The mechanisms of religion assimilated into the political-economic culture of modernity

Can we axiomatically define that the Christian’s Sisyphean striving for reconciliation with the world is part of divine oikonomia, as the Fourth Gospel, that of St John, explicitly states? Or can we view the development of human history as a divine pedagogy of social cohesion, as some Pauline or Acts of Apostles readings might suggest? In order to avoid simplistic interpretations, the answer can only be nuanced, or even susceptible to a certain duplicity, if formulated within the paradigm of a superhuman understanding beyond the power of understanding.
It is not uncommon for secular researchers who have studied Council Vatican II to equate the change in attitude towards the world with a kind of theology of compromise. Aggiornamento, a neologism that would be adopted by almost every language on this occasion, appeared to denote an adaptation of the Church to the contents of the world, as E. Voegelin termed them. However, a more thorough investigation into the origins of modernity reveals a process that mirrors the developments of the latter half of the 20th century, albeit in the opposite direction. This earlier period can be characterised as a subversive appropriation of a series of cultural and symbolic elements that were specific to a world order based on a religious vision.
The present study will focus on investigating those elements in the economic field, which are considered to be among the innovative elements of modernity. The advent of the Industrial Revolution, concomitant with the rise of liberalism, signifies the initial phase in the genesis of the new economy. Consequently, both the centralized economy and autarchy, despite their inherent challenges to liberalism, will become avatars of the new economy. The concept of an intramundane ecclesia is proposed as a theoretical framework underpinning various proposals for reordering the world on new foundations, including the invisible hand, catallaxy, historical determinism, or variants of political-economic Gnosticism, and will constitute veritabile epiphanies of it.
Nevertheless, when considered within the overarching framework of the Economy of Redemption – a framework that is often overlooked – the newly proposed economic systems will expose their inherent limitations rather than demonstrating their efficacy.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/IRFH4069

Dialog 55-2 Grigore

Florin Ursa, Lucian Dîncă: Evangelization through the media. The Holy Trinity in the Shack 2017

In the new, modern post-secular society, the Catholic Church wants its evangelization mission to be extended by the media. The most recommended form of evangelization is the direct one, face to face, but nowadays so that the biblical message of the Christ to be also reach by the young people, who spend most of their time on social media, Internet, TV, films, etc. One of the most popular media is the internet, where all the information is just a click away. The Catholic Church through the Vatican II Council wishes to become involved and encourages the involvement of clergy and believers in supporting Christian film actors and producers, Christian TV and radio stations. One of the messages that the church wants to send to the world is the mystery of the Holy Trinity. This mystery is one of faith in the living God, unique in being and intermingled in persons: God the Father (the Creator), God the Son (the Redeemer) and God the Holy Spirit. The use of cinema in the transmission of Church messages must be done with caution and well documented. Through the analysis of the movie The Shack 2017, the mystery of the Holy Trinity is revealed to the cinefiles a part as a Christian teaching in accordance with the Catholic Church’s teaching and another apart as Christian teaching intertwined with new teachings (New Age).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/OYVH6052

Dialog 49-8 Ursa

Maricel Irinel Mititelu: Il contributo della „Nuova ermeneutica” alla teologia del kerigma

From seven billion people on our planet, only two billion are Christians and, from these, a majority are unpracticing Christians. As Pope John Paul II was writing in 1990, “The mission of Christ the Redeemer, which is entrusted to the Church, is still very far from completion” (Redemptoris Missio, 1). Considering all this reality, in the last century we have witnessed a revival of the kerygma in the field of theological research, both theoretical and practical. In the coming articles, we wish to present, in chronological order, the steps through which kerygma became the guiding figure of the renewal of the evangelization in the twentieth century. This article presents the contribution of “The New Hermeneutic” to the kerygma.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/BFPZ3802

Dialog 47-4 Mititelu

Gabriel-Iulian Robu: La misión de los Doce Apóstoles y la obra de evangelización de la Iglesia

My present intervention is divided into two parts: the first part, the mission of the Twelve Apostles and in the second part, the continuation of this mission into the work of evangelization of the Church today. Every missionary work is born from the mission of the Son of God and imitates it. Just as the Son, who was rich in glory and power, emptied himself, impoverished himself to enrich us, so the missionary service implies deprivation, abandonment of a guaranteed state, descending among the poor to enrich them with the most precious knowledge: the knowledge of Christ. This was the work of the Apostles too. The Church is called to do the same: to be missionary and evangelizer. The Second Vatican Council reminded us of this task. For two thousand years, but still today, more than half a century after the council, the Church is supporting an ongoing missionary and evangelizing self-conversion. And it’s not just about converting structures. Structural reforms do not by themselves change people’s behavior. So, what could be the key? Possibly, that each of us to have an evangelized interior, and then our works will be evangelizing.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/SJVE9572

Dialog 47-2 Robu

Maricel Irinel Mititelu: Il contributo di Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) alla teologia del kerigma

From seven billion people on our planet, only two billion are Christians and, from these, a majority are unpracticing Christians. As Pope John Paul II was writing in 1990, “The mission of Christ the Redeemer, which is entrusted to the Church, is still very far from completion” (Redemptoris Missio, 1). Considering all this reality, in the last century we have witnessed a revival of the kerygma in the field of theological research, both theoretical and practical. In the coming articles, we wish to present, in chronological order, the steps through which kerygma became the guiding figure of the renewal of the evangelization in the twentieth century. This article presents the contribution of Rudolf Bultmann to the kerygma.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/ZKEO4393

