Search Results (165)

One of the core sources for Christian justification or critique of social justice matters is the Bible. One would think that a leading historic Christian figure, like John Wesley, whose theology was closely bound to biblical interpretation, would have used the Bible extensively to argue against an important matter such as (anti-)slavery. However, we find that his argument lacks his usual biblical-centeredness. This article explores this phenomenon and attempts to understand Wesley’s reasoning and argument in light of his limited use of scripture in this instance. Full article

(1) Background: Among the most important authors of spiritual autobiography, Dag Hammarskjöld and Thomas Merton must surely mentioned. The first one, a Swedish Evangelical, and the second one, an American Cistercian monk, provide valuable and interdisciplinary works. Among the topics found, their political theology is also present. Noticing its relevance, we will try there to take into account the way the aforementioned topic is reflected in their work. (2) Results: Aspects such as communism, racism, diplomacy, or love will constitute some of the topics that we will bring into attention in this research in an attempt to present the particularities, common points, and differences of the approaches of the two relevant authors, one from the Protestant space and the other from the Catholic one, both with an ecumenical vocation and openness to dialogue. (3) Methods: As for our methods, we will use the historical inquiry, the analysis of documents, and the deductive and the qualitative method. (4) Conclusions: The work will therefore investigate the aspects of political theology found in their research and will emphasize their vision, the common points, the use of Christian theology in the understanding of political and social realities, but also the differences that may occur between their approaches. At the same time, the role played by the context where they lived, worked, and wrote will be taken into attention in order to provide a more complex perspective on the relationship between their life and work. Full article

This article addresses the epistemic and political problem of self-referentiality in theology within the context of post-secular societies as a demand for public relevance of faculties of theology within the 21st-century university. It focuses on the epistemological emergence of public theology as a distinct knowledge, such as human rights, and ecological thinking, contributing to the public mission of knowledge production and interdisciplinary engagement. This study applies Michel Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical methods in dialogue with Michel de Certeau’s insights into the archaeology of religious practices through a multi-layered analytical approach, including archaeology of knowledge, apparatuses of power, pastoral government, and spirituality as a genealogy of ethics. As a result of the analysis, it examines the historical conditions of possibility for the emergence of a public theology and how it needs to be thought synchronously with other formations of knowledge, allowing theology to move beyond its self-referential model of approaching dogma and the social practices derived from it. This article concludes programmatically that the development of public theology requires an epistemological reconfiguration to displace its self-referentiality through critical engagement with a public rationality framework as an essential task for the public relevance and contribution of theology within contemporary universities and plural societies. Full article

This article examines the theological trajectories of Watchman Nee (1903–1972) and Witness Lee (1905–1997) on sanctification, union with Christ, and deification, situating their contributions within recent reappraisals of the doctrine of theosis in the academy. Though deification was universally affirmed by the early church and retained in various forms in medieval and early Protestant theology, post-Reformation Western Christianity marginalized this theme in favor of juridical and forensic soteriological categories. Against this backdrop, Nee and Lee offer a theologically rich, biblically grounded, and experientially oriented articulation of deification that warrants greater scholarly attention. Drawing from the Keswick Holiness tradition, patristic sources, and Christian mysticism, Nee developed a soteriology that integrates justification, sanctification, and glorification within an organic model of progressive union with God. Though he does not explicitly use the term “deification”, the language he employs regarding union and participation closely mirrors classical expressions of Christian theosis. For Nee, sanctification is not merely moral improvement but the transformative increase of the divine life, culminating in conformity to Christ’s image. Lee builds upon and expands Nee’s participatory soteriology into a comprehensive theology of deification, explicitly referring to it as “the high peak of the divine revelation” in the Holy Scriptures. For Lee, humans become God “in life and nature but not in the Godhead”. By employing the phrase “not in the Godhead”, Lee upholds the Creator–creature distinction—i.e., humans never participate in the ontological Trinity or God’s incommunicable attributes. Yet, in the first portion of his description, he affirms that human beings undergo an organic, transformative process by which they become God in deeply significant ways. His framework structures sanctification as a seven-stage process, culminating in the believer’s transformation and incorporation into the Body of Christ to become a constituent of a corporate God-man. This corporate dimension—often overlooked in Western accounts—lies at the heart of Lee’s ecclesiology, which he sees as being consummated in the eschatological New Jerusalem. Ultimately, this study argues that Nee and Lee provide a coherent, non-speculative model of deification that integrates biblical exegesis, theological tradition, and practical spirituality, and thus, present a compelling alternative to individualistic and forensic soteriologies while also highlighting the need for deeper engagement across global theological discourse on sanctification, union with Christ, and the Triune God. Full article

