Two Theologies of Death: Anthropological Gleanings

Theologies of death by Karl Rahner and Eberhard Jungel are closely analyzed to test the hypothesis that the coherence of Christian theological anthropology depends on holding in dialectical balance the implications of three distinct ways in which God relates to humankind (as creator, as redeemer and as eschatological consummator) held in dialectical equipoise. Connections are shown between Rahner's focus on creation/consummation (subordinating the redemption-relation) and his unintended undercutting of sola gratia ; and between Jungel's focus on creation/redemption (subordinating consummation) and his evacuating the ontological status of the creature. Four positive morals are drawn for doing anthropology.     

The New Age: Towards a Market Model

The problem of how the New Age may be defined is widely acknowledged among commentators. It is hard to delineate and does not fit easily into existing analytical categories. This paper will review how scholars have conceptualised the movement. It will discuss the problems inherent in attempting to specify its constituents, fix its limits, and characterise its organisational forms. The later sections advances the argument that some of its most distinctive characteristics may be accounted for by acknowledging the market dynamics at play in New Age milieux. It is proposed that the diffuse overall shape of the movement is the result of determinate commercial institutional arrangements.     

The Good of New Age Goods

Critical writing on cultural appropriation and commodification is often predicated on the assumption that the transformation of cultural goods into commodities is essentially a process of alienation: of consumers from themselves and of indigenous people from their cultural products. The consumption of indigenous practices and images by practitioners of New Age and alternative spiritualities has been the subject of particularly harsh criticism, with ‘New Agers’ excoriated as exploitative culture thieves. In this paper, I draw on ethnographic research into the use of commodified images of Australian Aboriginal people by practitioners of New Age and alternative spiritualities—and by Aboriginal people themselves—to suggest that the producers and consumers of such goods, and indeed the goods themselves, have a greater agency than is commonly recognised. I argue that, many critics of cultural and spiritual commodification fail to recognise or fail to take seriously, the meaning cultural goods can acquire when removed from the market place and personalised by their consumers. More to the point, the suggestion that such transformations are inherently alienating tends to elide the involvement of indigenous people in the production of imagery that complements (as well as competes with) New Age representations.     

Technology and the Polytheistic Mind: From Global to Planetary Theologies

Abstract: Assuming that human beings are, among other things, techno‐sapiens, natural‐cultural; and that technology‐nature‐culture are a part of the same emergent process of life (e.g., Martin Heidegger, Donna Haraway, Phil Hefner), this paper argues for a move from global to planetary technologies. According to Gayatri Spivak, the process of globalization is the imposition of sameness over the face of the globe. In contrast, she argues, what we need is a planetary vision of the world: one that pays attention to multi‐perspectivalism and difference; and connects peoples, places, and things through those differences rather than in spite of them. In this article I argue that theological technologies of monotheism have tended to support globalization. As such, I explore the possibilities for polytheistic (or at least) polydox theological technologies of planetary becoming.     

The Infirmity Debate: On the Viability of New Age Spiritualities of Life

The ‘infirmity debate’ is becoming increasingly lively. On the one hand, scholars argue that New Age spiritualities of life are in a ‘poor’ condition; on the other hand, scholars argue that they are in a good state of ‘health’. Drawing on key publications, including articles from the Journal of Contemporary Religion, the argument is couched in terms of ‘the turn to the self’—more specifically ‘the massive subjective turn of modern culture’. How do New Age spiritualities of life fare in the context of this development? Concentrating on activities found in the holistic milieu which is to be found in many countries today, the argument is that activities like yoga or spiritual aromatherapy serve as ‘intermediary institutions’, successfully negotiating a path between antinomian freedom and social conformism.     

