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Volume 18, Number 3, October 2005

Contents, Abstracts, Notes on Contributors

Articles 

KEVIN HART
Poetry and Revelation:
Hopkins, Counter-Experience and Reductio 259

Abstract: What is "religious poetry"? A brief study of three major critics --Samuel Johnson, T. S. Eliot and Harold Bloom -- reveals the guiding assumptions behind the notion. These assumptions are then brought under scrutiny. A close reading of G. M. Hopkins' poem "God's Grandeur" reveals another way of considering religious poetry.

Abstract: The Bible is often read in ecclesial contexts without considering the wider social and political consequences of biblical interpretations. In this essay, I contend that committed reflective participation is essential for responsible reading. I begin by using an autobiographical narrative to identify obstacles which prevented me from reading responsibly, and, to demonstrate how a range of experiences in Australia and Afghanistan enabled me to read differently. I then engage Francis Moloney's "An Adventure with Nicodemus" to propose that confessional biblical scholars might enhance the reading-capacity of other readers and encourage congregations to embrace the interested and contextual nature of biblical interpretation by sharing explicitly confessional readings which avoid objectivist/subjectivist dichotomies and testify to the authority of Scripture. I conclude by drawing on Stephen Bevans' praxis model of contextual theology and contemporary community development praxis to propose an "Animated Reading Process" which might be used to facilitate responsible reading.

Abstract: TThis essay proposes a development in Roman Catholic ecclesiology following the paradigmatic shift in its self-understanding that occurred at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). The Council represented a major shift in the Roman Catholic Church's attitudes towards other religions, Christian traditions, and cultures (including secular culture) from a previous defensive stance to a more positive one. In an unprecedented manner, the Council officials acknowledged that its Church's own self-understanding is enriched by its interactions with these various faith traditions and cultures. Forty years after the Council, however, there remains a need to account for this shift theologically in terms of what was going forward in the Roman Catholic Church's self-understanding.

Abstract: Responding to postmodernity as one of the "signs of the times", Christians will have to carry out a balancing act between commitment to their own convictions and openness to those of others. This has implication for five areas of Christian theology and praxis. In theological method, we must recognise that all our beliefs are symbols that tell us something but never everything about God, self, world. In christology, we understand and follow Christ as the Way that is open to other Ways. The Church will be seen as a community that seeks a Reign of God that will always be more than what we now know of it. Ethics will be based on the principles and practice of non-violence: full commitment to moral convictions joined with genuine respect and compassion toward the convictions of others. Such a theology will need to be rooted in a spirituality in which we are "absolutely" committed to truths that we recognise are always "relative" - a truly eschatological spirituality that is always "on the way".

Abstract: Reconciliation is a powerful concept of great importance for both theology and social life. This essay focuses on two significant notions, both of which are parts of a broader idea called reparation: apology and compensation. Reparation is one of the constituent elements of a process of reconciliation. Due to the fact that apology and compensation do not necessarily appear together in the same process of reconciliation, they are explored and discussed separately to indicate their specific roles in reconciliation. The Catholic Church's public apology in 2000 and 2001 serves as an example of apology without compensation, and the Swiss banks' compensation is an example of compensation without apology.

Notes on Contributors

KEVIN HART is Notre Dame Professor of English and Concurrent Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. His most recent books are The Dark Gaze: Maurice Blanchot and the Sacred (Chicago University Press), Postmodernism (Oneworld) and a co-edited collection of essays The Experience of God (Fordham University Press). His poems may be found in Flame Tree: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books / Paperbark Press).

DEBORAH STORIE is currently pursuing research at Whitley College, within the Melbourne College of Divinity, in the area of the intersections between biblical studies, hermeneutics, cultural studies and community development. She provides consultancy and training services in community and international development, writes occasionally for TEAR Target and Zadok Perspectives, and works part-time as a veterinarian.

JOHN DADOSKY Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology at Regis College/University of Toronto, is author of The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan (SUNY Press, 2004). He is currently working on a book on the elipse of beauty and its recovery in philosophy and theology drawing on insights from the traditional Navajo notion of beauty; he is also developing an ecclesiology of friendship.

PAUL KNITTER is Professor Emeritus at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio, where he has taught for the past 30 years. He continues to pursue his central academic interest: the confluence between interreligious dialogue and eco-human well-being. Among his recent works are Introducing Theologies of Religions(2003), One Earth Many Religions (1995), Jesus and the Other Names (1996), all with Orbis Books. He is presently working on a book on how his Buddhist study and practice have nourished his Christian faith.

ZENON SZABLOWINSKI SVD, following graduation as Doctor of Theology from the Melbourne College of Divinity in April 2005, has taught ethics at the Divine Word University, Madang, Papua New Guinea. His specific research interest lies in the area of religious and secular reconciliation, both on the individual and the social level.