Search

The article offers information on Catholic social teaching, love, and thomistic secondary moral precepts. Topics discussed include social life from a Christian perspective; rightly-ordered love of self and transformational union with God; and emphasizes on creation of human persons to exist in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships by Pope Francis.

Joy is an affective state that, unlike fear and grief, has a certain continuity with the anticipated affective dispositions of heavenly life: for those who long for the heavenly "life of felicity," joy responds to the same object of love and contemplation, i.e., God, whether they are on earth or in heaven. But the mortal, finite believer encounters certain obstacles to full vision and to sustained contemplation in this earthly life. This fact reveals fundamental difficulties in tracing the continuity Augustine posits in De ciuitate dei 14.9 across earthly and heavenly emotions, especially given the differences he also posits between earthly (temporal) and heavenly (eternal) states. This article examines how Augustine describes the affective (and, in particular, experiential) qualities of believers' earthly and heavenly joy and jubilation with particular attention to the (dis)continuities between their temporal and eternal expressions in both speech and song. I argue that, by transcending the temporally-spoken word, the non-verbal cry or song comes closest to matching the expression of heavenly joy as it responds to the God who surpasses utterance, and whose embrace fulfills understanding and elicits inexhaustible love and praise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article in this journal, Heidi Giannini (2017) has argued that the Christian doctrines of love and of hope require Christians to endorse universal, unconditional forgiveness, understood in terms of the renunciation of "negative reactive attitudes." She also addresses criticisms of this interpretation. It is argued that Giannini has failed to provide a Christian justification for universal, unconditional forgiveness. Part of the problem is that she espouses a definition of forgiveness and an understanding of the nature of forgiveness that, as a result of neglecting the teaching of the New Testament, exhibits a number of incoherencies and theological weaknesses. Her account is also vulnerable to philosophical and moral criticisms of a serious nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it look like to cultivate a community in right relationship with God? In taking the focus off individual members and placing it on the community itself, we recognize that the whole of a university is greater than the sum of its parts, and that individual parts are repeatedly and continually shaped and defined by the whole. Being in right relationship with God begins with acknowledging our longings to be loved, to be known, and to belong in ways encouraging us to put ourselves intentionally and consistently in God's gaze of love. Coming before God empty-handed and agenda-less, rather than starting another discipleship program or Bible Study, helps us lean into God's love already at work—common grace. Gratitude flows from opening our eyes to the wonder of God's sustaining love active around us. As we gaze at God, who is gazing at us, we are transformed—saved from envy, pettiness, selfishness, and sense of entitlement. Transformation begins with grace, where the response is a gratitude that moves back to God and is expressed in love of neighbor—love of all created things, both seen and unseen, held together by Christ. This movement of God in our college communities is cultivated by a shared identity as a Christian community, by seeing and knowing each other, being seen and known, using chapel as a Holy Place, and turning our love outward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 25:39) is central to Christian discipleship. How does the concrete way that we express love enhance or diminish our ability to love? This paper brings Karl Rahner's theology of neighbor love into dialogue with a description of altruism and compassion provided by social psychologist, C. Daniel Batson, and neuroscientists Tania Singer and Olga Klimecki. For Rahner, grace enables and sustains love. In addition, a mutually reciprocal relationship of unity exists between human love for God, neighbor, and self Furthermore, Rahner contends prayer as one way to cultivate compassion for another. The scientific research presented here examines aspects of the relationship between self and other known as empathy and compassion. The research of Batson, Singer, and Klimecki shed light on the role of self-love in compassion as well as the ways our capacity to empathize conditions our potential for altruism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay endeavors to demonstrate that celibacy «for the sake of the Kingdom» conveys important lessons for human flourishing. Celibacy is an anthropological witness to the possibility and conditions of faithful human love, the nobility as well as the limits of marriage, and the vocation of every Christian man to fatherhood in the order of grace. In the contemporary climate there is a great deal of anthropological confusion regarding the human person, including human love, marriage, and parenthood. As a result, these three lessons taught by apostolic celibacy are perhaps more urgently needed than ever before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Review of Sandu Frunză, O antropologie mistică. Introducere în gîndirea Părintelui Stăniloae (A mystical anthropology. An introduction to Stăniloae's thought). București: Eikon, 2016. 176 pag. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homosexuality, from an Orthodox perspective, falls in the category of sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance. The condemnation root of this sin has its basis into certain scriptural texts. However, the theological and the pastoral approach of homosexuality within the Orthodox Church is a taboo subject. On the one hand, the works and the studies which clarify how to relate to homosexuals within a parish are missing; on the other hand, the homosexuals' testimonies and the problems that they are face with, as members of the Orthodox Church, are also missing. The current study reviews certain more important Orthodox contributions on the theme of homosexuality, namely the challenges and the possible responses which it raises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the book "Amore senza fine. Amore senza fini," by Alberto Melloni is presented. Various topics discussed include love and marriage in Middle Ages, doctrines based on love, ideology of love, Justinian law and marriage sacrament between Ancient and Middle Ages. An overview of the story is also given.

