressed in the �book of nature�, the written word, and the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. The article concludes that as long as Christian ethics remains faithful to this meta-theory, understands the modern macro-ethical questions and maintains a deep social focus, it will remain relevant in a secular society.

scholarly journals William James and the Sustainable Transformation of Values, with a Case Study for Rethinking the American Dream

Human Arenas ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Croce
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
American Dream ◽  
William James ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Virus Spread ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Many

AbstractThis article addresses the call of the Psychology of Global Crises conference for linkage of academic work with social issues in three parts: First, examples from conference participants with their mix of bold calls for social transformation and realization of limits, a combination that generated few clear paths to achieving them. Second, presentation of Jamesian practical idealism with psychological insights for moving past impediments blocking implementation of ideals. And third, a case study of impacts from the most recent prominent crisis, the global pandemic of 2020, which threatens to exacerbate the many crises that had already been plaguing recent history. The tentacles of COVID’s impact into so many problems, starting with economic impacts from virus spread, present an opportunity to rethink the hope for constant economic growth, often expressed as the American Dream, an outlook that has driven so many of the problems surging toward crises. Jamesian awareness of the construction of ideological differences and encouragement of listening to those in disagreement provide not political solutions, but psychological preludes toward improvements in the face of crises.

Empire and the Johannine Epistles

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 542-557
Author(s):  
Kenneth L. Waters
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The Face ◽  
Mission Field ◽  
The Church ◽  
Do So

In what ways are the Johannine Epistles a response to empire ideology and propaganda? These Epistles proclaim a more complete and correct cosmology, a greater Savior and soteriology, a better pedagogy, a truer doctrine, a sounder koinōnia, and a more nurturing paterfamilias; moreover, they do so while indicting schismatics, who, in the view of the elder, represent the face of the empire. Although the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ drive the elder’s witness and ministry, he must still shape his message to counter the encroachment of empire in the church and on the mission field.

scholarly journals Founder’s Prize for New Scholars 2016: “Looking Down Time’s Telescope at Myself”: Reincarnation and Global Futures in David Mitchell’s Fictional Worlds

KronoScope ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-181
Author(s):  
Rose Harris-Birtill
Keyword(s):  
Buddhist Philosophy ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Narrative Strategy ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Ethical Approach ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Face ◽  
Temporal Model ◽  
Global Futures ◽  
Future Consequences

AbstractThis essay explores the trope of reincarnation across the works of British author David Mitchell (b. 1969) as an alternative approach to linear temporality, whose spiralling cyclicality warns of the dangers of seeing past actions as separate from future consequences, and whose focus on human interconnection demonstrates the importance of collective, intergenerational action in the face of ecological crises. Drawing on the Buddhist philosophy of samsara, or the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, this paper identifies links between the author’s interest in reincarnation and its secular manifestation in the treatment of time in his fictions. These works draw on reincarnation in their structures and characterization as part of an ethical approach to the Anthropocene, using the temporal model of “reincarnation time” as a narrative strategy to demonstrate that a greater understanding of generational interdependence is urgently needed in order to challenge the linear “end of history” narrative of global capitalism.

Muslims and the Crisis of British National Identity

2019 ◽  
pp. 221-243
Author(s):  
Martin Pugh
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
British Muslims ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
Mainstream Society

This chapter demonstrates how, despite their experience of prejudice, Muslims became involved in a gradual process of integration into mainstream society; in this period they largely thought of themselves as ‘black’ or as Asians, rather than as Muslims. First-generation British Muslims had been fairly relaxed about social behaviour and religious observation. Meanwhile, the second generation of Muslims were not in Britain as temporary economic migrants, and consequently were less passive than their predecessors, more confident and aware of their opportunities and rights in Britain. For them, integration into mainstream society went hand in hand with an increasing assertiveness in the face of prejudice and an awareness of their identity as Anglo-Asians. By the 1980s and 1990s, the younger generation were becoming alienated from their parents due to familiarity with a secular society; many regarded the world of the mosque as boring. Muslims also began to reflect mainstream practice in other ways: more women in their twenties remained unmarried and, with their better language skills and qualifications, they were more likely to be in paid employment.

scholarly journals Life to the Full: Sustaining the Catholic Curriculum

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 983
Author(s):  
David Fincham
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Catholic Schools ◽  
National Curriculum ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
The Face ◽  
Secular State

Catholic schools. has articulated There are concerns that the curriculum of Catholic schools has been increasingly dominated by pressures to conform to a programme of education legitimised by an intrusive secular state and designated as a ‘national curriculum’. Accordingly, the curriculum of Catholic maintained schools is regulated within a standardised framework that is directed by government. Contentiously, it has been asserted that, as a result, the curriculum in Catholic schools in England has effectively been ‘de-Catholicised’. This claim has been contested. For example, it is maintained that the matter is more nuanced than this and the situation cannot be interpreted in such an unequivocal way. However, it might well be asked: what should a Catholic curriculum look like? In the face of this question, leaders in Catholic schools are encouraged to consider renewing and restoring a distinctive curriculum by permeating it systematically with the principles of Catholic social teaching. Ultimately, the writer argues, the curriculum of Catholic schools should provide students with an understanding of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

scholarly journals Struggling with christology: Apolinarius of Laodicea and st Gregory of Nyssa

