http://www.acu.edu.au/about_acu/faculties_schools_institutes/faculties/theology_and_philosophy/schools/theology/ejournal/img/2nd_level_list_for_every_index_issue2ACU Theology eJournal RSS feed2009-09-15http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/197644/Bevans_Mission_Has_Church.pdfStephen Bevans SVDAbstract: In his recent sojourn as Visiting Professor to Melbourne’s Yarra Theological Union, Stephen Bevans also gave talks throughout Australia on the theme of the Church’s mission today. The textual basis of those talks follows. It begins not with the church or mission, but with God whose very nature is mission. This means that the starting point for missiological reflection is not the church, but God’s engagement with the world and the church through the communicating Word and empowering Spirit. These rich reflections, by one of today’s foremost missiologists, lead us to think church and mission less in terms of onerous duty than divine invitation to join in the dance. (Editor)2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/197645/Thornhill_Chapter_4.pdfJohn Thornhill SMEditor’s Note: Earlier chapters of this E-book are available in prior issues of AEJT, 11--13. The author continues to present his case for a significant re-thinking of the place and importance of Christopher Dawson for a contemporary philosophy and theology of history.2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/197646/Boer_Calvin.pdfRoland BoerAbstract: This essay focuses on the famous last section of John Calvin’s Institutes (4.20.32), where for all his efforts to stipulate obedience to rulers, he closes with the realization that one is duty-bound to disobey any ungodly and tyrannical ruler. Through a close reading of the literary structure of Calvin’s argument, I follow his struggle concerning this issue, moving through his assertions that one must obey at any cost, through recognizing that God and/or his appointed agents may punish and overthrow tyrannical rulers, to his direction not to obey any ungodly ruler. This last topic is the most absorbing of all, for it reveals Calvin struggling with a tension between radical and conservative elements within his theology.2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/197647/Canning_culture_or_faith.pdfRaymond CanningAbstract: This is a revised text presented at the Fifth International Inter-Religious Abraham Conference, Sydney, August 2006, which took as its theme “Interfaith Relations in Confronting Cultural Conflict”. [Editor]2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/197648/Coombes_Structure_1John.pdfMalcolm CoombesAbstract: 1 John is found to consist of small subunits delineated by repetitions of words and rhetorical structures, especially three-fold repetitions. In these subunits keywords are identified which facilitate and emphasise the conveyance of meaning in the subunit. Subunits are connected to neighbouring subunits by link words or ideas allowing a flow of meaning. A process is outlined to group these subunits together into larger units, to map the flow of thought through the book and to provide an overall schema of 1 John.2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/197673/Morrison_Good_Teaching.pdfGlenn MorrisonAbstract: The essay aims to show that nurturing a spirituality of good teaching could provide a more committed and responsible attitude towards education. Spirituality speaks of relationships, the search for meaning and, in Levinasian terms, having a heart for another. Students demand that teachers should be many things such as passionate, engaging, intelligent, fun, challenging, fair and creative. The more we can develop meaning and a spirituality in teaching, the more we may meet these demands and also attend to the students’ enthusiasm, frustration, uncertainty, impatience, fears and dreams.2009-09-07http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/197675/Veling_For_You_Alone_GH.pdfTerry A. VelingAbstract: The author, well known for his writings in practical theology and on the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, presents a sustained spiritual-theological reflection on Levinas’ approach to transcendence and relationship. (Editor)2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/197681/Darragh_Urban.pdfNeil DarraghAbstract: This paper describes the process by which a project for the transformation of an urban area regarded as a concentration of deprivation is being developed. The process requires a multi-agency approach in which several national and local government agencies cooperate with one another and with the local community to stimulate social, economic, and environmental change. The paper seeks to uncover the attitudes (or spirituality) that underlie this approach to urban change. It suggests how these attitudes can be seen to synchronise with traditional theological concepts and to be taking options among traditional theological debates. In taking such options urban project planning also throws out some serious challenges to existing Christian theology.2009-09-07http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/197683/Engebretson_Catholic.pdfKath EngebretsonAbstract: This is the third in a series of four papers which seeks to articulate theologically and practically the consequences of the ecclesial identity of the Catholic school. The series is based on the principle that the “marks” of the Church-one, holy, catholic and apostolic-are also marks of the Catholic school, since the Catholic school is within the Church and derives its ecclesial identity from the Church. Each paper analyses one of these “marks”, discerning what it means theologically and practically for the Catholic school. In this paper, the third of the marks of the Church and therefore of the Catholic school- catholic- is discussed in terms of what it means for the school to be both catholic and Catholic. It is argued that as catholic, the mission of the school is universal, and the implications