Author: Douglas Knight

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Ecclesia de Eucharistia Vivit

The Church lives from the Eucharist. (John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §1 â??the Church lives from the Eucharistâ??) The Holy Fatherâ??s announcement that the Synod of Bishops to be held in October 2005 will reflect on the Eucharist follows from his recent Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Already the Society has organised an international colloquium on this Encyclical, held at Heythrop College in early February 2004, with participants from many European institutions and from North America. This in turn builds upon the fidelity to the Eucharist which the Society has always sought to promote, beginning with the Conference in Cambridge in 2002 Ite Missa Est: Transubstantiation and Living Eucharist.

As part of our mission to promote the intellectual apostolate, and of supportive cooperation with the Hierarchy, we propose a three- year research project on the Holy Eucharist, the fruits of which will be made available to the Bishops of England and Wales as a gift, and as a sign of the vitality of theological life in these countries.

We propose a two-stepped research project, arising out of our initial colloquium. The first step will be an examination of the Eucharist with special reference to England and Wales, the fruits of which will be compiled into a research report and presented to the Bishops of English and Welsh dioceses who will attend the Synod. The second step will be the development of that report in response to the Apostolic Exhortation which the Holy Father will publish after the Synod, with final versions of the various contributions, and made available for publication, we would hope, by a reputable theological press. In addition it is hoped that the extension of the colloquium until 2007 will result in a variety of further studies on various aspects of the Eucharist and the Sacred Liturgy of the Church: theological, philosophical, historical, æsthetic, musicological, pastoral, and ecumenical.

The colloquium will take as its point of departure the statement of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, §10 â??at one and the same, the Liturgy is the pinnacle towards which the activity of the Church is directed, and the source from which all its strength emanatesâ??.

It will seek to examine by study in whatever appropriate areas, how and to what extent this is true with particular reference to the situation in England and Wales. It will also attend to how the desire of the Council has been carried out, that this truth be effected Sacrosanctum Concilium, §1 â??better to accommodate the requirements of our timesâ?? under the various disciplinary headings above.

The project will keep in view the reflections of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on the sacred liturgy, that thought be given and a means be found, â??to overcome the boundless superiority of the [philosophical] subject and to recognise once more that a relationship with the Logos, who is from the beginning, saves the subject, that is the person, and at the same time puts us into a true relation of communality which is ultimately grounded in the Trinitarian lifeâ?? (The Spirit of the Liturgy).

Society of St. Catherine of Siena Ecclesia de Eucharistia Vivit Research Project to be Undertaken in the Years 2004â??2007

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Reductive visions of man hinder dialogue

10. Thus there is an urgent need, even within the framework of current international difficulties and tensions, for a commitment to a human ecology that can favour the growth of the â??tree of peaceâ??. For this to happen, we must be guided by a vision of the person untainted by ideological and cultural prejudices or by political and economic interests which can instil hatred and violence. It is understandable that visions of man will vary from culture to culture. Yet what cannot be admitted is the cultivation of anthropological conceptions that contain the seeds of hostility and violence. Equally unacceptable are conceptions of God that would encourage intolerance and recourse to violence against others. This is a point which must be clearly reaffirmed: war in God’s name is never acceptable! When a certain notion of God is at the origin of criminal acts, it is a sign that that notion has already become an ideology.

11. Today, however, peace is not only threatened by the conflict between reductive visions of man, in other words, between ideologies. It is also threatened by indifference as to what constitutes man’s true nature. Many of our contemporaries actually deny the existence of a specific human nature and thus open the door to the most extravagant interpretations of what essentially constitutes a human being. Here too clarity is necessary: a â??weakâ?? vision of the person, which would leave room for every conception, even the most bizarre, only apparently favours peace. In reality, it hinders authentic dialogue and opens the way to authoritarian impositions, ultimately leaving the person defenceless and, as a result, easy prey to oppression and violence.

