Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons^™

Slavoj Žižek On Jacques Derrida, Or On Derrida’S Search For A Middle Ground Between Marx And Benjamin, And His Finding Žižek Instead, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Critiques of Derrida from contemporary Marxist positions are nothing new, though the nature and force of their argumentation need to be further analyzed in order to conceive of what stake Derrida will continue to have in our understanding of any political (Hegelian) inheritance within the coming decades. In this essay, I seek to advance the conversation between Derrida and his Hegelian-Marxist critics—with Slavoj Žižek’s unique reading of Derrida being here foremost among them—in order to ascertain more precisely the framework of debate on dialectics and deconstruction that continues to define our realms of political representation.

Maurice Blondel: Precursor Of The Second Vatican Council, Peter J. Bernardi Sj

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The ecclesial renewal promoted by the Second Vatican Council would not have been possible without the intrepid labors of Catholic theologians, philosophers, and pastors in the decades preceding the Council. Among these Catholic visionaries, the French Catholic philosopher Maurice Blonde! (1861-1949) rnerits special recognition. He had a decisive impact on ressourcement theologians who helped to draft the conciliar documents. Blondel's influence is especially evident in their critique of conceptual rationalism that marked the pre-conciliar scholastic manuals, in the articulation of a richer understanding of the Church's tradition, and in the Council's teaching of a unitary human destiny. Blondel's thought contributed …

Beyond Dialogue: Avenues Toward Christian Unity, Jeffrey Kirch

Dissertations

This project seeks to investigate the status of ecumenism following the Second Vatican Council. There is general agreement that work towards the unity of the Christian Church has come to a standstill. The ecclesiologies of Walter Kasper, Joseph Ratzinger, and Richard McBrien contribute to reinvigorating the ecumenical movement. Specifically, the place of ecumenical dialogue and an "ecumenism of life" show signs of promise. By taking contributions from each of the theologians an effective strategy for moving forward can be developed.

Social Justice And Ecological Responsibility: A Moral Case For International Collaborative Action On Environmental Degradation And Climate-Induced Displacement, James Stephen Mastaler

Dissertations

The contemporary ecological crisis, manifest in human-induced climate change, is a powerful form of structural violence against the poorest communities on the planet. As such, my research resides at the nexus of structural poverty, gender disparity, ecological degradation, and climate-induced displacement. The social justice implications emerging from this nexus require responsible moral deliberation and discernment over the international community's role in minimizing the human tragedies accompanying forced displacement and migration. While asserting the interconnectedness and dependency of all life upon mutual flourishing, responsible decision-making expands the range of felt moral concern to include ecological flourishing. Social justice is only possible …

Theology And Ideology Critique, Silas M. Morgan

Dissertations

In modern philosophy, the concept of ideology has been a problem for the relationship of theology to politics. Especially in its Marxist usage, “ideology” refers to a specific effect that theology has in modern society so as to conceal or hide the material facticity that shapes human life and practical activity. This is one of the many reasons why theology, even in its political form, has not taken up “ideology” as a matter inherent to its critical form. The absence of theoretical attention to ideology in theology itself has led to the deficit of immanent critique, especially in political theology. …

Uncertainty Before And After Faith: The Dynamics Of Belief In Theology And Literature, Brent Little

Dissertations

Although there has been much interdisciplinary scholarship surrounding the influence of various novelists' Catholic beliefs upon their work, there has been relatively little discussion about the nature of faith that emerges in their novels. For instance, is faith portrayed primarily as assent to conceptual statements of belief?

This dissertation will argue that faith, as portrayed by various Catholic novelists, is fundamentally a person's imaginative orientation to trust and hope in the presence of God's grace in creation and human life. I will approach this issue through the category of uncertainty, specifically uncertainty's relationship to faith, as this relationship emerges in …

Equilibrium In Biblical Exegesis: Why Evangelicals Need The Catholic Church, Robert Andrews

Dissertations

In this dissertation I argue that American evangelicals need the Catholic Church in order to interpret Scripture well. Often, ecclesiology plays a minor role in evangelical hermeneutics. However, the greater need is for evangelicals to engage the Catholic Church specifically in the work of biblical exegesis. I call for a theological reassessment, from an evangelical perspective, of the necessity of ecclesiology, including sacred regard for the Catholic Church, for the work of biblical interpretation.

This dissertation produces a historical trajectory which demonstrates where evangelicals have departed from the long-standing axiomatic relationship between Church and Scripture, and especially highlights their enduring …

Justice Not Benevolence: Catholic Social Thought, Migration Theory, And The Rights Of Migrants, Tisha Rajendra

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Although there are many migration theories that purport to explain why people migrate, many theologies and ethics of migration rely on neoclassical migration theory, which views migration solely as the result of poverty and unemployment in sending countries. This paper reviews various migration theories in order to argue that Catholic social teaching on migration has primarily relied on neoclassical theories of migration. This over-reliance on neoclassical migration theory has led to flawed policy recommendations and ethical analyses.

