Suchergebnisse

Irena Backus offers an examination of Leibniz as both scholar and theologian, illuminating the relationship between metaphysics and theology in Leibniz's handling of key theological issues of his time: predestination, sacred history, the Eucharist, and efforts for a union between Lutherans and Catholics and between Lutherans and Calvinists

After the fall of the New Order in 1998, the Ulama Council of Indonesia (MUI) has been in the limelight for many of its controversial and conservative fatwa (legal opinions). Formed in 1975 by President Suharto, MUI was intended to serve as an institution to manage and discipline dissent, challenges and defiance by grassroots organisations. However, recent writings point to its changing character: Its fatwas are becoming more conservative; it is more assertive and powerful; and its fatwas, particularly the 2005 SIPILIS (anti-secularism, pluralism and liberalism), are deemed as contributing to violence towards minorities. This article reassess the scholarly conclusions and media reports made about the relationship between MUI, the Indonesian state and society. Examining MUI's attempt to define public morality as a case study, particularly its role in the 2008 pornography bill and efforts to "moralise" entertainment, the article argues that MUI is internally fragmented and weak.

Gushee reviews Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany by Robert A. Krieg.

Although an orphaned subject among scholars of religion, the theology of Thomas Hobbes is now among the most contested issues in Hobbes studies and the study of early liberal political theory. This essay maps the state of the question and offers a theological appraisal of it. In so doing it attempts to critique a leading reading of Hobbes's Leviathan by highlighting its attack on civil religion and endorsement of a biblical political theology. The relationship between Hobbes's political and theological views in Leviathan also receives sustained attention. Adapted from the source document.

An Appeal for Theological Affirmation has already proved to be an important statement in the contemporary context. Its historical and sociological significance seems assured. But whether the Appeal is theologically all that significant is still an open question. That the individual theological contributions of many of its distinguished signers will merit a secure place in the history of American theology seems sure. But to ask whether this statement itself is theologically accurate is to formulate a question mat, for my part, must be answered negatively.