Thomas Torrance, Mark 16:19–20 and the ascended Christ's prophetic role

This article argues that, unlike some exegetes (e.g. Francis Moloney), Thomas Torrance correctly interpreted Mark 16:19–20 in support of a theology of the ascended Christ's continuing prophetic activity. In the ministry of the Word, Christ remains present and at work witnessing to himself. This prophetic office, associated with and not to be separated from his kingly and priestly functions, is not to be played down. He is the primary agent forever actively involved in Christian proclamation.

Enfleshing the Spirit through Avatar Performance: Objecthood as Resistance in Women Preachers—Rachel Baker, Jarena Lee, and Florence Spearing Randolph

In this article, I take up Uri McMillan’s work in Embodied Avatars to rethink the subject–object relationship in women’s preaching. In performance art, the subject (the artist) fashions herself into an object (the art). I stretch the performance art genre to include preachers Rachel Baker, Jarena Lee, and Florence Spearing Randolph, arguing that these women have strategically performed objecthood to navigate gendered and racialized constraints in Christian proclamation. Examining these three women preachers through the lens of performing objecthood opens up theological understandings of how the Spirit works in a world marked by social sin (sexism and racism). Contrary to theologians who describe submission to the Spirit as self-effacement, I show how submission to the Spirit can counter worldly authorities, while enabling women preachers to transform perceptions of gender and race in a liberative way.

The Question as to Why We Have to Live Out the Agony of Our Epoch and its Fundamental Un-Answerability

This paper excavates certain impulses that are buried in Pierre Klossowski’s 1968 edition of his original 1947 work, Sade My Neighbor. We argue that the self-suffocating nature of our historical present reveals the problem of an epochal threshold: in which twenty-first century democracy itself is threatened with death and violence in delusional neofascist attempts at national self-preservation. This speaks to a deeper enigma of time, epochal shifts, and the mystery of historical time; but it does so in a manner that escapes classical problems in the philosophy of history. Rather, by returning to Klossowski’s late 1940s and late 1960s contexts while reoccupying the New Testament question of Jesus’s foresakeness on the Cross, we unravel a series of paradoxes and aporias that attempt to deepen metaphysical problems of time, death, and the sovereign autonomy of human freedom and existence. Ultimately the paper concludes by offering certain speculative philosophical constructions on why today’s self-cannibalization of democracy has its roots in unresolved tensions that span these two poles: a.) the primordial secret of early Christian proclamation of Jesus’s death and b.) the post-Christian Sadean experiment of a philosophical revolution that was doomed to implode when the valorization of pain, suffering, and death fails to fill the vacuum left behind by atheism.

Armenian Biography in Late Antiquity

This chapter discusses the diverse Armenian biographical material, which was transmitted directly or indirectly in written form and hence dependent on the existence of a writing system. Particular historical forces converged to realize this project as part of a process to diffuse literacy in Southern Caucasia in the early fifth century. Initiated primarily as a means of advancing the cause of Christian proclamation and solidarity in the region, the movement to inaugurate a literate tradition inspired the participation of pluralist trends in Armenian society to employ the medium to engage in dialogue on issues of collective identity and values. By the end of the Umayyad era, that process of exchange resulted in the construction of a relatively connected master narrative of Armenian origins and the course of secular and sacred history that included a gallery of variegated portraits of the pre-eminent figures who shaped these developments, a selection of which will form the focus of the chapter’s discussion. The criteria for selection include literary significance, the prominence of the individuals portrayed, and the texts’ rhetorical impact on Armenian society, in both the religious and cultural spheres.

Cleophus J. LaRue and Luiz C. Nascimento, The Future Shape of Christian Proclamation: What the Global South Can Teach Us About Preaching

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Is the Creation under Destruction?: Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck on New Creation

Perhaps there is no better time to reflect on the new creation than now, amid the Covid-19 pandemic. All aspects of human life are being impacted by the pandemic, not to mention the danger of death that it generates. This critical situation brings out legitimate questions to the current state of the world (or creation): whether it is perishing, being abandoned by God, or whether God is punishing the world into destruction due to its abundance of sin. Attempting to answer those questions, the author will argue alongside Kuyper and Bavinck that God would never abandon nor destroy his creation. Even though corrupted by sin, God has no intention to destroy the creation; instead, he intends to restore it according to his original plan. God’s intention is not just to redeem the elect but to redeem the whole creation, and that complete redemption will find its fulfillment in the new creation. Such a reflection would encourage the Christian proclamation that God’s salvation extends to all creation.

Misja Kościoła — niezwykła zwykłość nauczania papieża Franciszka

With Pope Francis a new chapter has begun in the history of the Church. This newness refers to the new internal situation of the Church, new “signs of time”, and new challenges which the Church has to face. Through the symbolic gestures of his pastoral practice and the directions indicated in his homilies and encyclical letters Francis responds to these challenges in the spirit of the Gospel. His whole pontificate is characterized by the profound desire to impart the newness and fresh- ness of the Gospel as well as what constitutes the core of its teaching. In this endeavor of returning to the sources, he sees the possibility of renewal of the Church. This entails a discernment of what constitutes the center and core of the Christian proclamation versus what is secondary, as well as how Jesus’ teaching has been distorted and deformed over the centuries. Francis speaks about the necessity of the apostolic and pastoral conversion of the Church. The Church has to undertake the “option for mission” and “apostolic dynamism”. She must go to the peripheries. In his teaching Pope Francis imparts the traditional doctrine of the Church. But he does it in a new way, using new language, new gestures and a new way of life. Like his predecessors, he wants to serve the faith. He does not wish to change what constitutes the core of the Christian faith. But he wants the Church to grow in the understanding of the Gospel as well as in the discernment of the ways of the Spirit. Therefore, he emphasizes the constant need for the attitude of discernment. This is what he has learned above all from Ignatian spirituality and his pastoral experience: “the discernment of the spirits”.