Whereâ??s Al, they have all been asking.

So what a relief to find Al Kimel's Pontifications again. Pontifications was the place where all theological blogs met, and we all learned a wider churchmanship. I owe him a colossal debt. But clearly it is tough-going â?? â??in some way the sorrows have intensifiedâ??. Now heâ??s in dark new format, with some archives but without any links. (Hint - amend links)

Here he is on Renewing the renewed liturgy

What is the way forward? By all means, let us reread and reappropriate Sacrosanctum Concilium, and in light of this document let us critically evaluate the liturgical experimentations of the past forty years. And let us also learn from the liturgical experience and practice of the Byzantine Churches.

Here are my concrete proposals:

(1) Abandon the versus populum, immediately! Let priest and people face God together. The single most destructive feature of the â??renewed liturgyâ?? is its anthropocentric orientation. The people of God are sanctified by worshipping God, not by celebrating each other. (2) Restore the chanted liturgy. Prayers are to be sung according to the ancient forms. (3) Ban the musical compositions of Marty Haugen and David Haas and anything similar. Gregorian chant must be restored as the primary music of the Latin rite. Given the magnitude of the problem, it is probably best to simply ban all music composed after 1960. Perhaps one day the good music that has been composed during the past forty years can be retrieved, but that day is not now. Catholic priests and musicians today do not know what sacred music is. (4) Restore the use of incense. (5) Eradicate ritual informality. (6) Drastically reduce electronic amplification. (7) Encourage eucharistic adoration both within and outside the Mass. Let the people prostrate themselves before Christ Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. A bow of the head is not sufficient!

All the Anglicans say Amen.

Petition to BMA on Abortion

6.7 million abortions have been performed by doctors in Britain since the implementation of the 1967 Abortion Act and 2006 figures just published show a further rise in the annual number of abortion

There is growing public unrest about the growing number of abortions and specifically about: 1. The 24 week upper age limit for abortions – many feel this should be reduced 2. The fact that abortions for handicap are available up until birth 3. Doctors being placed under pressure to be involved in abortion 4. The increasing evidence that abortion has adverse consequences for mental health 5. The inadequacy of counselling currently available for women seeking abortion

Despite this the British Medical Association (BMA) Ethics Committee is pressing for further liberalisation of the abortion law to allow abortion on request up until twelve weeks.

Sign the petition (if you a UK citizen) or learn more from the Christian Medical Fellowship

The Christian Medical Fellowship and the Lawyers Christian Fellowship are evangelical outfits, presently campaigning on abortion and the sexual orientation regulations respectively. But you will find no mention of them or these campaigns at (the evangelical) Christian Today UK online news service.

The problem is not just that evangelicals cannot hear what Catholics are saying, but they cannot hear each other either. Public Christianity, ha, ha.

There are two very astute pieces from Pietro De Marco over at Chiesa on the Church and the public square in Italy, though it could be the UK that he is describing. The first is called A Catholicism deliberately absent from the public sphere

A first thesis: in the Tuscan communities, Catholic existence â?? outside of the circles of family and parish, or the many spiritual and intellectual cenacles, as well as the visibility circumscribed by the Sunday Mass and outreach activities â?? is, paradoxically, mainly notable for its absence.

This prevalent absence is an absence from what is called the public sphere. A dominant Catholic invisibility cannot be replaced by a thousand activities, as important and generous as these may be, in the social realm and in the domains of daily life. The public sphere is something else. The civil dimension of â??reactivating at the present time the values of the Christian faith and the ethical guideposts derived from itâ?? (Garelli) is not realized in the little things.

A second thesis: this Tuscan syndrome of a publicly absent Catholic existence is often translated into a presence of individuals in the intellectual or political sphere. This presence is mimetic. What does that mean? A mimetic presence is given if one acts by imitating and adopting the appearance and role of actors already familiar and accepted in the public sphere.

Thus the Catholic is by turns the tolerant mediator, the pacifist, the narrator of the glories of Florence in the twentieth century, the critic of the institutional Church, the extremist defender of the Constitution, the political leader on the side of the citizen, the priest of the disenfranchised (the other priests arouse distrust), the volunteer for strictly humanitarian reasons, the theologian who presents himself as a leftist intellectual, etc. Make no mistake, this mimetic presence is more often the expression of personal conviction than of an effort to mask oneâ??s identity.

