Search results for ""Author Frans Maas""

This book is concerned with mystical texts and theological reflection with reference to spiritual insight. in the first place the author shows, with reference to two great figures in the Christian mystical tradition - Meister Eckhart and John of the Cross - how coming to insight involves a three-fold rhythm: being touched, losing one's sight and the finding of insight as this relates to the quality of life. The author discusses in the next chapters three other authors: Therese of Lisieux, Etty Hillesum and Dag Hammarskjold. They were themselves readers of mystical literature and stand closer to us in time. Current questions of meaning, especially as it relates to suffering, influence the framework in which they viewed quality of life. In their writings one can see an unmistakable growth to an extraordinaryly intensive experience of God which enables them to face life with a more than ordinary power and inspiration.

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Christian ethics is threatened today by two opposite dangers: on the one hand, violence by moral and religious fanatics and on the other hand, too-easy forgiveness and cheap grace. The main challenge of Christian ethics in the present context is how it can invite people to react powerfully against moral evil without becoming fanatical on the one hand, and how it can bring the Christian message of forgiveness and reconciliation without creating in people an attitude of moral indolence on the other hand. Such questions call for a wrestling with the dilemmas between justice and forgiveness. It also asks for dealing with tensions like taking the perspective of victims and of perpetrators and choosing between remembrance of the past and a common hope for the future. In eight contributions, internationally recognised scholars in the field of Christian ethics offer ways to approach this tension and to integrate both moral passion and mercy. Topics such as tolerance, radicalism, terrorism, forgiveness, non-violence, etc. are discussed from a Christian moral viewpoint. In a world so deeply shaken by forms of immense individual and collective evil, these are very delicate yet pressing matters. Readers will find in this book new perspectives to deal with these moral dilemmas and tensions in such a way that Christian ethics does not cool down into moral mediocrity nor become inflamed into moral terror, but can place itself in the service of justice and peace.

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In March 2009, at the invitation of the chair of spirituality of the Radboud University Nijmegen, theologians and religious scientists met for the first time in Dutch academia to reflect together about theories of spirituality. What is spirituality? Can we define the phenomenon? Which forms of spirituality can we discern? How can we understand Christian spirituality? Where do we see possibilities for comparison between the diverse forms of spirituality? Which new forms of spirituality do we need to study? What theoretical approaches are familiar? How do we coordinate all the results of our research? The goal of our congress was, in all candor, to inventory the perspectives of the invited researchers and make an initial attempt to formulate a conspectus of the diverse positions which we now occupy.

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