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The mystical as political : democracy and non-radical Orthodoxy
Theosis, or the principle of divine-human communion, sparks the theological imagination of Orthodox Christians and has been historically important to questions of political theology. In The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy, Aristotle Papanikolaou argues that a political theology grounded in the principle of divine-human communion must be one that unequivocally endorses a political community that is democratic in a way that structures itself around the modern liberal principles of freedom of religion, the protection of human rights, and church-state separation. Papanikolaou hopes to forge a non-radical Orthodox political theology that extends beyond a reflexive opposition to the West and a nostalgic return to a Byzantine-like unified political-religious culture. His exploration is prompted by two trends: the fall of communism in traditionally Orthodox countries has revealed an unpreparedness on the part of Orthodox Christianity to address the question of political theology in a way that is consistent with its core axiom of theosis; and recent Christian political theology, some of it evoking the notion of “deification,” has been critical of liberal democracy, implying a mutual incompatibility between a Christian worldview and that of modern liberal democracy. The first comprehensive treatment from an Orthodox theological perspective of the issue of the compatibility between Orthodoxy and liberal democracy, Papanikolaou’s is an affirmation that Orthodox support for liberal forms of democracy is justified within the framework of Orthodox understandings of God and the human person. His overtly theological approach shows that the basic principles of liberal democracy are not tied exclusively to the language and categories of Enlightenment philosophy and, so, are not inherently secular.
eBook
The 'Uniate' Identity and the Construction of 'Eastern Orthodoxy': Reflections on the Confessionalization Process in the Slavic East
The article focuses on the origins of Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox identities in the early modern and modern Slavic East. The concept of confessionalization can serve as a helpful tool in exploring questions of ecclesial identity. Applied to the Slavic East, the confessionalization paradigm helps to uncover both continuities and discontinuities in post-Byzantine religious history, approached in a comparative East-West perspective. The article critically engages with contemporary scholarship on the subject and seeks to contribute to a rethinking of some of the most common assumptions about the world of Eastern Christianity and the place of the Eastern Catholic churches in it. The approach of the article bridges history and ecclesiology.
Journal Article
The Alhambra at the crossroads of history : Eastern and Western visions in the long nineteenth century
Examining the contemporary press, memoirs, travelogues and photographs - as well as the visitors' book, this title uses the Alhambra to build a history of the complex and entangled relations between East and West, North and South, Islam and Christianity, centre and periphery during the heyday of Orientalism and Western hegemony. A growing flow of visitors in the 19th century turned the Alhambra into a touristic destination and a major trope of Orientalism, created by Western authors and artists from Franois-Ren de Chateaubriand to Owen Jones and from Washington Irving to Jean-Lon Grme. Yet behind this Western infatuation lie scores of Oriental observers of the monument, as revealed by its visitors book, kept since 1829. This book uses this untapped source to analyse the perceptions of the Alhambra by multiple actors, including Westerners, Spaniards, Maghrebines, Ottoman Turks, Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs from the Mashreq. In doing so, it reveals the existence of significant variations in both Western and Oriental perceptions of the monument, from Oriental Orientalism to Arab nationalism. Examining the contemporary press, memoirs, travelogues and photographs as well as the visitors book it uses the Alhambra to build a history of the complex and entangled relations between East and West, North and South, Islam and Christianity, centre and periphery during the heyday of Orientalism and Western hegemony.
Book
Theological Interpretation of Culture in Post-Communist Context
Twenty years after the fall of Communism in Central and East Europe is an ocassion to reevaluate the cultural and theological contribution from that region to the secularization - post-secularization debate. Czech theologian Ivana Noble develops a Trinitarian theology through a close dialogue with literature, music and film, which formed not only alternatives to totalitarian ideologies, but also followed the loss and reappeareance of belief in God. Noble explains that, by listening to the artists, the churches and theologians can deal with questions about the nature of the world, memory and ultimate fulfilment in a more nuanced way. Then, as partakers in the search undertaken by their secular and post-secular contemporaries, theologians can penetrate a new depth of meaning, sending out shoots from the stump of Christian symbolism. Drawing on the rich cultures of Central and East Europe and both Western and Eastern theological traditions, this book presents a theological reading of contemporary culture which is important not just for post-Communist countries but for all who are engaged in the debate on the boundaries between theology, politics and arts.
Contents: Preface; Introduction: culture as a theological theme; Part I The World: Images of the world in Karel Capek and Isaac Bashevis Singer; Theologies of the world. Part II Memory: Heritage of totaltarian cultures in folk music; Redemptive memory on theology. Part III The Ultimate Fulfilment: Figuring the ultimate fulfilment in Central European cinema; Love as the ultimate fulfilment in theology; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Ivana Noble (DolejÅ¡ová) is a Czech theologian, a graduate of the Hussite Theological Faculty in Prague, where she finished her Masters degree just after the fall of Communism. She completed her doctoral studies at Heythrop College in London with a thesis Account of Hope: A Problem of Method in Postmodern Apologia (published in 2001). In 1994-2000 she was Director of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies in Prague, which she co-founded. During that time she wrote also her habilitation work, published in Czech as Po BozÃch stopách: Teologie jako interpretace nábozenské zkuÅ¡enosti (in 2004), which has now been published in English under the title Tracking God: Ecumenical Fundamental Theology (2010). She is a former president of Societas Oecumenica, the European association for ecumenical theology and author of numerous articles on the hermeneutics of Christian tradition, the dialogue between philosophy, theology and arts, as well as on theological responses to totalitarian thinking and the secularization - post-secularization debate. Currently she works as an associate professor of Ecumenical Theology at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University and is also a Senior Research Fellow at the International Baptist Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic.
