Primordial Grace

Primordial grace, the great perfection woven throughout the fabric of being, offers always a way home, in and through the natural radiance of the origin itself. The practices of opening to this sacred wholeness arose out of direct experience in the wilderness long before humans turned from the Earth and created structures of separation. Particularly now in these times of great upheaval brought on by human insistence on remaining apart from the natural world, we need to make a different choice by embracing the teachings that are all around us manifesting naturally as the vision that is this life, letting go of separation, reconnecting with the Earth, and acknowledging the radiant intent at the heart of all being. A guide for reuniting with this primordial path as a prayer for all life, Primordial Grace joins a greatly revised version of their previous work, Luminous Heart of the Earth, with the visionary path of radiance, providing a guide to the natural wholeness of the complete path. Primordial Grace is offered as a seed of hope. Within a seed is the energy to live and grow in the rubble of this age and reestablish human connection with the primordial grace of Earth, original heart, and radiance.

Remarkable for its scope and erudition, Jorge Arditi's new study offers a fascinating history of mores from the High Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. Drawing on the pioneering ideas of Norbert Elias, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu, Arditi examines the relationship between power and social practices and traces how power changes over time. Analyzing courtesy manuals and etiquette books from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, Arditi shows how the dominant classes of a society were able to create a system of social relations and put it into operation. The result was an infrastructure in which these classes could successfully exert power. He explores how the ecclesiastical authorities of the Middle Ages, the monarchies from the fifteenth through the seventeenth century, and the aristocracies during the early stages of modernity all forged their own codes of manners within the confines of another, dominant order. Arditi goes on to describe how each of these different groups, through the sustained deployment of their own forms of relating with one another, gradually moved into a position of dominance.

Brett Gray traces the portrayal of Christ that emerges throughout Williams' diverse writings, including in his engagements with literature and philosophy. What emerges is a vision of Jesus that grows from the roots of the Christian tradition, but is pronounced in a contemporary idiom and sensitive to modern concerns. Although attentive to the broad sweep of the Christian tradition, Williams' Christology is also seen in this book to be a particular British artefact, shaped in dialogue with thinkers such as Donald MacKinnon and Gillian Rose. What is ultimately brought to the surface in this work is the profoundly hopeful, if frequently under-pronounced, eschatology underlying Williams' Christology. Jesus is the “last word”, changing creation's possibilities and summoning it into an endless and vivifying journey.

Since the publication of Gustavo Gutiérrez's 1973 groundbreaking work, A Theology of Liberation, much has been written on liberation theology and its central premise of the preferential option for the poor. Arguably, this has been one of the most important yet controversial theological themes of the twentieth century. As globalization creates greater gaps between the rich and the poor, and as the situation for many of the world’s poor worsens, there is an ever greater need to understand the gift and challenge of Christian faith from the context of the poor and marginalized of our society. This volume draws on the thought of leading international scholars and explores how the Christian tradition can help us understand the theological foundations for the option for the poor. The central focus of the book revolves around the question, How can one live a Christian life in a world of destitution? The contributors are concerned not only with a social, economic, or political understanding of poverty but above all with the option for the poor as a theological concept. While these essays are rooted in a solid grounding of our present “reality,” they look to the past to understand some of the central truths of Christian faith and to the future as a source of Christian hope. Following Gustavo Gutiérrez's essay on the multidimensionality of poverty, Elsa Tamez, Hugh Page, Jr., Brian Daley, and Jon Sobrino identify a central theological premise: poverty is contrary to the will of God. Drawing on scripture, the writings of the early fathers, the witness of Christian martyrs, and contemporary theological reflection, they argue that poverty represents the greatest challenge to Christian faith and discipleship. David Tracy and J. Matthew Ashley carry their reflection forward by examining the option for the poor in light of apocalyptic thought. Virgilio Elizondo, Patrick Kalilombe, María Pilar Aquino, M. Shawn Copeland, and Mary Catherine Hilkert examine the challenges of poverty with respect to culture, Africa, race, and gender. Casiano Floristán and Luis Maldonado explore the relationship between poverty, sacramentality, and popular religiosity. The final two essays by Aloysius Pieris and Michael Signer consider the option for the poor in relationship to other major world religions, particularly an Asian theology of religions and the meaning of care for the poor within Judaism.

