International Journal of Public Theology最新文献

This article addresses the question of how the spirit of love, as articulated in the Samae spirit (three loves – divine, humanity and environment), can offer a concrete approach to translating divine-love into actionable expressions in a volatile religious pluralistic context, such as Nigeria. Drawing lessons from the theory of the Samae Spirit, we argue that love for God should not be considered in isolation from divine-love for the world and the religious other. We conclude that the all-embracing and concrete interpretation and understanding of divine-love has the potential to foster and nurture life-giving religious pluralism, making divine-love a force immanent in Nigeria.

This article argues that Jean-Jacques Rousseau can be seen as a public theologian by analyzing two well-known treatises. It draws on the Latin root of the concept of the ‘public’, in order to underscore the anthropology and sociology of public life. The article argues that Rousseau is a public theologian as his public policy of social organization, presupposes anthropological and sociological views of humanity that parallel views found in Christian theology.

Recent biblical scholarship has called for more careful and detailed attention to the experiences of torture victims to better understand the crucifixion of Jesus (Menéndez- Antuña 2022). To this end, this article examines the torture of Miriam Leitão, one of Brazil’s most prominent journalists. Leitão’s torture in 1972 is attested in the report Brasil: Nunca Mais (1985), compiled by the Archdiocese of Sao Paulo, which records that she was left in a dark room with a boa constrictor. In 2014 Leitão disclosed in an interview that during her time with the snake she was naked. I argue Leitão’s account of being ‘alone and naked’ offers insights into the repeated stripping of Jesus in the praetorium in Matthew 27:26–31, and his forced nudity on the cross. Recognising crucifixion as torture helps towards understanding and naming the mocking of Jesus as sexual abuse.

It is now recognized that the majority of people who will be adversely affected by climate change will live in cities. It is time for a public theology to explore how its resources might be put to use in the service of extreme cities in the era of the Anthropocene. The city of Sydney provides a rather surprising case study for such. Through 2019/2020 it was subject to succession of extreme heat, fire in its surrounds, followed by the pandemic and then five floods. It had just been deemed to be the world’s third most liveable city. In these matters theology is not the lead discipline. It is seldom invoked and invited to be placed along many other fields of knowledge in this knot of transdisciplinary challenges. It has been claimed that the future in the Anthropocene is likely to be ugly and cities will be marked by precarity. It is time for a public theology to consider the potential plight of cities and develop ahead of time – in ordinary time – a pattern of understanding and moral practice. For that to be possible it is critical for such a theology to heed the theoretical work being done in the fields that comprise an Earth System science.

Urbanism has become the dominant form of human dwelling, giving rise to the concept of livability, accompanied by livability indexes and city rankings. These reports provide brief bragging rights and marketing opportunities for high-ranking cities while glossing over the complex realities and inherent dangers of urban life. The issues surrounding livability rankings reveal corrupted anthropologies that prioritize the ways that one can consume a place rather than the cultivation of communities that are mutually reinforcing in their flourishing. Public theologians must work at the level of theological imagination to reclaim a vocational anthropology that places participation with God in the cultivation of community at the center of what it means to be made in the Image of God. In order to accomplish this fundamental shift, a significant and sometimes overlooked role for public theologians in the world today is serving ecclesial communities in facilitating this imagination through liturgical formation.

In Scandinavia, the loss of members in established (or formerly established) churches, the rise of unaffiliated, and diverse migration led to a need for new approaches to historically Christian spaces. To create all-inclusive spaces, the idea of neutrality has been adopted. Among others, burials, and cemeteries, which are still mostly run by the national churches, have been affected by this effort. The use of neutrality in this context, however, begs the question: neutral with regard to what or to whom? This article explores the concept of neutrality in Scandinavia and studies three cases to see how it works in practice. These cases include new burial and graveyard laws in Norway, the idea of a neutral ceremony room in Denmark, and the introduction of a neutral cemetery section in Sweden.

This article seeks to interrogate critically and problematize the silence on the suburb in urban theology: in the process the article seeks to illustrate the importance of the suburb through examining it considering the soteriology underpinning apartheid spatial planning and its persistent quasi-soteriological envisioning of the good life in the ongoing spatial imagination of the South African city. While this proposal does not present a fully developed contextual or public theology in response to the complex place of the suburb in the city, it highlights the persistence of this silence and illustrates key theological questions that could underpin such a focus in the future.

In this article I will highlight some of the most harmful consequences of Covid-19 with respect to interpersonal relationships. I will argue that, as in a pandemic period, it is fear that continues to guide these relationships, and it is urgent to enter into a dynamic of reconciliation for the real healing of humanity. Furthermore, I will defend the need for an ecology of relationships so that the common good can be a reality. Interpersonal relationships and, inherently, the authenticity of human nature are crucial for an integral ecology, since it takes into account both human nature and natural nature. Thus, it will not be possible to think about safeguarding ecosystems, or even safeguarding the planet, if this reflection is not based on the truth of the human essence and on how human action – inside and outside the pandemic context – determines and shapes the reality in which we are inserted and of which we are part.

This article introduces some discussion on the limitations of the distinction between laicidad and secularization in Latin America (and to a lesser extent, the notion of religious freedom), mainly highlighting the problem of the colonial origin of these conceptions and their relationship with the liberal hegemonic political framework of the field. The paper’s thesis is that the boundaries for achieving a secular context in the region are not only connected to the lack of secular policies but to the application of limited concepts on the separation between church and state, and the impact of this emphasis on a reductionist vision of the religious diversity phenomenon and its link with the socio-political processes of the region. Our propose, finally, is to review these ideas in the light of the concept of radical democracy, and the contribution of this category in the broadening of the processes of institutionalization of religious identity configurations. We will take as an example of application the debates raised by the Pavez vs. Chile case in the Inter-American Court, resolved in the year 2021.