eBook
Understanding God’s (im)mutability and (im)passibility: A Greek patristic point of view
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that patristic theology has resolved the problem of God’s immutability, which is affirmed paradoxically Holy Scripture. This resolution has been achieved through clarifying of the distinction between God’s essence and his uncreated energies. The Eastern Fathers successfully synthesized key theological concepts: the changelessness of God and his dynamic activity in relation to creation. This synthesis is most profoundly articulated in the Palamite doctrine of the uncreated energies. These energies, while emanating from the changeless essence of God, are nevertheless subject to change. According to this teaching, God is a Trinity of Persons who exists on two primary planes: within himself and in his self-revelation, both in the realms of Theologia and Economia. He is unchangeable in essence, yet changeable, alive, active, and ever-new in his providential action of saving the world through his energies. Because he is transcendent, he can be immanent, instilling in the souls who love him a deeper thirst to know and experience him more profoundly.Contribution: The dogmatic formulas in Eastern Christianity are apophatic, antinomic and paradoxical because they encompass essentially contradictory aspects of a living and inexhaustibly rich reality. Thus, by their very nature, dogmas express everything: the infinite and the finite united – without losing their own being in all their dimensions.
Journal Article
Revisiting Biblical Studies in Light of Reception Theory: Christian and Jewish Arabic Sources on Psalms 110 and 137
The purpose of the present paper is to revisit the interface between biblical studies, reception exegesis, and reception theory. In the first part of the paper, we discuss what we believe to be the most important lessons learned from recent scholarship on the relationship between these fields and highlight what we think is still an underestimated conclusion: if we assume that “meaning” is contextual rather than essential, the full(er) capacity of a biblical text is not discoverable until we have examined how it has appeared in various contexts. Related to this is the question of why and how texts survive and even thrive in new contexts and in what way later authors utilize the “capacity” of the biblical texts, because even if “meaning” is ultimately brought to texts by their readers, texts are in some senses agents as well. To exemplify these discussions and the connection between reception exegesis and biblical criticism, two short examples from the reception of Psalms 110 and 137 in medieval Christian Arabic and Judeo-Arabic sources are presented. In the first example, we recapitulate findings on how inner-biblical reception generates a complex web of potential interpretations but also how the ambivalence created in the process may be the greatest asset of that text. It is also an example of where interpretation may teach us about the life and thought of ancient and medieval communities and how they interacted with one another over the meaning of the biblical text. In contrast, the second example is more centered on the “capacity” of the text and in what sense communities exploit that potential for their larger purposes.
Journal Article
Sharpening the Identities of African Churches in Eastern Christianity: A Comparison of Entanglements between Religion and Ethnicity
Although at first sight Eastern Christianity is not associated with Africa, the African continent has shaped the establishment and development of three of the four main Eastern Christian traditions. Through a sociological lens, we examine the identity of the above African churches, focusing on the socio-historical entanglements of their religious and ethnic features. Firstly, we study the identity of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Eritrean Orthodox Church belonging to Oriental Orthodoxy. We focus on these African churches—and their diasporas in Western countries—as indigenous Christian paths in Africa. Secondly, we examine the identity of Africans and African-Americans within Eastern Orthodoxy. We consider both to have some inculturation issues within the Patriarchate of Alexandria and the development of an African-American component within Orthodoxy in the USA. Thirdly, we analyze the recent establishment and identity formation of African churches belonging to Eastern-rite Catholic Churches. In short, we aim to elaborate an overview of the multiple identities of African churches and one ecclesial community in Eastern Christianity, and to compare diverse sociological entanglements between religious and ethnic traits within them. A fruitful but neglected research subject, these churches’ identities appear to be reciprocally shaped by their own Eastern Christian tradition and ethnic heritage.
Journal Article
From Tillable Fields to Men’s Equal Partners: The Treatment of Women in Early Muslim–Christian Polemic
Even though women and questions of gender difference are not a core issue in medieval Eastern Christian–Muslim polemic, there are numerous arguments that go back and forth between Muslims and Christians that revolve around women. In the large corpus of polemical texts from the Middle East between the 8th and the 13th centuries, it can be noted that criticism of the other religion involves pointing out illogicalities and absurdities in each other’s doctrines and rituals. Carefully constructed arguments against the claim to Divine endorsement of the faith of the other party are frequently interlaced with criticism of their alleged immoral behavior. Although women feature mostly in the emotive sections of the polemical compositions, there are also reasoned debates about the issue of gender equality in the eyes of God. The discussion of these texts here brings out a range of diverse ideas about women that function primarily as sources for subsidiary arguments against the religious other. At the same time, this study reveals that these arguments were not invented ad hoc. They show the interconnectedness of works within a corpus of polemical texts that spans five centuries.
Journal Article