Retrieving the Spiritual Teaching of Jesus

Sandra Schneiders, William Spohn, and Lisa Sowle Cahill

Roger Haight, Alfred Pach and Amanda Avila Kaminski

Past Light on Present Life: Theology, Ethics, and Spirituality

Pages: 160

Fordham University Press
Fordham University Press

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ISBN: 9781531506049
Published: 05 December 2023
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ISBN: 9781531506056
Published: 05 December 2023
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This volume directs attention to the teaching of Jesus; it introduces the question of how the imagination has to work in order to retrieve the teaching of Jesus and apply it to actual life in our day. Teachers and preachers are engaged in this work all the time, but upon examination it involves a process that bears reflection. We live in a world that is so different from the world in which Jesus taught that many ask about its practicability relative to our complex everyday lives. The volume turns to three authors who work at this, have thought through present-day theory of interpretation, and respond to basic questions that explain the adjustments that allow us to apply Jesus’ teaching to our dilemmas with interpretation that remain faithful to the content that he proposed. Sandra Schneiders turns to modern hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation, and explains what is going on in the human mind that allows us to say that present-day interpretation, while different from Jesus because our “worlds” are different, corresponds to what Jesus communicated in the past relative to his world. William Spohn pushes the same idea further to concrete examples of how analogy, sameness and difference together, both binds the imagination to Jesus and frees us to see new relevance for Jesus’ actual teaching. And Lisa Sowle Cahill takes the spirit of the other two into the social order to show how Jesus’ teaching has a real relevance for the highly complex societies in which we live today. The logics of these three authors offer models for what is going on in all of the Past Light on Present Life volumes as they represent different historical periods and distinct themes in Western Christian spirituality.

Listening to Christian spirituality carefully and liberatingly for the present is neither simple nor necessarily welcome in pluralistic and secular contexts. This series, intended for respectful existential, secular and pluralistic engagement, promotes a deep conversation about how Christian spiritual heritage matters today. Readers are invited into the art of interpretation with—and beyond—these influential texts and authors, into difficult and urgent questions about how we live well together in a world where no one single vision prevails, but where we help each other clarify what matters most, making a world with room for all spiritual paths promising justice. For the everyday quest to live well together in a world we must equally share, Christian tradition offers spiritual wisdom—and this series offers able guides in recovering that wisdom and suggesting how it can be practiced today.---Tom Beaudoin on the Past Light on Present Life: Theology, Ethics, and Spirituality series

Past Light on Present Life is a brilliantly dynamic series. It weaves together theological frameworks, ethical implications and spiritual mindsets in interpreting texts of numerous great personages in the history of Christian Spirituality. Importantly, in doing so it responds to searing questions of our current age. The genius of the series lies in the precise choices of the original texts at the heart of each concise volume, which provide the key for such pertinent interpretation. These volumes provide much needed fresh insight for experts in the field, as they also will prove invaluable for undergraduate teachers, graduate students, religious seekers and spiritual directors.---Julia D.E. Prinz on the Past Light on Present Life: Theology, Ethics, and Spirituality series

I – Introduction to the Authors and the Texts | 1

II – The Texts | 19

Three Parables of Jesus | 21
Sandra Schneiders on Interpreting the Bible
Selection from The Revelatory Text
The Problem and Project of New Testament Interpretation | 25

William Spohn on the Analogical Imagination
Selection from Go and Do Likewise
The Analogical Imagination | 50

Lisa Sowle Cahill on the Kingdom of God
Selection from Global Justice, Christology
and Christian Ethics
Kingdom of God | 85

III – The Appropriation of Scripture in Christian Spirituality | 133

Further Reading | 149

About the Series | 151

About the Editors | 157