Dialog 44-2_Mititelu

Il contributo di Karl Barth (1886-1968) alla teologia del kerigma

From seven billion people on our planet, only two billion are Christians and, from these, a majority are unpracticing Christians. As Pope John Paul II was writing in 1990, “The mission of Christ the Redeemer, which is entrusted to the Church, is still very far from completion” (Redemptoris Missio, 1). Considering all this reality, in the last century we have witnessed a revival of the kerygma in the field of theological research, both theoretical and practical. In the coming articles, we wish to present, in chronological order, the steps through which kerygma became the guiding figure of the renewal of the evangelization in the twentieth century. This article presents the contribution of Karl Barth to the kerygma.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/HHIS3955

Dialog 43-3_Mititelu

Eduard FERENŢ: Dimensiunea kerigmatică a colocviului teologic

Părintele Karl Rahner spune, în Sacramentum mundi, că teologia este în mod necesar kerigmatică. Ea are ca şi cuprins Cuvântul lui Dumnezeu şi este şi o reflecţie sistematică, condusă metodic, despre Revelaţia dumnezeiască, despre credinţa noastră în ea. Teologia este o reflecţie critică şi responsabilă despre credinţă. Din testamentul spiritual al părintelui Longhaye, P.S.J., reiese dimensiunea kerigmatică specifică disciplinei reologice. Suntem îndemnaţi să ne îndreptăm mereu privirea spre ţinta supremă a vieţii, acre este Isus Cristos, căci în El sunt toate. Trebuie căutat în orice disciplină de studii raportul ei cu Isus Cristos şi trebuie ca până la ultima suflare să căutăm să ne pasionam în fiecare zi mai mult de Persoana Sa.

DT0419_Eduard Ferenţ

Gerard Njen: A fi creştin şi a fi african

Monsignor Njen presents in an attractive and a full of life style the history and the evangelization situation of Africa. He also tells about the biggest representative men of modern African Christian culture, such as Arinze cardinal and reverend Jean Marc Elá and about his personal experience. Being Christian in the African society of the nowadays world means, above all, to recognize yourself as a Christian, means to love your socio-cultural environment to which you belong, to appreciate its good and bad parts, receiving the Christian legacy, saving it and passing it forward.

DT1312_G

Wilhelm Müller: Provocările evanghelizării în Asia: cazul Chinei

The Asia’s evangelization is regarded by the author as a challenge for the solemn mission given by Jesus Christ to his apostles. The author also underlines the enormous energies invested in this mission’s realization and the Church’s presence result on the Asian continent. The main historical moments of Asia’s evangelization and China’s especially: the apostolic evangelization through saint Bartholomew and saint Thomas, the Franciscan and Jesuit evangelization through saint Francis Xavier and through Matthew Ricci, and the rites controversy are being presented. The author brings out the actual problematic of Church’s missionary’s activity in China, underlining both the positive aspects that impel the community on the road of Christian faith (churches and sanctuaries, seminaries and monasteries, ways of communication) and painful historical aspects that mark the life of this community (the on-going persecution, the Church’s authority’s crisis and its division in the Peter’s jurisdiction, the stressed diplomatic relations with the Holy See). The evangelization does not encounter difficulties from the other religions part, but contrarily the difficulties are generated by the materialism, by the will of power and moral conscience decay. So the challenge of today’s China evangelization is tight related with the entire world’s Christian faith situation being a provocation for the entire Church’s faith life.

DT1311_W

Eduard Ferenţ: Noua evanghelizare a Bisericii Romano-Catolice de Iaşi de-a lungul Sinodului Diecezan de la Iaşi (08.12.2001 – 08.12.2004)

The author underlines that, even from its opening, the Iasi’s Roman-Catholic Church’s Synod has proposed itself to assimilate the sacred doctrine of the Second Vatican Council and the teaching of the Pope’s John Paul the second, just as it has been formulated in the twelve speeches pronounced by his Sanctity with the occasion of the apostolically and pastoral visit that he made in Romania during the May 7th -9th 1999. This study analyzes from the dogmatic point of view the stimulus Duc in altum and records that the synod’s motto coincides with the new evangelization of the Iassy’s local Church. This work has been requested by the Pope in the mentioned documents. According to the author, the evangelization means the proclamation that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and human’s Redeemer, proclamation that wishes to lead to the enrichment of man in Christ. After he analyzes the evangelization mission in four paragraphs – the local ecclesial context of the new evangelization; who is the local Church of Iassy; the evangelized and the evangelizator local Church; Mary, the mystic star of the evangelization – the author formulates a conclusion in which he states that during the synod’s period the local Church has became more conscious of the fact that Christ’s self-giving through word and in the Eucharist is really making the Church. The answer to this self-giving of God’s Son is the gratitude towards the local Church, because through the sacraments of initiation administered by this Church, lot of people that lived on the Moldavian land have been introduced into the redeeming mysteries and transformed in missionaries in a forever young world.

DT137_E