20151012

If Only We Could See

Gary Commins

This analytical, polemical, and personal book creates a lively interaction between mysticism and activism. Looking beyond superficial links between spirituality and justice, it creates an in-depth engagement of mysticism as an inner revolution and activism as a mirroring socioeconomic transfiguration.
Based on the twin premises of the mystical tradition and Social Gospel-liberation theology that those who experience God in prayer or engage in social action ought to be our primary theologians, it examines what these two traditions say about theology, to each other, and to us. The broad synthesis that results from this fascinating dialogue brings new insights into mysticism, activism, theology, and ethics, and casts a unique light on how we pray and live.
If Only We Could See brings together a wealth of spiritual material from the early Desert, medieval mystics, and modern spiritual writers alongside an equally rich resource of abolitionists, anti-apartheid activists, civil rights leaders, nonviolent change agents, and peacemakers. The results yield valuable insights for a theology that challenges every personal and political status quo.

God and Eros

Группа авторов

What can God and eros have to do with each other? Against Nietzsche's claim that Christianity poisoned eros, God and Eros rereads the mystery of human love as an ecstatic sharing in the mystery of the triune God who is Love. Body, sex, and affectivity, far from being locked in a lower order called «nature,» instead belong to a sacramental order that is permeated by the call to love. In presentations designed to appeal to a general audience, the faculty of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne, approach this mystery through the lens of St. John Paul II's «theology of the body,» with the goal to both introduce and more clearly illumine its major features. In particular, emphasis is placed on how a theology of the body is not just about «sex.» Rather, it is above all about how each and every person–no matter what her state of life–is stamped by the watermark of being-from and being-for. Working within this broader perspective, God and Eros offers the reader a lively, engaging, and at times challenging tour of the full «ethos of the nuptial mystery.»