Pastoral Criticism, Structural Collaboration: The Role of Ecclesial Power Structures in Modernization and Economic Individualization

Horizons ◽  
2022 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Daniel Minch
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Structural Reform ◽  
Economic Anthropology ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Homo Oeconomicus ◽  
Life World ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Economic Individualism ◽  
The Church

This article analyzes the complex processes of modernization and individualization, as well as how the church has structurally fostered individualization despite its public criticism. First, the article demonstrates how modernization and individualization have gradually restructured human self-understanding into an economic image of humanity: the human person as homo oeconomicus. Second, this article examines the church's relation to modernity, and specifically its critiques of liberalism and economic individualism. However, the church has often generated the conditions and structures for individualization, and by extension the processes of acceleration and economization of the life-world that it criticizes. Three areas in intra-ecclesial discourse that foster individualization are examined: the interiorization of faith, ecclesial centralization and clerical bureaucracy, and the promotion of corporatism and digital immediacy. The article concludes by examining recent papal efforts at structural reform and the degree to which they address previously entrenched problems and point toward a renewed, non-economic anthropology.

Ordo-Liberalism as Tradition, Ideology, and Model of Citizenship: Memorializing, Reinventing, Forgetting

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-128
Author(s):  
Kenneth Dyson
Keyword(s):  
Family Resemblance ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Academic Power ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Invented Tradition ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
Core Characteristics

This chapter examines the complex processes of memorialization, reinvention, and forgetting that have characterized the Ordo-liberal tradition; the role of the Freiburg School; the selection of certain aspects of political economy and of certain thinkers and texts; and the distinctive focusing illusions that have followed. It also looks at how its identity has been shaped by its ideological makeup and its model of citizenship. The picture that emerges is of a tradition whose core characteristics can be defined but whose boundaries are difficult to fix. Part of the problem is its ideological hybridity as both conservative and liberal. The chapter looks at the dual nature of the Ordo-liberal tradition as explicit and formalized knowledge and as tacit and common-sense knowledge (William Sorley). In the first sense it is characterized by academic power structures, notably in economics and law, and canonical texts, and by the effects of generational change on these structures. In the second sense, Ordo-liberalism is bound up with administrative cultures and the extent to which they are rule-bound and receptive. The chapter then considers two other aspects of the Ordo-liberal tradition: as ideal type (Eucken) and more loosely as family resemblance (Ludwig Wittgenstein); and as authentic and invented tradition (Eric Hobsbawm), distinguishing Freiburg 1, 2, and 3. Finally, the chapter identifies the Ordo-liberal model of citizenship as based on safeguarding the morally responsible individual: the wise consumer, the thrifty saver, and the responsible creditor. It condemns feckless and profligate behaviour, notably of debtors. This model is subjected to critique.

ARCHITECTURE AND POWER: CHURCHES IN NORTHERN ITALY FROM THE 4TH TO THE 6TH C.

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 285-309
Author(s):  
Gisella Cantino Wataghin
Keyword(s):  
Northern Italy ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Monumental Architecture ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Hierarchical Complexity ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

This paper considers the relationship between the development of monumental churches and the rise of Christian communities and episcopal power. Using a number of examples attested by archaeological and documentary evidence it examines how the increasing complexity of Christian architecture, decoration and liturgical arrangement reflects the growing power of the bishop and the developing hierarchical complexity of Christian communities. In conclusion it examines the changing role of Christian monumental architecture as a vehicle for articulating the changing power structures of the Church between the 4th and 6th c.

scholarly journals Economia ed etica nel pensiero di Giovanni Paolo II

2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Zamagni
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Human Person ◽  
New Model ◽  
Social Doctrine ◽  
Subsidiarity Principle ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church

Dopo aver ribadito che l’orizzonte etico della dottrina Sociale della Chiesa è quello del bene comune e dopo aver illustrato le ragioni per le quali si può sostenere che la tematica economico-sociale è magna pars del pensiero di Giovanni Paolo II, il saggio focalizza l’attenzione su tre questioni specifiche. La prima concerne il rapporto tra lavoro e persona umana; la seconda riguarda le nuove povertà in ampia diffusione anche nelle società avanzate; la terza ha per oggetto il ruolo del principio di sussidiarietà nell’articolazione del nuovo modello di welfare. L’articolo si chiude con la considerazione che al cristiano non può bastare un discorso solo centrato sui valori della libertà e della giustizia. Ii di più che il cristiano fa propria è la prospettiva della società fraterna, una società cioè nella quale la carità non viene relegata alla sola sfera privata. ---------- Having stressed that the ethical horizon of Social Doctrine of the Church is funded in the notion of common good and having shown the reasons for which it is possible to maintain that socio-economic themes are a major component of John Paul II's thought, the paper focus its attention on three specific questions. First, the relation between labour and human person; second, the question of the new poverties gaining ground even in the most advanced countries; third, the peculiar role of the subsidiarity principle in the design of a new model of welfare. The article concludes with the consideration that to the Christian a discourse only based on values such as liberty and justice, is not enough. What is required on top of those values is the perspective of the principle of fraternity (not to be confused with brotherhood).

scholarly journals “Militant Piety” in 21st-Century Orthodox Christianity: Return to Classical Traditions or Formation of a New Theology of War?