Pope Benedict XVI Message for the World Day of Peace

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There can be no laws restricting freedom of belief

If you want to know before your friends do what may well be one of the major questions of the 21st century, keep your eye on two new documents. The first is the Berlin Declaration to be released by E.U. President Angela Merkel within the month. The second is the Brussels Declaration, a statement by prominent European academicians, community leaders, and national and European politicians, which disagrees with the tenets included in the Berlin Declaration and which has already been released in response to it.

The Brussels Declaration makes two points: First, that the ideal environment for all religions is not the theocratic state — the state that defines itself as identified by some single religion — but the secular state. Secondly, the Brussels Declaration points out that secularism and atheism are not synonyms. The secular state, the document argues, is not anti-religion. It is not atheistic. It is, instead, anti-establishmentarianism. It identifies itself with no particular religion and so it privileges no single religion. As a result, the document declares, it protects the right of all religions to practice without recrimination.

Joan Chittister Christian, Secular or Something Else Entirely
 and see Secular values for Europe

Here is a little from the Brussel Declaration:

Freedom of Religion or Belief

For many people, their religion or belief is a profoundly important part of their life and of their personal identity. There can be no laws restricting freedom of belief, but freedom of religion does not extend to practices which could harm the rights of others. Freedom of religion includes the right to change oneâ??s religion or belief, or to reject religion entirely.

Europeans are free to practise their religion in any way they choose provided their practice conforms to the law.

There is no conflict between freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief. Attempts to outlaw defamation of religion are misplaced. It is the believer not the belief that needs protection. People and property are already protected by law. Religions and beliefs per se need no other protection and all demands for such protection should be rejected. Defamation of religious believers should be treated in the same manner as defamation of anyone else.

No institution should be immune from criticism. The right to question any belief and to freely express oneâ??s views on any matter is a human right. Human beings have human rights, religions, beliefs and ideas do not.

In the words of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, â??Problems arise when authorities try to use religion for their own ends, or when religions try to abuse the state for the purpose of achieving their objectivesâ??.

State Neutrality in Matters of Religion and Belief

No religion or belief should suffer discrimination compared to any other, nor should any religion or belief be especially privileged, for to privilege one is to discriminate against all others.

State neutrality in matters of religion is the only means by which the rights of all, believers and non-believers alike, can be protected. The neutrality of the state therefore needs to be constitutionally guaranteed.

State neutrality does not free religious groups from their obligation to abide by the law. Incitement to violence, for example, cannot be permitted on the grounds of religious freedom.

Those who seek to reintroduce religious privilege into public life frequently but wrongly equate the secular state with an atheist state, but secularism is not atheism. The secular state is neutral in matters of religion and belief, favouring none and discriminating against none. Only the secular state can guarantee the equal treatment of all citizens.

Democrats, of whatever religious persuasion, have fought to defend the secular state. Many religious are among the most stalwart defenders of secularism because they understand the danger of allowing religious privilege and discrimination to enter government and public life.

A Secular Vision for Europe

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Christian communion is the practice of sending apostles

John Zizioulas believes ecumenism, conciliarity and the Eucharist belong to the very being of the Church. The bishop is intrinsic to ecumenism. Zizioulas’ account of the relation of the particular and universal, one and many, demonstrates that the relationships of the bishop and his congregation, and of the local and the worldwide Church, are essentially Christology.

Only in Christ is the Church one. Unity is not a matter of one writ running through a unified jurisdiction. The unity of the Church is the act of God. Every congregation and Christian participates in Christ’s eucharistic reception of the Church as the gift of God. We participate in his act through reception: ‘churches exist as One Church in and through constantly receiving one another as sister Churches.’ Each congregation participates in the one Church as it reaches out to all other churches: this reaching out is not an extra, for each congregation receives its very being from all others. (Zizioulas ‘The Theological Problem of Reception’, One in Christ, 21, 1985).

Since each Christian community is formed and disciplined by Christ, who comes to it from outside, no community can be under its own authority. It must willingly receive its leadership from all other congregations, as it were. Each church must receive its overseer as the gift of the whole Church. Bishops are apostles. Christian communion is the practice of sending apostles, their teaching and discipline, to and from all other parts of the Church. Conciliarity is the practice of communion and the event of love by which we participate in the life Christ, who is in one society with the Father.

