A. J. Appasamy and his Reading of Rāmānuja

A. J. Appasamy and his Reading of Rāmānuja
Author: Brian Philip Dunn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2016-12-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192508962

In this work, Brian Philip Dunn focuses on the embodiment theology of the South Indian theologian, A. J. Appasamy (1891-1975). Appasamy developed what he called a 'bhakti' (devotional) approach to Christian theology, bringing his own primary text, the Gospel of John, into comparative interaction with the writings of the Hindu philosopher and theologian, Rāmānuja. Dunn's exposition here is of Appasamy's distinctive adaptation of Rāmānuja's 'Body of God' analogy and its application to a bhakti reading of John's Gospel. He argues throughout for the need to locate and understand theological language as embedded and embodied within the narrative and praxis of tradition and, for Appasamy and Rāmānuja, in their respective Anglican and Śrivaiṣṇava settings. Responding to Appasamy, Dunn proposes that the primary Johannine referent for divine embodiment is the temple and considers recent scholarship on Johannine 'temple Christology' in light of Śrivaiṣṇava conceptions of the temple and the temple deity. He then offers a constructive reading of the text as a temple procession, a heuristic device that can be newly considered in both comparative and devotional contexts today.

Body Parts

Body Parts
Author: Michelle Voss Roberts
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2017-12-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506418570

Christians have traditionally claimed that humans are created in the image of God (imago Dei), but they have consistently defined that image in ways that exclude people from full humanity. The most well-known definition locates the image in the rational soul, which is constructed in such a way that women, children, and many persons with disabilities are found deficient. Body Parts claims the importance of embodiment, difference, and limitation-not only as descriptions of the human condition but also as part of the imago Dei itself.

From Hagiographies to Biographies

From Hagiographies to Biographies
Author: Ranjeeta Dutta
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780198092292

On t.p.: Indian Institute of Advanced Study.

Theology and the Kinesthetic Imagination

Theology and the Kinesthetic Imagination
Author: Kathryn Reklis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2014-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199373078

Beauty, bodily knowledge, and desire have emerged in late modern Christian theology as candidates to reorient and reinvigorate reflection. In this Reklis describes the theological meaning of the body's ecstasy as "kinesthetic imagination," a term which extends beyond the Great Awakening to trace the way bodily ecstasy continues to be coded as the expression of a primitive, hysterical, holistic, or natural self almost always in contrast to a modern, rational, fragmented, or artificial self. Edwards, she shows, is an excellent interlocutor for the exploration of kinesthetic imagination and theology, especially as it relates to contemporary questions about the role of beauty, body, and desire in theological knowledge. He wrote explicitly about the role of the body in theology, the centrality of affect in spiritual experience, and anchored all of this in a theological system grounded in beauty as his governing concept of divine reality. This book offers an innovative reading of one of the most widely known American theologians and offers this reading as provocation for debates within contemporary conversations.

A.J. Appasamy and His Reading of Rāmānuja

A.J. Appasamy and His Reading of Rāmānuja
Author: Brian Dunn
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Bible
ISBN: 9780198809739

This study focuses on the embodiment theology of the South Indian theologian A.J. Appasamy (1891-1975). It argues for the distinctive theological voice of Appasamy, whose sacramental reading of the Gospel of John, influenced by Rāmn̄uja (1017-1137), opens up new Christological and comparative possibilities.

Dalit Theology, Boundary Crossings and Liberation in India

Dalit Theology, Boundary Crossings and Liberation in India
Author: Jobymon Skaria
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2022-11-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0755642376

Jobymon Skaria, an Indian St Thomas Christian Scholar, offers a critique of Indian Christian theology and suggests that constructive dialogues between Biblical and dissenting Dalit voices – such as Chokhamela, Karmamela, Ravidas, Kabir, Nandanar and Narayana Guru – could set right the imbalance within Dalit theology, and could establish dialogical partnerships between Dalit Theologians, non-Dalit Christians and Syrian Christians. Drawing on Biblical and socio-historical resources, this book examines a radical, yet overlooked aspect of Dalit cultural and religious history which would empower the Dalits in their everyday existences.

The Soul of Doubt

The Soul of Doubt
Author: Dominic Erdozain
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2016
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0199844615

It is widely assumed that science represents the enemy of religious faith. The Soul of Doubt proposes an alternative cause of unbelief: the Christian conscience. Dominic Erdozain argues that the real solvents of orthodoxy in the modern period have been concepts of moral equity and personal freedom generated by Christianity itself.

The Worldview of Personalism

The Worldview of Personalism
Author: Jan Olof Bengtsson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2006-11-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191538094

Personalism is understood today as the name of an important current in twentieth-century thought which, inspired by the Christian and humanistic traditions of the West, has sought to deepen our understanding of the meaning and value of human personhood. Opposing both individualism and collectivism, personalism has stressed the uniqueness of each person, the meaning and value of interpersonal relations, and the unity that holds persons together and is, ultimately, also personal in itself: the person of God. Personalism's insights into the nature of personhood have broad implications for our view of ethics, politics, education, and religion. The history of personalism has, however, been poorly understood. Jan Olof Bengtsson shows that personalism began as early as the eighteenth century and was a central, international current of thought throughout the nineteenth century - that it was, in fact, more characteristic of the nineteenth century than of the twentieth.

Angels in Early Medieval England

Angels in Early Medieval England
Author: Richard Sowerby
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2016-07-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191088110

In the modern world, angels can often seem to be no more than a symbol, but in the Middle Ages men and women thought differently. Some offered prayers intended to secure the angelic assistance for the living and the dead; others erected stone monuments carved with images of winged figures; and still others made angels the subject of poetic endeavour and theological scholarship. This wealth of material has never been fully explored, and was once dismissed as the detritus of a superstitious age. Angels in Early Medieval England offers a different perspective, by using angels as a prism through which to study the changing religious culture of an unfamiliar age. Focusing on one corner of medieval Europe which produced an abundance of material relating to angels, Richard Sowerby investigates the way that ancient beliefs about angels were preserved and adapted in England during the Anglo-Saxon period. Between the sixth century and the eleventh, the convictions of Anglo-Saxon men and women about the world of the spirits underwent a gradual transformation. This book is the first to explore that transformation, and to show the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons tried to reconcile their religious inheritance with their own perspectives about the world, human nature, and God.

A Metaphysics of Love

A Metaphysics of Love
Author: George Pattison
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2021-05-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192543032

As the third part of a philosophy of Christian life, A Metaphysics of Love builds on a view of Christian life as shaped by the dynamic of call, response, and promise. It argues that love is the ultimate content of this dynamic and considers how far this claim extends. Taking its bearings from Dante's vision of divine love as 'the power that moves the sun and other stars', this study explores the requirement that love is both human and cosmic, uniting being and beings. Cognizant of much recent philosophy's desire to overcome or move beyond a metaphysics of being, it examines some of the formal structures that make love possible, including language, time, social being, forgiveness, and ultimacy. Following on from the earlier volumes, extensive use is made of the idea of the poetic as the eminent mode of Christian witness, contextualized within the prose of everyday life. Heidegger provides fundamental philosophical orientation, whilst key features of love are brought to the fore through dialogue with Kierkegaard. Dante and Dostoevsky are frequent points of reference, in addition to a range of literary and religious sources, including the Scottish poet Edwin Muir. Leading scholar George Pattison concludes that the phenomenon of love requires us to articulate a metaphysics that involves both being and nothingness, thereby taking a critical position vis-à-vis both classical theism and existential atheism.