Jesus as wandering prophetic wisdom teacher

The view on Jesus as a wandering wisdom teacher reveiles that “wandering’ was one of the basic concepts of theology. It is interesting to take note that the title ‘teacher’ was given to Jesus, not by his own discples, but by ‘outsiders’, because of his public activities. Three qualities are attached to Jesus as wisdom teacher: prophecy, miracle working and wandering. In this paper the Gospel of Mark is explored to dipict the road Jesus walked from Galilee to Jerusalem - always without a planned itinarary. The conclusion is that ‘wandering’ is a central action of Jesus throughout the New Testament, in a physical as well as a metaphorical-theological way.

Lukan Easter Formation: Living out the Resurrection

(Excerpt) We will discuss two types of Easter formation in the early church, with Acts and Luke as guides to our Easter mystagogy. The topic is in one sense natural for a New Testament scholar, since all writers of the New Testament begin theologically from the resurrected Christ, because a Christian\u27s life-style (to use a modem shibboleth) is formed in the New Testament from the event of baptism, and because early Christian parenesis is essentially a realization of life under the Lordship of the Resurrected One. But it also brings some problems

Historical Perspectives of Shifting Motives for Faith-Based Travel

Throughout pre-history and history, millions of people of many religions and faiths have undertaken pilgrimages. Although ‘the quintessential form of religiously motivated travel is pilgrimage’, the meaning of the practice of pilgrimage has changed over the centuries (Dietz, 2005:27). There are also some consistent Leitmotifs and principles in religious travel. Participants of the New Religious Movements (NRM) travel to Neolithic and other prehistoric sites (such as Malta) for a spiritual experience at such sites, seeking to fulfil needs which the historic churches cannot or no longer can fulfil. (Rountree, 2002:475-496). Many NRMs are based on historical values, past religions or on symbolical or perceived values of the Neolithic past (Hutton, 1990:351-8). Others come to Malta for a traditional pilgrimage or a trip with religious aspects which fit with the traditional aspects of religious Malta, related to the Pauline or Marian cults. The present writer prefers to use the term ‘faith-based tourism’ when it comes to Malta, because everyone arriving to Malta has to use part of the tourism infrastructure. Besides, faith-based tourism is an umbrella term, encompassing pilgrimage, religious travel, tourism with a religious theme and secular pilgrimage, because even in the latter form there are spiritual aspects and elements of faith present

The real crisis of the church

What is the real crisis of the church? Very often, clergy, churches and congregations experience a ‘crisis’ only when membership is in decline, resulting in financial hardship. Crisis is limited to stress which the church as institution experiences when structures, finance and traditions are under pressure. In this contribution, the point is argued that the real crisis of the church is not to be found in institutional challenges, but in the inability of the church to be what it already is. With reference to Karl Barth’s ecclesiology, this contribution departs from the assumption that the real crisis of the church is not only to be found in external circumstances and influences, but is primarily a question of the church not being able to ‘be church’. Continued reformation of the church is of utmost importance

Peregrinatio ad Terram Sanctam : the Mediterranean geography of Christian wonders in the Book of the Infante Pedro of Portugal

O Livro do Infante D. Pedro de Portugal, de Gomez de Santisteban, constitui um paradigma do estabelecimento de uma geografia de maravilhas Cristãs no universo dos relatos de viagens medievais ibéricas, e, mais especificamente, de viagens imaginárias. Falamos de uma geografia de desejos e do onírico, ou seja, da Esperança, aquela que, herdada da Antiguidade clássica, em grande parte preenchia os anseios do Cristão medieval (e especialmente num período medieval tardio). De facto, é inequívoca a sua contribuição para fixar na mentalidade (e no imaginário) colectiva(/os) do período medieval tardio um conjunto de lugares de mirabilia Cristã localizados na área de influência do Mar Mediterrâneo como espaços de memória a serem retidos pela cultura da Cristandade Ocidental. É nossa intenção refletir especificamente sobre a componente Mediterrânica desta geografia, ou seja, examinar a pertinência e o valor histórico-cultural da primeira parte da narrativa, correspondente à peregrinação do infante D. Pedro e respetivo séquito à Terra Santa. Procuram-se respostas para questões como, qual a lógica central do elemento maravilhoso relativo à área de influência do Mediterrâneo? A que anseios e angústias responde? E qual é o papel do prodígio na estruturação desta primeira componente do texto?The Book of the Infante Pedro of Portugal by Gomez of Santisteban constitutes a paradigm of the establishment of a Mediterranean geography of Christian wonders in the universe of Iberian medieval travel accounts, and more specifically of imaginary travels. We speak of a geography of desires and of the oneiric, that is of Hope, that which, inherited from classical antiquity, largely fulfilled the longings of the medieval (and especially late medieval) Christian. Indeed, there is no doubt about its contribution to fixing, in the late medieval collective mentality (and imaginary), a set of places of Christian mirabilia located in the area of influence of the Mediterranean Sea as spaces of memory to be retained by the culture of Western Christianity. It is our intention to reflect specifically on the Mediterranean component of this geography, that is to examine the relevance and the historical and cultural value of the first part of the narrative, corresponding to the pilgrimage of the Infante D. Pedro and his entourage to the Holy Land. Answers are sought to questions such as: what is the central logic of the marvelous element relating to the area of influence of the Mediterranean? To what anxieties and anguish does it respond? And what is the prodigy's role in structuring this first component of the text

Imitatio Christi and the holy folly of divine violence: The church as ultimate criminal

The calling of the church is to follow Christ (imitatio Christi). What does this calling entail? Following Žižek’s and Derrida’s interpretation of Benjamin’s interpretation of law and violence, the paper will argue that the call to follow Christ is not to subvert the law, but as Paul argues - Christ came to destroy the law. In this article, Christ will be interpreted as one who did not counter this violence of the law (state-maintaining violence) with a counter violence of state-forming violence, but completely undermined the justification of both forms of violence (state-forming and state-maintaining) with a divine violence. If the Christ event is read as an exemplary narrative of the post-metaphysics in the linguistic turn in the work of Derrida, this opens up new possibilities for both theology as well as the role of the church within the context of a postmodern world, and these possibilities will be explored

Löwith's Nietzschean Return to the Ancient Conception of Nature

This paper assesses Löwith’s conception of Antiquity. For him Antiquity is opposite in meaning to Christianity, and not to Modernity. That is to say, Modernity would be included in the Christian times, and Antiquity, for its part, would be primarily considered as a polytheist culture, contrasting with the Christian worldview. As I will show, the scheme motivating such a conception of Antiquity is the Nietzschean antichristian philosophical program

The Last Shall Be First: Human Potential in Genetic and Theological Perspectives

The notion of “human potential” provides a fruitful window through which to explore the competing conceptual frameworks of contemporary genetics and Christianity. The contemporary cultural frame of genetics conceives of human potential in a broadly positive manner: the source of personal and societal flourishing is located within individual bodies, waiting to be identified and unleashed by genetic science and medicine for the good of persons and society. In the Judeo-Christian narrative, human individual, biological potential is far less relevant—and, in fact, may be construed as an impediment to the achievement of personal and social flourishing. Implications for the dialogue between genetics and religion are discussed