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Death by committee
Get PDFThis response to Harry Reid\u27s Outside Verdict: An Old Kirk in a New Scotland builds on the book\u27s extensive use of demographic data by presenting further statistical evidence of institutional decline in the Church of Scotland. The paper considers the wider picture of church decline in Scotland and internationally, and also looks at specific issues raised by the book including \u27administrative stagnation in the face of catastrophic membership decline\u27
FROM MYTHOS TO LOGOS. PROGRESS OF EROTIC CUSTOMS IN LONGUS’POIMENIKÀ
Get PDFMy paper intends to demonstrate that ancient novels, though often employing mythical patterns, sought to mark a progression away from the ambiguous ethics that informed issues of eroticism in most of the mythical tradition by moving toward a more egalitarian conception of the relationship between the sexes. This progression is particularly evident in Longus’ Poimenikà. In the first three books of this novel we find three mythical excursus which describe virgins undergoing a process of metamorphosis in order to escape a god’s rape or other kinds of abuse. The god Pan is regarded as the emblem of eros, purely physical desire, which is something sterile and degrading. On the contrary, the last book offers a positive model of the relationship between men and women: Daphnis and Chloe’s love reaches marital union, the proper place to experience sex as a divertissement with the crucial goal being that of procreation. The dichotomy between mythos and logos is implied earlier in the novel. If the excursus are classified as myths and they conclude with the virgins losing their human status, Longus underlines that his story is a truthful logos, and he gives it a happy ending: Chloe gains a role in society. Against the trend of looking at mythos as a container of ideal behavioural schemes and at a mythical Golden Age, Longus celebrates the development of erotic customs in his time through the means of a recent mimetic literary genre consisting of human characters. Although the Poimenikà take place in an idealised past, they give account of a contemporary social reality that is more respectful of female volition and they evoke a yearning to substitute the primeval mythical erotic code with the hope of becoming the new paradigm for erotic literature.
Tak the hand
Get PDFIn this paper David Scott discusses the theology and rites of ordination of the Scottish Reformed tradition and goes on to reflect on more specific aspects of ministry. His paper takes its title from his examination of the rites of ordination according to Knox’s liturgy whereby, rather than being set apart by the laying on of hands, new ministers were welcomed by colleagues who came forward to ‘tak the hand’ of the ordinand. Following on from a historical survey, the paper includes a critical review of the terminology of ministry in the contemporary Church of Scotland and reflects on issues relevant to ministry today such as assessment, training and the nature of ordination
PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS ON THE PROCESSES OF NEGATION
Get PDFOne of the most intriguing characters of Late Antiquity is the author who wrote under the pseudonym ‘Dionysius, the Areopagite’. Although the 19th century German scholarship challenged the authenticity of the Corpus Areopagiticum, interest in this singular synthesis of Greek Neoplatonist philosophy with Christian thought remains significant. Usually, the works of the corpus are organized according to their internal logic: departing from affirmations we find excellent negations, starting with the cataphatic method we prepare apophaticism. It is customary to point the dialectical structure of the areopagitica, for instance in comparison with authors such as Proclus. However, these kind of remarks undervalue the distinctive features of a profoundly ‘work in process’ speculation. This paper aims to describe the Dionysian system and its first principle’s absolute difference, a synonym of God’s ineffability and transcendence, in order to discuss how speech or thought of it still may subsist. Even if this One is ineffable and transcendent, it can nevertheless ‘be’, including to be ‘known’ and ‘said’, but differently from typical assertions of being, intelligence, and speech. This very otherness can be found translated through a positing beyond (ὑπέρ), a linguistic device which translates the author’s whole philosophical thesis on the processes of negation and their overcoming.
"Window on Westminster" by Trevor Beeson
No full textReview ofTrevor Beeson, Window on Westminster (London: SCM Press, 2001
A note on the SCM Classics series
No full textA note about volumes published to date in the SCM Classics series
Tabernacles of the Spirit
Get PDFIn the classic tradition of the exploratory essay, George Gammack examines the theme of community in this paper. He details varied aspects of the creation of community among those who are retired, taking as its focus the Men’s Sheds movement. The paper explores the relationship between persons and community in later years, looking in particular at how those with a lifetime’s worth of skills and knowledge can continue to contribute to the life of a community. Along the way we are introduced to the work of authors such as Charles Taylor, Richard Niebuhr, Primo Levi, Seamus Heaney and Richard Sennett on the subject of work and what comes after it
The via media
Get PDFThis paper begins by considering the reception of Harry Reid\u27s Outside Verdict: An Old Kirk in a New Scotland in the Scottish media and looks at how this compared with the response to the book from within the Church of Scotland. It goes on to examine some of the main themes of the book including the need for structural change and the Kirk\u27s status as national church
Taking Darwin seriously
Get PDFProfessor Neil Spurway considers Darwin’s theoretical development of evolution by natural selection alongside the picture presented in the creation narratives in Genesis, before undertaking a survey of the reception of Darwinism by theologians and others up to the present day. Rich in quotations from writers as diverse as Charles Kingsley, Austin Farrer, Teilhard de Chardin, Sarah Coakley and Simon Conway Morris (amongst many others), this wide-ranging discussion covers a great deal of territory as it considers how theology has responded to the perceived challenges posed by evolutionary thought