A third thesis: this effective invisibility, constituted by a mimetic presence, entails the objective separation of the faith of the individual and of the ecclesial community from the public sphere. But at the same time, it faces recurrent appeals to break down the â??historical barricadesâ?? between the Church and civil society. If this contradiction is accepted with complacency, it is because Tuscan Catholic invisibility and its popular theorems have a background of weak theology, which makes it seem natural to merge the condition of the lay Christian with modern secularism.

So three points:

1. Christian institutions are being made, or making themselves, invisible, as Christian institutions.

2. We are happy to fall into the roles that the media is ready to acknowledge, and then Christian witness is identified with this or that individual rather than with the Christian community, so it ceases to be Christian witness.

3. This minimises the Christian difference. But the point of Christian witness is not to dissolve the difference between the Church and society - that would be to hide the distinctiveness of the gospel. The difference between Church and society must be clear, for the sake of society.

A lot of good theological diagnostic work is being done by the Catholic Church in Europe. The Catholics are teaching us how to be public Christians.

Are evangelicals in the UK listening to this? Are you listening Bible Society, Theos, Evangelical Alliance, Christian Today?

First of all, a remark about the idea of dialogue itself. It is, I suggest, an idea that finds its roots and origins in the Jewish and the Christian traditions. It is an idea that has undergone, philosophical development in the western world. In his great encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam, Pope Paul VI spoke of Christianity as essentially dialogical in nature. It is grounded in dialogue between God and man that finds its full expression in the relationship between Jesus and his heavenly Father. The spirit of Gaudium et Spes is one of dialogue and therefore of a spirit of openness to what the Holy Spirit is doing in the world as a whole

As Catholics, when we evangelise, when we preach, we are also receptive to what the Holy Spirit has been doing and is doing in the lives of those to whom we preach our message. I mention this to make the point that this key concept of dialogue, which is integral to Vatican II, may be quite alien to members of other religions. They may see it as an imposition of a Western way of thinking on them. Both Muslims and adherents to the great religions of the East could have questions about the rhetoric of dialogue. They might see questions of the unity of the human community in quite different terms.

Nonetheless I would submit that dialogue is a vital contribution that Christians have to make to inter-faith relations and peace in the world. Dialogue means respecting the other as other. When members of different religions come together in dialogue they do not water down their beliefs in order to find a lowest common denominator. When we come to the table of dialogue we bring the whole of our faith. Otherwise we come empty-handed. And if we bring our faith in all its fullness and integrity to the table of dialogue then we will discover shared perspectives, convergence of understanding as well as sympathy and mutual respect. As Christians we cannot but promote dialogue and seek a response- an attitude of dialogue in those to whom we reach out.

Archbishop Kevin McDonald of Southwark Inter-Religious Dialogue in a Globalised World

The Communion has grown and developed through the missionary vision and labours of, among others, Evangelical Anglicans in the Church of England. Evangelicals have never understood the Church of England as simply the national church of the English people but part of the worldwide church of Christ sharing in his mission. We should have a vision for a global communion committed to mission and to partnership together in mission with other provinces. The covenant process provides a means of developing structures for such a missional vision. It also offers the hope of being able (in a theologically rich and biblically based form of a covenant) to express biblical and creedal faith and to develop the structures of a distinctive global Anglicanism which is both Catholic and Reformed and which will help us work for the unity among all his disciples for which Christ prayed. Conclusion

There are no solid reasons - either in principle or pragmatically in the current political context - for evangelicals or anyone else to object to Synod making a commitment to positive participation in the covenant process. There are many reasons - theological and political - why evangelicals and others who share our commitments to world mission, to learning from Anglicans around the globe, to safeguarding biblical faith and to facilitating harmony among Anglicans should wish the Church of England wholeheartedly to support the covenant process. Indeed, in terms of our life together as a Communion, the covenant process is - like the Windsor Report in which it originated - now 'the only poker game in town'. If the Communion is to have a future together then the form of this will be discerned in and through this covenant process. For the Church of England to abandon that process through non-participation, or destructive participation, would therefore be for the eye to say to the hand 'I don't need you' and for us as a province to embrace a vision of Anglicanism in which every one does what is right in their own eyes.

Andrew Goddard The Anglican Covenant

Amongst the papers prepared for the Church of England General Synod in July (220&) is the very considerable GS 1651 Transforming Worship: Report of the Liturgical Commission (large Word doc), made available online by Thinking Anglicans.

