This work retraces the ways that Paul Tillich conceived of the question of apologetics. It refers back to the theologian's earliest writings and shows a shift in his understanding of apologetics: he ...went from an apologetics of attack toward an apologetics of response, tied to his correlative method. In addition, the study takes up the debate between Tillich and Barth on this subject, and envisages a breakthrough in interreligious dialogue.
Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was a thinker of international charisma and worldwide repute. His works provide important impulses for debates on theology, philosophy of religion and cultural theory. The ...series Tillich Research reflects on international research on this notable theologian and philosopher, the academic exploitation of his works with its range of different approaches to its reception and interpretation, as well as a diverse selection of themes and emphasis on them.
Jimmy joined the church a year ago. Before long, he volunteered to teach a Sunday School class and got to know eight-year-old ';Peter.' Things started innocently. A hug at the end of class. Gifts for ...Peter. Lots of extra attention. And then it happened. Jimmy took advantage of Peter. Since Sandusky and the scandals in the Catholic Church, the issue of sexual abuse has shifted to the forefront of our collective mind. Many churches are poised for action but unsure of what action to take. In On Guard, Deepak Reju examines why child predators target churches and offers eleven straightforward strategies to protect children from abuse and to help young victims recover if it does happen. While On Guard does provide practical help for building a child protection policy, it provides much more. Full of pastoral wisdom, On Guard recognizes that the church's response to abuse must be more comprehensivein line with her callingthan a simple legal policy or clinical analysis. On Guard moves church staff and leaders beyond fearful awareness to prayerful preparedness with an actionable plan. Church, be on guard! Child abuse can happen anywhere, and we need a plan for how to prevent and respond to it. What's yours?
Original Apologetics Stuart Nicolson
Theology and Philosophy of Education,
12/2023, Volume:
2, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
It can be said that apologetics was superseded in and around the Second Vatican Council: the word, or any version of it, was not included in any of the sixteen documents. However, apologetics by the ...20th century had become significantly different from the wide and general apologetics of the first century and a half of Christianity, and for the scriptural calls for it. This original apologetics, or Petrine apologetics, was replaced by a very specific approach which can be called Justinian apologetics. It was the latter that Vatican II more or less rejected, and 11 of the conciliar documents have either clear calls or content that seek a return to Petrine, that is, original apologetics. This is a call to be prepared, that is, through appropriate education, to respond to others who question or challenge Christianity, and to do so in an appropriate Christian manner, which in turn is a form of educating: removing obstacles to belief by explaining.
Original Apologetics Stuart Nicolson
Theology and Philosophy of Education,
12/2023, Volume:
2, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
It can be said that apologetics was superseded in and around the Second Vatican Council: the word, or any version of it, was not included in any of the sixteen documents. However, apologetics by the ...20th century had become significantly different from the wide and general apologetics of the first century and a half of Christianity, and for the scriptural calls for it. This original apologetics, or Petrine apologetics, was replaced by a very specific approach which can be called Justinian apologetics. It was the latter that Vatican II more or less rejected, and 11 of the conciliar documents have either clear calls or content that seek a return to Petrine, that is, original apologetics. This is a call to be prepared, that is, through appropriate education, to respond to others who question or challenge Christianity, and to do so in an appropriate Christian manner, which in turn is a form of educating: removing obstacles to belief by explaining.
In 1322, a Jewish doctor named Abner entered a synagogue in the Castilian city of Burgos and began to weep in prayer. Falling asleep, he dreamed of a "great man" who urged him to awaken from his ...slumber. Shortly thereafter, he converted to Christianity and wrote a number of works attacking his old faith. Abner tells the story in fantastic detail in the opening to his Hebrew-language but anti-Jewish polemical treatise,Teacher of Righteousness. In the religiously plural context of the medieval Western Mediterranean, religious conversion played an important role as a marker of social boundaries and individual identity. The writers of medieval religious polemics such asTeacher of Righteousnessoften began by giving a brief, first-person account of the rejection of their old faith and their embrace of the new. In such accounts, Ryan Szpiech argues, the narrative form plays an important role in dramatizing the transition from infidelity to faith. Szpiech draws on a wide body of sources from Christian, Jewish, and Muslim polemics to investigate the place of narrative in the representation of conversion. Making a firm distinction between stories told about conversion and the experience of religious change, his book is not a history of conversion itself but a comparative study of how and why it was presented in narrative form within the context of religious disputation. He argues that between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, conversion narratives were needed to represent communal notions of history and authority in allegorical, dramatic terms. After considering the late antique paradigms on which medieval Christian conversion narratives were based, Szpiech juxtaposes Christian stories with contemporary accounts of conversion to Islam and Judaism. He emphasizes that polemical conflict between Abrahamic religions in the medieval Mediterranean centered on competing visions of history and salvation. By seeing conversion not as an individual experience but as a public narrative,Conversion and Narrativeprovides a new, interdisciplinary perspective on medieval writing about religious disputes.
Few works of the early Church are as interesting to the modern reader or as important to the historian as Origen's reply to the attack on Christianity made by the pagan Celsus. The Contra Celsum is ...the culmination of the great apologetic movement of the second and third centuries AD, and is for the Greek Church what St Augustine's City of God is for Western Christendom. It is also one of the chief monuments of the coming together of ancient Greek culture and the new faith of the expanding Christian society. Thus Origen's work is of interest not only to the historian and theologian, but also to the hellenist. Professor Chadwick's English translation is preceded by a substantial introduction which includes discussion on Celsus' date, identity and theological outlook, as well as an account of Origen's philosophical background and method. The notes elucidate the many obscure allusions of a difficult text.
