Prophets, Pastors and Public Choices

Prophets, Pastors and Public Choices PDF Author: Roger Hutchinson
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889207631
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
The Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline debate included many actors. This is the first in-depth study in comparative religious ethics to examine the debate with a particular focus on the role of the Canadian churches. In 1974 twenty-seven of the world’s largest oil and natural gas companies applied for permission to build a pipeline through the Mackenzie Valley to transport Alaskan and northern Canadian gas to large southern markets. Many northern native peoples opposed the proposal and called for a moratorium on major northern development projects until native land claims had been settled. The mainline Canadian Christian churches supported the call for a moratorium and, through the interchurch coalition, Project North, campaigned against the pipeline. However, some native peoples supported the proposal to build the pipeline, and many of the pipeline’s proponents were members of churches that called for a moratorium on the project. This case study in comparative religious ethics, though written from a pro-moratorium stand, attempts to clarify the debate. Conflicting responses to the pipeline proposal are assessed in relation to “hard facts” concerning the need for northern gas in the South, social-scientific findings regarding the impact of the pipeline on native communities, the rights of native peoples to participate in decisions affecting their lives, assumptions about the way of life of non-native people in the South and the role of religious convictions in public choices. This thoroughly researched study reveals the inner workings and influences of the Canadian churches involved and illustrates their commitment on behalf of the northern natives opposed to the project.

Prophets, Pastors and Public Choices

Prophets, Pastors and Public Choices PDF Author: Roger Hutchinson
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889207631
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline debate included many actors. This is the first in-depth study in comparative religious ethics to examine the debate with a particular focus on the role of the Canadian churches. In 1974 twenty-seven of the world’s largest oil and natural gas companies applied for permission to build a pipeline through the Mackenzie Valley to transport Alaskan and northern Canadian gas to large southern markets. Many northern native peoples opposed the proposal and called for a moratorium on major northern development projects until native land claims had been settled. The mainline Canadian Christian churches supported the call for a moratorium and, through the interchurch coalition, Project North, campaigned against the pipeline. However, some native peoples supported the proposal to build the pipeline, and many of the pipeline’s proponents were members of churches that called for a moratorium on the project. This case study in comparative religious ethics, though written from a pro-moratorium stand, attempts to clarify the debate. Conflicting responses to the pipeline proposal are assessed in relation to “hard facts” concerning the need for northern gas in the South, social-scientific findings regarding the impact of the pipeline on native communities, the rights of native peoples to participate in decisions affecting their lives, assumptions about the way of life of non-native people in the South and the role of religious convictions in public choices. This thoroughly researched study reveals the inner workings and influences of the Canadian churches involved and illustrates their commitment on behalf of the northern natives opposed to the project.

Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World

Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World PDF Author: Phyllis D. Airhart
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 1554584353
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World is an apt title for this collection of essays in honour of Roger C. Hutchinson who, over many decades, has encouraged and participated in shaping a Canadian contextual social ethics. His abiding interest in social ethics and in religious engagement with public issues is reflected in his life’s work — seeking the consensus and self-knowledge required to achieve cooperation in the search for a just, participatory, and sustainable society. One of Roger Hutchinson’s many notable accomplishments is his development of a method of dialogue for ethical clarification in situations of diversity. Some of the essays collected here apply this method to specific issues, while others discuss how religious persons and organizations can and do co-operate in a pluralistic world to achieve social and ecological well-being. All essays are of keen interest to those concerned with the role and function of ethics at the matrix of religious conviction and social transformation. For nearly three decades Roger Hutchinson has been based at Victoria University in Toronto, first in religious studies, then at Emmanuel College, where he completed his teaching career as professor of church and society while serving as principal from 1996 to 2001.

Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World

Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World PDF Author: Helen M. Buss
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889204101
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Annotation A collection of essays in honur of the man who encouraged and participated in shaping a Canadian contextual social ethics.

