Some religious beliefs and behaviours of Australian Catholic school students

Students in Catholic schools make up a significant sub group of the Australian population. As such, studies of this group provide valuable information about the religious beliefs and practices of some Australian youth. Many students in Catholic schools express traditional religious views and have relatively high levels of religious behaviours. Over time these levels diminish but in a fashion that invites careful analysis and comparison with standard theories of secularisation. An important finding suggests that student responses are indicative of a loosening of religious affiliation rather than a complete disengagement. These results suggest a more nuanced view of students in Catholic school be adopted with implication for the conduct of Catholic schools in secular cultural contexts.     

The Church of England’s Pray One for Me intercessory prayer site: a virtual cathedral?

Over the past decade there has been a growing number of studies examining the prayer content of people’s personal prayers left in intercessory church-related contexts. Since 2012, these studies have extended to include the cathedral intercessory prayer board and the online intercessory prayer site. Both ‘the cathedral’ and ‘the online site’ are distinctive contexts for intercessory prayer in terms of their openness and accessibility for a broad range of people, who are allowed to enter and use these prayer facilities. What is not known, however, is whether the cathedral prayer board and the online site are functioning in similar ways. This study presents an analysis of 500 prayers posted on the Church of England’s ‘Pray One for Me’ (POFM) website over a period of six months in 2012. The analysis employs the ap Siôn Analytic Framework for Intercessory Prayer (apSAFIP), which distinguishes among prayer intention, prayer reference, and prayer objective. The results of the analysis are compared with the results from recent cathedral studies employing the same analytic tool, and it is concluded that these two prayer contexts are functioning differently.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
James Burtness, Consequences: Morality, Ethics, and the Future
Heup Young Kim, Wang Yang–Ming and Karl Barth: A Confucian–Christian Dialogue     

The Mission of the Church in the Contemporary World in Light of the Decisions of the Holy and Great Council

This article discusses the place of mission in the Orthodox Church. The document “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today's World,” which was approved by the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church held in Crete in 2016, is still in the process of reception, as are the other documents, but it constitutes, without doubt, a new era in Orthodox missiology – as indeed the Great and Holy Council in Crete represents a new era in Orthodoxy. The interrelatedness of unity and mission is not a question of methodology or strategy. It is an ontological one: it is related to the very essence of koinonia as fellowship in the triune God, and to the specific aspect of κοινονια as participation in God's economy in and for the world. Mission is commitment to the work of the triune God incarnated in Jesus Christ. Both are God’s gift and command. It is only in unity with the Holy Trinity that the church is able to fulfil its vocation.     

The Council of Crete

This article offers a critical assessment of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church that took place in Crete in 2016. It argues that the situation facing the Orthodox churches after the Council of Crete is far more important than everything that directly preceded it, and that the Orthodox are only at the beginning as far as the important questions and challenges of the world today are concerned.     

The ‘Emerging Church’ in America: Notes on the interaction of Christianities

The ‘Emerging Church’ is an American-born movement that dates to the late 1990s. It is fundamentally a movement of cultural critique in which the primary interlocutor is the dominant tradition in the United States, conservative Evangelicalism. In this article I address the phenomenon of Emerging Christianity based on historical, literary, and ethnographic analyses of Emerging Church advocates and critics. In particular, I argue that four points of dialogue characterize the status of Emerging in the United States: ‘post-foundational’ theology, ‘ancient-future’ worship, ‘missional’ evangelism, and a general posture of ‘deconversion.’ Ultimately, I present the story of the Emerging Church for its significance to two broad theoretical questions. First, how do new forms of religious identity come into being? And, second, for those working in the ‘anthropology of Christianity’: what happens when Christianities interact? In response to these questions, I stress the Janus-faced quality of Emerging Christianity and its reliance on the categories, narratives, and vocabulary of conservative Evangelicalism in constructing its thoroughgoing cultural critique.     

Human Rights and Pluralism in CatholicSocial Thought

The essay argues that a Catholic tradition of natural law and its conception of human rights depend on the continuing life of institutions that stand apart from and sustain standards of justice independent from the modern state and its corresponding economy. Christians contribute to a defense of human rights precisely as members of their Churches, through their social and institutional presence across the globe. Catholic social thought deals with matters of human rights from within a tradition of natural law that assumes a common human end, a common good. This ecclesiological tradition of the human good is precisely what Catholics have to offer in a context of pluralism. The Church has a task of sustaining institutions where its practical rationality about human goods offers a practical alternative in a world where the self-interest of states and purely economic interests win the day.     

Karl Rahner's Ecclesiology

For reasons of academic fashion and ecclesial politics, Rahner is often dismissed as a liberal. Though elements of his thought on the church/world relationship do not date well, and others have been so thoroughly absorbed into the mainstream as to lose their interest, there is a dimension of his thought which remains important and which in fact undercuts typical divisions between liberals and their opponents.     

Erikson’s Schedule of Human Strengths and the Church’s Self-Images

This article focuses on Erik H. Erikson’s schedule of human strengths presented in his essay, “Human Strength and the Cycle of Generations” (Erikson 1964) and suggests that certain images of the church support these human strengths. In supporting these human strengths, they also contribute to our understanding of the importance of the fact that the church is an intergenerational body.     

Homosexual Applicants to the Priesthood: How Many and Are They Psychologically Healthy?

The current investigation evaluated the psychological profiles of applicants to seminary who were identified as being either homosexual or heterosexual in orientation. The MMPI-2 from 63 seminary applicants conducted between 1990 and 2004 was reviewed. Results indicate that 49 applicants (78%) identified themselves as being heterosexual while 14 applicants (22%) identified themselves as being homosexual. Few psychological differences emerged on the MMPI-2 when comparing heterosexual to homosexual applicants.