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Volume 6 Issue 1

January 2020

Issue of Open Theology

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Contents
Journal Overview

Topical Issue: Women and Gender in the Bible and the Biblical World, edited by Zanne Domoney-Lyttle and Sarah Nicholson

Open Access December 12, 2020

Women and Gender in the Bible and the Biblical World: Editorial Introduction

Sarah Nicholson, Zanne Domoney-Lyttle

Page range: 706-710

The name of the second person greeted in Romans 16:7 is given as IOYNIAN, a form whose grammatical gender could be either feminine or masculine which leads to the question: Is it Junia or Junias – a woman or a man – who is greeted alongside Andronicus as “outstanding among the apostles?” This article highlights early influential answers to this question in the history of interpretation (John Chrysostom’s commentary, the discipleship list of Pseudo-Epiphanius, Luther’s translation, and Calvin’s interpretation) showing that societal perceptions of women’s roles were a factor in how they interpreted IOYNIAN. The article then summarises the last 150 years of interpretation history which saw (a) the disappearance of Junia from the text and from scholarly discussion due to the impact of the short-from hypothesis in the nineteenth century, (b) the challenge to this male interpretation in connection with second wave feminism, and (c) the restoration of the female reading in the ensuing debate. Bringing together the main lines of the argument, it will be shown that there is only one reading supported by the evidence, the female reading which throughout the centuries was the more difficult reading in light of the church’s and society’s perception of women’s participation.

Topical issue: Issues and Approaches in Contemporary Theological Thinking about Evil, edited by John Culp

Open Access December 7, 2020

Introduction for the Topical Issue “Issues and Approaches in Contemporary Theological Thinking about Evil”

The interpretation of disaster through a religious lens has produced diverse theological perspectives regarding disaster. This article seeks to analyze the theology of disaster from a Protestant perspective, which may be combined with local knowledge and modern science to create disaster response strategies. This study is based on field studies and related literature analysis with qualitative method using an ethno science approach to see disaster phenomena in the context of Indonesian society, using primary data and secondary data. This study finds out that within Christian theology and among its followers disasters can be seen as the means through which God glorifies His creation while punishing those who have sinned and abandoned His teachings. It concludes, first , that God – the Creator – shows His love and mercy even through disaster. In the Protestant perspective, God seeks to honor His creation by mercifully creating balance. Second , disaster, as part of a natural cycle, should also be understood through local knowledge and modern science; as such, a holistic approach is necessary to understand and respond to disaster.

Topical issue: Motherhood(s) in Religions: The Religionification of Motherhood and Mothers’ Appropriation of Religion, edited by Giulia Pedrucci

Open Access March 17, 2020

The Entanglement of Mothers and Religions: An Introduction

Giulia Pedrucci

Page range: 202-205

New entanglements between parenting (in theory and practice), environmentalism, religion, spirituality, and secularism are at the core of the analysis presented in this article. In francophone contexts, discourses by practitioners, advocates and detractors of natural parenting contribute to associating this specific style of parenting and several of its key practices with religion and spirituality. After documenting and defining natural parenting by listing its characteristic practices and underlining its values as well as its important overlap with attachment parenting, this article examines the historically religious roots of movements linked to several practices still regarded as typical of natural parenting (natural childbirth movements, natural family planning or fertility awareness, and breastfeeding advocacy). Along with feminist and medical strands of criticism, within these highly secular contexts, the association with religion and spirituality participates in the criticism of this style of parenting which combines the key tenets of attachment parenting with a strong environmentalist agenda implemented for the most part in the domestic sphere and around women’s bodies.

Topical issue: Phenomenology of Religious Experience IV: Religious Experience and Description, edited by Olga Louchakova-Schwartz, James Nelson and Aaron Preston

Open Access December 24, 2020

Religious Experience and Description: Introduction to the Topical Issue

On a phenomenal level, no differences between the mystical and the initial sequence of psychotic experience are to be found. Both are characterized by transliminality (i.e., an experience of consciousness transcending both the psychophysical and the rational realms). However, the situation is different if we integrate psychodynamic implications before and after those experiences into the comparison. One difference on this level is that the mystical experience (if it meets sufficient ego stability) primarily offers personality-strengthening potential. In contrast, transliminality, which occurs in the course of psychotic experience (if it encounters insufficient ego-stability or a pronounced vulnerability), primarily offers personality-weakening potential. However, if the therapeutic process succeeds in setting ego-stabilizing impulses (or eliminating thought and affect disorders which are typical for psychoses of the schizophrenic spectrum), a conscious incorporation of the transliminal experience into the further therapeutic process proves to be helpful, too. The essential philosophical and therapeutic significance of the connections analyzed here are reflected on with the help of philosophical and psycho(patho)logical phenomenology, in particular with the writings of Husserl’s and Pfänder’s pupil Gerda Walther, combined with current theorems of responsive phenomenology. Walther’s insights into the (dys-)functionalities of ego-center (“Ichzentrum”), self (“Einbettung des Ichzentrums”), and basic essence (“Grundwesen”) in mystical and psychotic experience, with respect to their (meta-)transcendental relationship with divine essence (“göttlicher Wesensgrund”) provoke further research questions on the constitutive and therapeutic implications of transliminality in the context of mystical and psychotic experience.

Applying sociological imagination and theological perspectives and using some secondary literature that focus on the American pastoral experience, this article explains why sociology and the social sciences are underutilized in the pastoral ministry of Catholic priests despite the Catholic Church’s openness to human sciences’ contributions to evangelization after the Second Vatican Council. In particular, it examines how the (i) uneasy alliance between Catholic theology and sociology, (ii) overemphasis on the invisible and theological dimension of the Church in current ecclesiologies, (iii) highly philosophical and theological clerical education which sidelines the empirical sciences in clerical pastoral work, and (iv) dominance of the individualist approaches of clinical psychology in pastoral theology have greatly contributed to the neglect of sociological inquiries and perspectives in clerical formation and pastoral ministry. It also argues that a genuine pastoral care must be based on a holistic and empirical assessment of the pastoral needs of parishioners by priests using sociology and the social sciences before it prescribes a plan of action for pastoral care to accurately inculturate the Christian message in today’s technological culture.

About this journal

Open Theology is an international Open Access, peer-reviewed academic journal that welcomes contributions written in English addressing religion in its various forms and aspects: historical, theological, sociological, psychological, and other.
The journal encompasses all major disciplines of Theology and Religious Studies, presenting doctrine, history, organization and everyday life of various types of religious groups and the relations between them. We publish articles from the field of Theology as well as Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology of Religion and also dialogue between Religion and Science.
Open Theology does not present views of any particular theological school nor of a particular religious organization. The contributions are written by researchers who represent different religious views. The authors present their research concerning the old religious traditions as well as new religious movements.
The aim of the journal is to promote an international and interdisciplinary dialogue in the field of Theology and Religious Studies. The journal seeks also to provide researchers, pastors and other interested persons with the fruits of academic studies.

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CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Doubting Paul: The Legacy of the Dutch Radical School, edited by Wolfgang Grünstäudl and Jacco Pekelder (University of Münster, Germany) - deadline for submissions: January 31, 2024.
Sacrifice and the Body: Explorations beyond Metaphysics, edited by Katerina Koci (Institute for Human Sciences and University of Vienna, Austria) and Esther Heinrich-Ramharter (University of Vienna, Austria) - deadline for submissions: March 31, 2024　
Gendered Allegories: Origen of Alexandria and the Representation of the Feminine in Patristic Literature, edited by Lavinia Cerioni (Aarhus University, Denmark) - deadline for submissions: April 30, 2024.