In Jer 15:19, Yhwh calls the prophet Jeremiah “my mouth”. This unique designation highlights his importance and finds support in several other features: Jeremiah is portrayed as the promised successor to Moses (Jer 1:7, 9), opposes all other contemporary prophets (e.g., Jer 20; 23; 26–29), and has many additional roles and activities. Furthermore, he shares traits with Yhwh’s servant from Isa 49 and 53. His ‘biography’ is extraordinary and is shown at length, unusual for the Latter Prophets, ranging from before his birth (Jer 1:5) to his disappearance in Egypt (Jer 43–44). His ‘confessions’ in Jer 11–20 testify to immense suffering and have become models for personal prayer. Like the prophet, his scroll is unique, too. No other biblical writing deals so extensively with trauma, exemplified at the downfall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, its roots, and its impact. This even leads to an uncommon structure of the scroll, ending with disaster in Jer 52, whereas all other scrolls of prophets contain hope as conclusions. Jer stands out with the analysis of guilt as cause for the catastrophe, yet it conveys also consolation, especially in Jer 29–33. In these chapters, elements for a renewed society emerge, corresponding to the name of the prophet, which signifies “Yhwh will raise up”. The real source for this change lies in the way Jer conceives the biblical God. No other writing in the Bible tells about his weeping, as a sign of helplessness vis-à-vis the continuing resistance of his people. Many prayers in the scroll, including the confessions, focus on the importance of an intimate, personal relationship with him, going beyond traditional piety in several aspects; Moshe Weinfeld has called them “spiritual metamorphosis”. The singularity of Jer applies also to its literary features. Its mixtures of poetry and prose, of divine and human speaking, of narratives about the prophet in first and third person are a challenge for every reader, as well as the ‘unordered’ chronology and retarded information. Jer excels in the use of other scrolls; the degree of intertextuality and the way of combining motifs from ‘foreign’ sources in a synthetic way are outstanding. To grasp fully its message requires familiarity with more than half of what later became the Hebrew Bible. Full article

The aim of the article is to analyze the relationship between the Christian faith and the spiritual traditions of the indigenous peoples of Latin America, seeking to identify elements that make it possible to trace paths of dialogue and mutual cooperation. It shows that historically, there have been tensions and conflicts between these traditions, but today, there is a path towards overcoming this reality through social solidarity, which serves as a basis for dialogue between the ways of believing. The research method is comparative and involves a qualitative analysis of the bibliography dealing with the relationship between the Church and Latin American indigenous spiritualities. The bibliographic base is documental, with emphasis on the conferences of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM), the Synod for the Amazon (2019) and the magisterium of Pope Francis, read from the perspective of the Second Vatican Council and the current theology of religions. The conclusion is that the Church is developing an important social dialogue to promote justice and the rights of indigenous peoples. This dialogue serves as the basis for a dialogue with the beliefs and spiritualities of these peoples. The challenge for this is to review mission objectives and methods in order to overcome the conversionist perspective in the relationship with indigenous peoples, taking paths of mutual respect and acceptance and valuing them beyond being the recipients of evangelization. In this way, indigenous spiritual traditions can be recognized not only as “seeds” of the Word to be developed by evangelization but as an already mature fruit of God’s relationship with these peoples. Full article