of this in terms of students from other Christian denominations and other religions are considered. It is also argued that as Catholic, the school is called to the religious socialization of Catholic students, and that this task takes place within a particular theological context, and has particular responsibilities.2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/197684/Ghosn_Maronites.pdfMargaret Ghosn MSHFAbstract: The research described in this paper examined the religious influence on the lives of a group of young Australian-Lebanese adults who attended a Maronite Catholic Church in Sydney, Australia. Data gathered through qualitative methods of in-depth and focus group interviews were collated using grounded theory, to reveal how religion defined a pattern of beliefs and morals and how it offered spirituality and social structures that guided these thirty three young Maronite adults. It was revealed that the Maronite Catholic faith of these young adults was tightly interwoven with nationality and Lebanese culture.2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/197686/Knight_Habermas.pdfE Alfred KnightAbstract: The concept of formal pragmatics exhibits the potential for rationality that is supposed to be implicit in the everyday language practices of societies. It is located in certain idealisations that guide communicative action to the extent that communication is linked to validity. While this reconstructive theory seeks to identify universal presuppositions of everyday communication in modern societies, this paper will show that it can be transposed onto an ancient communication (St Stephen’s speech) as an example of communicative action. Interpreting St Stephen’s speech according to Habermas’ formal pragmatics in the communicative framework, infers a conception of purpose and potential to build on this example for other speech acts and communicative processes in the Bible.2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/197687/Macginley_Women_Rels_Aust.pdfRosa MacGinley PBVMEditor’s Note: This article is based on a paper originally given at the international colloquium, ‘Religious Institutes and the Roman Factor in Western Europe 1802-1917’, organised by the KADOC Centre, Catholic University Leuven, and held in Rome in May 2004.2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/197688/Mshanga_Justus_et_Peccator.pdfVitalis MshangaAbstract: The teaching that a believer is simultaneously righteous and a sinner, that is, simul iustus et peccator is highly valued in the Lutheran confession. In the Roman Catholic Tradition, however, it is simply unacceptable. In recent years, in ecumenical circles, many efforts have been made without avail to overcome these differences. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to contribute to the simul debate in a bid to overcome the ecumenical impasse on this doctrinal issue.2009-09-15http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/197689/Steeles_Barthes-and-Derrida_rev.pdfKathleen SteeleAbstract: This essay considers Barthes’ and Derrida’s continuing dialogue with Nietzsche’s claim, “God is dead”. Barthes urges one, in The Death of the Author, to accept the text as a means of escape from the nothingness of the self, and Derrida, at first glance, appears to agree when he states in The Gift of Death, that the first effect or destination of language involves the deprivation of an individual's selfhood. However; he uses the aporia of responsibility to highlight the paradoxes present in language/texts and offers deconstruction, not as a solution, rather as a tool for recognising and disarming such. A thorough examination of Barthes and Derrida contesting claims reveals flaws in their attempts to free post-modern theory from the grand narrative of Judeo-Christian theology, and sees both theorists caught in the paradox of defining their freedom against the very theology they deny.2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/197690/Gibbs_-_Death_and_Life_PNG.pdfPhilip Gibbs SVDAbstract: News that one is HIV infected is often seen as a death sentence. This paper uses a re-reading of passages from the Fourth Gospel to question that opinion. The paper looks firstly at the political, socio-cultural and economic driving forces of the epidemic. These factors are interrelated and all influence the pattern and speed of spread of the epidemic in PNG. Trust and respect between ethnic groups is low, women have a significant lifetime chance of being raped. Networks with concurrent sexual relationships continue to expand, and PNG has the greatest socio-economic disparity in the Asian and Pacific regions. What then is the practical Gospel message of life in face of such forces of death? What does it mean to talk of the goodness of God in the context of HIV and AIDS? How can we understand the HIV epidemic in the light of the Christian mystery of life and death?2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/197894/BOOK_REVIEW_Controversies_in_Feminist_Theology.pdfMarcella Althaus-Reid & Lisa Isherwood (eds)2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/197897/BOOK_REVIEW_McArdle.pdfPatrick McArdle2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/197898/BOOK_REVIEW_Rush_review.pdfOrmond Rush2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/197899/BOOK_REVIEW_Lynch.pdfSandra Lynch2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/197900/BOOK_REVIEW_Cowdell.pdfScott Cowdell2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/197915/POEM_Imagine_a_circle.pdfKathryn Hamann2009-09-03http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/197917/POEM__Speaking.pdfKathryn Hamann2009-09-04http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/197995/BOOK_REVIEW_Marists.pdfAlois Greiler (ed.)2009-09-04http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/198188/Editorial_AJK.pdfAnthony J Kelly CSsR2009-09-04http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/198189/Editors_Notes.pdfGerard Hall SM