Some have asked whether stress on the bishop endangers prospects for ecumenism with churches without a hierarchical tradition. But the churches with explicit (episcopal) oversight may encourage other (non-episcopal) churches to receive this discipline along with every other gift of the Church catholic, and look for some gift or lesson from them in return.

It is only in the act of receiving from, and giving to, other churches that any church is part of the Body. It is not the case that a church first has being, and then enters relationships with other churches. ‘Being is a gift, not a self-subsistent and self-explicable reality. As a gift, being presupposes the Other – there is no gift without a giver’ (Communion and Otherness p.88). This reception is made complete by the public ‘Amen’ of the people.

Christ calls us to receive all whom he calls to his eucharist. We have to take them all from him, refusing none, for only with them do we become members of Christ. In the eucharist we pray for those who are not yet present, and the whole Christ, and our own very being, waits for them.

Yet the Church already participates in the unity and plurality of the whole Christ. The petitions of Christ’s people in the eucharist make each locality present to God. All other communities and cultures fail to sustain the real otherness of their members; because they represent less than the whole truth, they will not last. Without the Church making its offering from every part of the world, the diversity and indeed existence of the world are in doubt. ‘The Church, as sign and image of the eschatological community, continues to portray in history the genuine ethos of otherness… the Church is the place where … the fear of the Other is replaced in the Eucharist… by the acceptance of the Other qua Other… (Zizioulas Communion and Otherness p.88).

The bishop represents the catholicity of the Church in one person. Together with him the congregation is the geographic and historic catholicity of the Church in that place. In the eucharist we already participate in that future complete assembly, yet every eucharist and ecumenical gathering, being only partial, looks ahead to the assembly of the whole Church.

Just as there is no plurality without unity, so there is no communion without order and authority. Primacy enables communion, but equally communion enables and affirms primacy. Zizioulas asks whether the Western Church assumes that, of unity and communion, one must be prior to the other: the Roman Church assumes hierarchy is prior, while Protestant churches assume communion is prior, though these two positions have been represented in the Roman Church by Ratzinger and Kasper.

Zizioulas suggests that Rome does not represent the unity of the many churches by nature, but that Rome may receive its authority from the whole Church. It could only be the free act of every church that appointed one bishop to the chair in the assembly of bishops. His authority makes their council an ordered communion, but he receives his authority from them. If the Amen of the Church affirms this role for Rome, Rome’s priority would be an act of the whole Church.

Ecumenism involves reconciliation through repentance and mutual service. It does not come at the expense of truth, or of those forthright exchanges of view through which real plurality and particularity are established. Zizioulas’ is a thoroughly theological account of ecumenism, but it allows plenty of opportunity for each church to initiate the practicalities of exchanging gifts, personnel and instruction, with churches even of ostensibly incompatible forms of churchmanship. Reaching out to other churches is not an extra, for in the long run we are not Church without them. His discussion of bishop, council and eucharist, make Zizioulas’ a very significant ecumenical proposal.

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Thomas the master of faith and reason

A quite special place in this long development [longo itinere] belongs to Saint Thomas, not only because of what he taught [ob ea quae in eius doctrina continentur] but also because of the dialogue which he undertook with the Arab and Jewish thought of his time. In an age when Christian thinkers were rediscovering the treasures of ancient philosophy, and more particularly of Aristotle, Thomas had the great merit of giving pride of place to the harmony which exists between faith and reason. Both the light of reason and the light of faith come from God, he argued; hence there can be no contradiction between them.

More radically, Thomas recognized that nature, philosophy’s proper concern, could contribute to the understanding of divine Revelation. Faith therefore has no fear of reason, but seeks it out and has trust in it. Just as grace builds on nature and brings it to fulfillment, so faith builds upon and perfects reason. Illumined by faith, reason is set free from the fragility and limitations deriving from the disobedience of sin and finds the strength required to rise to the knowledge of the Triune God. Although he made much of the supernatural character of faith, the Angelic Doctor did not overlook the importance of its reasonableness; indeed he was able to plumb the depths and explain the meaning of this reasonableness. Faith is in a sense an â??exercise of thoughtâ??; and human reason is neither annulled nor debased in assenting to the contents of faith, which are in any case attained by way of free and informed choice.

