Search Results (15)

This article examines the orientation that emerges during worship in the Abrahamic religions through the interrelation of bodily experience and architectural space. Drawing jointly on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the “lived body” and Mircea Eliade’s theory of sacred space, the study discusses how the directionality of worship in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam produces distinct spatial theologies. Methodologically, the research is based on a hermeneutic reading of selected sacred texts, rabbinic and liturgical sources, and on a comparative analysis of synagogue, church, and mosque spaces according to the criteria of orientation, architectural focus, bodily posture, congregational alignment, light, axis, threshold, and ritual surface. The proposed tripartite schema distinguishes between the horizontal covenantal orientation toward Jerusalem in Judaism, the vertical/transcendent axis associated with the cross, resurrection, and ascension in Christianity, and the downward orientation intensified around prostration in Islam. These orientations are not merely ritual prescriptions; rather, they constitute intentional structures through which the body is situated in relation to God, others, and the world. In the synagogue, the Torah ark and the direction of Jerusalem; in the church, the apse, cross, and luminous order; and in the mosque, the qibla wall, the alignment of prayer rows, and the surface of prostration are examined as architectural foci that materialize these intentional structures. The study brings together three domains that are often treated separately in literature: the phenomenology of religion, Eliadean cosmology, and architectural spatial analysis. In doing so, it proposes a comparative model of “spatial theology” among the Abrahamic traditions, articulated through the relationship between body, text, and worship structures. Ultimately, sacred space is interpreted as a dynamic order that is reconstituted in every act of worship through the convergence of bodily orientation, historical memory, and cosmic reference. Full article

This article utilizes canonical interpretation to reassess Paul’s eulogy in Ephesians 1:3–14 by situating it within the Bible’s overarching narrative of placemaking—from Genesis to Revelation. Rejecting purely historical-grammatical approaches, the study treats the Protestant canon as a unified literary and theological whole with both divine and human authorship. Drawing on intertextual methods, especially the work of NT Wright and David Larsen, the author frames Paul’s eulogy as a theological “mini narrative” nested within the grand canonical mission: God’s purpose to create and dwell with His family in a holy place (God’s house as God’s home with His family in God’s homeland). The article argues that this placial mission undergirds themes of election, redemption, sonship, administration, and land inheritance within the eulogy, connecting creation’s foundation with eschatological summation in Christ. The analysis incorporates spatial theory and narratology to illuminate Paul’s understanding of the world as contested territory where the church advances God’s mission. In doing so, it reveals the eulogy as a densely intertextual and theologically coherent passage that situates believers within God’s cosmic, administrative plan for new creation and divine habitation. The implication for resurrection and new creation, based on this grand canonical mission and on God’s all-encompassing master plan, is asserted as part of this unified plan. Full article

While most Christians might imagine the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as a single event, for the author of Ephesians, the resurrection is a continuing event of cosmic proportions. In a very real way, the Epistle to the Ephesians is an extended reflection on the ongoing multidimensional cosmic consequences and transformations that result from the death of Jesus and his resurrection, whose impact not only affects the macrocosm in which Christ sits triumphantly at the right hand of God, “far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion” (Eph 1: 20–22), but also the microcosm of the Church, “his body, the fullness of the one who fills the universe in every way” (1: 23), transforming those who compose the smallest microcosm, the baptized who form a Christian household and who, gathered at table to share Eucharist (5: 17–6: 9), are “seated with Christ in the heavenly places” (2: 6), already participating in the eternal Messianic banquet. This is to say that, for this author, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the catalyst for an ongoing and ever more evolving “new creation” of humanity and, indeed, the entire cosmos, with “Christification”—the full maturation into the divine “Christ nature” (Eph 4: 13, 15–16) as the telos or goal for the whole universe (Eph 1: 10). Full article

Roman Bordun’s twenty-first century photograph The Apartment After the Artillery Bombardment. Heat resistant Ceramic Vase. Irpin [Ukraine]. June 2022 uses light to express the Christian paradox of suffering that leads to redemption and eternal life for the just. In order to imbue spiritual meaning into a photographic work, Bordun draws from Renaissance artists in his use of technique (chiaroscuro), topic (warfare), and geography (the city) that all reference Christ’s Resurrection. Comparing and contrasting Bordun’s Apartment with Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino’s [Raphael] paint on wood Saint Michael Overwhelming the Demon (c. 1505) demonstrates how Bordun’s photograph can transcend its discrete historical context, merging the factual and the mythic as described by C. S. Lewis. Through his references to Raphael and the masters, Bordun lays claim to a Christian iconography and challenges the political use of religion in waging human warfare. His works all demonstrate contemporary or even quotidian plays on Renaissance works in order to address current political issues. The art of photography and stylistic references to churches’ involvement in politics, as opposed to Christian teachings, critiques Moscow’s “post-truth” justifications of the Ukrainian invasion and war. Full article

