The T & T Clark Blog

Lecture on Authority by Fr Victor Austin, St. Thomas' Church, NYC

Fr Victor Austin, Theologian in Residence at St. Thomas' Church Fifth Ave. in New York has given a lecture on the theme of his most recent book with T&T Clark on 'Authority'. The lecture is available on the internet and you can listen to it here. Enjoy!

 Fr Austin is also the author of our forthcoming Christian Ethics: A Guide for the Perplexed

Tomáš Halík wins Romano Guardini Prize

Tomáš Halík, a philosopher, sociologist and theologian, is the recipient of the 2010 Romano Guardini Prize of the Catholic Academy in Bavaria, Germany. He is awarded for „outstanding merits in interpreting contemporary society.“ This European prize is granted every other year and was already given to Werner Heisenberg, a physicist and Nobel Prize laureate, Richard von Weiszäcker, German President, Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, theologians, Karl Orff and Krysztof Penderecki, composers, Cardinal Franz König and others in the past. The prize will be delivered on the 27th September in Munich (in honor to R. Guardini who died in Munich), laudatio will be presented by Mr. Karel Schwarzenberg, a Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. Professor Tomáš Halík will deliver a speech on “The power over power” during the ceremony. Prof. PhDr. Tomáš Halík Th.D. (1948) teaches philosophy and sociology of religion at Charles University in Prague; since 1990 he has been a President of Czech Christian Academy and has been involved in interfaith relations.

 
Halík was an active member of religious and cultural dissent during Communism, after 1989 has lectured at a number of universities and international institutions around the world. His books are published in English, German, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Slovenian. Most recently a Chinese edition is being prepared. In 1992, Pope John Paul II. appointed him advisor to the Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Believers and in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI granted him the title of Monsignor - Honorary Prelate of His Holiness. Halík is a member of many institutions, such as the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and was awarded with various prizes worldwide.

Tomáš Halík is a contributor to Religious Roots of Contemporary European Identity. 

Up With Authority

This is a guest post by Victor Lee Austin, author of our new title Up With Authority. Fr Victor is Theologian-in-Residence at St Thomas Church, Fifth Ave, New York City. The book is available in the US and will publish in the UK in October. 

On the back cover of Up with Authority I am described as a “smiling contrarian.” That, my friends have since told me, is apt. Up with Authority is in no way a harsh book, as one might fear of an essay whose purpose is to show the inevitability and necessity of authority to human life. But it is definitely contrarian, in that it calls for the reexamination of many matters the reader might have thought of as settled.

An overview of the book

The point of Up with Authority is to show that we cannot succeed at being human beings—we cannot have a flourishing human life—without the functioning of authority in the multiple dimensions within which we live. I attempt to demonstrate this reality in four fundamental dimensions of human life that pertain to freedom, truth, power, and God. And I argue that this necessity of authority does not come upon us because of some tragic flaw in human beings. Rather, the necessity of authority is a manifestation of the glory of being human. Even “perfect” human beings need authority. In fact, my argument includes the claim that unsinful human beings need authority even more than sinners. Authority is built into what it means to be human, and we never will escape from needing it for our flourishing.

Margaret Barker on the Biblical Vision of Creation

 

We have received the manuscript for Margaret Barkers new book on "Creation - The Biblical Vision".

In Margaret's own words, her book is an attempt to outline what the first Christians could have known about Creation, thinking as they did within the framework of Temple Theology, and set this alongside some striking parallels in today’s environment discourse. 

Here is an excerpt from the third chapter:

"The biblical view of creation is rarely questioned, not in the sense that people have never taken issue with the seven day scheme, but in the sense that the seven day scheme, as usually understood, is assumed to be the biblical view. We are asking the question: How might Jesus and the first Christians have understood the creation? and already we have seen that their understanding of Genesis was a sophisticated and far from literal reading of the text.

Material available in the time of Jesus and from the era of the early church shows that they saw creation as one intricately woven system that could be destroyed by human action. In this chapter we shall recover something of that picture; most of the evidence has been well known for a long time, but it has been read differently.

Another Endorsement for "Calling for Justice"

Professor Jon Fuller, S.J., M.D., who is a staff physician with the Center for HIV/AIDS Care at Boston University, has offered this wonderful review of our recently released Calling for Justice throughout the World. Here, he gives a comprehensive endorsement of the book's inspiration and purpose and of the women whose contributions to both the volume and the fight against the pandemic are so important. Please enjoy!

