Moving in the Spirit: Called to Transforming Discipleship: Reflections from the Vantage Points of the Marginalized People

“Mission from the margins” is neither a mere perspectival approach nor an option but an inevitable way of being church in God's mission. Likewise, the marginalized people are neither a broad category of people on the fringes of the society nor mere objects of charity and victims of circumstances. They are prophets and pathfinders indicting the world for its injustice through their lives of suffering and striving for its transformation through their struggles. As signs of hope testifying to the movement of the Spirit amidst despair and death, they help us to see God's mission not as a mere religious activity but as a spirituality of resistance and transformation for the sake of life and God's world. Reclaiming discipleship from the vantage of the marginalized, therefore, offers an opportunity for the churches to rediscover themselves afresh from being mere communities of believers and power structures to networks of partners for God's justice, participating in the larger struggles for the transformation of the world. As the gospels tell us, Jesus did not commission his disciples to call people to a belief system but to a covenantal relationship through a vocation of striving for the realization of God's reign. Such a sense of vocation is possible only when there is a radical change in Christian self‐understanding. It involves, first, interrogating and reimagining the ways in which churches affirm and practise their faith; second, leaving aside their captivity to certain belief systems and turning toward Jesus of Nazareth to teach the way – to be active partners with God rather than being passive believers; third, appropriating discipleship beyond the language and sphere of transformation of persons; and fourth, learning from and being enriched by the visions and resources of the marginalized in living out the call to be one in God's mission of transformation of the world.     

论医学的理性精神

面对守望生命的神圣事业 ,人们开始发出“返回故园”的深切呼喊[1] 。自然 ,精神家园是我们的终极关怀所在 ,是我们最深切最真挚的向往。然而 ,当医学现代化的历史使命感和西方所谓“后现代化”思潮交织而来的时候 ,我们是踏上返乡之路 ,还是走向不归之途 ?这需要我们理智地沉思 ,沉思当前医学应具有的理性精神。1　对医学理性的阐释作为人类所特有的一种能力 ,理性同人类历史一样古老。同时 ,理性又不是一种超历史的先天能力 ,人们的理性只能表现在他们的实际活动和思考之中。所以 ,理性又必然带有历史的、文化的、社会的和个体特点的烙印…     

The Spirit in the Church: The Universal Christ, Particular Spirit and Christian Unity

Modern theology has had difficulty in producing an ecclesiology that makes the full visible unity of the church an essential aspect of the church's nature. One reason for this is that important modern ecclesiologies are built on a trinitarian model that either subordinates the Spirit to the Son, or reduces the Spirit to a vague, invisible 'domain of resonance', with the result that the church itself is either subordinated or rendered invisible. A new trinitarian model is needed, one that shows how the Spirit cooperates with the Son to produce a visibly united church.     

Moving on From the Suburbs

This is an account of my development as a psychoanalyst beginning in a safe but very unquestioning culture of a London suburb. Some unusual features of my childhood, as well as a natural curiosity, made me need to question the apparent certainties of my surroundings. I describe how a number of events—the death of my father, my illness as an adolescent, and an unlikely encounter with psychoanalysis shortly after, set me onto a rather slow road toward becoming a psychoanalyst several years later. I describe the influences that were important to me. I have always been most inspired by those who could explain complex ideas in a simple and straightforward way, and this has become important objective for me.     

Speaking of the Spirit1

Since Gregory Nazianzus called it the “special difficulty” in the fourth century, we should not be surprised that speaking of the Holy Spirit still challenges theologians today. In this article I attempt definitions of the Spirit's activity in the church and the world, and its role within the life of the Trinity. I look for help in Paul's Letter to the Romans, from the Christian tradition, and from Luther's teaching, inviting all to this conversation about the Spirit's identity and place in an ecumenical context.     

Cancer Recovery and the Spirit

The present study addresses the definition and exploration of the existential and spiritual experience of persons who had spontaneously remitted or made a remarkable recovery from cancer. Spontaneous remitters had experienced a remission without having allopathic treatment which could account for the cancer regression. Those with remarkable recoveries may have had treatment, but had been given a prognosis of less than a 20% chance of survival in a specific number of months or years, and had survived at least five years past this time. The narratives of the ten participants indicated that cancer proved to be a wake-up call propelling them into unprecedented existential and spiritual growth. Nine of the participants reported that they had healed not only at physical, but also at emotional and spiritual levels. Most described a new and intensely numinous relationship with the divine and with the unity of all beings which was not religiously oriented. Nine out of ten participants felt that cancer had been a gift.