The Liturgical Commission reviews the vast range of initiatives and says something cautiously encouraging about almost everything. But is this what we want the Liturgical Commission to do? Don’t we want it to give us some direction, and so to be prescriptive?

It description of the situation as our worship book ‘Common Worship’ is met by the profusion of ‘emergent’, ‘liquid church’ and ‘fresh expressions’ is a marvel of understatement.

6.2.4 In a climate of considerable liturgical diversity, what is ‘common’ (in Common Worship) needs continually to be nurtured, embraced and celebrated. This need arises from loyalty to the Anglican style of worship, respect for those structures and texts which have been formed with the consent of the whole Church, and a shared sense of identity and fellowship in our common calling to serve the nation

6.5.3 It is also important to note that the relatively informal liturgies associated with Fresh Expressions, or categorized as ‘alternative worship’, require of those who are to lead them a higher degree of liturgical and theological preparation than more ‘traditional’ liturgies that follow a set pattern. This is true in both senses of the word ‘preparation’: they require a better grasp of liturgical issues, and they demand more homework.

Pope Benedict has, in his Wednesday General Audiences, been giving brief addresses on the leadership of early Christianity. He began last year with the Apostles. Such things naturally lend themselves to be collected in book form, and a couple of months ago, OSV obtained rights to publish an edition of Apostles in the US (a British version has already been published).

As the editor was working his way through the text (cleaning up footnotes, clarifying puzzling translations, etc), it occurred to me that this would lend itself to the needs of an adult religious ed program. It's short, the chapters are relatively brief, and of course, it's Pope Benedict writing, so the content is rich and clearly presented, with at least one thought-provoking, made-for-reflection sentence on every page.

So, I opened my big mouth, and here I am with one more project to do before the end of the month.

Anyone who does religious ed in a parish setting - consider this. There will be twelve sessions, each with questions for study and questions for reflection, as well as opening and closing prayers.

I really believe in what Pope Benedict is doing - he is a master catechist, he understands the problems and challenges of the way of discipleship, of the way of simply being human, and he brings all of that into what he writes.

Amy Welborn

And here are those Wednesday General Audiences - (backwards from June) on Athanasius, Eusebius, Cyprian, Tertullian, Origen, Irenaeus...

Christianity is politics done slowly. It is politics with memory and imagination, that understands the past as resource from which a future may perhaps come into being constructed. It is the politics of the promise of God.

It is a deep-seated assumption of the tradition as we have inherited it that the past is gone and has no further impact on us. But the past does not disappear. It is still entirely with us. It is just that we have no awareness of it. This is the nominalism (we are entirely to free to make up names for things, after which they will be what we have named them), or the voluntarism (things are what we will them to be) or antinomianism (there is no law or tradition or givens for us to come to terms with) of the Western tradition. We do not see it as a tradition, that is as somthing passed to us, or see it as one tradition, but instead see it simply as everything, our field of view being filled by it.

The Western tradition is a kind of forgetfulness. We are not at in charge of the machine we have inherited. The machine wants to give us the impression that we are entirely in charge: it does not even tell us that we are astride a machine. It wants us to believe that we are entirely free agents, able to choose what to do just as impulsively and unconstrainedly as children. We are up on the bridge of an ocean liner, throwing the wheel this way and that, unaware that the ship is only able to react very slowly, so each of our instructions cancels out the previous one, while the great ship of the Western intellectual tradition ploughs on.

But Christianity allows us to see that the Western intellectual tradition – ‘modernity’ – is one tradition, because Christianity is another tradition. Christianity is a distinct tradition because the world is unable to absorb the church so that the distinction between disappears.

The Western tradition think it knows Christianity and has seen through it. But Christianity is preserved as a tradition, and as an alternative to the Western tradition, by the freedom of God. It is God who keeps Christianity out of our reach, this unknown, ungraspable mystery, which alone secures for us the possibility of a future.

This loss of Christian memory is accompanied by a kind of fear of the future. Tomorrow is often presented as something bleak and uncertain. The future is viewed more with dread than with desire. Among the troubling indications of this are the inner emptiness that grips many people and the loss of meaning in life. The signs and fruits of this existential anguish include, in particular, the diminishing number of births, the decline in the number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and the difficulty, if not the outright refusal, to make lifelong commitments, including marriage.