This paper argues that we can get a better grip on the divergences and convergences between Paul and Seneca on the ethics of love than those on offer in the large and growing literature comparing the two by distinguishing their attitudes to two broad and conceptually distinct families of love, which Tyler VanderWeele has described as “contributory love” (which desires that the good of the beloved be promoted for its own sake) and “unitive love” (which regards the beloved as a good to be enjoyed in one’s own life). I argue that debates over whether Seneca and Paul had the more universal ethic of neighbor love are largely a distraction; the two are fundamentally in agreement about the scope of love, although Paul’s thinking in this area is shaped in fundamental ways by his conviction that the whole cosmos is defined to be eventually and finally united and so conformed to the resurrected and glorified Christ. Rather, Paul’s true difference from Seneca on the ethics of love lies instead in the importance he affords to unitive love; for Paul, the flourishing life does not consist simply in virtuous activity but also requires appropriate union with one’s beloveds, paradigmatically with God in Christ and with Christ’s body, the church. Seneca and Paul would each have accepted Sigmund Freud’s observation that “we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love”. Seneca, however, would have taken it as a caution against attachments to anything whose loss might cause us to suffer, while Paul, by contrast, would have taken it as a statement of our condemnation to suffering “in this present evil age” (Gal. 1:4), in which we must love what we will inevitably lose. Full article

This paper explores the rituals enacted in or connected with two medieval churches, one walrus ivory cross and a central topic of medieval devotion, Christ’s passion. During Easter Week these memorialised the site in Jerusalem dedicated to the burial of Christ, the holiest place in Christendom. It focuses on the physical elements, the spaces, the paintings and sculpture, the ceremonial objects and relics and the performative nature of rituals associated with them. The Regularis Concordia, composed in Winchester at the end of the 10th century for the use of Benedictine monasteries included sung liturgical enactments based on the gospel accounts of Christ’s burial and resurrection. At the same time, in Saxony, the Abbey at Gernrode was founded for the use of women, secular canonesses, with a space in the south aisle that seems to have represented Christ’s place of burial and was later incorporated into two chambers evoking the Holy Sepulchre Chapel in Jerusalem. In the 12th century in Winchester Cathedral, a Holy Sepulchre Chapel was decorated with wall paintings depicting Christ’s death and resurrection. Around this time, the walrus ivory cross known as the Cloisters Cross was created and appears to have been designed for use in the increasingly elaborate liturgical enactments. The paintings at Winchester Cathedral, the sculpture at Gernrode and the Cloisters Cross each evidence the significance of evoking Christ’s passion and how liturgical space and objects served to bring it to life. Full article

The Gospel of John, without having its own liturgical year, is typically assumed to have a supplemental homiletical role in the Revised Common Lectionary, and yet the Fourth Gospel is the designated Gospel reading for the festival Sundays of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and Easter season. As a result, the theological themes of the Fourth Gospel anchor the church’s Trinitarian confessions and doctrinal imagination when it comes to preaching. In particular, as the assigned Gospel for the Sundays of Easter, the Gospel of John shapes resurrection proclamation. Resurrection proclamation, therefore, is animated by Jesus’ final words to his disciples found in the Farewell Discourse (John 14–17), where Jesus interprets his own ministry, commissions his disciples, testifies to the Paraclete, and prays for his followers. This essay will explore how the viewpoint of Jesus’ departing declarations makes a difference for preaching the resurrection. Through the lens of the Farewell Discourse, the promise of the resurrection takes on thematic issues that give important meaning to Jesus’ own revelation, “I am the resurrection and the life”. Full article

