In this introduction to the special issue, we examine the rift between psychological scholarship on race and racism in the academy and the critical theories embraced by activists and other social ...sciences. While Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) called on psychologists to “tell it like it is” by illuminating the reality of oppression and racism in its many forms, very little work in the (ideological) psychological literatures has examined this diversity of oppression, including neoliberalism and capitalist structures and how incremental engagement with the political system may do little to actually improve oppressed people's lives. We argue that psychological scholarship and activism on race and racism have diverged. Whereas, activists and nonpsychological social scientists have embraced critical perspectives (e.g., intersectionality and critical race theory), psychologists have not, likely distracted by a move toward more internal and cognitive analyses of prejudice and bias. The articles in this special issue attempt to demonstrate new ways to answer MLK's call in the areas of diversity and leadership, the efficacy of political action, and resistance to oppression.
Luther's famous Ninety‐five Theses overshadowed his twenty‐eight theses of the Heidelberg Disputation. This is regrettable insofar as Luther broke in Heidelberg with the traditional scholastic method ...and introduced for the first time publicly his influential theology of the cross. Luther's existential emphasis in this Disputation is particularly significant, because he answers here the big questions for us: Who am I really in the sight of God? What is my true identity in Christ? Luther radically exposes our self‐centeredness and calls us to look at the world, God, and ourselves through “suffering and the cross,” as only in this way will we be able to perceive clearly and “say what a thing is.” He encourages us to become theologians of the cross who have given up on themselves and discovered that “everything is already done.” Luther's passionate plea to put the cross of Christ at the center of our lives is a welcome reminder for us today, even five hundred years later, as we seek to find out who we are, who God is, and what God is accomplishing in and through us. Rescuing Luther's Heidelberg Disputation from oblivion is vital for the health of both church and academia today.
The jubilees of the Reformation which mark, since 1617, the life of communities in cities and territories Lutheran remain strong moments of remembrance around Martin Luther's figure. But they are not ...the only official times which allow the Protestant preacher to mention the reformer and, in a very understated way, Luther’s death - occured on February 18th, 1546 - also was a theme approached in pulpit around his Existence, Work and Legacy.The subject developed by this article is more particularly interested in a sermon, pronounced in February of 1846, by the Parisian minister Rodolphe Cuvier (1785-1867) in the église évangélique de la Rédemption. It aims at understanding what a Protestant French preacher of the 19th Century retained of the German reformer of the 16th Century.The arguments used in this Sermon pour le troisième anniversaire séculaire de la mort de Luther are the same that in the sermons pronounced during the jubilees of the Reformation. The clergyman insists on the honorable death of the Reformer and also develops the exemplarity of his Existence and his Work. Diverse subjects are used for it, religious, theological, polemical, memory, and sometimes political. He makes of the German reformer, beyond of time and place of the speech, the figure of a big plasticity and thus, easily updatable.
Dass die Reformation wichtige Bildungsimpulse (Stichworte Alphabetisierung und Mündigkeit) gesetzt hat, ist heute unumstritten. Der Kerninhalt reformatorischer Theologie, die Rechtfertigung des ...Gottlosen, scheint demgegenüber nur historisch relevant und allenfalls über soziale Kanäle vermittelbar zu sein. Schon für Luther war allerdings deren Grundlage, das Einüben evangelischer Unterscheidungskunst, zentrales Bildungsanliegen, weil die Rechtfertigungsfigur sich nicht von selbst versteht, sondern ein differenziertes Selbstbild und Gottesbild voraussetzt. Der Beitrag geht dem nach und fragt, wo dieses Bildungsanliegen in der heutigen Religionspädagogik aufgegriffen wird und wie dies Schülerinnen und Schülern vermittelt werden kann. Unter anderem im Blick auf Schulbücher wird das Desiderat erkennbar, die der Rechtfertigungstheologie eigentümliche Dialektik als dynamische Grundstruktur evangelischer Bildungsprozesse wiederzuentdecken.
Much has been written about Heidegger's indebtedness to Luther in developing Being and Time. Recently Duane Armitage has claimed that since Heidegger is the “root to all continental philosophy of ...religion and postmodern theology,” and since his “disdain for onto‐theology is rooted in Luther, . . . essentially all postmodern theological thinking is fundamentally Lutheran.” Clearly, both Martins de‐emphasize theology's penchant for metaphysics and look instead to recover the facticity of concrete lived Christian existence. But surface similarities should not occlude what profoundly differentiates the two, for the Martins depart radically in what they thought thinking did and what the truth‐conditions of their respective discourses were. Luther who assumed theological realism was concerned with how human beings really stand in relation to God, while Heidegger brackets such questions in favor of a description of the phenomenological shape of the Christian life. I employ elementary model theory in order to provide greater precision and accuracy in evaluating the stark semantic differences between their respective approaches.
Protestantism is usually thought of as rejecting the figure of Mary as a collaborator in Christ’s redemption. In Luther’s commentary on the Magnificat (1521), we can see that this doctrine would ...continue to evolve throughout his life, and would not always be free of apparent ambiguities. Luther extolled the figure of Mary, but at the same time he could not avoid reinterpreting her according to the presuppositions of the doctrine of justification and his theology of the Cross, and he understands the figure of Mary as a Mater dolorosa, as one who participates in a special way in the sorrow of her Son. Her union with the Saviour means she shares his pain. In these lines, we intend to look at the main points proposed by the German reformer in his new perspective on Mariology, and the possible influence of this change in spirituality on painting, for example, in The Crucifixion (1532) by Luther’s personal friend Lucas Cranach the Elder, and we propose a comparison with The Lamentation of Christ (1502), painted before the Reformation.
Humility is enjoying an upsurge of interest among contemporary virtue theorists. Unfortunately, many of these discussions have cast humility as inconsistent with social activism. Humility is assumed ...to consist of quiet and unobtrusive traits which seem inconsistent with the assertiveness and outspokenness required for social activism. Paul Bloomfield argues that this aspect of humility – being inconsistent with social activism – prevents it from counting as a virtue at all as a virtue must be the kind of thing that is always appropriate to possess and display. Here I attempt to present an account of humility that is not inconsistent with social activism and that can, and should, be considered a virtue where virtue is loosely understood to mean a generally desirable trait of character.
This paper delves into Erik H. Erikson’s psychohistorical analysis of Martin Luther, thereby highlighting the existential import of Luther’s identity crisis in the formation of his religious identity ...as a
homo religiosus
. Within this framework, the intricate interrelationship between psychoanalysis and religion is expounded on by centering on Erikson’s psychosocial approach to religion. Through a constructive reevaluation of Erikson’s seminal work,
Young Man Luther
, three major events in Luther’s adolescence that influenced the formation of Luther’s religious identity are examined. This paper especially zeros in on Luther’s identity crisis stemming from his disconnection from a “threefold fatherhood” and its resolution through his connection to an alternative fatherhood. Lastly, the applicability of Erikson’s psychosocial developmental theory is evaluated in light of decolonization and its intercultural relevance today.
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