Christian ethics must respond to the reality of migration as described by migration systems theory, which suggests that migration systems are actually initiated …

The Rational Agent Or The Relational Agent: Moving From Freedom To Justice In Migration Systems Ethics, Tisha Rajendra

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Most accounts of immigration ethics implicitly rely upon neoclassical migration theory, which understands migration as the result of poverty and unemployment in sending countries. This paper argues that neoclassical migration theory assumes an account of the human person as solely an autonomous rational agent which then leads to ethics of migration which overemphasize freedom and self-determination. This tendency to assume that migration works as neoclassical migration theory describes is shared by political philosophers, such as Joseph Carens, Michael Walzer, and David Miller. This paper argues that all three philosophers incorrectly frame migration as a contest between the freedom of the …

To Speak Of God In A Feminine Way In The Churches And Theologies Of The Americas, Susan Ross

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Challenge Of Received Tradition: Dilemmas In Radak's Biblical Commentaries, Devorah Schoenfeld

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Suspicious Minds: The Spirituality Of The Postmodern Nones, Michael Murphy

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Much has been made about the “nones” and the current demographics of belief in the United States, especially those of young people. The term nones rose to prominence when a Pew Research Center poll in 2012 called “Nones on the Rise” discovered that nearly 20 percent of Americans claim no religious affiliation—a number that has been steadily climbing since 2007. Last January, National Public Radio aired a weeklong series titled “Losing Our Religion: The Growth of the nones.” In the spring of 2013, a poll conducted by Michael Hout of the University of California, Berkeley, and Mark A. Chaves of …

The Profanation Of Revelation: On Language And Immanence In The Work Of Giorgio Agamben, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay seeks to articulate the many implications which Giorgio Agamben's work holds for theology. It aims, therefore, to examine his (re)conceptualizations of language in light of particular historical glosses on the “name of God” and the nature of the “mystical,” as well as to highlight the political task of profanation, one of his most central concepts, in relation to the logos said to embody humanity's “religious” quest to find its Voice. As such, we see how he challenges those standard (ontotheological) notions of transcendence which have been consistently aligned with various historical forms of sovereignty. In addition, I intend …

Christian-Jewish Relations 1000-1300: Jews In The Service Of Medieval Christendom, Devorah Schoenfeld

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Citing ‘Whatever’ Authority: The Ethics Of Quotation In The Work Of Giorgio Agamben, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper seeks to lay out an analysis of Giorgio Agamben’s central claims with regard to the formation of a theory of citationality. By juxtaposing Walter Benjamin’s theory of citations alongside his more recent, critical engagements with the western theological tradition, Agamben sets himself the goal of redefining ethics along Levinasian lines in order to arrive at a respect for the face of ‘whatever’ being before us, the true source toward which all citations point.

The Problem Of Having Both A Body And A Name In The Work Of Jean-Luc Marion: Names, Fathers And The Hopeful Possibilities Of A Queer Phenomenology, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, and following upon both Jacques Lacan’s and Jacques Derrida’s personal struggles with fatherhood and the naming of their children, I take up what I consider to be Jean-Luc Marion’s failure to deal with the embodiment of fatherhood through an examination of patriarchal signification, or, specifically, the naming of one’s children after the father—at least insofar as Marion’s brief analysis of this symbolic act points toward his failure to think through the various potential and lived embodiments of the father. I aim to illuminate how his efforts to continue this naming of the child with the father’s name …

Searching For A Self-Reflexive Theology: Ways Forward For Systematic Theology In Relation To (Non) Religious Thought In Contemporary Western Culture, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article aims to draw attention, first, to the need to explore the inner plurality of theological discourse, as such plural discourses serve to promote a certain dynamism and fullness within theology as a field, especially in relation to religious studies today. Second, such a potential fullness is reflected in the modern struggle to characterize the relationship between faith and reason. Comprehending the misunderstandings, often construed as an impasse between faith and reason, could foster new relations between scientific methods and theological imaginations. Third, understanding these tensions from a systematic theological perspective also entails a more precise analysis of the …

Business And Merchants Will Not Enter The Places Of My Father: Early Christianity And Market Mentality, Edmondo Lupieri

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

At the time of the redaction of the New Testament (NT), the relatively newly constituted Roman Empire seems to have brought some sort of political uniformity to the whole Mediterranean world. This phenomenon must have had some kind of financial repercussions due to a more centralized administration and a relatively larger diffusion of a standardized monetary system. Can we understand if this had any impact on the preaching of (the historical) Jesus? Did his early followers have the memory of any teaching of his regarding money, its possession or its use? And, in the times and areas they were living …

Soziale Roboter Für Ältere Menschen? Ethische Überlegungen Zur Sozialen Interaktion Mit Robotern Im Gesundheitswesen, Hille Haker