As the proliferation of new variations of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) continues to increase, it is evident that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over. Indeed, we are living in a world of interrelating and overlapping pandemics—a syndemic. A syndemic accelerates the polarization of access to health care, financial support, and education opportunities in marginalized communities, and the polarization breeds social injustice, violence, and ignorance. What, then, is the Gospel the Church proclaims for those who have experienced the pandemic and are now facing a syndemic? As part of a liturgical response, this paper proposes preaching as a praxis of the ecclesiological Gospel. The ecclesiological Gospel is a term I suggest to highlight the contextual, sacramental, and communal aspects of the Gospel. Highlighting God’s holistic work for salvation represented in baptism and the eucharist, the ecclesiological Gospel yearns to form a church that baptizes people in diversity, that severs evil interconnections, and that welcomes people to the table of hospitality that forms a new covenantal relationship. This paper examines the concept of a syndemic and its significance for preaching in marginalized communities. It contrasts a holistic Gospel perspective with a narrow view, proposes preaching as praxis of the ecclesiological Gospel, and illustrates its application within a particular context in responding to syndemic conditions. I hope this work offers a chance to reorient the meaning of the Gospel and the identity of the Church for people living in fear, grief, and hopelessness, while encouraging them with the unwavering hope revealed in Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. Full article

On behalf of the Catholic Church, the Council of Trent (1545–1563) confirmed the usefulness of religious images and multisensory worship practices for engaging the bodies and the minds of congregants, and for moving pious devotees to empathize with Christ. In the center panel of the Rockox Epitaph (c. 1613–1615), a funerary triptych commissioned by the Antwerp mayor Nicolaas Rockox (1560–1640) and his wife Adriana Perez (1568–1619) to hang over their tomb, Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) paints an awe-inspiring, hopeful image of the Risen Lord that alludes to the promise of humankind’s corporeal resurrection at the Last Judgment. In the wings, Rockox and Perez demonstrate affective worship with prayer aids and welcome onlookers to gaze upon Christ’s renewed body. Rubens’s juxtaposition of the eternal, incorruptible body of Jesus alongside five mortal figures—the two patrons and the three apostles, Peter, Paul, and John—prompted living viewers to meditate on their relationship with God, to compare their bodies with those depicted, and to contemplate their own embodiment and mortality. Ultimately, the idealized body of Christ reminds faithful audiences of both the corporeal renewal and the spiritual salvation made possible through Jesus’s death and resurrection. Full article

The discipline of apologetics has always been somewhat controversial in Christian theology. In the early church, the Greek-speaking apologists were often opposed for their attempts to express the gospel in the terms of Greek thought. In more recent times, the critiques of Soren Kierkegaard and Karl Barth, that it is an attempt to appeal to foundations that have nothing to do with the gospel, have cast a shadow over the discipline in recent years. This paper seeks to take those critiques seriously, yet argues that the discipline of apologetics is vital for the ongoing witness of the Church. It offers a new vision of apologetics based on the theological Apocalyptic genre. Rather than attempt to prove the existence of God or the truth of the Christian faith by rational means, Apologetics can be reconceived as an essentially narrative or descriptive discipline. The Apocalyptic genre thinks of the gospel as the result and announcement of the good news as a radical incursion of God into human life and history in the Incarnation and Resurrection. Apocalyptic Apologetics thus becomes an attempt to describe the world of history, politics, relationships and art (in fact, everything created) as lit up by the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It becomes a wide-ranging and imaginative venture to redescribe the world in the light of the gospel. This approach re-establishes Apologetics as a crucial part of the Church’s witness while avoiding the critique that it smuggles in assumptions and foundations from outside the gospel itself. Full article

While definitions of spirituality vary, each contains elements of union, a coming together of humanity and divinity. Scholars agree on the centrality of “union with Christ” in Pauline thought, yet not on a definition of union. Ephesians 5:31–32, however, provides important insight through a quotation—“…the two will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24)—and an explanation—“I say this with reference to Christ and the church”. While scholars highlight the preservation of distinct identities, Paul’s emphasis in the marriage metaphor, both here and elsewhere, is union, an interpenetration logic where two become one. Indeed, interpenetration logic is present in our union with Christ (Galatians 2:19–20) and our union with sin (Romans 7:9–25). Both unions harness the same two-become-one logic with drastically different ends: sin intends to obliterate (Rom. 3:23); Christ intends to resurrect (1 Corinthians 15:22). The crux of Pauline spirituality, then, is not ecstatic experiences or ethical imitations but union—reciprocal residence, where we are in Christ and Christ is in us; a mutual indwelling consummated by “the Spirit of life” (Rom. 8:2). Thus, Eph. 5:31–32 provides insight into interpenetration logic, where two become one without the obliteration of either. This is an insight that profits our understanding of Pauline spirituality and the “profound mystery” of union with Christ. Full article