This paper addresses the connections between love of self and love of God in terms of their impact on personal subjectivity according to the thought of Thomas Aquinas. I argue that Aquinas's understanding of self-love illuminates the experience of oneself as a person. Part of this argument relies on Aquinas's notion that love of self is more basic than love of others. Aquinas further affirms that one ought to love God more than oneself. I explore the implications of this claim for my interpretation concerning personal self-experience. I maintain that our participation in God causes a pull toward goodness and God within one's experience of self. Also, friendship with God through charity offers the highest fulfillment of self-experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay I describe some delightful surprises of Christian bioethics through the lenses of faith, hope, and love. I draw from insights about what makes Christian belief and practice distinctive from sources such as the early Christian document, The Epistle to Diognetus, G. K. Chesterton, and C. S. Lewis. I focus on the three theological virtues with a special eye for applications to contemporary bioethical issues and contemporary philosophical objections. Love is a distinctive center of Christian bioethics. Faith is a distinctive knowledge of Christian bioethics. Hope is a distinctive posture of Christian bioethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the politics of emotions, conversion, and childhood in the Danish Protestant Christian mission around the turn of the twentieth century in colonial South India. The emotional configuration of childhood that came to prevail in the Danish missionary community at this time was informed by a particular notion of the importance of intimate and tender feelings to the constitution of a rich Christian life. In order to win the children's hearts for Christ, they had to be treated gently, even lovingly. The article shows how this sentimentalisation of childhood simultaneously served to displace Indian adults and parents and to include Indian children into what one might call the missionaries' emotional community. And, while the ideal of gentle intimacy rendered corporal punishment less socially acceptable in the education of children, it involved a different kind of power - less tangible and visible, and therefore perhaps also more difficult to contest. As such, the article discloses the highly ambiguous political anatomy of love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers reflections on key themes and missiological significances of the WCC's Together towards Life in dialogue with the other evangelical and Roman Catholic documents, specifically, Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium and the Lausanne Movement's Cape Town Commitment. Organizing his reflections around the significant words in each document - life, joy, and love - as well as other meaningful and powerful words that arise in analysis, the author finds that these three new mission statements cover much of the same ground and are quite complementary, with concern for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the forgotten and disregarded playing a central role in all of them. The article concludes that it is important to study these three documents together, as each has the potential to be a friendly yet challenging ecumenical dialogue partner to the others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a speech given by Pope Francis on the topic of the family. He comments on the love that is unique to families and the role of the Catholic Church in the development and support of family relations. The impact of globalization on families is also addressed in the pope's speech.

This article discusses the papal encyclical "Caritas in veritate," written by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. The author comments on the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and the importance of the Church in social development, according to Benedict XVI. The themes of love, good will, and knowledge are also examined.

Socrates partially embodies one element of Christian philosophy as articulated by Paul Moser in his paper "Christ-Shaped Philosophy: Wisdom and Spirit United," namely, life in submission to divine authority out of a recognition that disobedience to God inflicts grave moral self-harm. The practice of Socratic philosophy models a way of doing philosophy as an expression of love, the essential motive of proper Christian philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that the co-existence of omnipotence, omniscience, and total evil forms an inconsistent triad. An omniscient being will know what it is like for anyone to feel pain, and since pain is undesirable, will not freely create pains which it would have to share. An omnipotent being would choose to be rational, and a purely rational being would choose what it believes to be good. It would in fact choose to be of supreme value, and thus would necessarily contain all compossible values, including those of friendship and love. Therefore an omnipotent omniscient being cannot be evil. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Given the urgency of new evangelization, envisioned by the Vatican Council and carried out by the supreme Magisterium of the Catholic Church, this article explores an issue of the current scenario: evangelization. With this purpose, the article refers to the concept of "liquid modernity" of Sociologist Zigmund Bauman, as a deliberated selection to introduce the extension of the problem and to favor the debate of the John Paul II for the New Evangelization Chair, that Pontificia Universidad Católica de Sao Paulo is trying to foster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article replies to responses in the same issue to the author's book "In Defence of War." Scholars whose responses are addressed include Charles Mathewes, Cian O'Driscoll, Lisa Cahill, Scott Davis, Nahed Artoul Zehr, Rosemary Kellison, and James Turner Johnson. Topics include the Christian notion of love in relation to just war, the ethical notion of double-effect, and the role of natural law in the book.

