RACE, RELIGION, AND THE CONTRADICTIONS OF IDENTITY: A THEOLOGICAL ENGAGEMENT WITH DOUGLASS's 1845 NARRATIVE

This essay is about identity and the place of religion and theology in how it is thought about and performed. I purse this subject through a theologically informed reading of the 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Taking Douglass's Narrative as emblematic of how identity continues to be conceived, I explain what is promising in the close link forged between religion, theology and culture. The promise of Douglass's Narrative resides in the emancipatory politics of race that it produces and the creative use of the theology of Easter in that politics. But I also explore the contradictions arising from that link—in particular, Douglass's oppressive gender politics. To overcome this problem, I conclude the article by pushing Douglass's cultural reading of identity and the Cross in a more robust theological direction, a direction that gestures towards a theology of Israel and of Pentecost.     

FRIENDSHIP AS A MODE OF THEOLOGICAL ENGAGEMENT: DAVID FORD'S EXPLORATION OF CHRISTIAN WISDOM

David Ford's Christian Wisdom is offered in the context of navigating between a theology articulated abstractly and a theology engaged with human practicalities. He explores the notion of love of God for God's sake, love of God purged of any desire for benefit, and an understanding what it is to do theology within earshot of the cries of those in distress. These themes are brought into intense dialogue with the teaching of Jesus, the Shoah, and the book of Job. Subsequently, the understanding of Christian wisdom is tested against the inter-faith wisdom disclosed in Scriptural Reasoning, in understanding the formation of Christian wisdom through the evolution and re-invention of universities especially after trauma, and the interpersonal wisdom sought in the communities of L'Arche.     

SCRIPTURAL REASONING AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

This essay explores of the relationship between religion and science using Max Weber's insights into the philosophy of social science, C. S. Peirce's philosophy of religion and the Qur’anic treatment of material reality. The Weber‐Peirce‐Qur’an conversation opens up the possibility of a (social) scientific affirmation of religion and a religious affirmation of science. Scriptural Reasoning (SR) has already demonstrated that it is capable of creating “mutual ground” between the different religious traditions. This exploration of the exchange between SR and the social sciences suggests that SR has the potential of contributing to the creation of mutual ground between the religious traditions and the “secular” academy.     

TOWARDS A FUNDAMENTAL THEOLOGICAL RE‐INTERPRETATION OF VATICAN II

This paper argues for a fundamental theological re‐interpretation of Vatican II ecclesiology that acknowledges not one but two principal ecclesiologies inspired by the Council documents. Ecclesiastical authorities and some theologians have acknowledged that communion ecclesiology is the principal ecclesiology of Vatican II. However, this conception does not sufficiently account for the full range of relations with the Other that is a distinctive development in the Church's self‐understanding inaugurated by Vatican II; such an understanding is better represented by an ecclesiology of friendship. I thus argue there are two ecclesiologies reflected in the Council documents: communion ecclesiology and another to be developed based on mutual relations and friendship with the Other. The latter is distinctively Ignatian in spirit; further, these two ecclesiologies are not fundamentally opposed to each other but are united in the missions of the Son and the Spirit.     

A PRESCRIPTION FOR GENERATING A NEW PARADIGM IN THE CONTEXT OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY

Abstract. Many centers are now active in the study of the interaction between science on the one hand and theology on the other. Suggestions are made as to how such study might be furthered. The central proposal in this paper is based on the author's experience in founding and, over many years, operating the Neurosciences Research Program (NRP). The "faculty" of this group were highly competent in many fields of science and were able to deal with many of the major issues. It is here further suggested that if an NRP-like organization were established, capable of productively interacting with both science and theology, it might well generate new concepts and possibly a new paradigm in this context.     

A PREOCCUPATION WITH OBJECT-REPRESENTATION: THE BECKETT-BION CASE REVISITED

Taking issue with the notion of a profound reciprocal influence of Samuel Beckett and his analyst, Wilfred Bion, based on supposition all too often passed as fact, the author refutes the idea that Bion's ‘Attacks on linking’ was based on his later‐to‐be famous patient. Choosing, rather, to apply Bion's concepts of transformation and assaults on verbal thought to Beckett's remarkably visual and highly dissociative writing, she finds in the analyst's work a means of exploring a startling preoccupation with object representation and an anxiety of remembrance constant throughout the writer's texts. Is this fixation attributable only to aesthetic strategy or does it say something about the writer's own inner representational world? Relating the writer's obsession to Bion's concepts and, moreover, its dissociative expression to the decathexis and blank mourning explored by Green, she uncovers within it a reflection of the kind of evocative memory disturbance identified with primary dyadic dysfunction. This application of Bion and Green to Beckett veers distinctly less towards psychohistory, however, than to how sublimation has rendered this object‐relational failure an aesthetic success.     

SPIRIT, METHOD, AND CONTENT IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION: THE THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF A GENETICIST

Abstract. There are three ways in which bridges may be built between science and theology: spirituality, methodology, and content. Spirituality is the power which drives each to address reality and the expectations with which each approaches the pursuit of truth. The methodology of science is summarized in terms of three activities: taxonomy; the hypothetico-deductive cycle; derivative technology. The content of science, especially with respect to the phenomena of givenness, connectedness and openness in the life sciences, is correlated with theological constructs. Attention is drawn to the role of the double helix in biology and a possible parallel is proposed to the function of the icon in religion and theology.     

THE RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY: THE CASE FOR COMPLEMENTARITY REVISITED

Abstract. Donald MacKay has suggested that the logical concept of complementarity is needed to relate scientific and theological thinking. According to Ian Barbour, this concept should only be used within, not between, disciplines. This article therefore attempts to clarify that contrast from the standpoint of cognitive process. Thinking in terms of complementarity is explicated within a structuralist-genetic, interactive-constructivist, developmental theory of the neo- and post-Piagetian kind, and its role in religious development is indicated. Adolescents'complementary views on Creation and on the corresponding scientific accounts serve as an illustration. After further analysis of parallel and circular complementarity, it is shown under which conditions complementarity of science and theology can be better justified and may be potentially more fruitful than is apparent from Barbour's or even MacKay's considerations.