Practical Theology Commons^™

Fratelli Tutti: Pope Francis And The Catholic Response To Human Rights, Tiffany Hunsinger

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

On October 4, 2020, Pope Francis issued a letter to the world entitled Fratelli Tutti, On Fraternity and Social Friendship.

The document served as a culmination of the Church’s response to the global pandemic, as well as the more considerable perils of throwaway culture. This presentation will explore the specific response of the Catholic Church as it attempts to counter destructive boundaries and structure of its institution.

Pope Francis continues a tradition in pastoral response to the “signs of the times.” However, can the Church respond effectively in this current world?

Or do the needed changes surpass the capability …

Memoria Y Resistencia: Sharing Ud Experiences At The Encuentro To Close The School Of The Americas, Mary Niebler, Christina Baker

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

At UD, our Catholic and Marianist values inform us to uphold the human rights of all people, especially those whose agency has been diminished by unjust laws and corporate government policies. Guided by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, including solidarity with the poor, we seek ways to join together to bring about a more peaceful and just world. The annual SOA Watch Encuentro, a peaceful protest to close the School of the Americas (SOA), is such a movement.

Established in 1946, the SOA has operated at Fort Benning, Georgia since the 1980s. Technically closed in 2000, it immediately reopened …

Vatican Ii And Intellectual Conversion: Engaging The Struggle Within, Dennis M. (Dennis Michael) Doyle

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In 1980 I took a course with Joseph Komonchak entitled “The History and Theology of Vatican II” at the Catholic University of America. True to the title, Komonchak was doing history and theology together at the same time on a class-by-class basis. He would bring in documents from the Council and from the times leading up to it, often in Latin, and he would talk about how his goals as a theologian required him to work in a historical manner. To understand Vatican II, or the Church itself for that matter, required not just understanding theological concepts but also grasping …

Some Practices Of Theological Reasoning, Or, How To Work Well With Words, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This Companion introduces readers to the practice of Christian theology, covering what theologians do, why they do it, and what steps readers can take in order to become theological practitioners themselves. The volume aims to capture the variety of practices involved in doing theology, highlighting the virtues that guide them and the responsibilities that shape them. It also shows that the description of these practices, virtues and responsibilities is itself theological: what Christian theologians do is shaped by the wider practices and beliefs of Christianity. Written by a team of leading theologians, the Companion provides a unique resource for students …

Virtue Ethics, Nikki Coffey Tousley, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Virtue ethics emphasizes the development of moral excellence in terms of character qualities called virtues. Virtue are (1) habituated dispositions involving both an affective desire for the good and the skill to both discern and act accordingly; (2) learned through practice within a tradition (i.e., a historical community with a rich account of the "good"); and (3) directed toward this tradition's particular conception of the good (making virtues "teleological"). From a Christian perspective, virtue ethics is an ethics of discipleship, which emphasizes the development of the habits, practices, and wisdom necessary to pursue the "good" exemplified by Christ. Reading Scripture …

Technology, Derek C. Hatch, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Technology takes many shapes. Things such as water heaters, cell phones, intercontinental ballistic missiles, high-defin ition television, and hybrid cars belong to the large family called "technological artifacts." In addition to artifacts, technology includes infrastructure (e.g., roadways, water and sewage lines, fiber-optic phone lines, Wi-Fi transponders) -- systems of technologies that enable the artifacts to function while the system itself remains, for the most part, out of sight and under the moral radar. Further, technology connotes a certain form of life, one not simply auxiliary to the existing social structure but also contributing to its very form (hence, the phrase …

The Master Argument Of Macintyre's 'After Virtue', Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In September of 1995 the Associated Press released a wire photo showing Russian lawmakers of both genders in a punching brawl during a session of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.' Is this behavior an ethnic idiosyncrasy? Do only government officials duke it out over matters of great importance? Or have fisticuffs suddenly become politically correct?

No, on all counts. Pick a topic, any topic -- abortion, euthanasia, welfare reform, military intervention in the Balkans -- and initiate discussion with a group of reasonable, well-educated people and observe the outcome. Chaos ensues. Of course the volume of the debate …

Why Study Mary?, François Rossier

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

Simple as the title "Why Study Mary?" may sound, Father François Rossier situates Marian studies in the broader context of Scripture and the Christian tradition. Making special reference to the Marianist tradition and its intimate connection with the University of Dayton's spirit and vision, he sees in Mary the "origin of theological reflection." It is a reflection that is documented not in a book, but in Mary's person. Being the "first theologian," she has a "concretizing function." She makes Jesus "tangible, concrete, accessible to our senses," but she also helps us "to get a sense of God's action and presence …

Dynamical Similarity And The Problem Of Evil, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Discussions of evil commonly fault God for not “doing something.” Defenders of God respond that God had good reasons for not “doing something.” Detractors observe that if a human being can snatch the toddler from the path of the oncoming bus, why does not God snatch the bus from the path of the oncoming toddler? The underlying assumption in such discussions is that God’s “doing something” is similar to humans’ “doing something.”

