The Mission of the Church to People with Disabilities in Southern and Central Africa

Disability has, in recent years, become a focal point of discussion in many parts of the world with the increasing awareness that people with disabilities (PWDs) are disadvantaged because of their condition. Throughout history, PWDs have been relegated to the status of second‐class citizens and in some instances treated inhumanly. In many cultures, particularly in Africa, issues of disability are surrounded by fear because of the strong belief that they are caused by sin, witchcraft, or evil spirits. People with mental challenges are demonized. This has led to a negative attitude toward PWDs in the world generally and in Southern and Central Africa in particular. This paper discusses the mission of the church in this context. It argues that the church must act as a catalyst for change by generating a positive attitude toward PWDs so that they can enjoy fullness of life. This can be achieved by mainstreaming issues of disability in the social, economic, political, and spiritual life of society as a whole.     

“ÁLL TRÁDES,THEIR GEAR AND TACKLE AND TRIM”: THEOLOGY,COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE,AND PSYCHONEUROIMMUNOLOGY IN TRANSVERSAL DIALOGUE

This third of three articles outlining a different approach to science/religion dialogue generally and to engagement between theology and the neurosciences specifically, gives a brief account of the model in practice. It begins by introducing the question to be investigated—whether the experience of relational connection can affect health outcomes by directly moderating immune function. Then, employing the same threefold heuristic of encounter, exchange, and expression used previously, it discusses how the transversal model set out in these articles has been used to investigate this question and to develop a theoretical physiological model for the proposed link between relationality and health.     

WONDER OPENS THE HEART: POPE FRANCIS AND LISA SIDERIS ON NATURE,ENCOUNTER, AND WONDER

This article argues that Pope Francis's invocations of wonder can speak to and at times challenge Lisa Sideris's recent contributions to the interdisciplinary discussion of wonder, science, and religion. Although the importance of wonder to Pope Francis's 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato si’ is acknowledged, it has not been widely recognized that wonder is implicated in and forms connections between multiple concepts and postures acknowledged as defining marks of Francis's papacy: coming out of oneself, encountering others, going to the margins; aversion to doctrinal rigidity; compassion, mercy, tenderness, and humility; to name a few. These defining concepts and stances resonate strongly with certain views on wonder, ethics, and ecology recently articulated by Lisa Sideris. In Francis, however, one finds a more affirming treatment of science‐based wonder and a response to Sideris's criticism of theistic wonder.     

HIGH SCIENCE AND NATURAL SCIENCES: GREEK THEOLOGIANS AND THE SCIENCE AND RELIGION INTERACTIONS (1832–1910)

What was science for the Orthodox Greek theologian of the nineteenth century? How did it feature in his (theologians were all men at the time) own work? This article is an attempt to describe the science and religion interactions by placing Greek Orthodox theologians of the nineteenth century in the center of the historical narrative, rather than treat them as occasional deuteragonists in the scientists’ historiography. The picture that emerges is far more complicated than one of antagonism, indifference, conflict, or coexistence. Greek theologians saw themselves as scientists and treated theology as a positive, rational science. They developed strategies to delineate their disciplinary borders and safeguard their identity as expert scholars by harnessing their university and academic credentials. For that reason, they had to invoke famous German and other Western theologians, while ensuring that they were seen as true defenders of Orthodox Christianity. The idea of science was an integral part of this achievement.     

The continuing relevance of “queer” theology for the rest of the field

ABSTRACT

What does it mean to queer theology? How is this task of queering theology relevant to and engaged with mainstream academic theological discourse? What is already queer about theology? What direction should queering theology take in the future? This special issue examines these key questions, among others, which are at the heart of the overall project that has been referred to as “queer theology”. In this introduction to the volume, we outline common strands of thought, and key issues and questions that undergird and interlace the essays in this volume. We also provide a brief history of queer theology, highlighting four themes that we consider essential to the study of queer theology as a whole: (1) the role of witness, (2) the project of disentangling the “real” issues from the incidentals in reactions to a queer presence in the Church, (3) the creative rereading of tradition with an eye toward emancipation and (4) the ways in which queer theology orients the field of theological studies as a whole to what really matters (or ought to matter) for Christians and others seeking to follow the witness of Jesus.     