The author critiques the book "In Defence of War," by Nigel Biggar, criticizing the role of Christian love in Biggar's account of the just war tradition. Topics include the views of Augustine of Hippo regarding war, whether war should be viewed as punishment or as a means of securing the common good, and the ethical notion of double effect.

Copyright of International Journal of Sino-Western Studies is the property of Sanovan Press, Nordic Forum of Sino-Western Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents a collection of essays, presented papers and talks on ecumenism and interfaith relations by Australian Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Putney who has been a leader in national and international ecumenical movement. It discusses the foundations of ecumenism, the methodologies of productive dialogue and the ecumenical cornerstones. It notes the twin pillars of ecumenism the love and truth and the charity and faith.

'The most terrible poverty is loneliness and feeling unloved' (Mother Teresa). Swaziland is in the unenviable position of having the highest HIV infection rate in the world, with an adult prevalence rate of 42%. This is a national crisis which, in the Swaziland context, has led to feelings of severe hopelessness and rejection and which needs to be addressed through a multidisciplinary approach. The church is in the unique position to demonstrate the love and grace of God in the midst of this pandemic. A small congregation of the Swaziland Reformed Church situated in the southern Shiselweni district of the country decided to take up this challenge. This article showed what the effects could be when the church becomes a vessel of love and grace within the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Miroslav Volf's A Public Faith invites religious traditions, especially Christianity, to bring their best elements into the public square in a spirit of hospitality and engagement for the common good. With regard to Christianity, he claims that one of the best elements we can offer the public square is a complexly relational vision of the human person made to love self, others, God. In this essay Dávila proposes that the preferential option for the poor is a particular expression of this anthropological vision of Christianity that is well poised for public engagement based on humility and care for the most vulnerable members of society. Following Volf's proposal, the option for the poor functions as a paradigm for imaginative and creative engagement in the public square that might help people of faith navigate seemingly intractable political and cultural disagreements in the public square. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the life of faith and forensic justification as related to some new issues in social theory, especially Axel Honneth's notions of love, respect, and esteem. The article is critical of virtue ethics and recommends an ethics of vocation as a path toward equal respect and individual social esteem. The article also discusses why Lutherans consider faith (or even faith alone) rather than love as a proper starting-point of this path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on rejecting the dichotomy of a God of love and wrath by poet Swinburne after his deconversion. Topics discussed include believing that man created a dualistic God of love and wrath, then disciplined himself by inventing self-imposed creeds; his rebellion against Catholic dogma which contributed his early inversion of the sacrament as a challenge to man's self-imposed morality; and deconversion to antitheism during his Oxford days.