We find ourselves before a widespread existential fragmentation. A feeling of loneliness is prevalent; divisions and conflicts are on the rise. Among other symptoms of this state of affairs, Europe is presently witnessing the grave phenomenon of family crises and the weakening of the very concept of the family, the continuation or resurfacing of ethnic conflicts, the re-emergence of racism, interreligious tensions, a selfishness that closes individuals and groups in upon themselves, a growing overall lack of concern for ethics and an obsessive concern for personal interests and privileges. To many observers the current process of globalization, rather than leading towards the greater unity of the human race, risks being dominated by an approach that would marginalize the less powerful and increase the number of poor in the world.

In connection with the spread of individualism, we see an increased weakening of interpersonal solidarity: while charitable institutions continue to carry out praiseworthy work, one notes a decline in the sense of solidarity, with the result that many people, while not lacking material necessities, feel increasingly alone, left to themselves without structures of affection and support.

At the root of this loss of hope is an attempt to promote a vision of man apart from God and apart from Christ. This sort of thinking has led to man being considered as â??the absolute centre of reality, a view which makes him occupy â?? falsely â?? the place of God and which forgets that it is not man who creates God, but rather God who creates man. Forgetfulness of God led to the abandonment of manâ??. It is therefore â??no wonder that in this context a vast field has opened for the unrestrained development of nihilism in philosophy, of relativism in values and morality, and of pragmatism â?? and even a cynical hedonism â?? in daily lifeâ??. European culture gives the impression of â??silent apostasyâ?? on the part of people who have all that they need and who live as if God does not exist.

This is the context for those attempts, including the most recent ones, to present European culture with no reference to the contribution of the Christian religion which marked its historical development and its universal diffusion. We are witnessing the emergence of a new culture, largely influenced by the mass media, whose content and character are often in conflict with the Gospel and the dignity of the human person. This culture is also marked by an widespread and growing religious agnosticism, connected to a more profound moral and legal relativism rooted in confusion regarding the truth about man as the basis of the inalienable rights of all human beings. At times the signs of a weakening of hope are evident in disturbing forms of what might be called a â??culture of deathâ??.

John Paul II Ecclesia in Europa 1.8-9

Scott Prather at Swords to Plowshares introduces the Aberdeen theology faculty. They look like a good team, young fresh and energetic, all publishing, with the emphasis on dogmatics, which I think makes this department unique in the UK.

My first question:

What sort of ecclesiology does all this evangelical dogmatics result in? It looks to me as though ecclesiology is regarded as the concern of just one member of this faculty. Evangelicals do have an ecclesiology, don't they? Since there is a fair input from the German theological scene, I hope that there is at least a nodding relationship with Lutheran ecclesiology, by which I mean Luther, not Bonhoeffer. I appreciate that the Anglican/Episcopalian church is not in particularly good shape in Scotland, but then this is where a faculty like this could make a difference, isn't it?

Second question:

How can we replicate this faculty a little further south in the UK? You have heard of church plants - how about a faculty plant? I know another city a little further down that North Sea coast that could do with some dogmatic theology, and London is its name.

I think the idea of a globalisation of solidarity is wonderful, and I am glad to say that CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, has set in train a project called Live Simply, designed to help people live in solidarity with the poor. It has often struck me that Islam asks of its followers a similar commitment to solidarity with the poor. This seems clear in the idea of having a banking system that works in accordance with the basic principles of Islam. My thought is not that I should open an Islamic bank account, but rather that it may be time for Christian and Muslim economists to put their heads together to see what we can learn from each other in the sphere of genuine commitment to solidarity with the poor. Looking at the newspapers or the television news sometimes makes me shudder at the fate of so many people in the world who live in such a shocking state. But I feel uncomfortable and guilty if I cannot react. I do what I can; I imagine we all do, but I have a feeling that, together, we could do so much more.

A second thing we could undertake together to improve the state of tomorrowâ??s world for our children is to work for genuine freedom of religion. I have already mentioned that many British Muslims feel misrepresented or at least misunderstood in our media and in public opinion. You are not the only ones, but unfortunately in the present moment much more is being said about Islam than about Christianity or other religions. More than this, there are times when we may all feel that we are not exactly muzzled or silenced, but we are most certainly not free to express our deeply held convictions, sometimes simply for reasons linked to so-called â??political correctnessâ??. I think there are ways we can work with those who form public opinion to solve many of these problems, and I am certain that we should do this together.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Inter-religious Dialogue

Among Catholic bishops, and among religious leaders in all communities, nobody has been more outspoken in this debate than Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles. Last year he received widespread media attention when he declared that he would engage in civil disobedience rather than comply with a law requiring him to report illegal immigrants, and he directed priests and other church workers to follow his lead. Many expressed admiration for his bold, even prophetic, stance, while others charged him with grandstanding, pointing out that nobody was suggesting that IDs should be checked at Mass or food kitchens.

