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A call for papers for the special issue of the journal on topics like theologies of choice, abortion and morality, and secular law is presented.

This paper builds upon a recent corpus of popular science that has elevated previously unsung members of the biosphere—"worts." It argues that the corpus constitutes a new natural theology, a search for meaning in the biosphere, and suggests a theological underpinning to what its authors intuit: that worts give meaning. To do this, the paper draws on Eduardo Kohn's How Forests Think (2013) and its examination of meaning as a ubiquitous feature of the multispecies ecosystem. Following on from Kohn, two key arguments are made. First, Kohn's posthuman anthropology is compatible with a Thomist treatment of organisms in terms of their distinct, life-orientated telos. Second, the current context of potential human extinction puts a life-orientated telos in a new light, reviving the validity of teleological thinking. Sharing the fate of nonhuman subjects, rather than treating them as scientific objects, authors and readers of the new natural theology find meaning among worts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andrew Root's recently completed "Ministry in a Secular Age" series offers a significant new contribution into the contemporary conversation about parish ministry after Christendom. Across these six volumes, Root uses the work of the philosopher Charles Taylor to construct an ecclesiological frame that re-centers divine action in the life of the church, exploring in turn various themes across Christian life and practice for a secular age. This paper examines his six-book series with the goal of offering the first in-depth critical engagement of his overall project, alongside a reflection on this series' import for Anglican audiences. I do so by exploring his theological method and surveying his creative use of genre across the series, drawing out themes from across the six volumes, and assessing the ways in which his works do and do not scaffold as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The particular vision of human, bodily life that has been adopted and developed in the neoliberal era since the 1970s is turning humans into a new kind of creature. Both our behavioral and conceptual notions of what it means to be human have been re-oriented to a vision of the "enterprising self," the social and political actor who negotiates the world through competition, self-regulation, and rational choice. The concern of this paper is to demonstrate how this framework is theologically unsound and has a destabilizing effect on what constitutes human nature as a particular embodied existence. Attending to the rationale and theological response to the neoliberal logics, this paper seeks to promote a vision of human life and activity that is ordered and oriented to human flourishing and provide examples of resistance to the person-forming capacity of neoliberal social formations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aspects of Anglican theology have in the recent past emphasized the importance of place. Indigenous knowledge and worldviews speak of the centrality of land. Tessayshis places place-based thinking alongside land-based thinking to argue that these distinct ways of thinking can be mutually enriching and challenging. The essay limits itself primarily to Anglican-related authors while also contextualizing this theology within a broader scope of thinking about place. The paper concludes with suggestions for ways in which place- and land-based thinking can enrich Anglican approaches to ministry and mission, particularly in relation to the Doctrine of Discovery and ownership of property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Behr has noticed that Irenaeus uses the terms "harmony" and "symphony" to describe both God's action in salvation and the Church's action in right proclamation. However, Irenaeus does a great deal more with "harmony" than this. This paper argues that Irenaeus' discussion of harmony both corresponds to and christianizes the classical notion of harmonia along three lines: cosmological harmony, mythological harmony, and literary harmony. The paper begins by demonstrating the relationship between these three lines in classical thought, paying special attention to Plato and Quintillian. Then, it demonstrates the relationship between these three lines in Against Heresies. In a third section, it argues that Irenaeus' use of classical harmonia christianizes the notion along all three lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Eucharist, a gospel sacrament and central feature of life in the Christian church, also bears considerable relevance for growing concerns about the "green" complexion of contemporary faith. Yet traditional forms of eucharistic liturgy may not seem initially to address these concerns satisfactorily. What, then, to do? One approach involves pursuing new, experimental alternatives to existing liturgical forms. Such innovations are unlikely, however, to inspire those not yet disposed to welcome them. This paper aims instead to highlight those less-noticed features of classic eucharistic liturgy, both within and beyond the Episcopal Church, that already embody a vital, sacramental vision of engagement with the fullness of God's creation. In this light, the eucharistic feast enacts not only the believer's communion with God in Christ, but also the inherently ecological principle of interchange among human worshippers and with every other member of God's created order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

]In a super-diverse city such as Birmingham in the United Kingdom, inner-city Anglican churches are frequently situated within a range of communities, holding different worldviews both within and without the church walls, impacting any subsequent understanding of relational life, or koinonia. This paper seeks to reflect on aspects of relational life in my own context, using Desmond Tutu's ubuntu theology as a lens through which to critique shared, lived experience. I conclude that ubuntu theology may facilitate a rediscovery of ancient ways of thinking, that extends an invitation to the Anglican church in Western contexts to re-envision Trinitarian ecclesiologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]