This is why the Church has been justified in consistently proposing Saint Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology. In this connection, I would recall what my Predecessor, the Servant of God Paul VI, wrote on the occasion of the seventh centenary of the death of the Angelic Doctor: â??Without doubt, Thomas possessed supremely the courage of the truth, a freedom of spirit in confronting new problems, the intellectual honesty of those who allow Christianity to be contaminated neither by secular philosophy nor by a prejudiced rejection of it. He passed therefore into the history of Christian thought as a pioneer of the new path of philosophy and universal culture. The key point and almost the kernel of the solution which, with all the brilliance of his prophetic intuition, he gave to the new encounter of faith and reason was a reconciliation between the secularity of the world and the radicality of the Gospel, thus avoiding the unnatural tendency to negate the world and its values while at the same time keeping faith with the supreme and inexorable demands of the supernatural order.â??

John Paul II Fides et Ratio 43.

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Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar

The first of The Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar consultations took place in Cheltenham in April 1998. The theme for this meeting was the crisis in biblical interpretation and the sort of answers to it being proposed by advocates of speech act theory such as Anthony Thiselton, Nicholas Wolterstorff and Kevin Vanhoozer, all of whom were present. We were not agreed at this consultation whether speech act theory has the resources to take biblical interpretation forward, but it became clear that any attempt to renew biblical interpretation in the academy would require a process with multiple consultations to address the key areas we thought required attention.

Thus was born The Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar, a ten year project based in Theology and Religious Studies at The University of Gloucestershire, where it is headed up by Craig Bartholomew. The Seminar is a partnership project between British and Foreign Bible Society and The University of Gloucestershire. Its ambitious aim is to facilitate a renewal of biblical interpretation in the academy that will help reopen the Book for our cultures.

The Seminar is thus academic. It recognises the fundamental importance of opening the Book at all levels in our cultures but the Seminar itself is an academic initiative, aimed firstly at biblical interpretation in the academy. The Seminar is interdisciplinary. Meir Sternberg rightly notes that biblical studies is at the intersection of the humanities, and The Seminar is based on the understanding that at this intersection interdisciplinary insight is required if biblical studies is to be saved from some of its isolation and fragmentation, and for new ways forward to be forged. It has been a delight at our consultations to find philosophers rubbing shoulders with educationalists and theologians, and missiologists working with literary scholars to renew biblical interpretation.

The Seminar is Christian. Modernity has marginalised faith in the great public areas of culture but this is a travesty of a Christian perspective in which faith relates to the whole of life. The Seminar is ecumenical and has a wide range of Christian perspectives represented within it. However, it is a rule of The Seminar that faith is not to be excluded from the consultative process that forms the heart of The Seminar. We have been asked about Jewish and other faiths being involved, and we are keen that such dialogue should emerge. However, we have judged it important to keep The Seminar’s Christian character intact at this stage so that the interdisciplinary and faith dynamics have time to be nurtured.

The Seminar is communal. The modern academy is deeply individualistic. But we recognise that a renewal of biblical interpretation will require communal work. And a great aspect of The Seminar is the emerging sense of community amongst Christian scholars of diverse disciplines.


Background: The Ethos of SAHS

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Theological Interpretation

Journal of Theological Interpretation

Critical biblical scholarship as developed and defined since the mid-eighteenth century has played a significant and welcome role in pressing us to take biblical texts seriously on their own terms and diverse contexts. With the postmodern turn, additional questions have surfaced—including the theological and ecclesial location of biblical interpretation, the significance of canon and creed for biblical hermeneutics, the historical reception of biblical texts, and other more pointedly theological interests. How might we engage interpretively with the Christian Scriptures so as to hear and attend to God’s voice? The Journal of Theological Interpretation aims to serve these agendas.

1.1 (Spring 2007)

Richard B. Hays Can Narrative Criticism Recover the Unity of Scripture?

