Neurotheology and Evolutionary Theology: Reflections on the Mystical Mind

Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg in their book The Mystical Mind suggest that their neurotheology is both a metatheology and a megatheology. In this commentary I question whether neurotheology is comprehensive enough and suggest that it needs to and possibly can take into account the moral and social dimensions of religion. I then propose an alternative metatheology and megatheology: evolutionary theology grounded in the science of biocultural evolution and focusing on ultimate reality as creatively immanent in natural and human history. Neurotheology and evolutionary theology may complement one another. Evolutionary theology accounts for both the neurology of the brain and culturally evolved ideas and practices of particular religions and their theologies. Hence it seems more comprehensive than neurotheology. However, because ultimate reality in evolutionary theology is immanent in the world of space and time, of baseline experience, it cannot account for the mystic experience of absolute unitary being. In accounting for this transcendent experience and its reality, neurotheology is more comprehensive. However, neither theology can account for how transcendent ultimate reality, experienced by the mystic as absolute unitary being, gives rise to the changing world experienced as baseline reality.     

Representing the Good: Pastoral Care in a Secular Age

In ‘a secular age’ (Taylor 2007), pastoral care is no longer exclusively associated with specific religious traditions and communities. Pastoral caregivers who work in secular institutions provide care to religious and nonreligious people alike, and in several Western societies the term pastoral care is used in relation to nonreligious (humanist) care. In secular contexts, the term ‘pastoral care’ is often replaced by the term ‘spiritual care.’ Spiritual care, however, is provided by various professionals, so pastoral caregivers face the challenge of developing adequate and convincing language to explain what is distinctive about their work. In this article, the authors turn to philosophical language in order to develop a conceptual understanding of pastoral care that does not depend on the specific worldview—religious or nonreligious—of either pastoral caregivers or receivers of pastoral care. Using the work of Taylor (1989, 2007) and Murdoch (1970), we explain pastoral care as engaging with people’s attempts to orient in ‘moral space’ and the distinctive quality of pastoral care as ‘representing the Good.’ Murdoch associates ‘the Good’ with a secular idea of transcendence that is both a movement beyond the ego and an engagement with the reality of human vulnerability, suffering, and evil. We argue that pastoral caregivers who ‘represent the Good’ have the task not only of supporting the existential and spiritual processes of individuals but also of promoting dialogue and social justice and of critiquing dehumanizing practices in the organizations in which they work and in society at large.     

Residues in the Secular: Whale Bones and Other Theological Relics1

This article develops the concept of the “theological relic”: a facet of secular life and culture that maintains traces of (and so remains bound in some way to) its genealogy in the theological. The theological relic, then, is something that fails to be either robustly religious or properly secular. It is, instead, a product of the relations between these social spaces. The article illustrates this concept by examining a cultural history of the whale, highlighting this creature's complex bonds with the theological. The whale, in other words, is figured as a theological relic: a creature of the secular that remains shrouded enough by traces of the theological that these vestiges of divinity are implicated in the whale's powerful late‐twentieth‐century cultural reconfiguration.     

Honesty about God: Theological reflections on violence in an evolutionary universe

Theodicy has become problematic in light of scientific theories of evolution, and all theologies are doomed to failure unless and until they are “honest, and ever-vigilant against the temptation … to excise from [nature] … violence and indifference to suffering” simply because it does not suit our theological systems or political goals.1 1 B. Jill Carroll, The Savage Side: Reclaiming Violent Models of God (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 116. View all notes In this theological attempt to deal directly with the violence inherent in the evolutionary process, I suggest a cautious retrieval of Martin Luther's God Hidden/God Revealed in order to allow for a more honest appraisal of suffering in this evolutionary universe.     

Conceiving of God: Theological arguments and motives in feminist ethics

This paper offers a critical investigation of the theological assumptions that lie within three forms of modern feminist ethics, with a view to challenging feminist ethics to enter the new theological possibilities opened up in postmodernity for the conceiving of god. The first part of the paper considers the conceiving of god in modern feminisms, in which theology becomes ethics. The consequences of this development are considered. The second part of the paper investigates the turn into postmodernity which hears the saying of the death of god and the critique of onto-theology. This disturbance to the foundations of feminist ethics is understood as part of a wider critique of humanism manifest particularly in gender theory. That the end of the modern human subject might allow a conceiving of god through an understanding of the performative is the restored orthodoxy to which the paper points.     

Talking About a Gracious God: Speaking of God out of Experience

Talking about a gracious God in a meaningful way calls for a recognition of one's experience. Discovering a gracious God changed Luther's way of doing theology, and demonstrates how Luther's theology was shaped by his experience. Feminist theologians have made a conscious appeal to women's experience, particularly their experience of violence within a patriarchal social structure. This particular experience has to shape how we talk about a gracious God to victims/survivors of violence against women.     

Philosophy of Mathematics in the Twentieth Century: Selected Essays

S. SHAPIRO (ed.), Intensional Mathematics (Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics, vol. 11 3). Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1985. v + 230 pp. $38.50/100Df.     

