Pentecostal Discussions

Bernard Lonergan on faith

by Shane Clifton
I have heard a number of people criticize Bernard Lonergan for, supposedly, being dry and methodological.  Here is an extract from his Method in Theology that is, perhaps, devotional:

"Without faith, without the eye of love, the world is too evil for God to be good, for a good God to exist.  But faith recognizes that God grants men their freedom, that he will them to be persons and not just his automata, that he calls them to the higher authenticity that overcomes evil with good.  So faith is linked with human progress and it has to meet the challenge of human decline. For faith and progress have a common root in man's cognitional and moral self-transcendence.  To promote either is to promote the other indirectly.  Faith places human efforts in a friendly universe; it reveals an ultimate significance in human achievement; it strengthens new undertakings with confidence.  Inversely, progress realizes the potentialities of man and of nature; it reveals  that man exists to bring about an ever fuller achievement in this world; and that achievement because it is man's good also is God's glory.  Most of all, faith has the power of undoing decline.  Decline disrupts a culture with conflicting ideologies.  It inflicts on individuals the social, economic and psychological pressures that for human frailty amount to determinism.  It multiplies and heaps up the abuses and absurdities that breed resentment, hatred, anger, violence.  It is not propaganda and it is not argument but religious faith that will liberate human reasonableness from its ideological prisons.  It is not the promises of men but religious hope that can enable men to resist the vast pressures of social decay.  If passions are to quiet down, if wrongs are to be not exacerbated, not ignored, not merely palliated, but acknowledge and removed, then human possessiveness and human pride have to replaced by religious charity, by the charity of the suffering servant, by self-sacrificing love.  Men are sinners.  If human progress is not to be ever distorted and destroyed by the inattention, oversights, irrationality, irresponsibility of decline, men have to be reminded of their sinfulness.  They have to acknowledge their real guilt and amend their ways.  They have to learn with humility that religious development is dialectical, that the task of repentance and conversion is life-long. (MIT, 117)"

Theology & Film - Podcast Lectures 4 & 5

Well… the theology and film podcast lectures have certainly been an interesting ride so far. To start with, we looked at the medium of film quite broadly and discussed how a theologian might go about reviewing film.  Now, in these latest lectures, we begin to look at some of the more specific issues raised by particular films or groups of films.

In lecture four, Dr Shane Clifton discusses Christ films and the cultural influences which have impacted the way in which Christ has been portrayed. Following this, lecture five presents Shane, together with Dreu Harrison, engaging in discussion surrounding the Nietzschean influence on contemporary culture and subsequently on modern and postmodern film. In this discussion they focus specifically on the 1957 classic, The Seventh Seal.

In addition to these podcast  lectures there are also film reviews available for you listening pleasure. All of the above lectures and reviews can be found here. Enjoy!

Theology & Film - Podcast Lecture 3

In this lecture Dr Shane Clifton looks at reviewing film by using Bernard Lonergan's eight functional specialities.

To download the podcast and view comments please go to
http://scc.typepad.com/theology_and_film

Absent Concerns 4: 'My First School'

by Mark Hutchinson

[from C S Lewis’ ‘Notes on the Way’, Time and Tide, vol. XXIV (4 September 1943), p. 717]

Every now and then one stands and looks at oneself in the now as compared to what we have been in the past. Perhaps a photo falls out of a box, perhaps we meet an old friend after many years of separation, perhaps we have a conversation with someone younger who wakens in us a memory…. whatever the spur, we are left thinking, “this is me as I was, and I am because of that, but that is not what I am”.

Absent Concerns 3: Three Kinds of Men?

