Editorial

Process theology based on the philosophy of Alfred N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne views the world as a process of becoming composed of moments (actual entities), which occur by way of self-actualizing out of the data available for such an occasion. This presupposes a kind of subjectivity in these entities, as well as their being motivated for such self-actualization which would be a creative contribution to the fact that reality is a “world,” rather than chaos. This brings us to the hypothesis of “a God” luring the actual entities to following an aim that is optimal for both themselves and the world in its entirety. Actual entities occur at many levels of complexity. At the human level their data include values. This scheme is believed to be essentially consistent not only with the Biblical view of divine activity and its modern interpretations, but also with the traditional doctrinal layout of the content of the Biblical witness.

Book review on Panikos Panayi, The Germans in India: Elite European Migrants in the British Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017). ISBN: 9781526119339

Editorial

Editorial

This article looks at the sexual abuse crises that have hit churches around the world, especially the Roman Catholic Church, and asks if it is possible to talk of hope in such circumstances. It asks whether theology has a role to play or a responsibility for the crisis, and what sort of church is called for in the light of it. The article ends by suggesting possible places of hope that do not seek to impose on the survivors.

This article looks at the contribution of Dumitru Stăniloae’s theology of the sacramentality of creation for the cultivation of an ecological sensitivity, attending in particular to his ideas that the entire created reality is God’s gift to humanity and that the cosmos has a mysterious or apophatic dimension. This helps in developing a Christian ecology whose central idea is of non-possession or non-domestication of the world by human beings. Understanding the world thus is seen as world-affirming and a reminder that creation cannot be treated as mere utility, property, or raw material, but is always also a vehicle of grace and spiritualization.

This article explores Father Aleksander Schmemann’s radio broadcasts that began in 1953 on Radio Liberty, coinciding with Joseph Stalin’s death. The article argues that his broadcasts represent a unique form of hope, particularly from an Orthodox Christian perspective. A core aspect of his theological thought emphasizes personal religious experiences, both internal and external, expressed effectively through literature and poetry. The article examines one of Fr Schmemann’s sermons, which discusses Russian poet Joseph Brodsky’s poem “ The Meeting of the Lord” (“Sretenie”). Through this sermon, the article demonstrates Fr Schmemann’s view of literature’s role in conveying spiritual insights. It underscores Fr Schmemann’s belief of the significance of personal religious experiences in one’s relationship with God, conveyed primarily through words, whether in liturgical settings or creative expressions like poetry. This profound connection between language, faith, and personal experience forms the foundation of Fr Schmemann’s paradoxical hope, inspiring him to reach out to a distant and suppressed audience.

Book review on Tim Noble, Liberation against Entitlement: Conflicting Theologies of Grace and Clashing Populisms. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2022, 262 p.

Petr Pokorný (1933-2020) was a long-time professor of New Testament at the Evangelical Theological Faculty of Charles University in Prague. He authored a number of books and studies in which he dealt directly and indirectly with hermeneutical issues important for the proper understanding and reliable interpretation of the biblical text. In 2005, in collaboration with 12 other authors, he published a kind of hermeneutical compendium, or rather a modality of the hermeneutical approach to Scripture, entitled Hermeneutics as a Theory of Understanding from Basic Questions of Language to the Interpretation of the Bible (508 pages). Part of Pokorný's Hermeneutics (pp. 17-215) was published in 2011 in the English translation Hermeneutics as a Theory of Understanding. Pokorný did not intend to present the traditional history of hermeneutics or to create a foundational theoretical work. As he notes, he was initially inspired by Paul Ricoeur and his hermeneutical practice, but developed his own stance based on his own understanding of the problems of interpreting Scripture and his critical reflections. He admits that he does not address some of the issues of hermeneutics and that there are several ways to process the material of hermeneutics. Therefore, his work can be considered as hermeneutic modalities rather than a finished compact hermeneutic work. Nevertheless, in Professor Pokorný we can read a lot of useful and rich material from different areas of hermeneutics, such as: Language as a coding system, symbol and metaphor, text between tradition and future, reader and text, genre, various methods of interpretation, strangeness and attractiveness of texts, history and revelation, revelation and testimony, etc. Based on this hermeneutical set and other exegetical works, the reviewer attempts to highlight these modalities and provide a definable picture of Pokorný hermeneutical approaches and procedures.