More recently, Cardinal Mahony offered a comprehensive account of the Churchâ??s position on comprehensive immigration reform at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He very specifically and repeatedly asserted that he was setting forth â??the underpinnings of the position of the Catholic Church on immigration reform legislation.â?? His lecture is sprinkled with expressions such as â??the church leadership argues that . . .â??; â??the Church maintains that . . .â??; and â??the Churchâ??s position is . . .â?? We are clearly given to understand that he is not merely expressing his own views or speaking in his capacity as the archbishop of Los Angeles but is speaking for the Catholic Church.

Richard John Neuhaus Who speaks for the Church?

Andy Goodliff has posted on The promise of a Christian university -

Christian University? You have got to wonder where he gets these ideas from. Andy posts a handy list of titles then, as these bloggers do, asks for more ideas.

Obviously his list includes Bristol's finest, Gavin D'Costa Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy and Nation

and the forthcoming Stanley Hauerwas The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God

Then what? Well, how about these?

Michael J. Buckley The Catholic University as Promise and Project

John C. Sommerville The Decline of the Secular University: Why the Academy Needs Religion

George M. Marsden The Soul of the American university and his earlier The outrageous idea of Christian Scholarship

Robert Benne Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions. The six are Calvin, Wheaton, St. Olaf, Valparaiso, Baylor, and Notre Dame. Hum, not too many Catholic colleges there.

and of course the massive James T. Burtchaell The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches

Then the greatest analysis of the whole project of the university, Alasdair MacIntyre Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition

Then on the wider faith-and-public-square issue there is the recent Ratzinger-Habermas dialogue of course Joseph Ratzinger The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion

But, wait a minute, the very first thing that should be on this list is the magisterial Ex Corde Ecclesia – the Apostolic Constitution of John Paul II on Catholic Universities

BORN FROM THE HEART of the Church, a Catholic University is located in that course of tradition which may be traced back to the very origin of the University as an institution. It has always been recognized as an incomparable centre of creativity and dissemination of knowledge for the good of humanity. By vocation, the Universitas magistrorum et scholarium is dedicated to research, to teaching and to the education of students who freely associate with their teachers in a common love of knowledge. With every other University it shares that gaudium de veritate, so precious to Saint Augustine, which is that joy of searching for, discovering and communicating truth in every field of knowledge. A Catholic University's privileged task is "to unite existentially by intellectual effort two orders of reality that too frequently tend to be placed in opposition as though they were antithetical: the search for truth, and the certainty of already knowing the fount of truth".

Ah, at last. In the long run, it is not just the Christian university, it is not just the Catholic university, it is the university that is born from the heart of the Church.

In the De Decretis Athanasius argues against the opinion he had heard Eusebius express that the Son alone participates in the Father while we participate in the Son. If that were so, we would then be the Son's sons. Rather, we are sons of the same Father as the Son is, our sonship being granted to us in accordance with our virtue, so that some sit on the twelve thrones, while others occupy lower places. Yet in a deeper sense the Son does participate in the Father. In the Contra Arianos Athanasius equates participation in the Father with the Father's begetting. But since the essence of God cannot be divided, his begetting the Son means that he communicates himself wholly to the Son. When men partake of God, they therefore partake of the Son, 'for that which is partaken of the Father is the Son'. Thus when men are said to 'participate in the divine nature', it means that the Son communicates himself to them.

This dynamic participation in the Logos is only possible because of the Incarnation and indeed is dependent specifically upon a Logos-sarx christology. When the Logos assumed a human body, he became the subject by the communicatio idiomatum of what the body experienced. 'For what the human body of the Logos suffered, this the Logos, being united to the body, ascribed to himself in order that we might be enabled to participate in the godhead of the Logos'. By participating in the deified humanity of the Logos we participate in his impassible divinity, because the flesh has been endowed with divinity, just as the divinity has been endowed with humanity. Athanasius is silent about the soul, which in Origen plays an important part in mediating between the Logos and the flesh. In Athanasius' view, because the Incarnation has transferred our nature to the Logos, we participate in the divine nature simply by participating in the humanity of the Logos.

