Mildly-to-moderately depressed and nondepressed subjects were randomly assigned to spend 8 minutes focusing their attention on their current feeling states and personal characteristics (rumination condition) or on descriptions of geographic locations and objects (distraction condition). Depressed subjects in the rumination condition became significantly more depressed, whereas depressed subjects in the distraction condition became significantly less depressed. Rumination and distraction did not affect the moods of nondepressed subjects. These results support the hypothesis that ruminative responses to depressed mood exacerbate and prolong (...) depressed mood. whereas distracting response shorten depressed mood. (shrink)

This book contains the political writing of T. H. Green and selections from those of his ethical writings which bear on his political philosophy. Green's best known work, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, is included in full, as are the essay on freedom and the lecture 'Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract'. There are also extracts from Green's lectures on the English Revolution and from the Prolegomena to Ethics, and a number of previously unpublished essays and notes. All (...) the texts have been corrected against Green's manuscripts, held in Balliol College. The editors have provided a list of variants, full notes and an introductory essay on the importance of Green's form of revitalised liberalism. The volume will be a valuable sourcebook for students of Green's thought and the history of nineteenth-century liberalism. (shrink)

This article contrasts St. Thomas More's theoretical work on the role of faith and history in biblical exegesis with that of Fr. Richard Simon. I argue that, although Simon's work appears to be a critique of his more skeptical contemporaries like Hobbes and Spinoza, in reality he is carrying their work forward. I argue that More's union of faith and reason, theology and history, is more promising than Simon's for Catholic theological biblical exegesis.

With the 1901 publication of his Les Mythes babyloniens et les premiers chapitres de la Genèse, the French Catholic scholar Alfred Loisy examined carefully parallels between Babylonian literature and the Book of Genesis. In German scholarship, this had been a growing fascination since at least the 1895 publication of Hermann Gunkel’s Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit. Loisy’s use of the concept of “Myth” provides an important window into the appropriation of German scholarship on religion and the Bible into (...) the French scholarly world. Through Loisy’s work, what had been primarily a German Protestant academic discussion became one of the matchsticks that ignited what would become known as the Roman Catholic Modernist Crisis. This present article situates Loisy’s appropriation of “Myth” from the German scholarship he mastered within the proximate cultural, historical, and religious context that became Roman Catholic Modernism. (shrink)