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Boris Knorre ◽  
Aleksei Zygmont
Keyword(s):  
Orthodox Christianity ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
Religious Consciousness ◽  
Classical Traditions ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Hybrid Forms

The article focuses on the reclaiming of militaristic ideas and the emergence of specific “militant piety” and “theology of war” in the Orthodox discourse of post-Soviet Russia. It scrutinizes the increasing prestige of soldiering in the Church and its convergence with the army. This convergence generates particular hybrid forms, in which Church rituals and symbols interact with military ones, leading to a “symbolic reception of war” in Orthodoxy. The authors show that militaristic ideas are getting influence not only in the post-Soviet but also in American Orthodoxy; they consider this parallel as evidence that the process is caused not only by the political context—the revival of neo-imperial ideas in Russia and the increasing role of power structures in public administration—but is conditioned by socio-cultural attitudes inherent in Orthodox tradition, forming a type of militant religiosity called “militant piety”. This piety is not a matter of fundamentalism only; it represents the essential layer of religious consciousness in Orthodoxy reflected in modern Church theology, rhetoric, and aesthetics. The authors analyze war rhetoric while applying approaches of Karen Armstrong, Mark Juergensmeyer, R. Scott Appleby, and other theoreticians of the relationship between religion and violence.

The Apologetics of Decolonisation: Defending Religion in South and Southeast Asia after the Second World War

2021 ◽  
pp. 160-181
Author(s):  
Clemens Six
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
South And Southeast Asia ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Church

Decolonisation in South and Southeast Asia after 1945 was a period of intense negotiations over the role of religion in postcolonial society. For many witnesses in the religious field, religion had to be defended against primarily three threats: the changing power structures of imperial decline; communism; and secular nationalism. In this chapter I examine in how far the (Christian) concept of apologetics is suitable for world-historical research. My argument is that apologetics can indeed broaden our conceptual and empirical understanding of the twentieth century and deepen our understanding of religion and decolonisation. To do so, I propose to distinguish between three different forms of apologetics in word and deed: transnational forms of apologetics (illustrated by the theologies and institutional practices of the Church Missionary Society), national-majoritarian apologetics (discussed with the example of the Hindu-nationalist RSS in post-Partition India), and national-adaptive apologetics (as practices by Muhammadiyah in early-postcolonial Indonesia).

Daily Routine, Food and Faith. To Yu.F. Samarin’s Thesis on “Formalism” of the Church Life in the Pre-Petrine Period

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 268-279
Author(s):  
Abbot Vitaly Utkin
Keyword(s):  
Daily Routine ◽  
Eating Patterns ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
Old Believers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Church Life ◽  
The Church

With reference to Yu. F. Samarin’s thesis on “Formalism” of the Church Life in the Pre-Petrine Period, the article examines the issue of the role of fasts, eating patterns and daily routine in general among most radical groups of Old Believers. The author of the article draws the conclusion that such conceptions were rooted in the Pre-Nikon Russian religious (monkish) traditions. The author pays special attention to the social and political aspect of the connection between food and payer for the Tsar in the context of the “spiritual Antichrist” teaching.

The Prophetic Voice of the Church in a Democratic South Africa – A Theological Reflection

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lufuluvhi Maria Mudimeli
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
The State ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Prophetic Voice ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

This article is a reflection on the role and contribution of the church in a democratic South Africa. The involvement of the church in the struggle against apartheid is revisited briefly. The church has played a pivotal and prominent role in bringing about democracy by being a prophetic voice that could not be silenced even in the face of death. It is in this time of democracy when real transformation is needed to take its course in a realistic way, where the presence of the church has probably been latent and where it has assumed an observer status. A look is taken at the dilemmas facing the church. The church should not be bound and taken captive by any form of loyalty to any political organisation at the expense of the poor and the voiceless. A need for cooperation and partnership between the church and the state is crucial at this time. This paper strives to address the role of the church as a prophetic voice in a democratic South Africa. Radical economic transformation, inequality, corruption, and moral decadence—all these challenges hold the potential to thwart our young democracy and its ideals. Black liberation theology concepts are employed to explore how the church can become prophetically relevant in democracy. Suggestions are made about how the church and the state can best form partnerships. In avoiding taking only a critical stance, the church could fulfil its mandate “in season and out of season” and continue to be a prophetic voice on behalf of ordinary South Africans.

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