Murray Rae Texts in Context: Scripture and the Divine Economy

Michael A. Rynkiewich Mission, Hermeneutics, and the Local Church

R.W.L. Moberly Christ in All the Scriptures? The Challenge of Reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture

Michael J. Gorman “A Seamless Garment”: Approach to Biblical Interpretation?

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Aquinas is the only safe home for the Christian intellectual

Aquinas is the cornerstone of Catholic thought, not just for his doctrine, but for his fidelity and prayer; for his constant and humble attitude of inclusion instead of exclusionâ??always open both to the truths coming from the faith and to those coming from every other thinker and tradition. He did not create a philosophical or theological systemâ??from which eventually some truth, either natural or supernatural, would have been ruled out; rather, he was always ready to welcome new philosophical insights, and to see the constant need for finding harmony between them and the depositum fidei. Thomism is not just one out of many Christian traditions of thought; it is the only safe home where every sincere Christian intellectual can find comfortable refuge and establish the constructive dialogue with other thinkers which leads to the truth.

Aquinas is the model of Catholic thinkers also because he was an authentic citizen of his time: the Medieval Renaissance. He traveled all around the XIII-century world [Europe] more than most of his contemporaries. He gave refined and remarkable answers to the most difficult political, legal and ethical issues debated in his culture. Due to his exceptional problem-solving capacity, he was asked to accomplish (or give advise for) difficult political missions and legal tasks; he was even executor of a will. Indeed, his knowledge of law and politics matched his knowledge of theology and philosophy. Today, in a culture that has lost unity of knowledge and is far from being universal; in a society that has to face the new challenges of relativism and nihilism, on the one hand, and of globalization, on the other, Aquinasâ??s life and thought set the right direction for a revival of truth in ethics and metaphysics.

After Aquinas, his spirit has lived over the centuries through other exceptional people who not only studied what he wrote, but incarnated his same love for God and for â??the world and its values;â?? people with the same â??courage of the truth,â?? â??freedom of spirit in confronting new problems,â?? and â??the intellectual honesty of those who allow Christianity to be contaminated neither by secular philosophy nor by a prejudiced rejection of it;â?? people who pass as well â??into the history of Christian thoughtâ?? as pioneers of the new paths of â??philosophy and universal cultureâ?? (Fides et Ratio, 43) and who keep Aquinas alive for the generations to come. These people connect the past to the future by leaving behind them, not just their priceless writings, but also many good students and young scholars trained in fidelity to the Church, intellectual freedom, open mindedness, and respect for diversity: â??by their fruits you will know themâ?? (Matthew 7:20). In our recent history, we can think of Cornelio Fabro, Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, and Ralph McInerny. These â??Thomistsâ?? have always had greater love for the tradition than for themselves: they have looked to each other, respected each other, worked with each other. Thomistic tradition cannot do without these authentic Thomists, and should stick to them if it wants to go on steadily through the centuries.

Thomas International

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Reasoning in council and the search for a shared discernment

The debate triggered by certain decisions in the Episcopal Church is not just about a single matter of sexual ethics. It is about decision making in the Church and it is about the interpretation and authority of Scripture. It has raised, first of all, the painfully difficult question of how far Anglican provinces should feel bound to make decisions in a wholly consultative and corporate way. In other words, it has forced us to ask what we mean by speaking and thinking about ourselves as a global communion. When ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ fail, what should we do about it? Now there is a case for drawing back from doing anything much, for accepting that we are no more than a cluster of historically linked local or national bodies. But to accept this case – and especially to accept it because the alternatives look too difficult – would be to unravel quite a lot of what both internal theological reflection and ecumenical agreement have assumed and worked with for most of the last century. For those of us who still believe that the Communion is a Catholic body, not just an agglomeration of national ones, a body attempting to live in more than one cultural and intellectual setting and committed to addressing major problems in a global way, the case for ‘drawing back’ is not attractive. But my real point is that we have never really had this discussion properly. It surfaced a bit in our debates over women’s ordination, but for a variety of reasons tended to slip out of focus. But we were bound to have to think it through sooner or later.