If human beings bear the image of their Creator as the Abrahamic faiths maintain, it is natural to suppose that divine action is similar to human action. But …

What Mega-Churches Can Learn From Catholics, Aaron James, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Mega-churches are not very popular among academics, even Christian ones. At a recent conference of theologians and ethicists, my colleague and I found ourselves on the defensive. According to the bulk of the seminar participants, the failure of mega-churches to form faithful disciples was a foregone conclusion.

This perspective was very troubling to us. Since we could vouch for the genuine and sincere faith of our academic peers, we could not simply dismiss their complaints as spiritually vacuous. At the same time, we could not deny that God's Spirit was genuinely present in our mega-church congregation. Formerly-unchurched persons are coming …

A Comparison Of The Aesthetic Approach Of Hans-Georg Gadamer And Hans-Urs Von Balthasar, Jason Paul Bourgeois

Marian Library Faculty Publications

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1901-2002), the German philosopher of hermeneutics, has exercised a powerful influence on post-Vatican II Roman Catholic fundamental theology, especially regarding questions of the development of doctrine and the appropriation of tradition. There is a tension in interpreting Gadamer's thought between his concept of "fusion of horizons," in which the horizon of the past is fused with the horizon of the present to yield new interpretations of past texts, and his defense of "prejudice, authority, classics, and tradition," in which Gadamer upholds the enduring truth-value of received wisdom from the past. … This article will broadly point out the …

Virtues And Practices In The Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics After Macintyre, Nancey C. Murphy, Brad Kallenberg, Mark Thiessen Nation

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Using Alasdair MacIntyre's work as a methodological guide for doing ethics in the Christian tradition, the contributors to this work offer essays on three subjects: description of MacIntyre's approach; reflections on moral issues; and selected essays on family, abortion, feminism and more.

Seeking The Rhetoric Of Jesus, Susan L. Trollinger

English Faculty Publications

I come to the questions posed by this volume from a somewhat different background than one might expect. Whereas one might anticipate that I was an Anabaptist first and a scholar second, just the opposite was the case. I Before beginning my graduate studies I had never heard of Anabaptism. Indeed, I was poring over Aristotle's Rhetoric before I was even a Christian. I thus went through much of my graduate studies (not to mention all of college, high school, and elementary school) without giving a thought to how my studies were impacting my faith-never mind how my faith might …

Balthasar's Theodramatic Hermeneutics: Trinitarian And Ecclesial Dimensions Of Scriptural Interpretation, Jason Paul Bourgeois

Marian Library Faculty Publications

Hans Urs von Balthasar developed a unique style of biblical interpretation. This paper discusses four elements of his scriptural hermeneutics, a topic that offers glimpses of his fundamental theology and his ecclesiology as well. The first element of Balthasar’s hermeneutics is aesthetics. Balthasar’s aesthetic approach to scriptural interpretation stands in contrast with the commonly employed historical-critical method, which he found to be potentially limiting. The second element is theodrama. In Balthasar’s notion of theodramatic hermeneutics, the interpreter is already participating in the very salvation history that is being interpreted. The third and fourth elements of Balthasar’s hermeneutics involve the Trinitarian …

All Suffer The Affliction Of The One: Metaphysical Holism And The Presence Of The Spirit, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

When Copernicus and Galileo proposed that the earth circled the sun and not the 217 other way around, Christian believers faced the difficult prospect of surrendering a long-held belief that had seemingly undeniable support from the biblical text. After all, Joshua reported that the sun, not the earth, stood still; what could this mean if not that the sun orbited the earth? Today, centuries later, believers unanimously hold a heliocentric view of the solar system and are somewhat embarrassed by the ignorance of our pre-Enlightenment brothers and sisters. Ironically, however, such embarrassment masks the possibility that we ourselves may one …

Ethics As Grammar: Changing The Postmodern Subject, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Wittgenstein, one of the most influential, and yet widely misunderstood, philosophers of our age, confronted his readers with aporias—linguistic puzzles—as a means of countering modern philosophical confusions over the nature of language without replicating the same confusions in his own writings. In Ethics as Grammar, Brad Kallenberg uses the writings of theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas as a foil for demonstrating how Wittgenstein’s method can become concrete within the Christian tradition. Kallenberg shows that the aesthetic, political, and grammatical strands epitomizing Hauerwas’s thought are the result of his learning to do Christian ethics by thinking through Wittgenstein.

Kallenberg argues that …

How Realistic Can A Catholic Writer Be? Richard Sullivan And American Catholic Literature, Una M. Cadegan

History Faculty Publications

Despite the fact that Sullivan never achieved the fame he sought, the record he left behind reveals much about the way one writer handled the complicated personal and professional questions of regional, literary, gender, and religious identity. He was a regional author with national ambitions, a serious author who did not disdain the notion of popular success, and a male author whose primary focus was domestic life and relationships. He was also a Catholic author-that is, he belonged to a tradition that believed in normative standards for artistic value in an era when such a belief was considered by some …