Voices and Echoes

Voices and Echoes PDF Author: Jo-Anne Elder
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 155458678X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
“Every time we raise our voices, we hear echoes.” Jo-Anne Elder, from the Foreword Through short stories, journal entries and poetry, the women in Voices and Echoes explore the changing landscape of their spiritual lives. Experienced writers such as Lorna Crozier, Di Brandt and Ann Copeland, as well as strong new voices, appear to speak to each other as they draw from a wealth of personal resources to find a way to face life’s questions and discover meaning in their lives. There is something familiar about these stories and poems — they echo those we’ve heard before and those we’ve half forgotten. Whether they search for a voice in a world where men monopolize or journey into painful memories to free the self from the past, they do not despair, they do not end. Individual entries become the whole story — an unending story of rebirth and reaffirmation. The book begins with an illuminating foreword that introduces readers to the cultural and philosophical background of many of the stories, and concludes with the reflections of scholars, writers and artists that are intended to provoke further discussion.

The Social Setting of the Ministry as Reflected in the Writings of Hermas, Clement and Ignatius

The Social Setting of the Ministry as Reflected in the Writings of Hermas, Clement and Ignatius PDF Author: Harry O. Maier
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889207178
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Focussing on three first- and early-second-century documents (the Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement and the Ignatian epistles), this work contributes to a growing body of literature concerned with the social setting of early Christianity. Maier argues that the development of structures of leadership in the early Christian church is best accounted for by reference to the hospitality, patronage, and leadership of wealthy hosts who invited local Christian groups to meet in their homes. Sociological models and types are employed to analyze the tensions that arose from excesses of patronage and leadership by the well-to-do. Recognizing the socio-economic setting of these conflicts corrects the interpretation of early Christian conflicts over the ministry as purely theological and doctrinali.

Clinical Pastoral Supervision and the Theology of Charles Gerkin

Clinical Pastoral Supervision and the Theology of Charles Gerkin PDF Author: Thomas St. James O’Connor
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889206619
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
In the last twenty years, the number of texts written on clinical pastoral supervision has accelerated. Thomas St. James O’Connor analyzes these texts, nearly 300 of them, in light of three fundamental questions about the praxis of clinical pastoral supervision: (1)what is distinctive about the praxis? (2)what is an appropriate theological method for the praxis? and, (3)what is an adequate praxis? In doing so, he formulates three approaches: the social science, the hermeneutic and the special interest. Looking at the theology of Charles Gerkin, a pastoral theologian and family therapist, O’Connor develops a conversation between Gerkin’s theology and the texts. The theological methods in the three approaches are critiqued and Gerkin’s praxis/theory/praxis method is endorsed. Case examples are used throughout to illustrate theory and issues discussed and to aid in the presentation of an adequate praxis. Clinical Pastoral Supervision and the Theology of Charles Gerkin provides a unique overview of the history and current state of clinical pastoral supervision and an understanding of its methodology and theological foundations. More than that, it builds on the practical theory of Charles Gerkin, expanding it for immediate use in the practice of ministry.

Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity

Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity PDF Author: Stephen G. Wilson
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889205515
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 633

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Book Description
Can archaeological remains be made to “speak” when brought into conjunction with texts? Can written remains, on stone or papyrus, shed light on the parables of Jesus, or on the Jewish view of afterlife? What are the limits to the use of artifactual data, and when is the value overstated? Text and Artifact addresses the complex and intriguing issue of how primary religious texts from the ancient Mediterranean world are illuminated by, and in turn illuminate, the ever-increasing amount of artifactual evidence available from the surrounding world. The book honours Peter Richardson, and the first two chapters offer appreciations of this scholarship and teaching. The remaining chapters focus on early Christianity, late-antique Judaism and topics germane to the Roman world at large. Many of the essays relate to features of Jewish life — the epigraphic evidence for gentile converts to Judaism or for Jewish defectors, ancient accounts of the Essenes or of the siege of Masada, and the material context of the first great rabbinic work, the Mishnah. Other essays connect early Christian texts with the social and cultural realia of their day — modes of travel, notions of gender, patronage and benefaction, the relation of tenants and owners — or reflect on the aesthetics of Christian architecture and the relation between building and ritual in Constantinian churches. One study relates the writing of the famous novelist Apuleius to a household mithraeum in Ostia, while another explores the changing appropriation of religious realia as the Roman world became Christian. These wide-ranging and original studies demonstrate clearly that texts and artifacts can be mutually supportive. Equally, they point to ways in which artifacts, no less than texts, are inherently ambiguous and teach us to be cautious in our conclusions.