The aim of this article is to understand why Liberation Theology remains in dispute, placed between life and death, in the condition of agony as its own place. To this purpose, it analyzes the malaise and misunderstandings that accompany it, especially contemporary ones. It seeks to situate Liberation Theology in its connection with history and today’s society in its conflicts and sufferings. This way, it seriously considers theological places as social and historical places and vice versa. It then deepens its epistemological vocation with the principle of liberation together with the principle of mercy and the principle of hope. It concludes with the internal approaches of this theology as Theologies for the Kingdom of God, affirmative theologies, and Theology of the God of the Kingdom, theology of kenosis, of God on the crosses of those who suffer. Full article

Ritual has long served as a central axis of religious life, not only structuring practice but also transmitting meaning across generations. This article offers a new perspective on how Hasidic thought reconfigures the medieval Jewish genre of ta‘amei ha-mitzvot—meanings for the commandments—by transforming halakhah into a sustained mnemonic system for theological transmission and communal continuity. Focusing on Rabbi Nathan Sternhartz’s Likkutei Halakhot, a 19th-century Hasidic commentary on the Shulḥan Arukh, the study explores how Bratslav Hasidism embeds the kabbalistic teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav within the legal framework of Jewish ritual practice. It argues that Rabbi Nathan developed a distinctive mnemonic strategy that integrates symbolic and theological meaning into halakhic detail, enabling the internalization of Bratslav theology through repeated ritual action. Through close textual analysis, historical contextualization, cognitive theory, and a case study of Kiddushin rituals, this article demonstrates how halakhah becomes not only a vehicle for theological cognition but also a mechanism for sustaining religious identity and memory within a post-charismatic Hasidic community. More broadly, the study contributes to discussions of ritual, memory, and symbolic reasoning in religious life. Full article

The ecumenical movement’s basic purpose is to seek Christian unity. In facing the challenge of mission and ecumenism today, it is important to explicate how the ecumenical movement understands unity currently, and how the concept may have changed. This article’s hypothesis is that the goal of the church’s visible unity has changed less than appearances might suggest. The concept is now generally understood more holistically in ecumenical theology. In this article, a historical-systematic analysis focuses on the concept of visible unity, especially in the unity statements of the Assemblies of the World Council of Churches. An analysis of ecumenical models of unity and ways of realising churches’ unity in practice follows, as well as a reflection on the turns created by the latest ecumenical debate. The analysis confirms that the visible unity remains a central ecumenical goal in the quest for Christian unity. The turn towards holistic ecumenism seems to help address those who shun institutional ecumenism, without forgetting the Trinitarian and Christological theological basis and the institutional dimension. Diversity is not arbitrary: at its best it supports creativity and trust, freeing individuals for common witness and service. Full article

This study examines how South Korea’s 1970s Protestant democratization movement embodied Hans Joas’s concept of the “sacralization of the person” during the authoritarian Yushin regime. Challenging binary narratives of human rights origins as exclusively secular or religious, the research analyzes how Korean Protestant activists created institutions, rituals, and theological frameworks that infused human dignity with sacred character. The study demonstrates how religious actors effectively bridged religious and secular boundaries in human rights advocacy through historical analysis of the National Council of Churches in Korea’s Human Rights Committee, Thursday Prayer Meetings, and the development of Minjung theology. The findings reveal a distinctive process of sacralization that evolved from individual to collective understandings of human dignity, culminating in the radical Minjung Messiah theory. This case study illustrates how Joas’s affirmative genealogy operates in non-Western contexts, showing that sacralization emerges through dynamic interactions between religious conviction, historical events, and cultural transformation rather than through abstract reasoning alone. The Korean experience demonstrates that universal human rights gain moral force when diverse traditions collaborate to uphold human dignity across ideological divides. Full article

