Canadian Theological Society / Soci‚t‚ th‚ologique canadienne Annual Meeting, Thursday Saturday, 25 27 May 2000 University of Alberta, Edmonton NB: unless otherwise indicated, all sessions in Tory Building, Room 1 107 Thursday, 25 May______________________________________________ 9:00 am 10:30 am Panel: "Violence in the Discourse of Modernity: Sources in Medieval and Enlightenment Thought" Nicholas Healy, St. John's University and George Schner, Regis College; Respondent: Eric Beresford, Anglican Church of Canada The first paper, "Moral Ontology in Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus: The Origins of Violence in the Discourse of Modernity?," will consider the theme in pre reformation thought, with a focus on Aquinas and Scotus, and will have three parts: the first will discuss of how Aquinas situates human (moral) action within his ontology, focussing on Aquinas's discussion of the possibility of just war as the test case and drawing upon his Christology rather more than customary for elucidation; the second will compare and contrast Aquinas's ontology with that of Duns Scotus, again with regard to human action; the final section will offer a critique of the narrative constructed by the Radical Orthodox group, according to which Scotus's account is (at least) the precursor of the ontology of violence characteristic of the discourse of modernity. The second paper, "Moral Ontology in Kant: Freedom and Perpetual Peace at What Cost?," will consider the theme in modern thought with a focus on the writings of Immanuel Kant in the last decade of his life, 1794 1804 (coincident with his explicit writings on Christianity), namely the writings on history, peace, and human progress. These works are rarely consulted though they constitute an incipient shift in Kant's philosophy which he was unable to fully explore. They will be read for evidence of the roots of forms of both violence and healing in late modern discourse. In contrast to Kant's confidence that "gradually violence on the part of the powers will diminish and obedience to the laws will increase" (An Old Question Raised Again) the paper will attempt to show the inherent violence in and impossibility of healing within Enlightenment thought. The respondent will consider the theme in contemporary thought, with specific attention to the interconnection of the critique of violence, the development of ecclesiology, and broader issues of the interrelation of theology and ethics. 10:30 am 11:00 am Break 11:00 am 12:00 pm Paper: "The Shoes of God: In Stomping Boots or Dancing Shoes? The Trinity as Answer to Violence" Hans Boersma, Trinity Western University This paper looks at the relationship between god-concepts and violence. Recent critiques of monotheism as a cause of violence are analysed; the option of a move from the 'one' to the 'many' is considered in the light of ancient polytheistic worldviews. This leads to a consideration of trinitarian thought as a possible answer to violence. The trinitarian dance (perichoresis) is described as a social, grace-ful(l), passionate and ecstatic dance. Renewed trinitarian thought is able to contribute to a response to violence. 12:00 pm 1:30 pm Lunch 1:30 pm 2:30 pm Paper: "Unbinding Sex and Violence: A Critical Reading of Feminist Eros" Alyda Faber, McGill University Feminist eros is a vision of healing and hope in response to violence. For Rita Nakashima Brock and Carter Heyward, feminist eros is a sacred power of mutual relation, uniting human sexual expression with the ardour of justice seeking; it is a life giving spirit that vivifies resistance to capitalist and patriarchal structures that thwart and truncate human fullness and joy. Their vision expresses vibrant hope for possibilities of transformation. It asks where we are now and where our yearning might lead us. I argue, however, that violence and sexuality cannot be distinguished as easily as Brock and Heyward suggest. Furthermore, their idea of eros as free of violence limits practical wisdom in response to social issues like prostitution, as I demonstrate with a critical reading of Brock and Susan Brooks Thisthethwaite's Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States. I consider an alternative vision of tragic eros, developed by religious and secular feminist writers in works such as Kathleen Sands, "The Uses of the Thea(o)logian: Sex and Theodicy in Religious Feminism" and Catherine McKinnon's gender theory in Toward a Feminist Theory of the State and a coauthored essay, "Is Rape Sex or Violence? Conceptual Issues and Implications." 