Linking Sexuality and Gender

Linking Sexuality and Gender PDF Author: Tracy J. Trothen
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889205795
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Why did it take so long for the United Church of Canada to respond to violence against women? Tracy J. Trothen looks at the United Church as a uniquely Canadian institution, and explores how it has approached gender and sexuality issues. She argues that how the Church deals with these issues influences its ability to name violence against women. In examining the Church’s early approaches to gender and sexuality, Tracy J. Trothen discovered that the United Church had tended to see certain structures or roles as sacred and others as demonic. For example, while sex outside marriage was bad or improper, sexual expression within marriage was largely deemed as proper or good, no matter what manifestation it took. This assumption allowed much violence within families and marriages to go unchallenged. Trothen uncovers significant shifts in this approach through the examination of such issues as redemptive homes, marriage, pornography, abortion, the ordination of women, and family. Then, analyzing three recent case studies, she demonstrates the value of women’s voices in challenging dominant world views. Finally, she suggests how the Church’s approach to human sexuality and gender has facilitated or obstructed the move to address violence against women. The findings in Linking Sexuality and Gender can be applied to faiths outside the United Church and will be important to anyone interested in church and society, sexuality, gender, or the causal dynamics behind one Canadian institution’s response to violence against women. Tracy J. Trothen is an assistant professor of systematic theology and ethics, and director of field education at Queen’s Theological College, Queen’s University, Canada. She was ordained in the United Church of Canada. Why did it take so long for the United Church of Canada to respond to violence against women?

Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Caesarea Maritima

Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Caesarea Maritima PDF Author: Terence L. Donaldson
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 1554586704
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
We know how the story of the Roman Empire ended with the "triumph" of Christianity and the eventual Christianization of the Roman Mediterranean. But how would religious life have appeared to an observer at a time when the conversion of the emperor was only a Christian pipe dream? And how would it have appeared in one particular city, rather than in the Roman Empire as a whole? This volume takes a detailed look at the religious dimension of life in one particular Roman city Caesarea Maritima, on the Mediterranean coast of Judea. Caesarea was marked by a complex religious identity from the outset. Over time, other religious groups, including Christianity, Mithraism and Samaritanism, found a home in the city, where they jostled with each other, and with those already present, for position, influence and the means of survival. Written by a team of seasoned scholars and promising newcomers, this book brings a new perspective to the study of religion in antiquity. Along with the deliberate goal to understand religion as an urban phenomenon, Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Caesarea Maritima studies religious groups as part of the dynamic process of social interaction, spanning a spectrum from coexistence, through competition and rivalry, to open conflict. The cumulative result is a fresh and fascinating look at one of antiquity’s most interesting cities.

Faith and Fiction

Faith and Fiction PDF Author: Barbara Pell
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889206481
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Is it possible to write an artistically respectable and theoretically convincing religious novel in a non-religious age? Up to now, there has been no substantial application of theological criticism to the works of Hugh MacLennan and Morley Callaghan, the two most important Canadian novelists before 1960. Yet both were religious writers during the period when Canada entered the modern, non-religious era, and both greatly influenced the development of our literature. MacLennan’s journey from Calvinism to Christian existentialism is documented in his essays and seven novels, most fully in The Watch that Ends the Night. Callaghan’s fourteen novels are marked by tensions in his theology of Catholic humanism, with his later novels defining his theological themes in increasingly secular terms. This tension between narrative and metanarrative has produced both the artistic strengths and the moral ambiguities that characterize his work. Faith and Fiction: A Theological Critique of the Narrative Strategies of Hugh MacLennan and Morley Callaghan is a significant contribution to the relatively new field studying the relation between religion and literature in Canada.