PACIFICA
AUSTRALASIAN THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

Volume 12 Number 1 February 1999


Contents, Abstracts and Notes on Contributors

Articles

Mary Coloe, Like Father, Like Son: The Role of Abraham in Tabernacles – John 8:31-59 1

Abstract: Chapters 7 and 8 of the Fourth Gospel present a unified narrative focussed upon the issue of Jesus’ identity. Abraham functions as a witness to Jesus’ identity and relationship with Israel’s God. For the Johannine Christians, living in their own time of conflict with emerging post-70 Judaism, the confrontation at Tabernacles offers clarity and hope in their struggle for identity. Abraham’s testimony demonstrates that the traditions of Israel now find their fulfilment and perfection in Jesus.

Robyn Horner, Derrida and God: Opening a Conversation, 12

Abstract: The work of Jacques Derrida has promoted much controversy, and a theological application of Derrida’s way of thinking has frequently been seen to be impossible. Yet since Derrida’s concern is chiefly with the impossible, and since the question of God provokes what is impossible for thought, it may be that Derrida is an important participant in theological conversations. Derrida’s understanding that metaphysical thought inevitably undoes itself does not forbid us from thinking, but makes us more sensitive to what resists thought. His writings on negative theology suggest the possibility that thought might be marked by what escapes it. Yet the aporia – what cannot be thought – is not to be resolved by proof but by decision, which leaves open the possibility of religious faith. Religion is a response to what remains secret and the attestation of the secret before the Other.

 

Damien Casey, Luce Irigaray and the Advent of the Divine: From the Metaphysical to the Symbolic to the Eschatalogical 29

Abstract: This article attempts to provide a theoretical context conducive to a fruitful encounter between Irigaray and Christian theology. It does so through the critique of metaphysics and the turn to the symbolic, leading finally to a recovery of the eschatological. Irigaray makes this transition through two related gestures. Through her concept of the sensible transcendental Irigaray seeks a re-enchantment of the world that is grounded in the symbolic. Through her notion of the double syntax, grounded in the incommensurability of women and men, Irigaray establishes the priority of both dialogue and the ‘other’ for the constitution of subjectivity. Finally, this leads Irigaray to challenge theology to rethink the importance of the eschatological dimension of the Christian kerygma.

 

Joseph E. Bush, Claiming a Christian State Where None Exists: Church and State in the Republic of Fiji 55

Abstract: This study interprets the Fijian controversy of Church and State as a debate within the Christian community itself or, more specifically, within the Christian community of the indigenous Fijians. Submissions made by Manasa Lasaro and Ilaitia Sevati Tuwere are outlined. Tuwere argued for a separation of Church and State. Lasaro, ostensibly speaking for the Church as a whole, advocated a Christian State. Their disagreement can be seen as a fraternal dispute, involving different assessments of the relationship of indigenous Fijians to the land (vanua). Secularising trends and increasing pluralism in Fijian society may have provoked rather than retarded the power of the folk church in the political realm. The attention given by the church to the legal authority of the nation might be related to a fracturing of Methodism’s organic authority in the land. If such is the case, then, as secularising forces continue in Fiji so will the interest of the folk church in political power.


Paul Gwynne, Divine Intervention and the New Physics 69

Abstract: Traditional understandings of the Christian faith have included the notion that God acts within history at certain times and places in a way, or to a degree, that God does not at other moments. Never without controversy, this notion of particular divine action is still the subject of debate. This article focuses on one aspect of the contemporary discussion – namely the implications for particular divine action which arise from certain recent developments in the field of physics. Although the notions of general providence and miracle are not necessarily threatened, and may even be aided, by a strict determinism, the category of special providence seems to require some degree of indeterminism in the world. If non-miraculous, particular divine action is not to be restricted to the human arena alone, the search for signs of ontological indeterminism at sub-human levels of reality which complement human freedom is a laudable venture. A number of scientific developments in physics during the twentieth century prove to be encouraging in this respect; at least, they call into question the rigid determinism that was associated with classical, Newtonian mechanics.

