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| AUSTRALASIAN THEOLOGICAL STUDIES |
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Volume 16, Number 3, October 2003 Contents, Abstracts, Notes on Contributors Articles BRETT, MARK Abstract: This essay argues that indigenous Christian theologians are justified in expanding their canonical resources to include the ancestral "Testaments" of their own people groups, and scripture itself provides a precedent. The book of Genesis reveals a pattern of respect for the distinctive religion of the ancestors. And contrary to a reading of Paul which has Galatians erase distinctive cultures, the body of Christ is as much Greek as Jew, as much Pitjantjatjara as Anglo-Celtic. Theology needs, however, more than the serial addition of ethnicities, to work with postcolonial understandings of cultural hybridity and self-limiting practices of "kenotic" listening - to attend within the body of Christ to the particularity of all the songlines which have become, or may become, incorporated into our life together. CASEY, DAMIEN The Post-modern Universal: An Incarnational View 257 Abstract: This essay outlines some suggestions for how the idea of the universal might be retrieved and rethought in the light of the contemporary experience of pluralism. It will do so by drawing upon the work of a diversity of thinkers, post-modern and modern, from philosophers such as G. W. F. Hegel, Luce Irigaray, Jacques Derrida, through to theologians such as Louis-Marie Chauvet, Bernard Lonergan, Raimon Panikkar and especially Edward Schillebeeckx. The latter part of the essay will explore the universality of human rights and discuss some of the possibilities for rethinking Christian universality in relation to sacramentality, inter-religious dialogue, and the priority of the poor. DEVERELL, GARRY J. "If It Be Your Will": Making Promises with Derrida, Ricoeur and Chauvet 271 Abstract: Through a critical engagement with the work of Derrida, Ricoeur and Chauvet, the author defines the Christian vow or promise as an ever-new performance of the self in favour of the "other". The notion of the asymmetry of one's relationship with the other is explored in terms of a "call" in the face of another, any other, which is experienced as more originary that one's own sense of self. This call has a particularly apocalyptic or eschatological dimension to it. It unsettles and destabilises the Christian self in the same movement as it produces and makes that self real. The call effects a radical destabilisation of the self such that the self may only come to be by making room for the other who is Christ. The paper concludes that eucharistic worship, as a constant re/membering of the Christian's death and resurrection in Christ, is a primary or exemplary instance of the vow so defined. GRIBBEN, ROBERT "My Dear Sammy": Letter to an Unspiritual Nephew 309 Abstract: A letter of 1789 kept in the Sugden Heritage Collection of Queen's College Library, Melbourne, reveals the pathos of the spiritual search of the musically brilliant, mentally unstable and Roman Catholic nephew of the Revd John Wesley, the tercentenary of whose birth falls this year. This short essay explores the context in both John and Samuel's lives of the exchange, and builds on the ecumenical and pastoral fact that John, the founder of Methodism, recommends three Catholic authors for his nephew to meditate on. It then compares this personal advice with his public plea in A Letter to a Roman Catholic, written from Dublin forty years earlier.TRAINOR, MICHAEL Living in Difficult Times: Insights from Ancient Colossae 295 Abstract: The current challenges facing Australian Churches in the light of national and international tensions are critical. A response is required, one that is spiritual and educational, that draws on the wisdom of the Christian tradition and speaks to the current lived experience of people. This response will also affirm the ongoing thirst for "spirituality" in our world. The tendency in some methodologies to emphasise doctrinal content needs to be balanced by one that affirms our cultural and historical present, and the spiritual quest of people. The Letter to the Colossians speaks a balancing voice to doctrinal exclusiveness. A study of the author's concern expressed in the letter reveals an emphasis on "knowledge" with its unique nuance, and a christological focus that reflects a desire to "educate" in difficult times. In addition, the author addresses the tendency to adopt a form of religious exclusiveness and asceticism divorced from the real world and the faith tradition into which the audience were baptised.
MARK BRETT is Professor of Old Testament at Whitley College, and Dean of the Evangelical Theological Association within the Melbourne College of Divinity. He is author of Biblical Criticism in Crisis? (Cambridge, 1991), Genesis: Procreation and the Politics of Identity (Routledge, 2000) and editor of Ethnicity and the Bible (E. J. Brill 1996/2002). His most recent article is "Israel's Indigenous Origins: Cultural Hybridity and the Formation of Israelite Ethnicity", Biblical Interpretation 11 (2003), 1-12. DAMIEN CASEY lectures in theology at the McAuley (Brisbane) campus of the Australian Catholic University. GARY DEVERELL has degrees in English Literature and Education, and an honours degree in theology (Melbourne College of Divinity), which included a thesis on the resurrection of Christ in post-structuralist perspective. Following a period of high school teaching, he is currently engaged in research at Monash University on the topic of the promissory structure of Christian worship. MICHAEL TRAINOR, a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide, is a senior lecturer with Flinders University School of Theology at the Adelaide College of Divinity, while sharing team ministry in the parish of Salisbury. His most recent book is The Quest for Home: the Household in Mark's Community (Liturgical Press, 2001). Along with teaching New Testament, he is also involved in a collaborative project at Flinders University between the School of Theology and the Department of Archaeology to excavate the ancient site of Colossae in Southern Turkey. ROBERT GRIBBEN is Professor of Worship and Mission in the Uniting Church Theological Hall (Synod of Victoria and Tasmania), Melbourne, and teaches within the United Faculty of Theology; and he is a Fellow of the History department of the University of Melbourne. He is a member of the College of the Melbourne College of Divinity. He chairs the committee which oversees the Sugden Heritage Collection within the library of Queen's College. |