Christian Ministry In The Divine Milieu

Fr. Maldari offers a vision of Christian ministry as a community in which each member actively participates in fostering creation's evolution toward fulfillment. While ministry is ultimately cooperating with God in furthering the process of creation to its fulfillment in salvation, it also humbly recognizes human limitation and dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

A translation of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's spiritual masterpiece, "The Divine Milieu". It addresses those who have lost faith in conventional religion but who still have a sense of the divine at the heart of the cosmos.

The essential companion to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenom of Man, The Divine Milieu expands on the spiritual message so basic to his thought. He shows how man's spiritual life can become a participation in the destiny of the universe. Teilhard de Chardin -- geologist, priest, and major voice in twentieth-century Christianity -- probes the ultimate meaning of all physical exploration and the fruit of his own inner life. The Divine Milieu is a spiritual treasure for every religion bookshelf.

During the twentieth century, Jesuit priest-scientist Pierre Teilhaid de Chardin developed a truly innovative spirituality. By integrating both a comprehensive evolutionary perspective and the discoveries of science into Christian spirituality, Teilhard presented a new way to understand the Word of God and the immensity of the Universal Christ. While many books have explored and explained Teilhard's theology, there has never been a spiritual guide for everyday use of his principles-until now. Savary transforms these challenging and difficult-to-understand concepts into a more accessible spirituality. The Divine Milieu Explained also offers a series of spiritual practices and exercises that integrate science and faith according to Teilhaid's evolutionary spirituality. "His purpose....[was] to see spiritual reality today-in the world contemporary men and women live in. thoroughly informed and transformed by science and technology." Book jacket.

Proposing an open-ended systems approach to ecclesiology, with the goal of sustaining the relevance and--paradoxically--the permanence of the church, Bracken synthesizes the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead to produce his novel Trinitarian argument, which is grounded in the language of process theology and a continually evolving universe.

Building on the work of Teilhard de Chardin, the New Cosmology integrates scientific facts and theories, including discoveries about the expanding universe and evolution, and proposes that creation is developing into greater complexity. But how are we to understand concepts like “original sin” and “redemption” if creation isn’t complete and humanity is still in process? How does one “retrofit” religious tradition and Scripture into this scenario? Is there room for the historical Jesus in the New Cosmology? While a ready concern for all Christians, this question has unique implications for women religious whose lives are centered on the person and mission of Jesus Christ. How is a Catholic sister to understand her vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in light of a cosmology in which the need for redemption and the role of Jesus are significantly redefined? The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of God probes these questions and offers possible answers. Beginning with the experiences of women religious and their encounter with the New Cosmology or Universe Story, this book seeks to mediate among the various perspectives and proposes how informed and reflective engagement with science, tradition, and theology can bridge the generational divides and foster a spirituality that is both emergent and incarnational.

In this book Eric W. Gritsch, a Lutheran and a distinguished Luther scholar, faces the glaring ugliness of Martin Luther's anti- Semitism head-on, describing Luther's journey from initial attempts to proselytize Jews to an appallingly racist position, which he apparently held until his death. Comprehensively laying out the textual evidence for Luther's virulent anti-Semitism, Gritsch traces the development of Luther's thinking in relation to his experiences, external influences, and theological convictions. Revealing greater impending danger with each step, Martin Luther's Anti-Semitism marches steadily onward until the full extent of Luther's racism becomes apparent. Gritsch's unflinching analysis also describes the impact of Luther's egregious words on subsequent generations and places Luther within Europe's long history of anti-Semitism. Throughout, however, Gritsch resists the temptation either to demonize or to exonerate Luther. Rather, readers will recognize Luther's mistakes as links in a chain that pulled him further and further away from an attitude of respect for Jews as the biblical people of God. Gritsch depicts Luther as a famous example of the intensive struggle with the enduring question of Christian-Jewish relations. It is a great historical tragedy that Luther, of all people, fell victim to anti-Semitism -- albeit against his better judgment.

This book offers engagements with topics in mainline theology that concern the lifelines in and of the Pacific (Pasifika). The essays are grouped into three clusters. The first, Roots, explores the many roots from which theologies in and of Pasifika grow – sea and (is)land, Christian teachings and scriptures, native traditions and island ways. The second, Reads, presents theologies informed and inspired by readings of written and oral texts, missionary traps and propaganda, and teachings and practices of local churches. The final cluster, Routes, places Pasifika theologies upon the waters so that they may navigate and voyage. The ‘amanaki (hope) of this work is in keeping talanoa (dialogue) going, in pushing back tendencies to wedge the theologies in and of Pasifika, and in putting native wisdom upon the waters. As these Christian and native theologies voyage, they chart Pasifika’s sea of theologies.

We live in a liminal time. The anthropologist Victor Turner describes liminality as a time of severe disorientation for individuals and societies that lies between one stage of life and another. All the former signposts that provided people with an identity are in a state of upheaval as they transit between these stages. This book uses the lifelong personal and professional experiences of the author to analyse how Catholics experience liminality today and dealt with it yesterday. It provides the reader with an historical case study of frightening experiences, both in teaching what to expect during such a time and what to assume when it ends.