Migration is a multidimensional process that reshapes identities and communities. This article adopts a polyhedral framework inspired by Pope Francis’s Laudato si’ and Michel Foucault’s concepts of “subjectivation” and the “polyhedron of intelligibility”. Both emphasize spirituality as a transformative force in individuals’ lives and a concept that connects philosophy and theology to support resilience among migrant populations. Using Portugal as a case study, the research examines migration’s historical and contextual landscape and its discursive framework. Through a Lisbon-based research project of interviews with migrants, the study explores the concept of spiritual integration by presenting how spirituality functions to preserve cultural identity while facilitating integration without full assimilation into the host community. Spirituality includes many rules and choices regarding ways of life; therefore, the interview projects’ migrants interpret the concept of spiritual integration in a subjective and polyhedron manner. Creating strong ties to their homes, traditions, cultures, spirituality, sports, and culinary practices, as well as practicing, sharing, and teaching these practices, protects them from total subjection, while learning the host society’s customs and rituals helps them to fit in. The findings show that spirituality serves as an integrational tool, a coping mechanism, and a form of resistance, providing a space for migrants to address and overcome challenges. The article emphasizes the importance of integration policies to create a “safe place” of inclusivity within host communities. Full article

Recent attempts to reconcile the doctrine of original sin with evolutionary theory have sought scientific validation for the historicity of Adam and Eve, particularly through arguments for a single ancestral pair. This paper critically examines such efforts, arguing that they constitute a disguised form of creation science, selectively engaging with evolution to preserve classical Christian anthropology. Through biblical exegesis, theological hermeneutics, and biological research, this study demonstrates that these approaches rest on uncertain scientific and theological premises. Genesis 1–11 is sapiential rather than historical, and genetic evidence biological evidence points to population-oriented emergence of our species. Theological attempts to preserve a literal Adam and Eve rest on an outdated view of revelation as mere information transfer, leading to conceptual confusion and misinterpretation. The pursuit of a historical Adam and Eve as a scientific reality ultimately distorts both theology and science, reducing theology to ideology and fundamentalism while undermining its engagement with mystery and transcendence. Full article

While active female Benedictine monasteries in the United States presently are in a state of decline, the needs of the Church and world indicate that the Benedictine charism is greatly needed today. This article explores some of the historical developments that have played a part in bringing active Benedictine women’s monasteries to where they are, from their immigrant foundations through societal shifts around and since the time of Vatican II. This article then provides a review of key magisterial documents relating to religious life issued since the Council. In the themes enumerated, it can be seen that the Church provides and asks of women religious an identity that is both meaningful and fully in accord with Benedictine tradition. A synthesis of U.S. Benedictine women’s experience and developments in theology is proposed, along with some possible ways forward that could put this synthesis into action. Full article

The very latest scholarship on the Swiss Reformation has urged us to resituate the conceptual origins and first articulations of a Reformed Covenant theology in the Zurich of Zwingli, Jud, Pellikan, and Bullinger, rather than in the Geneva of Calvin and Beza. Using insights from the recent literature of early modern memory, book history, and art history, this article provides a critical new reading of the preface, text, and paratext of the 1531 folio edition of the Zurich Bible. In doing so, it elucidates how, working with a humanist conception of historical memory, an early Reformed Covenant theology was articulated through its rhetorical juxtaposition of an imagined Israel and Rabbinic Judaism. In line with recent work on the role of historical models in early Reformed Bible culture, I contend that the language of historical memory holds the key to understanding this Reformed rearticulation of Covenant theology and its intended effect on readers of the Zurich Bible. Insights from this reading shed light on the Zurich origins of Reformed Christianity’s ambivalent history of defining itself vis-a-vis an imagined Israel and Rabbinic Judaism, with implications for understanding Protestant discourses on Israel, Judaism, idolatry, antijudaism, and antisemitism. Full article

Scholarly discussion on Bonaventure’s Christology has tended to favor its Trinitarian, historical, and epistemological dimensions. Of note is Bonaventure’s notion of Christ as medium metaphysicum: the very depth and center of history according to knowing, learning, and mystical desire. What is perhaps less considered with respect to these topics, but nevertheless evident in contemporary scholarship, is the extent to which Bonaventure’s Christological structure informs an essential relation between creation and glorification. This essay explores these topics with attention to contemporary Bonaventure scholarship to offer insights on the ongoing importance of Bonaventure’s Christology for posterity, especially as it relates to a Bonaventurian theology of creation. Full article