After the New Age

This article explores the connections between conventional religion and the New Age, using data from a major online questionnaire study, Survey2001 , that was sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation. It begins with two competing hypotheses. (1) Involvement in conventional religion discourages involvement in unconventional para-religion because conventional religion competes with para-religion. (2) Conventional religion encourages unconventional para-religion by promulgating supernatural assumptions about the nature of humanity and the universe. Factor analysis of 20 putatively New Age agree-disagree questionnaire items reveals that 15 of them define a general New Age factor, supported by secondary anti-paranormal and anti-alien factors. Three measures of conventional religiousness show complex relations to the New Age items. Analysis using factor scores indicates that both hypotheses express real effects that cancel each other out for many people. Individual subjective religiousness and personal prayer or meditation correlate strongly positively with the New Age among respondents who never attend religious services. The study considers denominational differences, then concludes by showing that a curvilinear relationship exists between religiousness and acceptance of New Age beliefs.     

The pastorate and New Age healing

Many healing techniques are emerging among New Age groups: meditation, visualization, laying on of hands, acupressure, herbalism, reflexology, Rolfing, diet control and vitamin therapy, chiropractic, psychic and spiritual healing, electro-magnetic healing, and the use of sound, light, and color. These techniques are discussed for the modern pastor's information. Further, two questions are raised: need these practices pose a religious or theological conflict, and what attitude might he take toward these practices?     

Paradox and Paul: Catholic and Protestant Theologies of Grace

John Barclay offers a capacious and helpful framework for reflection on large swathes of the history of the theology of grace with his notion of the six ways of ‘perfecting the gift’. In this article, I extend his analysis to a consideration of certain typical differences between Catholic and Protestant conceptions of grace. Where Protestant theology tends toward a juxtaposition of grace with sin, Catholic theology often considers grace in relation to nature, and each side, I suggest, has its own characteristic proclivity towards paradox.     

Living The Future: The Kingdom of God in the Theologies of Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg

Abstract:  In recent theology, both Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg have made the kingdom of God a central theme in their thought. However, there has been little ensuing discussion delimiting the precise theological insights entailed in their positions or relating this aspect of their work to their broader theological endeavours. Moreover, discussions surrounding the moral implications of the kingdom of God in these two thinkers have been oddly estranged from the theological articulations on which these ethical suggestions have been based. This article aims to address this deficit in the current debate by examining and exploring the nature and role of the kingdom of God in Moltmann and Pannenberg's thought. Once the material content of the kingdom has been explored theologically, both theologians will be critiqued on the manner in which they include the theme of judgement into the kingdom, and the subsequent ethical results.     

The New Age in Cultural Context: The Premodern,the Modern and the Postmodern

This issue attends to a relatively ill‐explored, albeit culturally well‐established, topic. Serving to introduce the contributions, an initial task is to characterize the New Age. It is suggested that there is a dominant lingua franca, to do with ‘self religiosity’. Another task is to locate the New Age with reference to the premodern, the modern and the postmodern ‘conditions’. Arguing that the New Age has two main wings, and that it can also be used in consumeristic fashion, it is possible to tease out the various ways in which the three conditions have contributed to its development. Finally, attention is paid to the question of whether the New Age is of any real significance.     

The Tree of Knowledge: Good and Evil: Conflicting Interpretations

This article examines a debate concerning the exegesis of the story of the garden of Eden and the tree of knowledge, as told in Genesis. Two contradictory interpretations of the garden narrative are examined, the first as the story is elucidated by the psychoanalyst and social theorist Erich Fromm and the alternative interpretation by the Talmudic scholar and philosopher Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. This article compares and contrasts their exegeses and the respective implications of each view. The controversy, which has profound implications, reflects differences in world views concerning the good life, autonomy and relatedness, assertion and submission, will and surrender, obedience and rebellion, independence and interdependence, subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Links are drawn to a variety of contemporary psychoanalytic theories, developments, and controversies.     

Conflicting intentions: rectifying the consistency requirements

Philosophical Studies - Many philosophers are convinced that rationality dictates that one’s overall set of intentions be consistent. The starting point and inspiration for our study is...