A Hidden Agenda of Imperial Appropriation and Power Play? Iconological Considerations Concerning Apse Images and Their Role in the Iconoclast Controversy

According to the written sources, the Iconoclast controversy was all about the veneration of icons. It started in the late seventh century, after most iconodule provinces had been lost to Byzantine rule, and lasted until the turn of the millennium or so, when icon veneration became generally established in the remaining parts of the Byzantine Empire. However, as far as material evidence and actual images are concerned, the Iconoclast controversy centred on apse images and other, equally large and monumental representations, none of which were ever venerated. Prior to Iconoclasm, such images had not been customary at Constantinople, where the early Christian tradition had been largely aniconic and focused on the symbol of the cross. Thus, the introduction of monumental Christian imagery to Constantinople appears to have been a major aspect of the Iconoclast controversy. This paper asks why and finds that the images in question, whilst not for veneration and therefore not essential to the theological debate, stood out for imperial propaganda. They led to close visual integration of the emperor and the church that had previously been kept apart, because aniconic traditions used to limit imperial presence inside Constantinopolitan church buildings. It seems, then, that the Iconoclast controversy, although conducted in religious terms, was partly driven by a hidden agenda of imperial appropriation and power play.

Nowhere Men and Divine I’s: Feminist Epistemology, Perfect Being Theism, and the God’s-Eye View

This paper employs tools and critiques from analytic feminist scholarship in order to show how particular values commonly on display in analytic theology have served both to marginalize certain voices from the realm of analytic theological debate and to reinforce a particular conception of the divine—one which, despite its historical roots, is not inevitable. I claim that a particular conception of what constitutes a “rational, objective, analytic thinker” often displays certain affinities with those infinite or maximal properties that analytic theologians have taken to be most relevant or essential to their theological conceptions of the divine, and I explore what thinking differently about the former might mean for how we think about the latter and vice versa.

Calvinism, Anti-Calvinism, and the Admonition Controversy in Elizabethan England

This chapter examines English understandings of Calvin and Calvinism during the reign of Elizabeth I. In particular, it focuses on the ‘Admonition Controversy’ of the 1570s, when puritan demands for further reformation stoked disputes with official church leadership. The dispute began in 1572 with the appearance of a pair of incendiary pro-Presbyterian pamphlets, the Admonition to the Parliament and the Second Admonition to the Parliament, but would continue for decades, and is now largely known for the long-running theological debate that ensued between John Whitgift and Thomas Cartwright. An examination of the roots of the controversy, however, reveals that perceptions of Calvinism in England were coloured by far more than a shared doctrinal outlook or theological consensus. For some of the Elizabethan bishops, most especially, Calvin and the Genevan model of reformation were not only associated with an uncomfortable history of religious conflict, but were also tainted by a political theology that had the potential to destabilize the English state.

KRISTOLOGI OA MATA MUSAN: Kajian Kristologi dalam Budaya Tetun

The understanding of Christ in local customs and culture is still very minimal. Christ has been known only from the western face. Discussions around the nature of Jesus as God or man. There are several writings on Christology in culture, for example, wayang in Javanese culture. Papuan also knew Jesus is known as the Reconciler. In Toraja, Jesus is known as Pangala Tondok. So the author wants to offer one of the Christologies in the Tetun culture. This research explores the Belu people's lives, especially in performing the oa mata musan ritual. This paper does not address the theological debate about the nature of Jesus. However, this study discusses how local people can understand Jesus in their existence. The research method used by the author is phenomenology. Phenomenology is used as a tool to understand facts in the field. This paper contains an offer to the Belu people regarding how they know Christology through their custom. They can realise Christ incarnate in the form of Oa Mata Musan. Oa Mata Musan as a mediator or mediator for conflicting families. Thus Jesus is present as a peacemaker.

The Submission of Christ

Chapter 4 addresses the issue of the Son’s submission to his Father, that has been the subject of intense theological debate in recent decades. Oddly, Hebrews 5:7-10 has not figured prominently in that debate. This chapter looks at the relevance of this passage for this issue in Christology. It does so in close conversation with two prominent theologians: Karl Barth and Thomas Aquinas. Accordingly, the chapter offers a summary of their views on this issue, investigates their interpretations of this passage, canvasses and evaluates some common criticisms of their respective positions, and then revisits the question of how a viable interpretation of Hebrews might impact these debates.