Our participation in the Logos is made possible by the Spirit: 'for through the Spirit we are all called partakers of God'. That is to say, we participate in the Son through baptism. The Spirit is the chrism and the seal with which the Logos anoints and seals us, making us, as it were, the fragrance of Christ. Another way of putting it is to say that the Son is life-in-itself, the Spirit is life-giving and the faithful are life-endowed. It is because the Spirit is divine that he is able to make us 'partakers of the divine nature', that is, of Christ, for the divine nature is not impersonal. Through the Spirit we become 'partakers of Christ and partakers of God'.

Norman Russell Partakers of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4) in the Byzantine Tradition

And have you seen Norman Russell The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition ?

At the very least, then, the Lambeth Conference is like a council in that its purpose from the beginning has been to confront divisive issues with both truth and charity, engaged through the work of the Holy Spirit, and so nourishing and preserving unity in the midst of division. Thus, to insist that agreement be present before meeting - and despite previous meetings! - is simply to void the purpose of the meeting in the first place. Further, to separate precipitously from a body that no longer resembles Christian truth and practice as one understands them, or that seems incapable to upholding them, is to foreclose on the pneumatic promises of providence that call us into council in the first place.

The above points do not entail the conclusion that discipline cannot or should not be imposed on those who persist in an alien way or who scandalize by their behavior. I, like many others, believe such discipline is in fact required. Still, such alien and scandalous life should be confronted rather than avoided by absenting oneself from an encounter in the Lord and refusing the obligation to hold to account in the power of the Lord. The primary point behind all this is that Christians have been given a divine narrative and vocation that insists upon engaged suffering as a means of witness, rather than upon departure and beginning anew as a means of protest and self-protection. Thus, the prophets (eg Jeremiah) and Christ suffer among their people. They do not leave them to form another people.

Ephraim Radner Lambeth Can Be What It Wants To Be

Here are a couple of titles that caught my eye while putting together a bibliography for next term's Old Testament course

Aidan Nichols Lovely like Jerusalem: The Fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ and the Church

The highly regarded spiritual writer and theologian Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P. presents an overview of the Old Testament by showing what it is and its relationship to the New Testament. He explains that it is essential for one to be familiar with the Old Testament in order to understand properly, and in a deeper way, the richness and message of the New. In particular, Fr. Nichols shows how important it is to grasp that connection in order to understand better and to believe in the message and the person of Christ.

Ignorance of the Old Testament makes it impossible to comprehend the entire divine plan that stretches between the two Testaments. Nichols maintains that we are ill-equipped to read and understand the great theologians, saints, and Scripture commentators of the Christian era without a deep familiarity with the Old Testament. Even understanding and appreciating the art of the Church remains limited if the Old Testament is a closed book for us.

Nichols made use of studies by biblical experts from various Christian denominations--notably Evangelicals and Anglicans--in writing this widely appealing work. He also drew on the Fathers and Doctors of the Church to help illuminate the beauty of the relationship between the two Testaments.

"In this marvelous work of biblical theology and patristic ressourcement, Aidan Nichols illumines the pattern of God's promises in salvation history in a manner that will be accessible and informative to students, pastors, and scholars. Other than Pope Benedict XVI, no theologian writing today has mastered so well the approach to Scripture set forth by such giants as Jean Danielou, Louis Bouyer, and Henri de Lubac. This book should be read by everyone who seeks an understanding of Scripture and of the early Christian Fathers." --Matthew Levering, Associate Professor of Theology, Ave Maria University

Robert Wilken Isaiah: Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators

In his extremely thorough work on Isaiah, Robert Wilken brings to bear his considerable knowledge of early Christianity. Drawing on writings of the church fathers — Eusebius of Caesarea, Ambrose, Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret of Cyrus, Bernard of Clairvaux, and nearly sixty others — all of them masterfully translated, this work allows the complex words of Isaiah to come alive.

Wilken's selection of ancient commentators clearly illuminates how Isaiah was used by the New Testament writers and understood by the early church fathers. Each chapter begins with a modern English translation of the septuagint, prepared by Moisés Silva. Editorial comments provide a foundation for understanding the excerpted commentaries and other writings that follow for each chapter.

Read everything by Wilken. And you know Brian E Daley The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology

For Oâ??Donovan, the extraordinary events of that Pentecost day changed the world forever. Godâ??s people became open to mutual address.