Portraying reflection: the contents of student teachers’ reflection on personal practical theories and practicum experience*

This research focused on personal practical theories of Finnish student teachers, on how they argued for them and what they contained, and the data were analysed using Korthagen’s ‘onion’ model of reflection (e.g. 2004). The framework of this research consists of reflection and personal practical theories (PPTs). Personal practical theories are viewed as important for a teacher’s identity: they guide the teacher’s work, action, and reactions before, during, and after a teaching event. Reflecting on teaching, then again, has been one of the most significant issues and focus of numerous studies for several decades. This is a case study of six elementary school student teachers, who had constructed their PPTs before the practicum. We examined their reflections using the onion model of reflection, according to which a person reflects on different levels. The data were collected by interviewing the student teachers after their final practicum. The results show that most of their reflection focused on Environment and Behaviour, so it was located mostly in the outer layers of the onion model. The categorization of the reflection also showed that Competence was the smallest category.     

Critical Dogmatics as Paradigm

Theology as “critical dogmatics” points to a way forward between naturalism and constructivism in thought “after modernity.” It urges neither pre‐critical dogmatics nor modern systematizing, but a proposal for a pragmatic and hermeneutical theology making a single claim to truth about God as the One determined to redeem and fulfill the creation through the missions of God's Son and Spirit. This article clarifies the difference between Rudolph Bultmann's program of demythologization, and more generally, dialectical theology's antinomy of “the word of God and the word of humans,” and the sense of “deliteralization” in the strong trinitarian personalism of critical dogmatics.     

Religious studies as a modern academic discipline in Korea

This article offers a historical and institutional overview of the discipline of religious studies in Korea. It first reviews four early sources of comparative studies: work by Christian missionaries; by Japanese scholars during the period of colonization by that nation; by nationalist Korean scholars who reacted against colonization; and by Korean Christian theologians. The founding of the Korean Association for the History of Religions (KAHR) in 1969 was a key point in the professionalization of the discipline. The field became more firmly established in the late 1980s and early 1990s and has diversified in recent years with a new generation of often foreign-trained scholars. The article ends with a brief discussion of potential contributions that the discipline could make to current debates of national significance.     

SHOULD A CHRISTIAN ADOPT METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM?

It has become standard practice for scientists to avoid the possibility of references to God by adopting methodological naturalism (MN), a method that assumes that the reality of the universe, as it can be accessed by empirical enquiry, is to be explained solely with recourse to natural phenomena. In this essay, I critique the Christian practice of this method, arguing that a Christian's practices should always reflect her belief that the universe is created and sustained by the triune God. This leads me to contend that the Christian should adopt a theologically humble approach to the sciences (instead of MN), with which she humbly acknowledges that special divine action is not discernible by empirical science. To further my critique, I consider three ways in which the practice of MN can be particularly problematic for Christianity.     

STIRPICULTURE: SCIENCE‐GUIDED HUMAN PROPAGATION AND THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY

Between 1869 and 1879, the communal Christian group the Oneida Community undertook a pioneering eugenics experiment called “stirpiculture” in upstate New York. Stirpiculture resulted in the planned conception, birth, and communal rearing of fifty‐eight children, bred from selected members of the Oneida Community. This article concerns how the Oneida Community's unique approach to religion and science provided the framework for the creation, process, and eventual dissolution of the stirpiculture experiment. The work seeks to expand current understanding of the early history of eugenics in the United States by placing its practice more than two decades earlier than is generally considered. Additionally, this article situates the Community's leader John Humphrey Noyes as an early eugenics and social scientific thinker. Finally, the treatment provides a case study for the transitional period in mid to late nineteenth century America whereby scientific modes of epistemology were accommodated within or supplanted by theological worldviews.