on 'changing my religion' and on the theologian's role in part
Hugh Williams
Yes !!!
after a concerted reading of Lonergan, Rahner, and Schillebeeckx, I've come to some agreement with the 'conservatives' in that Lonergan, Rahner, and Schillebeeckx
have all changed the church, and what it means to be church profoundly.
(this is especially so with Schillebeeckx)
But as to whether this change is for the good or not, it is very likely the agreement ends ...
This is because after reading these great twentieth century theologians slow and carefully (turtle-paced)
I'm of the view that the modern theologian's job in large part is not so much to lead one to religion
but rather to aide the ardent religionist in not taking oneself so seriously .... and more specifically in realizing finally
that the important distinction 'we' make between the 'secular' and the 'sacred'
is no hard and fast separation ... not any longer .....
so it seems to me
Hugh
John Raymaker
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Hugh Williams
John et al,
I try and appreciate your European and even German social context and so perhaps why in part you'd write way below -
"Putin is like a devil thinking he can get away with his
belligerence. Putin was long-brain-washed with communist
ideology which he has extended into his own Russian jingoism.
Incredible how well Ukraine has defended itself from that devil
with support from the West."
... when recently I've spoken somewhat metaphorically of 'changing my religion' because of
what has been happening in the Western-US-Christian consciousness around 'climate change'
and 'Palestine-Gaza', it does mean two things - a) I now see 'institutional Christianity' as in large part
a less than critical captive of Western liberalism and b) I no longer give the dominant messages
of the Western media 'the benefit of the doubt' (was there not a little of that contrariness in Pope Francis?).
At a minimum this means the problem of 'onesidedness' in our various accounts must be considered,
as difficult and as painful as that can be. As I've pointed out elsewhere
(see Critical Theology, Vol.5 No.1, Fall 2022), Lonergan at least tries to face up to this challenge in his discussion
on dialectic in MiT, where he briefly traces out a way of trying to escape the two serious consequences
for human culture from this avoidance of honest dialectic - 1) deficiency in our grasp of causality
(and here, in this instance, I'd reference historical causality) and 2) deficiency in our appreciation of value.
So again, I'd appeal to everyone to consider that there is another side to any 'understanding' of this War in Ukraine
that must be faced up to .... (see below a short abstract for a much larger and more illuminating account)
Hugh
--------------------------------
The War in Ukraine—A History: How the U.S. Exploited Fractures in the Post-Soviet Order
- Monthly Review: Vol. 77, No. 02 (June 2025)
Thomas Palley is an economist living in Washington DC. He has formerly worked as assistant director of public policy at the AFL-CIO and as chief economist of the U.S.-China Security Review Commission. He is the author of Plenty of Nothing: The Downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism (2000).
This paper was prepared for and presented at a conference held in Tbilisi, Georgia, on October 11, 2024. The conference was organized by the Research Platform: Education for Development and Stability and sponsored by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia.
The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia has been driven by internal and external factors. Those factors constitute two blades of a scissors, and explaining the conflict requires taking account of both blades. The external factors center on post-Cold War U.S. geopolitical strategy and the concomitant U.S.-sponsored eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). That expansion can only be understood by reference to the fractures (internal factors) created by the Soviet Union’s disintegration. The external factors reveal the role of the United States, which is implicated to the point of provoking the conflict and obstructing peace.
The external and internal factors come into play at different moments and take time to work their full effect, which is why history is so important to understanding the conflict. The two sets of factors play out over a timeline involving three key events. The first is Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991. The second is the Maidan coup in February 2014 that overthrew democratically elected Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, who advocated Ukrainian autonomy and a nonaligned defense policy. The third is Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022. This timeline is dramatically revealing. The United States and its NATO allies view the conflict as beginning in February 2022 (though sometimes saying it began when Russia first “invaded” Ukraine with the annexation of Crimea in 2014—an event following the coup), enabling them to ignore history. Russia views the conflict, more straightforwardly, as beginning with the February 2014 coup, which makes history and the onset of Civil War in Ukraine central to its political position. That fundamental difference in understanding hinders the possibility of a negotiated political settlement, and it is very hard to see how the difference can be reconciled, as accounting for history (namely the coup and the subsequent Civil War) yields a completely different narrative.
The U.S./NATO denial of history and penchant for explaining the conflict as simply an outgrowth of the February 2022 Russian “invasion,” confers a significant advantage in the accompanying propaganda war. Having the conflict begin with Russia’s military intervention is a simple, easily understood narrative. The Western public has little knowledge of or interest in history; this is especially true in the United States on the other side of the Atlantic, which is completely isolated from the conflict. Nor is Western media interested in history, which is difficult to explain and a commercial dud given a disinterested public. That configuration helps explain the resilience in the West of the U.S./NATO narrative. However, whereas denial of history works well for propaganda, it does not serve the cause of either truth or peace, as it denies the causes of the conflict which must be addressed if peace is to prevail.
(for full article try this link - https://monthlyreview.org/articles/the-war-in-ukraine-a-history-how-the-u-s-exploited-fractures-in-the-post-soviet-order/)
Doug Mounce
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