Dialog-A Journal of Theology最新文献

The Thirteenth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) marked a pivotal moment for global Lutheranism. The assembly served as a platform for Lutherans worldwide to converge in Krakow, where they collectively discerned their shared future. While critics have claimed that the LWF has departed from its confessional identity, the Thirteenth Assembly of the LWF nevertheless demonstrated continuity with its historical and confessional roots, now underscored by a renewed focus on hope as the central theological principle. Numerous contextual and global challenges necessitate a theological agenda for a unified movement forward. Through an eschatological lens of hope, Lutherans globally are encouraged to deepen their reflection on biblical interpretation, theological contributions, and ecclesial missional practice. A realistic understanding of Christian hope shapes how one thinks and acts in the here and now in the most difficult of circumstances. This shift is already evident in the new LWF strategy and has begun to manifest regionally. This essay is an invitation to a hopeful theological agenda for the Lutheran communion and aims to make a significant contribution to world Christianity and society at large.

Gender justice has been a priority of the Lutheran Word Federation (LWF) for decades, much longer than the existence of its Gender Justice Policy (2013) where it is affirmed that gender justice is “a matter of faith.” The LWF has always put great emphasis on the theological problems gender justice issues present, as opposed to an assessment that women's experiences of exclusion and abuses of power are strictly acknowledged and treated as human rights violations. Therefore the committment to gender justice has been strongly tied to the importance of theological education as a critical tool against misleading theologies that justify patriarchal world views, including traditional gender roles and women's submissiveness. The focus in this article is on two major gender justice issues the LWF has called particular attention to, namely women's equal participation to men in leadership roles, including ordained ministry, and violence against women within the church and society at large. Ever since the Seventh Assembly of the LWF in Budapest in 1984, LWF member churches have been urged in assembly messages and resolutions to promote full inclusion of women in the life of church and society and to secure their health and well-being. Multiple documents, action plans, policies, and reports have been written in order to follow up on the directions from the assemblies regarding women. My aim here is to explore those documents and to lift up what has already been said about women's leadership roles in church and society and about discrimination and violence against women. These documents laid the groundwork for what was stated in the documents passed at the Thirteenth Assembly of the LWF in Poland in September 2023.

Both Martin Luther's pietas and Zhu Xi's Cheng-Jing are not purely empirical emotional categories, but transcendent emotional categories of faith. By comparing Luther's pietas and Zhu Xi's Cheng-Jing, this article reveals how Christianity and Confucianism constructed individual emotional and spiritual transcendence in early modernity. By doing so, it highlights both similarities and fundamental differences between Neo-Confucianism and Protestantism in matters of faith, thus revealing their significance for modern society.

Beginning with Luther's understanding of doubt using Genesis 3 as a template, the article explains how credulity differs from faith as the human mind interacts with shifting contexts and their doubts. In distinction from credulity, faith is an emergent phenomenon shaping personality and its social insertion. As faith mediates a compassionate orientation toward sufferers, it expresses the way in which the ultimate transcends into the penultimate or paramount reality dominated by the mechanisms of natural and social selection.

Christianity and Buddhism, two of the most influential religions in the world, have given much thought to the concept of love, and both regard it as the basic spirit of their religions, but there are some essential differences between the two. Specifically speaking, the Lutheran theological tradition which has developed since the Reformation in the 16th century advocates the holy love entirely centered on God. In contrast, Buddhism affirms an uncontaminated love emanating from a compassionate heart. This article attempts to analyze and examine the fundamental assertations of the concept of love in Lutheran theology and the Buddhist concept of love in order to reveal the essential differences between the two religions.

The late modern person has a complicated relationship with the body: despite a contemporary “return to the body,” the body is still conceived as a project which the person must advance and revise in order to both express and shape their sense of self-identity. For all people this project is destined to failure at some point, and it has a range of concerning implications along the way. In thrall to the prevailing cultural ideologies that idolize projection, progress, and proficiency, our approach to the body is more likely to be characterized by manipulation and striving than the divine affirmation that “it is good” (Gen 1). This dynamic underlies the modern epidemic of ill health, eating disorders, disordered eating, “obesity,” and body-shaming. Contemporary Christians are poorly insulated from the perils of a culture that is simultaneously body-obsessed and body-denying. A barely perceptible Gnosticism undergirds much of the popular theology of the body in practice, and the church has done little to address these ills, instead becoming mired in other body issues centered around sexuality and reproduction. The church has even absorbed the aims of the “wellness” industry and diet culture, sprinkling them Christianese and Christian celebrity endorsements. What can a biblical Christian thought and practice offer as a remedy? Ultimately, the human person need not strive to establish his or her identity, instead it is held secure in Christ. Both beauty and health, theologically defined, emerge from the integration of self and body, and the participation of the whole person in the divine life.

Research on obesity and its implications for health and well-being has been a global focus. However, this examination has often overlooked the unique perspective of intracultural Pasifika communities. In New Zealand, Pacific Islanders are one such community. For Pasifika diaspora communities, obesity is a common precursor to poor health outcomes. As a result, my research has honed in on the social, cultural, and economic factors contributing to obesity in these cohorts. The practical implications of this study underscore the urgent need for culturally sensitive intervention programs that respect and work within the cultural norms of these communities aimed at alleviating this condition. This emphasis on cultural sensitivity is crucial for understanding and addressing the issue. My research delves into the emic perceptions of what “Big” entails, particularly within intracultural Pasifika communities. I explore contemporary conceptions and their implications for health and well-being. I argue that Pasifika churches, as socio-cultural villages, have the potential to transform into safe, healthy spaces for their people. This transformation could significantly reduce the prevalence of an obesogenic environment and contribute to improved mental and physical health for the population. This optimistic perspective, which highlights the potential for positive change, guides my exploration of a relevant recommendation for the issue at hand.

Contemporary diet culture is detrimental to many Western men and women, though women are disproportionately impacted. This results in poor body image, low self-esteem, and unhealthy lifestyles. Christian discourse is not immune to the influence of diet culture, with many popular Christian pastors and authors adopting this paradigm and seeking to align it with a Christian worldview. When an understanding of a human being as an anthropological duality is brought to bear on the issue of diet culture, a more consistently Christian anthropology can resource a healthier view of the embodied self and provide resources for a robust Christian response to diet culture.

Far from being a purely cerebral activity, meaningful theological work seeks the transformation of people; intellectual assent is necessary, but humans are embodied, and theology can be multi-modal in its action and delivery. This essay draws on the traditions of visual and sensory theological practices to make an argument for theology as a rigorous process enacted in embodied—mind, hand, and heart—ways. The interwoven relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxy is too often tenuous, practitioners on one side and thinkers on the other. In exploring lives of biblical characters, specifically women, and expressing these across modalities of spoken word, stitch, and poetry, the writer makes a case for the essential embodiment of a sensuous theological expression—the kind of expression that one frequently experiences in sacrament and frequently ignores in formal theological discourse. In drawing from her own research practices the writer presents a case for the importance of personal theological work moving from thinking as the sole location, arguing that embodiment is always the outcome of good theological commitment. This essay builds on a foundation of theologians who make a case for the arts and for the sensory in pointing toward the Divine, and it unapologetically draws on textile practice as “women's work” and a location of shared human experience. The essay also explores responses to theology in physical stitched form and poetry. It includes responses which take theological interactions beyond consumption into production; it considers the value of embodied, holistic theological work as a potential gift to the community.