And it has arisen now in connection with same-sex relationships largely because this has been seen as a test-case for fidelity to Scripture, and so for our Reformed integrity. Rather more than with some other contentious matters (usury, pacifism, divorce), there was and is a prima facie challenge in a scriptural witness that appears to be universally negative about physical same-sex relations.

Now in the last ten years particularly, there have been numerous very substantial studies of the scriptural and traditional material which make it difficult to say that there is simply no debate to be had. Even a solidly conservative New Testament scholar like Richard Hays, to take one example out of many, would admit that work is needed to fill out and defend the traditional position, and to understand more deeply where the challenges to this position come from.

But it is easier to go for one or the other of the less labour-intensive options. There is a virtual fundamentalism which simply declines to reflect at all about principles of interpretation and implicitly denies that every reader of Scripture unconsciously or consciously uses principles of some kind. And there is a chronological or cultural snobbery content to say that we have outgrown biblical categories. These positions do not admit real theological debate. Neither is compatible with the position of a Church that both seeks to be biblically obedient and to read its Scriptures in the light of the best spiritual and intellectual perspectives available in the fellowship of believers. And the possibility of real theological exchange is made still more remote by one group forging ahead with change in discipline and practice and other insistently treating the question as the sole definitive marker of orthodoxy.

Whatever happened, we might ask, to persuasion? To the frustrating business of conducting recognisable arguments in a shared language? It is frustrating because people are so aware of the cost of a long argumentative process. It is intolerable that injustice and bigotry are tolerated by the Church; it is intolerable that souls are put in peril by doubtful teaching and dishonest practice. Yet one of the distinctive things about the Christian Church as biblically defined is surely the presumption (Acts 15) that the default position when faced with conflict is reasoning in council and the search for a shared discernment – so that the truth does not appear as just the imposed settlement of the winners in a battle.

Archbishop’s Address to General Synod

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Flight from embodiedness

Why is it that we moderns are so confused about the sources of our identity? We cannot decide whether we are essentially bodies, and must obey the dictates of our biology, or whether our bodies are simply vehicles which we can use or abuse, as though nothing our body does really touched us.

The modern self is a solitary and solipsistic being. It regards itself as the only real thing, and is determined not to be interrupted and inconvenienced by anything or anyone not itself. The Christian tradition calls this attitude ‘gnosticism’. This is the belief that I am solely my mind, and that I am trapped in my body, and in this world. It asserts that my mind can know the world, and other people, entirely without their aid and begin to extract itself from the limits they represent. Gnosticism is a panicked attempt to escape my past, my present situatedness, and all the plurality and ambiguity of life. It views embodiedness as entanglement and misfortune. It is a permanent temptation to believe that we are to remove ourselves from what it regards as the entangling, disgusting materiality and complications of this world and set ourselves above them.

Modernity is not simply a new phenomenon. It is also a timeless temptation. But it is only properly identified as this by the Church disciplined by the full gospel. The whole Christian tradition is our very own corporate memory. From this bank of resources constituted of all previous Christian experience, we may select parallels to our present experience. From these parallels we can see the range of options open to us for dealing with the challenges of our situation. If we have less memory, we have fewer resources by which to understand our circumstances and fewer options for dealing with them. The grace of God provides us with these resources for the very purpose that we grow through them and are empowered by them. The Christian life and teaching is the grace of God mediated through the experience of previous generations of Christians. It allows to us grow and become a holy people, able to hold out to our society what it cannot receive from any other source.

The whole surrounding culture of modernity is a flight from embodiedness and situatedness. Without the Christian gospel mediated through the Christian life and teaching, our culture is obliged to construct for itself what it refuses to accept from God. It is under a harsh law, entirely self-imposed. Unable to receive its shaping with gratitude, it is then only able to perceive others as a threat. This appears in its belief that all previous experience is rendered redundant by time, and its insistence that we abandon our experience and we flee whatever we identify as ‘the past’.

No Lack of Love – the Fulcrum sermons of Oliver O’Donovan