Sacramental Life Volume 15.3(Summer 2003) Founded in 1988, Sacramental Life is one of two journals published by the Order of Saint Luke (OSL Publications). It focuses on the emerging and historical practices of Christian worship. Print distribution is to the members of the Order globally, as well as to a number of theology departments and seminary libraries in the United States.
Sacramental Life Volume 31.3(Ordinary Time 2019) Founded in 1988, Sacramental Life is one of two journals published by the Order of Saint Luke (OSL Publications). It focuses on the emerging and historical practices of Christian worship. Print distribution is to the members of the Order globally, as well as to a number of theology departments and seminary libraries in the United States.
The present volume, the first in the new Catholic Moral Thought series, responds to the need for a new introduction to the basic and central elements of Catholic moral theology written in the light of Veritatis splendor.
"This book is a study of the historical development and impact of John Calvin's doctrine of baptismal efficacy. The primary questions it addresses are (1) whether Calvin taught an "instrumental" doctrine of baptism, according to which the external sign of the sacrament serves as a means or instrument to convey the spiritual realities it signifies, and (2) whether Calvin's teaching on baptismal efficacy remained constant throughout his lifetime or underwent significant change. Secondarily, the work also examines whether such spiritual blessings, in Calvin's view, are conferred only in adult (believer) baptism or also in the baptism of infants, and what impact Calvin's doctrine of baptismal efficacy had on the Reformed confessional tradition that followed him. The book examines all of Calvin's writings on baptism-his Institutes, commentaries on Scripture, catechisms, polemical writings, and consensus documents-chronologically through five stages of his life and then analyzes the doctrine of baptismal efficacy in eight of the major Reformed confessions and catechisms from the age of confessional codification. It concludes that Calvin did indeed hold to an instrumental view of baptism; that this doctrine underwent change and development over the course of his life but not to the extent that some in the past have suggested; that his view of the efficacy of infant baptism was consistent with his doctrine of baptism in general; and that versions of Calvin's teaching can be found in many, though not all, of the major Reformed confessional documents of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries"--
Virtual Communion: Theology of the Internet and the Catholic Sacramental Imagination provides a theological account of the internet from a Catholic perspective. It engages digital culture by providing a context for media and mediation within the Catholic tradition, specifically focusing on the ecclesiology and sacramentality of the church. Katherine G. Schmidt argues that the Catholic imagination is inherently consonant with the idea of the “virtual,” understood as the creative space between presence and absence, bringing the fields of media studies, internet studies, sociology, history, and theology together in order to give a theological account of the social realities of American Catholicism in light of digital culture. Overall, Schmidt argues that the social possibilities of the internet afford the church great opportunity for building a social context that allows the living out of Eucharistic logic learned in properly liturgical moments.
The essential argument of this new work by Andrew Robinson is that we live, move and have our being within a sea of signs, but that we are largely unaware of this for most of the time. When the structure of these signs is analysed it turns out to rest onthree recurring 'elemental grounds', which the author calls Quality, Otherness and Mediation. The kaleidoscopic, ramifying patterns of Quality, Otherness and Meditation which underpin representations and interpretations at every level and dimension of the processes of signification offer a model of the dynamic mutual indwelling of the Father, Son and Spirit within the eternal life of the Trinity. This 'semiotic model' of the Trinity would be of rather limited interest in itself unless it can also illuminate other areas of Christian theology. Robinson suggests that the model leads to a helpful way of understanding how the entirely human person Jesus of Nazareth may be understood to have been the full and perfect embodiment (representation) of the quality of God's being. This in turn helps us to understand how the processes of representation and interpretation enable us to be drawn into the very life of God. This has practical implications for the church and for the individual lives of Christian believers.It also offers, via a re-articulation of the neglected concept of vestiges of the Trinity in creation, a form of 'spirituality of the everyday'.
What is Anglo-Catholicism? What are its origins? Are Anglo-Catholics real Anglicans/Episcopalians? What is their relationship with Roman Catholics? Has Anglo-Catholicism betrayed Anglicanism's Protestant roots? The Sacramental Church answers these and many other questions. Addressed to the general reader, it explores the history, practices, beliefs, and attitudes of Anglo-Catholicism.While Anglo-Catholicism has deep roots in English Christianity, it attained its modern form through the nineteenth-century Catholic Revival--a movement that aroused strong passions among proponents and opponents alike. The revival, its proponents declared, reclaimed for the Anglican faith its heritage as an authentic branch of the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church." Anglo-Catholicism gave Anglicans/Episcopalians options to embrace ceremonial forms of worship, affirm the objective real presence and sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, venerate Mary the Mother of God, or join a monastery without abandoning their Anglican tradition. With an extensive bibliography and numerous direct quotes, The Sacramental Church provides a valuable reference source as well as a very readable story of Anglo-Catholicism--the expression of sacramental Christianity with special relevance to the English-speaking people.