2:30 pm 3:30 pm Paper: "Sexuality, Rules and Relationships: An Ethical Analysis of The United Church of Canada's Historical Approach to Sexuality" Tracy Trothen, University of Winnipeg The ending of sexual violence requires an examination of our understandings of sexuality. This paper provides a social ethical analysis of The United Church of Canada''s approach to human sexuality between 1925 and 1980. Topics to be examined are birth control, the marital relationship, redemptive homes, pornography and abortion. The United Church's understanding of the purpose of human sexuality has moved from the conviction that such expressions must be limited to procreation and the strengthening of the union of the traditional nuclear family, to the belief that sexual intimacy in and of itself is important within covenantal relationships . In addition, the understanding of human sexuality has been transformed from a primarily act-centred ethic to a primarily relational ethic. 3:30 pm 4:00 pm Break 4:00 pm 5:30 pm Panel: "Publishing Articles on Theological Topics" Pamela Dickey Young and Marc Dumas, Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses; and George Schner, Toronto Journal of Theology This workshop is meant to be a pragmatic exploration on the publication of articles on theological topics. Presenters will address questions such as: What constitutes a good article in theology? How do I prepare an article for publication? How do I choose where to send the article? How are review processes conducted? What should I do if my article is rejected? How do I plan my publication program over time? After brief initial presentations, the discussion will be opened in such a way that all there can contribute their own experiences with publication in journals in the field. The panel will include three presenters, one of whom will also moderate; time for open discussion will follow. 6:30 pm CTS Dinner, venue TBA Friday, 26 May__________________________________________________ 9:00 am 10:00 am Paper: "The Challenge of Present Day Palestine to Modern Theology" Marguerite Abdul Masih, St. Mary's University This paper is an attempt to outline in a rudimentary fashion the challenges that the plight of the inhabitants of Palestine pose to modern theology. The method I follow is "a hermeneutical method of critical correlation" that "entails bringing together the present and the past, bringing into conjunction our present situation and the tradition." In other words, in this method, our present situation raises questions and critiques our theological formulations while at the same time the situation is critiqued by our tradition. In this paper the situation of the present day Palestinians raises questions about our theological method and formulation, and in turn the situation of Palestine is critiqued by our theological ideals. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first section, I will present the contemporary situation with regard to Palestine. I will describe briefly the situation in Palestine and raise some questions about the response it elicited from the Western culture in general and the Western theological community in particular. In the second section I will outline the religious questions and challenges that this situation raises. Some of the areas most affected in Christian theology are theological method, Biblical hermeneutics, images of God and Christology. In the third section I will I will present my conclusions. 10:00 am 10:45 am Work in Progress: "Limited Strategic Violence as the Communication of Hope and Healing: The Risk and Challenge of a Difficult Rhetoric in the Liberation Christology of Jon Sobrino" Derek Simon, St. Paul University While healing and hope intuitively signify a constructive response to countless sufferings inflicted by many kinds and degrees of violence, this working paper wants to theologically explore whether a limited range of strategic violence might communicate and sustain healing and hope. To what extent, under what kinds of conditions, and with which criteria of accountability can strategic violence be risked as an affirmation of human dignity by marginalised and oppressed groups whose religious faith binds them to political responsibility for a distributive social good? When the massive degradations and organized misery inflicted by structural adjustment programs, disproportionate systems of distribution, the exclusive organization of access to basic ecohuman resources, and the systemic inequalities of advanced global capitalism render peaceful means of long-term conflict negotiation inadequate and counter-productive for the most marginal and vulnerable, is there a point where a specific range of violent action can be legitimized as restoring conditions where normal means of social discourse and the distribution of ecohuman goods is viable? Sobrino's reflection on such a line of questioning in Jesus the Liberator provides the focal point for examining this poignant dilemma. After examining the exegetical and ethical groundwork supporting his analysis of contemporary forms of violence, the theological norms and sociological conditions both supporting and limiting a minimal margin of forceful action are developed. After recourse to Ricoeur's pertinent reflections on conditions of constructive non-violent practices as a foil, this paper explores the normative dimensions of Sobrino's evaluation of violence in contexts of liberatory praxis. 