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Profanation Of Revelation: On Language And Immanence In The Work Of Giorgio Agamben, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay seeks to articulate the many implications which Giorgio Agamben’s work holds for theology. It aims therefore to examine his (re)conceptualizations of language, in light of particular historical glosses on the ‘name of God’ and the nature of the ‘mystical’, as well as to highlight the political task of profanation, one of his most central concepts, in relation to the logos said to embody humanity’s ‘religious’ quest to find its Voice. As such, we see how he challenges those standard (ontotheological) notions of transcendence which have been consistently aligned with various historical forms of sovereignty. In addition, I intend …

Are The Only True Atheists Actually Theologians?, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Contemporary continental European philosophy circulates around particular apocalyptic themes, offering new insights and suggestive proposals for theology to think through the implications of this often most difficult of religious subjects. As such philosophies manoeuvre to define apocalyptic through its return to questions of antinomian thought, of the 'interruption' of normative religious imagery, and of the negation of our most cherished theological representations (including our representations of God and the Law), we constantly find these philosophers engaged with the most basic foundations of Western religious history. From its inception, apocalyptic has been a genre of literature, and more generally of religious …

Re-Thinking Anthropomorphism Through A Genetic Philosophy Of Time, Carolyn Jo Love

Dissertations

In the classical Christian theological understanding, God and time are tightly interwoven (e.g. time and eternity, the Incarnation, and liturgy) and inform how we comprehend the presence and absence of the Incomprehensible in our day-to-day lives. Yet the classical Christian understanding does not take into account scientific discoveries pertaining to time and how this influences our experience of time. It is within the fabric of God and time that this dissertation will argue that the concept of time contained within contemporary genetics provides a significant and innovative way of considering the Classical Christian theological notion of the presence and absence …

Twelfth Century Literal Bible Commentaries: Comparing Jewish And Christian, Devorah Schoenfeld

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the twelfth century, both Jewish and Christian Bible commentators began to emphasize literal, or historical, or contextual, approaches to interpreting scripture. These commentators wrote predominantly line‐by‐line commentaries that focused the reader's attention on linguistic questions in the biblical text. There was also a renewed interest in seeing the Bible in its own terms rather than exclusively through the lens of earlier midrashic or patristic commentaries, although those continued to play an important role. These developments happened at the same time for both Christian and Jewish scholars, who were often in conversation with each other about how to interpret the …

Review Of "The Scandal Of White Complicity In Us Hyper-Incarceration: A Nonviolent Spirituality Of White Resistance", Jon Nilson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The article reviews the book, The Scandal of White Complicity in US Hyper-Incarceration: a Nonviolent Spirituality of White Resistance, by Alex Mikulich, Laurie Cassidy, and Margaret Pfeil.

James Baldwin's Challenge To Catholic Theologians And The Church, Jon Nilson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Racism/white supremacy is seemingly ineradicable, despite its contradictions to the gospel and American ideals. James Baldwin perceived the reason: whites' fears of their own mortality. He did not demonstrate the truth of his claim, but Terror Management Theory (TMT) provides empirical confirmation for it. The Church has declared reconciliation to be the heart of its mission. So TMT must shape its new, effective strategies, like the processes that produced the two influential pastoral letters in the early 1980's.

To Bible Or Not To Bible: How On Earth Does A Text Become Scripture? (In Jewish, Christian, And Derived Traditions), Edmondo Lupieri

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Review Of "Christology And Whiteness: What Would Jesus Do?", Jon Nilson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The article reviews the book, Christology and Whiteness: What Would Jesus Do?, edited by George Yancy.

The "Violence" Of The Canon: Revisiting Contemporary Notions Of Canonical Forms, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The historical conditions surrounding the processes of forming a canon are rarely examined directly, yet it is these processes which govern over the realm of religious representations and identity constructions. In light of recent critical scholarship, it is imperative to address theologically the role that the canon plays within a religious tradition. This essay demonstrates the cultural necessity of canonical forms despite their “monotheistic tendency” to subdivide the world into binary oppositions. By utilizing a scale of violence to determine the impact of the canonical form upon culture this essay offers an account of canons and their role in forming …

God & Being: An Enquiry, By George Pattison, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article reviews the book God & Being: An Enquiry, by George Pattison.

The “Violence” Of The Canon: Revisiting Contemporary Notions Of The Canonical, Colby Dickinson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The historical conditions surrounding the processes of forming a canon (its canonicity) are rarely examined directly, yet it is these processes which govern over the realm of (religious) representations and identity constructions. In light of several recent publications which have directly criticized the explicitly monotheistic scriptures, it has become imperative to address theologically the role which the canon plays within religious tradition. By focusing on the role of the canonical form in the works of Jan Assmann and René Girard, for example, this essay will demonstrate the cultural necessity of canonical forms despite their ‘monotheistic tendency’ to subdivide the world …