Introduction

This chapter advances an innovative framework of political theology in general and its intersection with the German Idealist concepts and archives in particular, arguing for the indispensability of the latter for understanding the Christian-modern condition. The general thrust of this framework is to put into question the legitimacy of the Christian-modern world and its authorities, whether secular or religious. As such, it may be said to reactivate a Gnostic perspective within the political-theological debate, one that refuses the world and its modalities of justification and transcendence. At stake is not only the decoupling of immanence from its equation with the secular world and ungrounding modern forms of sovereignty, but also the subversion of modernity’s (no less than Christianity’s) self-legitimating conceptual narratives. Based on this framework, this essay 1) reconfigures German Idealism as the first speculative attempt to think the (genealogical and conceptual) entanglement of modernity and Christianity in the wake of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution; 2) reconsiders German Idealist conceptions of nothingness, the world, and the absolute as caught between the delegitimating and the theodical tendencies, with special emphasis on the problematics of nihilism and history; and 3) provides an overview of the volume’s contents and interventions.

The Oresteia and the Poetics of Equity

The essay aims to articulate how Aeschylus’s tragic trilogy The Oresteia articulates what I call a ‘poetics of equity’. After placing the genesis of this article within a theological debate between David Bentley Hart and Rowan Williams on the viability of a Christian appropriation of tragedy, I aim to show - using the suggestive work of J. Peter Euben (amongst others)– that The Oresteia dramatizes a growth in perspective and linguistic capaciousness which confirms Williams’s general picture of ancient tragedy. The progress of the trilogy, from the Agamemnon to The Eumenides, can be shown to represent ever-deepening awareness of mutual claims of justice and recognition, and moreover that its linguistic indeterminacy manifests the breadth and instability of the lexicon of justice (dikē), and how this plays itself out within the Aeschylean narrative.

(Rec.) Zdzisław Józef Kijas, Opatrzność i przeznaczenie, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Franciszkanów Bratni Zew 2020, 256 s. ISBN: 978-8-3748-5366-8

The position under review can be included in the context of the theological debate on the covid 19 pandemic. The author of the review refers here to the proposal of Cardinal Kurt Koch, who points to the need for such a debate. Although the book of prof. Kijasa was released in March 2020, could be an important voice in this discussion. For in 12 chapters of the book the author discusses the scientific, cultural and theological context of the Christian faith in God's providence.

Introducing Practical Theology: Mission, Ministry, and the Life of the Church; Liquid Ecclesiology: The Gospel and The Church

ZUSAMMENFASSUNGPete Ward präsentiert seine Vision für praktische Theologie als flüssige Ekklesiologie, die in der flüssigen Art verwurzelt ist, in der die Trinität in der Kirche und der Welt lebt und sich bewegt. Ihre Bewegungen lassen sich nur durch die Kombination von textueller und empirischer Forschung erkennen. In der Introduction bespricht Ward Hauptbereiche der praktischen Theologie in leicht verständlicher Sprache. Seine Liquid Ecclesiology präsentiert eine detaillierte theologische Darstellung sowie eine faszinierende Fallstudie der evangelischen Bewegung.SUMMARYPete Ward offers his vision for practical theology as liquid ecclesiology, rooted in the liquid ways in which the Trinity lives and moves within the Church and the world. Its movements can be discerned only by combing textual and empirical research. Ward’s Introduction reviews major areas of practical theological debate in accessible language; his Liquid Ecclesiology offers an in-depth theological account along with a fascinating case study of the evangelical movement.RÉSUMÉPete Ward présente sa vision de la théologie pratique comme une « ecclésiologie liquide », enracinée dans la manière liquide dont la Trinité vit et se meut au sein de l’Église et du monde. Ses mouvements ne peuvent être discernés qu’en combinant des recherches textuelles et empiriques. L’Introduction considère les principaux débats de théologie pratique dans un langage accessible. Son ouvrage intitulé Liquid Ecclesiology offre un récit théologique approfondi ainsi qu’une étude de cas fascinante du mouvement évangélique.