10:45 am 11:00 am Break 11:00 am 12:00 pm Paper: "Non Violence and Reconciliation in the Work of Richard Roberts (1874 1945)" Michael Bourgeois, Emmanuel College Paul Tillich claimed that "the nineteenth century ended on August 1, 1914," and the century that thus began with "the Great War" has come to a close with smaller but no less brutal and intractable conflicts in, for example, Indonesia and Chechnya. The First World War effected a major critique of the liberal theology then prevailing in Europe and North America, one element of which critique was a reassessment of the theological justification for violent and non violent strategies in situations of conflict. Underlying this debate were two closely related issues of fundamental theology: of what good are humans capable, whether individually or collectively; and what can we hope for in history, whether by divine or by human agency. With specific reference to violence and non violence and in the context of broader theological and social debates, this paper will examine the theological anthropology and theology of history in the work of Richard Roberts, Welsh born pastor and theologian who during the First World War had been pastor to John Macmurray and a founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in England. After moving to Canada in the early 1920s, Roberts wrote and preached on various theological and ethical issues, including in a public correspondence on pacifism with Reinhold Niebuhr in 1940. The paper will conclude with an evaluation of Roberts's work from the perspective of the end of a century fraught with violence. 12:00 pm 1:30 pm Lunch 1:30 pm 2:30 pm Paper: "Wild Geese and Solidarity: Conjunctural Hermeneutics for a Spirit filled Ethics" Marilyn Legge, Emmanuel College Because justice the making of right relations is the fitting response to the Spirit's invitation to share life together and, as needed, reshape conditions so that all may thrive on this fragile global earth, the key issue raised for a practical theological ethics is its concrete point of reference. In this case, what kinds of vision and practice does a feminist theological ethics shape? I will sketch a conjunctural method as a preliminary response. A conjunctural method enables us to practice critical analysis of "the conjuncture," or current historical moment we live in, using structural analysis of social relationships and political analysis for action and incarnational practice. Keeping these connections alive is an ongoing spiritual discipline practised in community. Can the construction of more complex plural identities as persons and churches connect our personal, ecclesial and spiritual lives with wider social and global horizons, so that energized by the Holy Spirit we can open up an ecology of ministry dedicated to working simultaneously on issues of identity, justice, homelessness, the oppression of women, and the impoverished? Several resources exist for this approach, including the radical Christian tradition in Canada, the conjunctural hermeneutics of critical cultural practice, and feminist social theory and ethics. In section one I will introduce a version of a materialist conjunctural analysis in relation to a Canadian faith and justice trajectory, and then refer to the conjuncture of cultural dynamics of postmodern globalization. In section two I will turn to one implication, moral agency in emergent networks of dialogue and action. In closing I will name some principles for sustaining energy for transformation in ecclesial and community formations. 2:30 pm 3:30 pm CTS Presidential Address: "The Challenge of Violence: Toward a Recovery of Christian Theology of the Body" Anne Marie Dalton, St. Mary's University 3:30 pm 3:45 pm Break 3:45 pm 5:00 pm Interest Group Sessions: an opportunity for members to discuss topics of their choice with other interested members; 5:00 pm 7:00 pm University of Alberta President's Reception, Butterdome 8:00 pm 9:30 pm CSPS, CTS, CSSR, CSBS Joint Session: "'Things' A Case Study in Late Antiquity" Harold Remus, Wilfrid Laurier University Room TL 12 Followed by Reception, Room LH Banquet Saturday, 27 May________________________________________________ 8:30 am 9:45 am CTS Annual General Meeting 9:45 am 10:00 am Break 10:00 am 11:00 am Student Essay: "The Ecological Violence of Apocalyptic Eschatology: Is There Hope for Environmental Healing?" Scott Dunham, Religious Studies, McMaster University 11:00 am 12:00 pm Paper: "The Question of Violence in the Postmodern Horizon of David Lochhead's Virtual Un/Reality?" Marta Frascati Lochhead, St. Andrew's College This study will address the relation of theology to cyberspace and in particular the work of the late Canadian theologian and philosopher of religion, David Lochhead. While working on his last project Virtual Unreality: the Spirituality of Cyberspace, Lochhead wrote a side paper, "Monotheistic Violence," that deals with issues of violence and identity formation as it pertains to interfaith dialogue. Taking this paper as the last word of Lochhead on violence, this study wants to intuit how he would have situated the problem of virtual violence. Was Lochhead sensitive to the negative side of the technological and how could he speak of violence in the horizon of the virtual un/real? Together with Lochhead's position this paper will review and critique major contemporary voices on the technological such as Gianni Vattimo, Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway and Vandana Shiva among others. If it is "true" that the postmodern horizon is virtually un/real, how will it enable us to cope with a "human all too human," and therefore also a real all to real global technological violence? 