The Rasch Scaling of Mystical Experiences: Construct Validity and Correlates of the Mystical Experience Scale (MES)

This study evaluated the relationships that exist between the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality (BMMRS) and the mental health of individuals with heterogeneous medical disorders. The participants were 168 individuals with heterogeneous medical disorders (i.e., 61 brain injury, 32 stroke, 25 spinal cord injury, 25 cancer, 25 primary care). The measures were BMMRS subscales (conceptualized as spiritual experiences, religious practices, and congregational support), Medical Outcomes Scale–Short Form 36 General Mental Health scale. Pearson correlations indicated that, in general, mental health is positively correlated with positive spiritual experiences and positive congregational support but negatively correlated with negative spiritual coping and negative congregational support. Mental health was not correlated with private religious practices (e.g., prayer). Hierarchical regressions indicated that congregational support was the only BMMRS scale to predict mental health, explaining 6% of the variance beyond the 14% explained by demographic factors. The mental health of individuals with significant medical conditions appears to be primarily related to positive spiritual beliefs and especially congregational support. Mental health does not appear to be related to religious practices such as prayer, which is likely related to the fact that many individuals with serious medical conditions increase prayer with declining mental health status. These results stress the need for active congregational support and spiritual interventions to improve the mental health of persons with serious medical conditions.     

The Destiny of Creation: Theological Ethical Reflections on Laudato Si'

In this essay, I ask what the precise relation is between Laudato si's theology and its claims about our individual and corporate responsibility for the environment and the plight of the poor. To do so, I first clarify the relationship between the theological claims and its account of moral norms, situating the text within the history of western ethical theory. I then turn to reconstruct the submerged theology of the encyclical, focusing on Pope Francis's accounts of the techno‐economic paradigm and the possibility of an “integral ecology” paradigm. I end by assessing the text in terms of the coherence and plausibility of its argument as an ethical and theological statement.     

When a Theological Institution Becomes Ecumenical: A Focus on the Process and Experience

Det teologiske menighetsfakultet, or MF Norwegian School of Theology, has undergone an extensive development. From representing a strong Lutheran confessionalism, the new face of the faculty has changed to be more ecumenical in character. This article presents this story, gives insights into the historical process, and presents the current experiences of opening the school to non‐Lutheran students and teachers. On the basis of this “case study,” the article reflects on ecumenical perspectives that could be constructive for the twenty‐first century.     

二十世纪《四十二章经》研究述评

据史料载,佛教东传始于汉,随之传译入中国最早经籍之一为《四十二章经》-许久以来,此说已为多数国人所共知和认同。然,由于历史久远、史料的缺乏及记载上的出入,学者对于《四十二章经》的真伪遂生质疑,从译者、译地到译本等,迭有議,今犹众说纷纭、莫衷一是。此问题攸关佛教始传中国的时间、途径与中外交流等重大历史事件,故而,辨析此经之真伪实属必要。兹事体大,含涉面广,必须对经文的文体、内容和相关史料记载的可信度详加审虑,并结合时代背景,作全面的考量。本文即是对百年来的这方面研究作一介绍与综述。     

The Varieties of Sacred Experience: Finding the Sacred in a Secular Grove

This paper contends that the social scientific study of religion has long labored under a chafing constraint and a misleading premise. It suggests that our primary focus should be on the sacred, and that religion is just one among many possible sources of the sacred. Defining religion "substantively" but the sacred "functionally" helps toresolve a long-standing tension in the field. Broadened conceptions of the sacred and of "sacralization" help to defuse the conflict among the two very different versions of secularization theory: the "all-or-nothing" versus the "middle range." Meanwhile, a conceptual typology of the sacred pivots around the intersections of two distinctions (compensatory vs. confirmatory and marginal vs. institutional). This generatesfour distinct scenarios: the sacred as integrative, the sacred as quest, the sacred as collectivity, and the sacred as counter-culture. The paper concludes with three admonitions for research in the area.     

The Owl of Minerva: Reflections on the Theological Significance of Mary Midgley

This paper offers a theologically-orientated examination of some core themes of the works of the philosopher Mary Midgley (1919–2018), identifying areas of possible theological exploration and development. Particular attention is paid to her critique of the reductionist strategies of writers such as Richard Dawkins, her development of the ‘mapping’ metaphor for engaging complex issues, and her emphasis on the critical role of philosophy. Although the paper offers some brief examples of theological issues which are illuminated by Midgley’s philosophical approach (such as soteriological mapping), the primary purpose of the paper is to highlight the theological hospitality that it offers.     

The Church in the Market Place: Advertising and Religion in a Secular Age

This paper explores the limits of Peter Berger's secularization thesis through an examination of religious advertising. If churches are part of a market situation, as Berger affirms, what can be said of their advertising in a secular age? Different types of religious advertising and their effectiveness are discussed in relation to more widely disseminated religious imagery in secular advertising. The conclusion suggests that certain religious themes, ideas and images still continue to enjoy prominence in public consciousness. This has a double implication: for churches as they market themselves in a plural world, and for sociologists who construct theories of secularization.     

从后现代主义到变异时代:20世纪如何临近结束

亲爱的读者们 ,或许您们不曾体察到这一点 ,但是您们至今的生活已经在一个被称为“后现代”的时期度过。[1 ]“后现代”这个词对您们是熟知的。它萦绕在处处已有多年。它几乎总是突然出现在一篇文章的半途 ,出现在一次谈话的中间 ,出现在电台或电视的一次论辩过程中。结果 ,就说某种事物是后现代的 ,说他或她是某种人 ,就因为他或她是后现代的 ;一种奇异、费解的现象就可被解释为后现代的。这个意义可变的、暗示性的、又令人相信的术语 ,看来是暗指某种明确的、专门的事物 ,同时暗示着划时代的意义 ,这个术语说尽了某种事物的所有好的与所有…