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 243-251
Author(s):  
Robin Orton
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Significant Step ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Trinity

The argument in the 380s between Gregory and Apolinarius, as set out Gregory’s Antirrheticus adversus Apolinarium, can be seen as a significant step in the development of the Church’s Christological teaching. Apolinarius’s no­tion that the eternal Logos took the place of Jesus Christ’s human mind is de­signed to establish the unity of his person, by providing a basis for the ontic con­tinuity between the Second Person of the Trinity and Christ in his two natures. Commendably, he wants to counter any suggestion of separation between the hu­man and divine natures (“two Christs”), which he sees as inevitably leading to an “adoptionist” view of Christ as a “God-filled man”; that would put Christ on the same level as the Old Testament prophets and could not form the basis of an adequate soteriology. Gregory argues convincingly however that Apolinarius’s “enfleshed mind” Christology would mean that Jesus Christ was not fully hu­man and could not therefore save humankind. But in the face of Apolinarius’s challenge he cannot give an adequate account of Christ’s unity during his earthly career. He remains open to Apolinarius’s charge of a “divisive” Christology by in effect postponing the complete unity until after Christ’s glorification, when his divinity overwhelmed his humanity and removed all his human characteristics, in the same way as the water of the sea overwhelms a drop of vinegar dropped into it. On this basis he has, anachronistically but not unreasonably, been accused of taking a Nestorian view of Christ before his glorification and a monophysite one after it. Both Apolinarius’s stress on the unity of Christ and Gregory’s on the no­tion that ‘what is not assumed is not healed’ (Nazianzen’s phrase) were essential elements in what emerged seventy years later in the Chalcedonian definition.

Book Review: Christian Ethics in Secular Society

1984 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-380
Author(s):  
Philip J. Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Secular Society

Continental Philosophy and Theology

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-105
Author(s):  
Colby Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Theological Turn ◽  
The Face ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
Comparative Nature

AbstractContinental philosophy underwent a ‘return to religion’ or a ‘theological turn’ in the late 20th Century. And yet any conversation between continental philosophy and theology must begin by addressing the perceived distance between them: that one is concerned with destroying all normative, metaphysical order (continental philosophy’s task) and the other with preserving religious identity and community in the face of an increasingly secular society (theology’s task). Colby Dickinson argues inContinental Philosophy and Theologyrather that perhaps such a tension is constitutive of the nature of order, thinking and representation which typically take dualistic forms and which might be rethought, though not necessarily abolished. Such a shift in perspective even allows one to contemplate this distance as not opting for one side over the other or by striking a middle ground, but as calling for a nondualistic theology that measures the complexity and inherently comparative nature of theological inquiry in order to realign theology’s relationship to continental philosophy entirely.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
pp. 217-246
Author(s):  
Conor O'Dwyer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Organizational Development ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Applied Lessons ◽  
Lgbt Activism ◽  
The Face

This chapter begins with a review of the book’s argument and principal findings. It then discusses theoretical and applied lessons for the study of sexual citizenship and the practice of LGBT activism in the new EU member-states of postcommunist Europe. The chapter’s remaining sections reflect on the argument’s implications for other social issues and regional contexts. These include the women’s movement in contemporary Poland, Roma activism in Hungary, and LGBT activism outside the sphere of potential EU applicant-states (especially the former Soviet Union and Latin America). Animating this discussion is the question of how to account for instances when social movements fail to thrive, or even wither, in the face of backlash. A second animating question is what counts as social movement “success,” policy gains or organizational development? The chapter concludes with some speculation about LGBT activism in the US and Western Europe in light of the contemporary turn to populist-nationalist politics in both places.

Cultivating Nonidolatrous Self-Esteem with Youth

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Elizabeth W. Corrie
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Youth Ministry ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Youth Ministers ◽  
The Face ◽  
Race 2 ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Abstract Christian understandings of the personhood and work of Jesus Christ can be used to justify violence by those in power and encourage passivity in the face of oppression. Shifting Christological images that cultivate nonidolatrous self-esteem, however, can teach youth how to build peace and resist injustice. A youth ministry that seeks to contribute to peacebuilding must become intentional about implicit and explicit portrayals of Jesus Christ. This essay explores five facets of Jesus’ personhood and work to reconsider—Jesus’ 1) race; 2) gender; 3) religion; 4) suffering; and 5) return—and suggests ways youth ministers can engage in theologically-rooted, peacebuilding youth ministry.

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