â?¢ It eventually led to the â??conciliar movementâ?? in Christendomâ??a call upon the Pope to take seriously the Christian wisdom of others. â?¢ In turn, there blossomed parliamentary movement in civil societyâ??a call upon the King to take seriously the wisdom, whether Christian or otherwise, of others. â?¢ Threaded into this story is the Reformation, and the â??non-conformistâ?? movement among Christiansâ??a call by Christians upon each other to understand that claims for theological truth must be settled by words, not power, as the Bible is discussed freely among groups who freely meet together.

It comes as quite a surprise for many people to see the central role of Christianity in this historical story. In the popular alternative, secularism invented â??free speechâ??: while Christians were busily killing each other, the â??Enlightenmentâ?? saved the West by inventing free and rational enquiry. But that account is heavily mythological, and simply fails to notice all the developments in medieval Christendom that gave rise to the very possibility of free speech. A seed fell on the day of Pentecost, and sprouted in the soil of Christendom.

There was no political â??free speechâ?? in the Roman empire. But after Pentecost during the centuries that followed, political authority had â??to confront and accommodate the free discourse of a society which has learned to recognise authority also in the word spoken by God by manservants and maidservantsâ?? (Oliver O'Donovan The Desire of the Nations p. 269). If God could use anyone in his church to speak truth, then potentially, any voice could now address the society about the common good.

Andrew Cameron Freeing Speech

Asia News Iraqi Christians 'facing extinction'

(Last week the Islamic scholar and reformer Tariq Ramadan argued in the Guardian for an end to calls on British Muslims to integrate. Here, Prospect editor David Goodhart replies)

The idea that British foreign policy has been run on an anti-Muslim agenda does not stand examination. In Bosnia and Kosovo (and Sierra Leone), Britain took military action on behalf of Muslims, in some cases against Christians. In Iraq, rightly or wrongly (and Prospect was opposed to Britain's role) we helped to remove a secular dictator, and we will leave behind a Muslim democracy of some kind. If there has been a disproportionate intervention in Muslim countries, it is mainly because those countries are disproportionately unstable and conflict-ridden. Of course, I am aware it is not seen like that in much of the Muslim world—where the typical hypocrisy and realpolitik of the west (relating to UN resolutions, Israel, oil, good dictators and bad dictators) always seems to bear down on Muslims. But the belief that it is all about Islam is an oddly self-regarding conceit, arising from the prickliness and defensiveness that many Muslims feel confronted with a stronger and more successful western world. And if British Muslims are so troubled by the loss of Muslim life, why did we hear so little about the greatest unnecessary loss of such life in recent times in the Iran-Iraq war? No, unfortunately, what moves many political Muslims is the loss of Muslim life that can in some way be construed as the fault of the west. Shouldn't you be using your influence to combat this anti-western, victim mentality among your fellow Muslims?

David Goodhart Open Letter to Tariq Ramadan

Westminster Theological Centre - Conversations in Deep Church 4 evenings beginning June 19th 2007 The late C.S. Lewis coined the expression Deep Church in a call for a concerted exploration of the resources in the Christian tradition that unite orthodox Christians across the denominational and theological spectrums. One of Lewis' concerns was the erosion of a common Christian language and discipleship; the loss of the most basic understanding of the gospel that has been believed by the Church at all times and in all places.

In the last five years the Deep Church vision has been reawakened in the UK with St Paul's, Hammersmith in London hosting regular discussions under the leadership of Prof. Andrew Walker, Dr Luke Bretherton, Revd. Simon Downham and Revd. Ian Stackhouse. These discussions have now produced three publications (GOSPEL DRIVEN CHURCH by Ian Stackhouse, EVANGELICALS AND TRADITION Daniel Williams and REMEMBERING OUR FUTURE), a series of lectures by Prof. Walker (at Westminster Theological Centre in the Autumn of 2007) and some new discussion at Andy Goodliff and deepchurch.blogspot.com and deepchurch.org.uk.

Explorations in Deep Church takes the discussion wider with professional educators from around the UK bringing the best of today's theology to those of us committed to a passionate discipleship, orthodox faith and dynamic witness to a fast changing post-modern world.

Week 1 (19th June): Dr. Graham Tomlin - Luther, the Cross and the Christian Life

Week 2 (26th June): Dr. Chris Joby - Why do Christians worship?

