PENTECOST 2007 SPECIAL EDITION

ISSUE 10 - ISSN 1448 - 6326

 

Pentecost, God/Religion, Silence

Editorial by Gerard Hall SM

At the first Pentecost, God’s Spirit is manifest by a mighty wind and tongues of fire (Acts 2). Following Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven, the experience of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is the third sign that evil is overcome and that God’s reign of justice and love is transforming the world. The fourth, definitive sign is to be the return of Christ at the end of time - when heaven and earth will be renewed (Revelation 21:1).

Are these central tenets of Christian faith still credible today? If recent media events are to be believed, these are fanciful myths belonging to an earlier age. The new messengers of anti-religious, scientific rationality include: Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion; Christopher Hitchens’ God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell; and Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation. ABC Television’s Compass Program recently featured Dawkins’ and Hitchens’ apologia for atheism. More than fanciful, religion is portrayed as the “root of all evil”; religious faith is identified as a “virus”.

What is the Christian response to these claims? One extreme is to reject the world of science and rationality. As we know, religious fundamentalism is making a come-back, not least among the world’s two largest religions, Christianity and Islam. Another extreme is to reduce religion and religious belief to the level of necessary myth-making that, at its best, promotes positive values for human living. One problem here, of course, is that the atheistic critics are partly right: too often religion has been, and continues to be, a source of violence, oppression, intolerance and fanaticism.

The problem with these approaches is that religion has been turned into an ideology. We know that Jesus rebukes the religious ideologists of his day. His own approach is very different. In fact, there is little evidence that Jesus advocates religion at all. What he does advocate is a life-giving relationship with God through personal holiness and the formation of a community of disciples whose mission is to proclaim God’s reign of peace and justice in the world. This mission is not of human making; it is a divine calling. At first sight, the mission is a spectacular failure evidenced by Jesus’ own death on Calvary. But evil does not have the last word: Jesus is risen and the Holy Spirit is given to us.

These sound like claims for the unique validity of Christianity. Yet, another interpretation beckons. The Word of God and the presence of God’s Spirit are not limited to any religious tradition or even by the entire cosmos. This is where Hitchens is wrong and the Muslims (among others) are right: God is great! Yet, all religious adherents would do well to learn from the Medieval Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart - “Let God be God”. If we manipulate, belittle or use God for our own ideological purposes - religious or otherwise - we risk turning God into an agent of tyranny. This is blasphemy.

Christians have their own privileged access to God’s Word and God’s Spirit insofar as their Christian faith and discipleship are authentic. This is where Pentecostals have much to teach: we are called to experience God in our own personal and communal lives. However, today, God is not necessarily experienced in the mighty winds of the first Pentecost. The newly-produced documentary film, Into Great Silence, follows the lives of the Carthusian monks of Grande Chartreuse who seek God in profound prayer and silence. Throughout the film, we are reminded of the prophet Elijah who did not find God in the wind, earthquake or fire, but in the gentle sound of the breeze (1 Kings 19:11-13).

This brings us back to the question of God in contemporary, secular culture. In some sense, we are entering the great cultural silence of God. Rather than focus on the atheistic proclamation of the ‘death’ of God—something not especially new -, we do well to recognize the ‘eclipse’ or ‘marginalization’ of God in contemporary consciousness. God is not so much denied, but has ‘gone missing’. And this is felt to be a significant cultural loss. People are drawn to non-theistic spiritual traditions, to yoga and meditation, and to New Age pop-psychologies. Through these experiences, traces of the ‘memory’ of God may be discovered, at least at the subconscious level.

This is a new challenge. Certainly, the notion of the ‘hidden’ God is no stranger to Judaism [“You are a God who lies hidden”- Isaiah 45:15] or Christianity [“Christ is the image of the unseen God” - Colossians 1:15f.]. However, for entire cultures to live as if they have no need for God, while also searching for something to replace God - this is new. The answer though is not to be found in the return to old-time religion with its power and its prejudices. We are in a time of spiritual purification of cultures and religions. God is more likely to be found today in the silence and gentle breezes where the Word and Spirit of God are waiting to be discovered anew. Pentecost is always God’s gift - and God’s surprise.

Gerard Hall SM

24th May 2007

Our Lady Help of Christians

 

EDITOR'S NOTES

This is now our second, consecutive Pentecost EJournal as we strive to find new ways to express the divine mystery at work in our world.  This year, Pentecost coincides with the beginning of National Reconciliation Week in Australia and the fortieth anniversary of the referendum which afforded citizenship rights to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This issue of the EJournal begins by acknowledging the wrongs and hurts of our colonial past which continue today in racist attitudes and policy failures that shame our nation. We commit ourselves to the task of ongoing reconciliation among all peoples, especially among indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. We work, hope and pray for an ongoing Australian Pentecost in which the Holy Spirit will renew the face of our land and the hearts of our people.

