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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian theology
Arianism has been called the "archetypal Christian heresy" - a
denial of the divine status of Christ. In his examination, now
augmented by new material, Rowan Williams argues that Arius himself
was a dedicated theological conservative whose concern was to
defend the free and personal character of the Christian God. His
"heresy" grew out of the attempt to unite traditional biblical
language with radical philosophical ideas and techiniques, and was,
from the start, involved with issues of authority in the church.
Thus, the crisis of the early 4th century was not only about the
doctrine of God, but also about the relations between emperors,
bishops and ascetical "charismatic" teachers in the church's
decision-making. Williams raises the wider questions of how heresy
is defined and how certain kinds of traditionalism transform
themselves into heresy. With a fresh conclusion, in which the
author reflects on how his views have changed or remained the same,
and a new introduction, this book is suitable reading for students
of patristics, doctrine and church history.
More than twenty-five years have passed since the publication in
1979 of "Brothers and Sisters to Us," the U.S. Bishops' statement
against racism, and during this time white Catholic theologians
have remained relatively silent on this topic. In this hard-hitting
study, prominent Roman Catholic theologians address white
priviletge and the way it contributes to racism. They maintain that
systems of white privilege are a significant factor in maintaining
evil systems of racism in our country and that most white
theologians and ethicists remain ignorant of their negative impact.
Why do we have children and what do we raise them for? Does the
proliferation of depictions of suffering in the media enhance, or
endanger, compassion? How do we live and die well in the extended
periods of debility which old age now threatens? Why and how should
we grieve for the dead? And how should we properly remember other
grief and grievances? In addressing such questions, the Christian
imagination of human life has been powerfully shaped by the
imagination of Christ's life Christs conception, birth, suffering,
death, and burial have been subjects of profound attention in
Christian thought, just as they are moments of special interest and
concern in each and every human life. However, they are also sites
of contention and controversy, where what it is to be human is
discovered, constructed, and contested. Conception, birth,
suffering, burial, and death are occasions, in other words, for
profound and continuing questioning regarding the meaning of human
life, as controversies to do with IVF, abortion, euthanasia, and
the use of bodies and body parts post mortem, indicate. In The
Ethics of Everyday Life, Michael Banner argues that moral theology
must reconceive its nature and tasks if it is not only to
articulate its own account of human being, but also to enter into
constructive contention with other accounts. In particular, it must
be willing to learn from and engage with social anthropology if it
is to offer powerful and plausible portrayals of the moral life and
answers to the questions which trouble modernity. Drawing in
wide-ranging fashion from social anthropology and from Christian
thought and practice from many periods, and influenced especially
by his engagement in public policy matters including as a member of
the UK's Human Tissue Authority, Banner develops the outlines of an
everyday ethics, stretching from before the cradle to after the
grave.
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