A consideration of Bosanquet's treatment of ‘community’ and ‘class’ draws attention to radical dimensions of his political and social thinking. These features of Bosanquet's thought were part of a more broad-ranging attempt to formulate an account of a revitalized state that would be central to the life of a democratic community. This distinctly modern state would play an important role in promoting a progressive political culture which transcended the dichotomy between individual and social life that was a feature of Victorian (...) liberalism and of the social democratic discourses that sought to supplant it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Explorations in the Theology of Benedict XVI ed. by John C. CavadiniJeffrey L. MorrowExplorations in the Theology of Benedict XVI. Edited by John C. Cavadini. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. Pp. viii + 318. $30.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-268-02309-6.Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is arguably the greatest theologian to ascend to the chair of St. Peter in centuries. His theological output even prior to becoming pope (...) is staggering. It is thus fitting that an edited volume examine his theological oeuvre; there is a need for many more such volumes. The essays collected in this book were originally presented at a conference on the theology of Pope Benedict at the University of Notre Dame. Each contribution brings something insightful and unique to the volume. The book is divided into three sections: “The Dynamic of Advent,” encompassing chapters 2–5; “Caritas in Veritate,” encompassing chapters 6–7; and “God is Love,” encompassing the remaining chapters 8–11. The initial chapter-length introduction and the first chapter fall outside of this division because in many ways they set the stage for the entire volume.John Cavadini’s introduction (1–20) could serve as a useful overview of the theological work of Pope Benedict. Cavadini provides a preview of each chapter but also underscores the significance of Benedict’s theological work. He emphasizes how “one of Benedict’s major achievements is the demonstration of Augustine’s original insight into the unity of the theological tasks of understanding and of engendering understanding” (3).Cyril O’Regan’s very fine essay, “Benedict the Augustinian” (21–60), examines the Augustinian nature of Benedict’s theology. O’Regan maintains, “throughout his career Benedict not only turns again and again to Augustine as his theological model, but also... in Benedict’s self-understanding[,] the basic figuration of his theology is Augustinian” (22). This Augustinian texture to Benedict’s theology involves, among other things, his “real familiarity with and admiration” for “the classic” works of Augustine, his use of Augustine’s “theological style,” his use of shared themes, and the manner in which he consciously “articulates substantive theological positions” typical of Augustine. Moreover, O’Regan points to “Benedict’s sense that he is living in a time of crisis and senescence similar to that of Augustine” (21–22). Some of the similarities O’Regan observes in the theological work of Augustine and Benedict pertain to eschatology, the relationship between faith and reason, biblical interpretation, culture, the role of the liturgy, and the centrality of prayer. O’Regan’s essay is undoubtedly the best piece I have read on the importance of Augustine for Benedict.The thesis of Peter Casarella’s “Culture and Conscience in the Thought of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI” (63–86) is that for Benedict, “the witness to truth is the key to seeing how culture and conscience are necessarily intertwined” (64). Casarella initiates his investigation with the pope’s critique of relativism. The first major section examines what he terms Benedict’s “theology of culture.” For Benedict, this has a moral dimension, and thus [End Page 493] Caserella spends the entire second portion of his essay looking at conscience and its formation in the context of culture. This is a very helpful essay that makes an important contribution to Benedict’s thought as it relates to moral theology.The late Fr. Edward Oakes’s contribution, “Resolving the Relativity Paradox: Pope Benedict XVI and the Challenge of Christological Relativism” (87–113), explores Benedict’s problem with relativism, but homes in on relativism in the context of Christology. Oakes argues, “the challenge of relativism cannot be met unless it is done first and foremost in Christological terms” (93), and he thinks Benedict does precisely this. Oakes’s overview of Ernst Troeltsch’s discussion of historical criticism as corrosive to Christology is enlightening:what most undermines Christocentrism is the historical-critical method, not so much because of the results arising from that method as from its very use.... Historical criticism... is marked by three key methodological principles: (1) the principle of criticism, that no historical document... can be taken on its own terms as automatically reliable but must... (shrink)

Thomas More presents us with a wonderful example of martyrological exegesis where his exegetical work was intended to inspire his readers to live the virtues, to follow Christ, and to provide consolation amidst tribulation. Such exegesis aimed to aid the reader to live the martyrdom required in ordinary life and beyond that, if necessary, with mental anguish, physical torture, and even death on behalf of Christ. Before examining More's work, I first situate this discussion within the broader conversation concerning modern (...) biblical interpretation- in particular the notion of senses of Scripture - therein explaining how I shall be using terms like mystagogy and martyrdom in this article. I shall then examine More's spiritual exegesis of Jesus' passion narratives, paying particular attention to the agony in the garden. I shall conclude with a look at the saint's life, which provides a background for his interpretation of Scripture. (shrink)

Carlyle regarded the Reformation as a seminal event in the history of modern Europe, the starting point of an ongoing stage in human development. Reformation Protestantism gave birth to a more general and pervasive spirit of ‘reformation’ that Carlyle identified with the moral destiny of all individuals and communities. These qualities were epitomized by heroic figures such as Luther and Cromwell but they were also embedded in cultures that responded productively to the ongoing challenge of reformation. Having traced the history (...) of the ethos of reformation through English Puritanism and in the commitment to transformative action or ‘work’ that gave rise to Britains emergence as a leading industrial and imperial power, Carlyle brought this reinvention of the Reformation to bear in his critique of the counter-reforming tendencies in early Victorian society that he saw as posing a profound threat to it. (shrink)