In July of 2006, a remarkable, first-of-its-kind conference in Padua, Italy brought together more than 400 moral theologians from 63 countries to reflect on “Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church.”  The meeting was certainly notable for the papers presented, but it was important for another reason as well: this gathering allowed theologians from vastly different cultures not only to meet their fellow scholars face-to-face, but also to reflect as a cohort of professionals on their identity, capacity, and mission in service to the Church and to the human community.  Ten papers were presented in Padua on the topic of HIV/AIDS, but the meeting also became – in the words of editor Mary Jo Iozzio – a “rolling stone” that led to further analysis by theologians particularly interested in the pandemic.  This collection represents the further reflections of 25 women theologians representing 15 countries and 7 global regions.

Indeed, this collection by women is mostly about women.  But perhaps because of their lived experience of being biologically (and often culturally and economically) more vulnerable than men to becoming HIV-infected, women have also been able to identify with other marginalized and vulnerable groups whose voices must also be heard and for whom solutions must also be found.  These groups range from the elderly and physically or developmentally disabled to African Americans, children, addicts and migrant workers.   These reflections are contextualized not primarily in the realm of sexual ethics, but rather as failures of justice whose solutions must be based on the claims of human dignity, and on the church’s professed interest in a preferential option for the poor.   It is by the epic milestones of Catholic Social Teaching that several of these analyses find their way, beginning with Rerum novarum (1891) and Populorum progressio (1967), and culminating in the prophetic language of the Latin American bishops conferences held at Medellin in 1968 and in Puebla in 1979. 

"Calling for Justice throughout the World" Released! [Author's Circle]

We are very pleased to announce the release of the important collection of essays on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Calling for Justice throughout the World: Catholic Women Theologians on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic, edited by Mary Jo Iozzio, Mary M. Doyle Roche, and Elsie M. Miranda. As serious as this worldwide issue, it has been a real pleasure working with Professor Iozzio and the rest on this project. Some of you may have seen a taste of this volume at the Society of Christian Ethics meeting in Chicago last month and we now make it available to you.

We got some great endorsements for this volume, too!

"Did you know that the percentage of girls and women living with HIV and AIDS has risen to just below 50 per cent today and that in sub-Saharan Africa 75 per cent of 15 to 24-year-olds living with HIV and AIDS are female.  While women are surpassing the infection rates of men, they are also less able than men to get adequate information, care and treatment.  In short, in a world of gender inequity, HIV opts for women.  In response to this tragic reality, Mary Jo Iozzio has prophetically gathered 25 women theologians from 15 countries to tell us what we must do now as we see the Female Face of HIV/AIDS.  A compelling and illuminating collection.  Brava!"

James F. Keenan, S.J.
Founders Professor in Theology
Boston College, Chestnut Hill

"This extraordinary and unique book for the first time brings together twenty-five Catholic women theologians from around the globe to address the social justice issues of the prevention of and care for victims of HIV/AIDS.  The essays report on the situation throughout the world with a special focus on the poor and women and challenge the church, governments, and voluntary organizations to do more."

Charles E. Curran
Elizabeth Scurlock University Professor of Human Values
Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University

Please enjoy Professor Iozzio's thoughts on this volume as part of our ongoing Author's Circle series:

Calling for Justice throughout the World has been two full years in the making. The collection was inspired by my interest in updating the work of Catholic Ethicists on HIV/AIDS Prevention, edited by James F. Keenan, SJ (Continuum, 2002) and the opportunity to collaborate with Catholic women theologians that resulted from the first conference of Catholic Theological Ethicists in the World Church, meeting in Padua, Italy (2006). This companion collection is the result of that collaboration.

Each of the authors draws from her own experience in working with and reflecting on the experience of those who are infected with and affected by the pandemic. Here you will read about the challenges of reconciling vulnerability with empowerment from contexts that include what works and what hinders progress in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania. Further, from the voices of women, new insights and creative responses will be helpful for those involved with prevention efforts and the care of the more than 33-36 million people living with HIV or with AIDS today.

From email invitations to more than 50 women scholars I happily received 24 essays. During the course of the two years of writing and editing, a wonderful relationship and new friendships were developed among the authors. We have seen each other through happy and sad times –defending dissertations, finding new work, celebrating successes as well as grave illnesses and deaths. With each of these events, our community grew stronger through the bonds of prayer.

This work has been a singular joy. My co-editors and I remain deeply grateful to each of the contributors to the collection. And we are hopeful that this contribution to raising awareness of the ongoing crisis that surrounds the HIV/AIDS pandemic will motivate churches, and national and international efforts to relieve the human toll that comes with complacence and a failure to attend to the concrete needs of our sisters and brothers, ourselves and our families, in the world –solidarity and our faith demands more.