“There are three kinds of people in the world” is how Lewis begins his short essay “Three Kinds of Men”. There aren’t, of course, only three kinds of people, though there are (I would suggest) three kinds of “Men” (humans). There are many different kinds of people, depending on how we count, what sorts of criteria we use to categorize ourselves. Jeff Crabtree has a funny little song categorizing people as jelly beans – yellow and black and white…. We become aware through it that all the standard depictions of race which are in fact nothing to do with colour at all. In the midst of this diversity (and our nervous defence of the necessity of diversity, in case we should infringe upon someone’s individual right to define themselves). Lewis insists (as Christians around the world do) that from a God’s eye view, we are all individually loved but recognizably grouped as one of “three kind of Men”. Indeed the story of redemption is in part the story of release from the life of the herd, the realization of true individuality. On the other hand, it is not a release from our common nature – our oneness remains with us forever, our humanness an unmistakable part of who we shall always be even in our heavenly state. Like God himself – one and multiple – so does humanity come into the kingdom of heaven.

Theology & Film - Podcast Lecture 2

For all of you who are listening to the Theology and Film podcasts, we are now posting from a slightly different address in order to correct the RSS feed for itunes. Theology and Film Lecture Two, along with Dreu Harrison's film review of 'Life of Brian' can both be found at http://scc.typepad.com/theology_and_film/
Enjoy!

Absent Concerns 2: Equality

by Mark Hutchinson

The presumption of the value of social equality is deeply entrenched in Australia. Australians downplay class difference, even though that difference is deeply entrenched in their society. From the clash between the ‘silvertail’ Manly Sea Eagles and the working class South Sydney Rabitohs (both filled with players earning ten times the average wage) to the political bearpit, egalitarianism is a presumed value in the culture of ‘mateship’. As one commentator notes, it plays a significant part in a candidate’s political chances, and reactions for and against it may even have decided the 2001 Federal election. [1]

Theology & Film makes iTunes

from incompetent to technological genius!  I have managed to get the mp3 feed onto itunes - so those who want to listen to the lecture on their ipod, follow the link below:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=260260394

If you don't want to use itunes - scroll to the post below to download the mp3 directly (and to look for the podcast assignment, which i forgot to put on the audio).

To make this podcast more accessible to the public, i need to improve the itunes art and provide more info on the itunes podcast page - but i really need some help.  I have tried to review the itunes instructions (here), only to discover i am incompetent again.  Any student who knows computers and itunes who would like to volunteer some help (stephen wall perhaps?) - please let me know.

Theology & Film - Podcast Lecture 1

by Shane Clifton

As you may have heard, I am teaching a new unit this semester, theology and film.  Students will be watching a series of films in class (listed below), and i will be delivering the lectures via this podcast.  If you are not a student - please feel free to join us and listen in (apart from these lectures, i will be posting a series of mp3 film reviews which should stimulate some interest).

Download film_lecture_one.mp3

For those of you who use itunes and ipod, I am trying to get this mp3 audio into the itunes podcast feeder. I am somewhat technologically incompetent, so give me a few days.

Finally, everything that is good about this podcast, is the work of Kate Tennikoff - who had to sit through my initial recording disaster, and then edit the current version.  Everything that is tacky about this podcast is my fault.  Feel free to leave whatever feedback you deem appropriate on the comments below (students - that can be your first podcast assignment - since i forgot to include one in the lecture).

If it is at all possible, enjoy,

Absent Concerns 1: Chivalry and the Cultured Self

by Mark Hutchinson

In August of 1940, C S Lewis published an essay in Time and Tide called 'The Necessity of Chivalry'. The following is a reflection on this essay, later republished in Present Concerns, as the first in a series of reflections on Lewis' work and their 'currency' for Christians engaged in thinking about popular culture.

In the shadows of the Battle of Britain, C S Lewis put pen to paper on the need for Chivalry.  The setting was suitably ironic. The roaring of Spitfires overhead left little doubt as to the contrast between medieval organicism and modern machinery. His question, however, was not about machines, but about men. In those days, one could still talk about ‘men’ rather than ‘people’, intending both the biologically masculine and the generality of humans. Lewis does not seem to have conceived of a time when such a definition would become a matter of personal preference.  The ‘necessity’ of which he spoke was partly driven by a sense that there were certain ‘natural’ elements to human life which were fixed in stone.  There were good men, and bad men, and hard men and soft men, and like categories for women. The idea that one might interchangeably choose to be man, or woman, or both or neither, at a legal or surgical whim, was just not in his calculus.