It is important to note that the opinions of authors expressed in the EJournal are not necessarily endorsed by the Editor, Board of Management or National School of Theology at Australian Catholic University . Our attempt is simply to provide a forum for theological exchange and reflection that is well researched, elegantly written and, in the case of peer-reviewed articles, fully in accord with established criteria for original research. Because we also wish to promote contributions from younger scholars and academics, we also publish essays that do not carry the peer-reviewed endorsement. We trust, nonetheless, that readers will find all our articles enlightening, stimulating, challenging. Many thanks to those of you who have communicated your appreciation of the journal’s creative contribution to theological scholarship—and for critical ideas to help us improve our production.

There appears to be a developing interest among authors of what is termed “Practical Theology”. As with our last issue, a number of contributions in this issue emerge from the November 2007 Conference on Practical Theology in Auckland , New Zealand . A number of our contributors are members of the Association of Practical Theology in Oceania—and a few are also members of the International Academy of Practical Theology which held its 2007 bi-annual meeting at Easter in Berlin. Significantly, our journal’s contribution to Practical Theology was publicly acknowledged in the Presidential Address at the meeting of the International Academy in Berlin .

Contributors are also members of other academic theological associations, both national and international. The context of doing theology today needs this cross-fertilization of ideas which, we believe, is evident in the articles submitted and chosen for publication. The Board of Management is always open to receive new ideas or suggestions in terms of the direction of the EJournal. Proposed articles and other ideas should be sent to “The Editor” at ejournal_theo@acu.edu.au

We aim to have a third issue of the E-Journal for 2007 issued in October (or early November). We are currently exploring a way for readers to register their names so they can be systematically notified of new issues—which we are currently producing three times per year. Increasingly, we have more articles to publish than time and space provide. As well, we are often awaiting referee reports accounting for a certain, inevitable delay in the publication of some articles.

My personal appreciation to Members of the Board of Management and especially to our technical editor and web-designer, Mr Yuri Koszarycz, our deputy editor, Professor Tony Kelly, and theology/arts editor, Associate Professor Anne Hunt. I am also most appreciative to Ms Fran Wilkinson, School of Theology Administrative Assistant, who not only coordinates and minutes our Board Meetings but has taken on the task of producing an excellent Index of Authors/Articles to be found at the bottom of the Index Page for each issue.

Naturally, we are most grateful to our authors, book reviewers and referees. In particular, we need more book reviewers. So, if you have read a recent book in the area of theology, please do not hesitate to offer your review to the EJournal. As well, you will find a list of “Books Received”: academics in particular are invited to apply to receive a work for review—and to add to your library! If you have already received a book you are reviewing for AEJT, please forward as soon as you are able to complete the task. We appreciate this is largely a work of gratuity.

Here follows a list of books reviewed (as mentioned--we would like to expand this section in future issues) and books received for review (on this occasion with appreciation to Hugh MacGinlay of Rainbow books).

Happy Pentecost reading! Please forward any ideas, responses, suggestions or critiques which will assist us to improve the Journal. And, yes, we would like more contributions from indigenous scholars and artists. Those already received and published have been widely acknowledged.

Gerard Hall SM, Editor

30 May – National Reconciliation Week

 

BOOKS REVIEWED

Title	Author	Publisher	Reviewer
Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology	J. Wentzel van Huyssteen	William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006	John Flanagan
Aspects of Islam	Ron Geaves	London : Darton, Longman and Todd, 2005	Damien Casey
The freedom of a Christian: Grace, vocation and the meaning of our humanity	Gilbert Meilaender	Brazos Press, Grand Rapids , 2006	Ken Albinger
Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life	Alister McGrath	Blackwell Publishing Limited 2005	Bill Muehlenberg
Mission Under Scrutiny: Confronting Current Challenges	J. Andrew Kirk	London : Darton, Longman & Todd, 2006	Gerard Hall

BOOKS RECEIVED

A selection of recent titles in theology chosen by Hugh McGinlay of Rainbow Books.

Available from all Christian book shops or contact Hugh directly for further information

hugh@rainbowbooks.com.au

Traces of God in the Laws of Nature: Cosmic Impressions by Walter Thirring.

Philadelphia & London : Templeton-Foundation Press, 2007,

 

Eastern Catholic Churches by Edward Faulk.

New York/Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 2007.

 

The Inclusive God: Reclaiming Theology for an Inclusive Church by Steven Shakespeare & Hugh Rayment-Pickard.
Norwich : Canterbury Press,  2006.

 

The Historical Jesus? By David B. Gowler.

New York/Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 2007.

 

Saints by George P. Evans

New York/Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 2007.

 

The Permanent Diaconate - Its History and Place in the Sacrament of Orders by Kenan B. Osborne, OFM

New York/Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 2007.

 

The Gospel of Matthew - Question by Question by John F. O'Grady

New York/Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 2007.

 

Christianity 101 - A Textbook of catholic Theology by gregory C. Higgins

New York/Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 2007.