“Pope Benedict XVI, writing in 1988 as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, described Matthias Joseph Scheeben’s theology as justly praised, but rather less read. My modest hope, through this entirely straightforward study, is to encourage some more—in a phrase Scheeben would relish—ecclesially fruitful reading of him in the English-speaking world.”—From the Author’s Preface Romance and System: The Theological Synthesis of Matthias Joseph Scheeben by Aidan Nichols, OP, is a comprehensive introduction to one of the most significant dogmatic theologians of recent centuries. Exploring the vigor, coherence, and beauty of Scheeben’s theological vision, Nichols concludes that the great German theologian’s work combines “romance and system”: a lyrical appeal to the imagination and a virile challenge to the intellect, the inspiration of metaphor and the conceptual power of an architectonic account of the revelation carried by the Church. Romance and System examines the major themes of Scheeben’s works and underscores their preeminence in Catholic dogmatic theology.

In the history of world religions, as a Sikh it is my belief that there is no other book on world religions that clarifies the areas of revelations and also their limitations in their manifestation on the variety of life and how they justify to establish a real history according to the new concepts of the writer. The fear of death, jealousy, and prejudice are very natural to such religions that lack the blessings of a prophet. With comparison to a complete revelation upon this globe as the Sikh Gurus and their continuous manifestations in life with unselfish kindness and sublimity of martyrdom in variety of horrible trials through our Gurus and Khalsa, which is illumined by the word in book and word in flesh of Gurus, no other religion can compete with it. The greater holy wars of Sikh Gurus and Khalsa are unsurpassable in holy wrath and immeasurable mercy in the history of world religions with comparison to especially the greater holy wars of Islam. Dr. Gurtarn Singh Sidhu

The purpose of this study is to show that the formal definition of the spiritual Motherhood of Mary would constitute a doctrinal development from Vatican II’s teaching on Mary. It is my strong view that Mary’s spiritual motherhood should be explicitly acknowledged, accepted and stamped with the extra-ordinary infallibility of the Church magisterium so that it would become a dogma of the Church, as the sensus fidelium. Such formal definition would give the doctrine the seal of juridical authenticity and prevent it from denigration and rejection in future. This study argues that the Catholic Church needs to advance forwards from the Marian teaching of Vatican II by making concerted efforts to maintain the Marian trajectory in the Church. Also portrayed are the efforts of the papal magisterium and some noted Catholic theologians that have gone back to the sources of the early Fathers of the Church in order to teach that Mary’s spiritual Motherhood has solid foundation on Scripture and the Church’s tradition. The post-conciliar teachings of the above-stated papal magisterium and contemporary theologians have the aim to nurture and sustain the faith and understanding of the people of God about Mary’s spiritual Motherhood. The study also examines evidence to show that there is much in the Catholic Marian theology that could improve understanding among Christians of different denominations. In particular, it portrays the fact that Mariology always points to Christ, being indissolubly linked with Christology, and also has intrinsic unity with ecclesiology.

This provocative collection of papers from an international array of theologians explores the Christian doctrine of the Trinity in the context of twentieth-century cultural and religious pluralism. How should Christians think about their faith in relation to other faiths and in relation to culture in general? Can the Trinity fit into a global religion? These essays — originally presented at the Fifth Edinburgh Dogmatic Conference — show how a full-orbed Trinitarian doctrine, with a proper emphasis on both the One and the Three, provides the necessary resources for successfully addressing the problems and the possibilities of contemporary pluralism. Gary Badcock Richard Bauckham Henri Blocher Gerald Bray Colin Gunton Trevor Hart Lesslie Newbigin Roland Poupin Kevin J. Vanhoozer Stephen Williams