Feminist scholars adopt wide-ranging views of self-sacrifice: their critiques claim that women are inordinately affected by Christianity's valorization of self-sacrifice and that this traditional Christian value is inherently misogynistic and necrophilic. Although Søren Kierkegaard's Works of Love deems Christian love essentially sacrificial, love, in his view, sets significant limits on the role of self-sacrifice in human life. Through his proposed response to one who requests forgiveness, 'Do you now truly love me?' Kierkegaard offers a model of forgiveness that subverts traditional ideals of the self-sacrificing and submissive woman while keeping love central. The question asserts self-love, involves redoubling and double danger, and expresses a refusal to imitate Christ's suffering. I propose a reading in keeping with Grace Jantzen's vision for a feminist philosophy of religion, which reads against the grain and 'seeks to break through to new ways of thinking that may open up divine horizons.' My reading is further supported by Kierkegaard's contention that everything essentially Christian bears a double meaning. In light of the subversive potential found in the discrepancy between apparent love and actual love, as well as the duty to name the sin of one who has behaved in an unloving manner, I argue that Kierkegaard's philosophy of love resists simplistic understandings of self-sacrificing love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Northeast Brazil, the question of whether motherhood predisposes a woman to love her children, and whether children can be socialized effectively even in the absence of love, is a source of debate. I explore how motherhood references different configurations of the essential nature of things by charting how concepts of mother love map onto the Christian concept of agape. The analogical link between mother love and agape, I argue, offers people a set of conceptual tools for reflecting on a range of problems emerging from contrasting ontologies implicit within local forms of Christianity. Problems include the nature of the human-divine relation, the concept of primal animation, and the profound imbalance of power that a creature-Creator relationship entails. Debates about motherhood can thus be understood in terms of 'ontopraxis,' whereby social agents situate themselves in relation to shared ontological categories and negotiate ambiguous and even contradictory cosmological schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pain in one or another form can defeat people. Facing pain through the Christian perspective, mankind can defeat it and pass the test as an opportunity for reassessment of their existential destination. Experiencing interpersonal bonds of freedom and love human beings can foretaste the new world of God, in which grief is replaced by joy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Julian of Norwich emphasizes God's eternal and unchanging love for humankind. Her visions show how God is not angry with our sins and so has no need to forgive us. God does not shame or blame us but excuses us and plans how to reward and compensate us for sin. In relation to Mother Jesus, we remain dear lovely children who need help, correction, and education. Although these remarks suggest to some that Julian must be 'soft' on sin, that she has no adequate appreciation of the worthiness of God or the dignity of human nature, I argue that this is far from the case. On the contrary, she makes Divine worthiness axiomatic and urges readers to live into it. She relocates human dignity not in its intrinsic value but in our centrality to God's plan. She measures the seriousness of sin in terms of the 'real hard work' it takes to rear us up out of it: crucifixion for Christ, the hell of being a sinner and the crucifixion of life-long penance for us. Nevertheless, the brightness of her visions dominates with her assurance that despite the sin-produced sufferings of this present life, all will be well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses sabotaged submission which interprets a significant role being played by women in the Bible. It notes the reluctance of a woman who is abused by her husband to seek advice from evangelical pastors, who are usually male, about stopping the abuse. Also cited are some of those practicing sabotage that have an impact on families in evangelical churches, including fundamentalists. A lack of biblical teaching on love, authority and submission is said to possibly cause spiritual abuse of wives.

The author reflects on the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand men with five loaves of bread and two fish. He asserts that the feeding of the five thousand is a miracle of sharing and of caring of each other. He notes the relationship between the hunger of the body and the hunger of the soul. He states that the fundamental lesson of hospitality is not simply in giving, but in receiving love.

The author discusses the ecumenical and communal significance of prayer and worship in the spirituality of unity that has shaped the Focolare Movement. She shows how from the start of the movement the love of God and the accompanying love of one another became key concepts in understanding and moving towards unity. She suggests to foster communion with God in morning and evening prayers, in celebrating the Eucharist, and in daily meditation. She cites one prayer that has developed in the spirituality of unity called the "Consenserint."

Explores the concept of love as a means of understanding what Christians do with their scholarship in cultural anthropology. Discussion of the shortcomings of the integrationist model for cultural anthropology; Pietist perspective on love and learning in cultural anthropology; Proposal to de-center the integrationist approach to include Christian traditions and diverse ways of understanding what Christian identity may mean for the scholarly vocation.

Examines the theological and sociobiological context of altruism. Expansion of love or altruistic behavior; Achievement of the demand commanded by love; Link between Christian religion and sociobiology; Impact of the functional approach toward religion on the altruistic behavior to unrelated persons; Intrinsic character of altruistic love.

In contemporary society nothing upsets us more than having to wait for our bodies. Our bodies serve us as we direct and when they break down we become angry that they have failed us. Christians, however, are called to be a patient people even in illness. Indeed, impatience is a sin. Learning to be patient when sick requires practicing patience while healthy. First, we must learn that our bodies are finite — they will die. Second, we must learn to live with one another in patience as Christians with the love that the presence of others can and does create in us. Third, in life there is time for the acquisition of habits that come from worthy activities that require time and force us to take first one step and then another. In patience one can live with God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on theological bioethics. It explores the Christian tradition of bioethics such as the concept of the term love, a source of moral Christian life and Christian proclamation of Jesus Christ. It also discusses the emergence of Christian Catholic bioethics, the development of orthodox bioethics, and the principle of love.

Presents the author's response to a criticism of her article "A Pietist Perspective on Love and Learning in Cultural Anthropology." Aim of the article to understand the disadvantages of integrating faith and anthropology; Views on the lack of Christians involved in anthropology; Position on the argument that the reformed pietist traditions must not be dualized as theory versus practice, and that individuals coming from reformed traditions should not be silenced.