Week 3 (3rd July): Dr. Alan Spence - The humanity of Christ

Week 4 (10th July): Dr. Douglas Knight - The people of the Spirit in the Body of Christ

Tuesdays 19th, 26th June & 3rd, 10th July 2007 7 - 9pm Weeks 1 & 2 at St Mary’s Church, York St, London W1H 1EA Weeks 3 7 4 at St Mark’s Church 245 Old Marylebone Road, London NW1 5QT

In Truth And Tolerance: Christian Belief And World Religions Cardinal Ratzinger advanced a proposal that was rather innovative with respect to the theological hypotheses most widespread today: to abandon the idea of the inculturation of a faith that is culturally neutral in itself, which would be transplanted into different cultures regardless of their religions, and have recourse instead to the encounter of cultures (or â??interculturalityâ??), based upon two strong points.

On the one hand, the encounter of cultures is possible and is constantly taking place because, in spite of all of their differences, the men that produce them share the same nature and the same openness of reason to the truth.

On the other hand, the Christian faith, which was born from the revelation of the truth itself, produces what we might call the â??culture of faith,â?? the characteristic of which is that it does not belong to a single specific people, but can subsist in any people or cultural subject, entering into relation with the individual culture and encountering and co-penetrating it. This is concretely the unity, and also the cultural multiplicity and universality, of Christianity.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini Theology and culture: Borderlands

â??Without Sunday, without the Eucharist the Christians in Iraq cannot surviveâ??: that was how Fr Ragheed spoke of his communityâ??s hope, a community that was used to facing death on a daily basis, that same death that yesterday afternoon faced him, on his way home from saying mass. After having fed his faithful with the Body and Blood of Christ, he gave his own blood, his own life for Iraq, for the future of his Church. This young priest had willingly, knowingly chosen to remain by the side of his parishioners from Holy Spirit parish in Mosul, judged the most dangerous, after Baghdad. His reasoning was simple: without him, without its pastor, his flock would have been lost. In 2003 on finishing his studies in Rome, he decided to return to his country â??that is where I belong, that is my placeâ??.

Asia News

Pope Benedict XVI's masterly lecture [at Regensburg] tended in fact to highlight a widening of reason that, by going beyond anti-religion Enlightenment thinking ("irrational"), allows for rich and fraternal dialogue with extra-European and non-Western cultures. At the same time, the Pope showed that violence is "irrational" and is therefore worthy neither of God, nor of man, nor of any religion, Islam included.

The fuss which resulted from the Regensburg speech was fuelled by liberalist Westerners and islamist Easterners and belittled the profoundness of Benedict XVI's proposal so as to make it appear a simple dispute between Islam and Christianity, with the latter "obviously" unable to understand Islam and accusing the Pope of having fomented a "war of religions."

But it is only a partial healing. Where in fact healing is slow is in the liberalist Western world where, to avoid questioning its blind closure to the problem of Godless reason, it continues to rail against the Catholic Church and the Pope, and justifies the many forms of violence committed in the name of Islam, fomenting a new war of religion with Islam.

In their ideological blindness, a good part of the so-called "progressive" intellectuals says that the causes of terrorism are American imperialism, colonialism, the state of Israel, globalization. But in this way they do not realize that Islamist terrorism strikes well beyond the West: Buddhists in Thailand, Hindus in India, Muslims themselves, both Sunni and Shia. Even violence against Palestinians does not only come with an Israeli stamp, but also derives from a power struggle between Hamas and Fatah.

Thanks to this blindness in Europe – and in Italy – we are witnessing a veritable alliance between progressivism and violent Islamism. In the name of anti-Americanism and multiculturalism, people are calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, from Afghanistan, and are justifying the violence of males against Islamic women and polygamy. Again yesterday, the Pope was ridiculed in the European Parliament, while great caution was exercised when it was a question of the anti-Mohammad caricatures. And while a benevolent attitude is being preached with regard to a violent Islam, an intransigent and intolerant attitude is spreading against the Catholic Church, "guilty" of displaying crosses and nativity scenes and of expressing its view on life and family in the ("liberal"?) society.

The encounter between Benedict XVI and Khatami shows that dialogue is possible if parties do not hide their identity and work for the good of men and women. To do this, it is necessary that, from East to West, we condemn violence, always and regardless, while guaranteeing religious freedom.

Bernardo Cervellera Benedict XVI and Khatami: the good trail is Regensburg