Tale of a theologian without walls

This article provides a detailed autobiographical account of two oddly coupled things. On the one hand, the author has been firmly committed to theology without walls since early childhood, including high school publications in a church newsletter and comingdown to a three-volume philosophical theology based on world religions, vulnerable to all perspectives. On the other hand, the author has been actively and deeply religious, including ordination in the United Methodist Church and being the dean of the United Methodist School of Theology at Boston University. Being religious in a particular way is compatible with pursuing theology without walls

Arranging a miracle

Historical series, 12. Mk 1:40-45. Sermon prepared for congregations of the synod of Manitoba district, 1979

Re-use of agricultural facility brownfields

The paper focuses on brownfields of agricultural facilities in three locations, i.e. in the center of a small village, on the outskirts of the village and in the countryside. Historical sites with cultural and social value were selected for their location, context and their nature or the existence of listed buildings. This created the opportunity to present three model situations of approaches to site solutions. The issues were gradually presented to Master's degree students in Architecture and Civil Engineering at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of VŠB-TU in Ostrava, to allow each of them to create an opinion over the course of the semester on the possibility and level of utilization of abandoned agricultural sites. The results of their work show their thinking on the direction and re-use of the brownfields, primarily influenced by their location, but also by other aspects that had a significant impact on the resulting design concept

PRESERVING AND ENHANCING SOLIDARITY AND THRUST CAPITAL IN THE COUNTRYSIDE. A SHORT ANALYSIS IN THE GENERAL CONTEXT OF AGRICULTURE BASED ECONOMY

It has become a well known fact that a sustainable development of humankind resides not only in preserving the environment but mainly in preserving solidarity between generations or within a generation. This sustainable development defined as a productive cooperation between generations implies a man nature relationship where the man is an element of nature not its master. The place where the interests of several generations come together as a hole is the countryside, for here the connection between nature, work and capital has a permanent and direct character. Therefore it is not by chance that man and land are primary components of a nation wealth. For the Romanian people eternity was born in the countryside, and the sacred aspects of life are better preserved here. In this context it is a priority to determine the real contribution that it has to Grass Domestic Product, the contribution it has to the preservation and augmentation of the national wealth, as basis for an increasing thrust capital.Rural solidarity, Thrust capital, Rural family, Social dialog, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital,

Is It Time for the Temple?

The current situation in Israel is one of constant tension and turmoil. Yet in the midst of Arab aggression and opposition, it appears that Jewish interest in rebuilding their Temple continues to grow. In the last few months there have been a number of events that have taken place that appears to be ratcheting up the interest level of the Temple movement in Israel among Jews. One of the more interesting developments has been the reestablishment of the Sanhedrin after 1600 years of absence

The philosophical problem of eternal life: reading Heidegger through Wittgenstein

In this article I analyse the philosophical problem of eternal life through Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s analysis of dying as a philosophical concept. Using the latter part of the Tractatus, in fact, it is possible to read differently Heidegger’s lessons on the fundamental concepts of metaphysics, so as to claim that there are some really immortal life forms: those without memory

Current Methods for Valuing and Enhancing the Religious Tourism Potential in the Area of Archdiocese of Lower Danube

The tourism-religion, a biome insufficiently studied, is often a confusion between religious tourism and pilgrimage, being seen as a spiritual phenomenon that involves a certain level of culture meant to motivate the initiation path of the believers. As the contemporary world is in a constant confessional transformation it is necessary the concept of ecumenical tourism, which is a complex phenomenon that is based on the theological principle “ut unum sint” (that all may be one), the return to Christian unity from a beginning. Applying the theoretical model DSPIR (EEA, 2011, F. Kineast, WSL, 2012) which describes the interactions between contemporary society and religious landscape, we can value and enhance optimally the information about the religious patrimony of the Archdiocese of Lower Danube

“Blest Be the Architect”: Church-Building in Foxe, Spenser, Lanyer, and Herbert

My dissertation examines the imagery of church building in early modern English literature. It spans from Henry VIII’s Dissolution of monastic houses in the 1530s to the poetry of George Herbert in the 1630s, and traces the influence of theological writings, architectural history, and religious doctrine on the formation of a formal thematic element. In studies of architectural images that appear in English literature after the Dissolution, the focus is often on ruins, which are read as a representation of anxiety about the lastingness of literary works in the wake of the vast social upheavals of the Reformation. However, given the importance of the Resurrection and redemptive history to the English Church in the early modern period, ruination in a religious context can also symbolize eternal redemption. To that end, I trace images of churches in disrepair in early modern poetry, and examine how those images are used by the authors to rebuild figuratively their subject following personal or political loss, and through that activity, to defend their work’s effectiveness. I first examine the theological and historical associations of the church as a space of communal redemption in the English Church, and how those associations become thematic features in John Foxe’s seminal Actes and Monuments (1570). I then examine manifestations of this theme in three major Protestant poetic works: Edmund Spenser’s lament for Philip Sidney in The Ruines of Time (1591), Aemilia Lanyer’s praise of the disinherited Margaret Clifford in Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611), and George Herbert’s pastoral struggles in The Temple (1633). In excavating the redemptive connotations of church imagery in these works, I demonstrate how early modern English authors borrow from church practice and narrative to craft their own literary identities and purposes