Book Reviews

J. C. Endres et al. (eds.),
Chronicles and Its Synoptic Parallels in Samuel, Kings, and Related Biblical Texts Antony Campbell 85

Daniel J. Estes,
Hear, My Son: Teaching and Learning in Proverbs 1-9 Alan Moss 87

Patrick J. Flanagan,
The Gospel of Mark Made Easy Rod Doyle 89

Christian Dietzfelbinger,
Der Abschied des Kommenden: Eine Auslegung der johnanneischen Abschiedsreden Francis J. Moloney 90

Andreas J. Köstenburg,
The Missions of Jesus and the Disciples according to the Fourth Gospel Francis J. Moloney 93

William R. Barr (ed.),
Constructive Christian Theology in the Worldwide Church Charles Sherlock 96

James Alison,
The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes Denis Edwards 98

Eric Palazzo,
A History of Liturgical Books Russell Hardiman 100

Shannon Schrein,
The Feminist Christologies of Sallie McFague and Elizabeth A. Johnson in Conversation Anne Hunt 103

John de Gruchy (ed.),
Bonhoeffer for a New Day: Theology in a Time of Transition Don Edwards 104

Jacques Dupuis,
Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism James Kroeger 106

M. Thomas Thangaraj,
Relating to People of other Religions: What every Christian needs to Know James Kroeger 108

Francis Cardinal Arinze,
Meeting Other Believers: The Risk and Reward of Inter-religious Dialogue James H. Kroeger 109

Thomas Massaro,
Catholic Social Teaching and United States Welfare Reform Christopher Prowse 111

Paul O. Ingram,
Wrestling with the Ox: A Theology of Religious Experience Peter K. Subagyo Stoll 112

Michael J. Buckley,
Papal Primacy and the Episcopate: Towards a Relational Understanding Tim Costelloe 114

John Heaps,
A Love That Dares to Question: A Bishop Challenges His Church Michael Goonan 117

Shorter Notices

Christine Stevens,
White Man’s Dreaming: Killalpaninna Mission 1866-1915 Anne Pattel-Gray 118

Steyler missionswissenschaftliches Institut (ed.),
Divine Word Missionaries in Papua New Guinea 1896-1996 Ian Breward 118

Alan Walker,
The Contrast Society of Jesus Ross Langmead 119

Henri J. Nouwen,
Adam: God’s Beloved Michael Whelan 120

Ruth Hoadley (ed.),
HIV/AIDS and Spirituality John Bodycomb 122

Notes on Contributors

Mary Coloe lectures in Biblical Studies at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne). In 1998 she completed her doctoral thesis through the Melbourne College of Divinity, which examined the symbolic function of the Temple in the Fourth Gospel. The thesis argued that the Temple functions as a major christological symbol, and that its symbolism is transferred from Jesus to the Johannine community.


Robyn Horner teaches in the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology at Monash University in Melbourne. She completed her doctoral studies in philosophical theology, focusing on the impact of recent French thought on the question of God and the gift of grace. She has a special interest in the writers Jean-Luc Marion, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida.


Damien Casey studied theology at the Sydney College of Divinity and religious studies at the Catholic University of America. He is currently writing his doctoral dissertation on Luce Irigaray at the University of Sydney. His particular interests are continental philosophy and the opportunities it presents for Catholic theology.


Joseph E. Bush lectures in Church and Society at Knox College, Dunedin, in New Zealand. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of The American Academy of Religion, Church-State Studies Group, San Francisco, 22 November 1997. At that time, the author was employed as Lecturer in Church and Society at the Pacific Theological College in Fiji.


Paul Gwynne O.M.I. teaches at Catholic Theological College in Clayton, Victoria. For a time a missionary in Indonesia, he has completed a doctorate from the Gregorian University and been Rector of St Mary’s Seminary in Melbourne.