Consideration of the nature of New Testament Theology (NTT) necessitates an account of theology or “God-talk”. Karl Barth grasped that all valid God-talk begins with God’s self-disclosure through Jesus and the Spirit, which people acknowledge and reflect on. Abandoning this starting point by way of “Foundationalism”—that is, resorting to any alternative basis for God-talk—leads to multiple destructive epistemological and cultural consequences. The self-disclosure of the triune God informs the use of the Bible by the church. The Bible then functions in terms of ethics and witness. It grounds the church’s ethical language game. Creative readings here are legitimate. The New Testament (NT) also mediates a witness to Jesus, which implies an historical dimension. However, it is legitimate to affirm that Jesus was resurrected (see 1 Cor 15:1–9), which liberates the devout modern Bible scholar in relation to history. The historical readings generated by such scholars have value because the self-disclosing God is deeply involved with particularity. These readings can be added to the archive of scriptural readings used by the church formationally. Ultimately, then, all reading of the NT is theological (or should be) and in multiple modes. NTT focuses our attention on the accuracy of the God-talk operative within any historical reconstruction, and on its possible subversion, which are critical matters. Full article

The election of Donald Trump inaugurated a wave of anxiety-bordering-on-despair among various peoples hoping for another, better world. This paper considers whether Trump deserves such acclaim in the sense that Trump is at best a symptom or cipher that can be approached by heeding Martin Luther’s observation that our politicians reflect who we are. To make this argument first I draw upon the work of Andrew Bacevich to suggest a certain continuity rather than apocalyptic break in recent American politics. Then I ask what the production of such politicians and politics says about American Christianity, which is far more frightening than the fleeting ascendancy of a mere Trump. In particular, using the National Study of Youth and Religion I suggest that the church in America suffers from a widespread failure of formation in the faith. What are we to make of this failure? Whence cometh hope? Building on Ephraim Radner’s interrogation of the divided church and on Jonathan Lear’s exploration of radical hope in the wake of cultural devastation, I will suggest both a theologically appropriate despair and also a hope for emergent forms and practices of faith capable of resisting the darkness of these times. Full article

In this work, samples of the white marbles enclosing the Tomb of Christ, as well as samples from the interior marble facades of the Holy Aedicule structure surrounding the Tomb of Christ in the Church of Resurrection in Jerusalem, are investigated using petrographic and isotopic analysis. The aim is to characterize the marble samples and investigate their provenance. The results demonstrate that all examined marble samples originate from Proconnesos (Marmara island), and can be attributed to the so-called Proconnesos-1 variety. Published maximum grain size (MGS) and isotopic (δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C) values of Proconessos quarries are compared with the respective values displayed by the marble samples of the Holy Aedicule, aiming to achieve—to a certain degree—intra-site discriminations. A number of ancient quarries are excluded through this double parameter criterion as sources for the examined Holy Aedicule marbles. The discussion of petrographic and isotopic results in relation to historical testimonies and previously published archaeometry results, regarding the mortars of the Holy Aedicule, reveal that Proconnesos marble was the material of choice used at different construction phases of the Holy Aedicule, from the time of Constantine the Great and throughout the centuries, both for the cladding of the Holy Tomb and the interior facings of the Tomb Chamber and the Chapel of the Angel. Full article

Contemporary analysis of the world that produced the Book of Revelation suggests that Patmos was not a penal settlement, and there is little evidence that Domitian systematically persecuted Christians. The Emperor Cult was widely practiced, but Christians were not being persecuted for lack of participation. The document makes much of God’s victory in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the slain and standing Lamb (Rev 5:6). The “saints” were not persecuted Asian Christians but, under the influence of the Book of Daniel, John’s presentation of those from Israel’s sacred history who lived by the Word of God and accepted the messianic witness of the prophets (8:3–4; 11:18; 13:7, 10; 14:12; 16:6; 17:6; 18:20, 24; 19:8; 20:6, 9). They already have life, the application of the saving effects of the slain and risen lamb “from the foundation of the world” (13:8). John addresses late first-century Asian Christians, presenting the model of these “saints,” offering them hope as they are tempted by the allure of the Greco-Roman world and its mores. He invites them into the life and light of the New Jerusalem, the Christian church (22:1–5). Full article