12:00 pm 1:30 pm Lunch 1:30 pm 3:00 pm Book Discussion Panel: Cynthia Crysdale, Embracing Travail: Retrieving the Cross Today Alyda Faber, McGill University; Tracy Trothen, University of Winnipeg; Cristina Vanin, St. Jerome's College; and Cynthia Crysdale, Catholic University of America Cynthia Crysdale's book, Embracing Travail: Retrieving the Cross Today (Continuum, 1999) addresses the important theological question of the contemporary relevance of the Gospel accounts of the Passion and Death of Christ. For women theologians in particular, re appropriating the notions associated with sin and redemption has been problematic in the light of how the tradition has often been used. This book confronts the problems and offers possible new ways to approach them. A panel of respondents to the book will offer insights about Crysdale's success in re appropriating "the Cross" and raise questions of concern to our members. The panel will include a moderator and three respondents; Cynthia Crysdale will then address the concerns they raise and time for open discussion will follow. 3:00 pm 3:15 pm Break 3:15 pm 4:00 pm Work in Progress: "Rahner and Romans on the Possibilities of Hope" Allen Jorgenson, University of St. Michael's College Karl Rahner's theology of hope suggests a return to the insights offered by Scholastic Theology on the character of hope. Such a theology insists upon an understanding of hope as a theological virtue which, in concert with faith and love, demonstrates the Source of these virtues. Hope is understood as the unifying medium of faith and love and not as a middle term which would depend on faith and dissolve into love. Rahner, with an eye of 1 Cor. 13:13, demonstrates that the beatific vision does not mean the end of hope, but its apex. Hope, as such, is understood as an "outward from the self" attitude. This vision of hope illumines the character of faith and love, which exist with it in a relationship of perichoresis. Such a hope is not to be understood individualistically, in that hope always hopes for all. Moreover, humans fulfill the transcendental structures of their nature by intercourse in the world and hope thereby takes on a social character. Christian hope is to be understood as a revolutionary attitude, which is ever questioning the status quo and its concomitant stance of presumption or despair. It is the engagement of hope at a social level that provides the most pressing questions for Rahner's theology. His theology of hope presumes a universal transcendental structure of human nature that might not be so easily demonstrated. How might we perceive hope if pluralism, in the stead of essentialism, informs a theology of hope? A corrective to Rahner's theology will be entertained by way of Romans. Paul writes this epistle against the backdrop of the questioned existence of the Gentiles in the "church" and Jewish questioning the church's existence. Hope in Romans is cast in the light of abiding in, rather than moving beyond, the problem of pluralism. At this point, Rahner and Romans meet in understanding hope as an abandonment of oneself, and one's relationships, to the grace of God. 4:00 pm 5:00 pm Paper: "Bioethics and Ecumenism" John Williams, University of Ottawa In 1995 there appeared a new bioethics journal, Christian Bioethics, with the provocative subtitle, Non- Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality. The contributors to the journal have attacked both 'secular' bioethics and any religious bioethics that attempts to bridge denominational identities. The thesis of this presentation is that the journal's rejection of ecumenism is mistaken and that Christian bioethics both can and should be ecumenical, in content and process. I begin by describing in detail the non-ecumenical approach espoused in "Christian Bioethics." I note several inconsistencies in this approach, such as the Roman Catholic contributors' espousal of natural law as the basis of a common morality and the slippage between the use of the term "Christian bioethics" in the plural and in the singular. The second part of the article consists of an outline and defence of an ecumenical approach to bioethics. I conclude by discussing the implications of ecumenical bioethics for religious efforts to influence public policy on bioethical issues.