Bridging the Great Divide: Musings of a Post-Liberal, Post-Conservative Evangelical Catholic
Bridging the Great Divide: Musings of a Post-Liberal, Post-Conservative Evangelical Catholic represents a pivotal moment in the life of the Catholic community. As the Church seeks to maintain its unique witness, nurture the faithful, and evangelize, a new generation of American Catholics has emerged. No longer the "next generation," these new leaders came of age after the Second Vatican Council and, like many others, no longer find compelling the battles between the liberals and conservatives throughout the post-conciliar period. Today's faithful are searching for an expression of Catholic Christianity that is vibrant, colorful, provocative, counter-cultural, deeply rooted in the tradition, and full of the promise of the Good News. In this timely and prophetic book, Father Robert Barron—himself a member of the younger generation—has minted a new vernacular and blazed a new way that goes bridges the great divide and gives voice to the concerns of post-liberal, post-conservative, evangelical believers.
Part 2 Preface: Cultivators of a Flourishing Garden of Life
Part 3 Building a Bridge Across the Great Divide
Chapter 4 The Virtue of Bi-Polar Extremism
Chapter 5 The Trouble with a Beige Catholicism
Chapter 6 Paths and Practices: Recovering an Embodied Christianity
Part 7 Liturgy
Chapter 8 Lex Orandi, Lex Vivendi: The Liturgy as a Source for the Moral Life
Chapter 9 The Trouble With Beige Churches: A Critique of the Influence of Cartesian Modernity on Contemporary
Chapter 9 The Liturgical Act and the Church of the Twenty-first Century
Part 11 At the Feet of the Masters
Chapter 12 Thomas Aquinas's Christological Reading of God and the Creature
Chapter 12 The Christian Humanism of Karol Wojtyla and Thomas Aquinas
Chapter 13 God as Artist
Chapter 14 Genesis and Joyce: Narratives of Sin, Grace and Theonomy: An Essay in Honor of Andrew Greeley on His Seventieth Birthday
Part 16 Preaching the Message
Chapter 17 "I'm Waiting; I'm Waiting": An Advent Meditation
Chapter 18 The Grandfather and the Voice from the Whirlwind: A Meditation on Preaching the Problem of Suffering
Chapter 18 Three Paths of Holiness
Chapter 20 A Sermon for Children of the Seventies
Part 21 The Way of Nonviolence
Chapter 22 Thomas Merton's Metaphysics of Peace
Chapter 23 Creation, Transsubstantiation and the Grain of the Universe: A Contribution to Stanley Hauerwas's Ekklesia Project
Chapter 24 "Comes a Warrior": A Christmas Meditation
Part 25 Priesthood and Ministry
Chapter 26 Priest as Bearer of the Mystery
Chapter 27 Priest as Doctor of the Soul
Chapter 28 Mystagogues, World-Transformers and Interpreters of Tongues: A Reflection on Collaborative Ministry in the Church
Chapter 30 Evangelizing the American Culture
These essays afford an opportunity of moving, in the company of Father Robert Barron, away from some of the polarizations that have left much modern theological writing in a cul-de-sac. The reader will judge how successful he has been in avoiding both a stuffy traditionalism and a liberalism without content; but the discussion is everywhere stimulating, the product of a fertile and cultivated theological mind.
These essays afford an opportunity of moving, in the company of Father Robert Barron, away from some of the polarizations that have left much modern theological writing in a cul-de-sac. The reader will judge how successful he has been in avoiding both a stuffy traditionalism and a liberalism without content; but the discussion is everywhere stimulating, the product of a fertile and cultivated theological mind.
Clearly well versed in his own and other Christian denominational traditions as well as with contemporary popular and academic culture, Barron puts all these in dialogue in ways engrossing and accessible to a variety of audiences…Spiritual and theological richness-not to mention sheer pleasure…await the reader in this volume.
Clearly well versed in his own and other Christian denominational traditions as well as with contemporary popular and academic culture, Barron puts all these in dialogue in ways engrossing and accessible to a variety of audiences…Spiritual and theological richness-not to mention sheer pleasure…await the reader in this volume.
Barron takes his readers on an interesting ride through systematic theology, liturgy, homiletics and spirituality, social ethics and finally through several essays on theology of priesthood and the laity.
Barron takes his readers on an interesting ride through systematic theology, liturgy, homiletics and spirituality, social ethics and finally through several essays on theology of priesthood and the laity.
Father Robert Barron grew up after the Council and hence was in a position to compare the riches of the Catholic heritage with the dry, lifeless version taught in the schools after the Council. He calls this "beige Catholicism"—a Catholicism devoid of its historic color and vitality and energy. The Council did not create this beige church, rather priests and nuns, desperately seeking a new certainty to replace those which had been lost fashioned it, doubtless in good faith and with good intentions. Father Barron does not indulge in nostalgia for the Church of the fifties and sixties. He supports the Council enthusiastically. He insists, however, the the Church must retrieve the theological and cultural riches of its age-old tradition—not as a museum piece but as resource for further growth.
Father Robert Barron grew up after the Council and hence was in a position to compare the riches of the Catholic heritage with the dry, lifeless version taught in the schools after the Council. He calls this "beige Catholicism"—a Catholicism devoid of its historic color and vitality and energy. The Council did not create this beige church, rather priests and nuns, desperately seeking a new certainty to replace those which had been lost fashioned it, doubtless in good faith and with good intentions. Father Barron does not indulge in nostalgia for the Church of the fifties and sixties. He supports the Council enthusiastically. He insists, however, the the Church must retrieve the theological and cultural riches of its age-old tradition—not as a museum piece but as resource for further growth.
Product Details
- Title : Bridging the Great Divide: Musings of a Post-Liberal, Post-Conservative Evangelical Catholic
- Author: Barron, Robert
- Publisher: Sheed & Ward
- Publication Date: 2004
- ISBN: 9781461667414
Rev. Robert Barron is an associate professor of systematic theology at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. His other recent books include Heaven in Stone and Glass, which addresses the spirituality of the Gothic cathedral, Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master, and And Now I See: A Theology of Transformation. Barron has published numerous books and articles, and is highly sought after as a speaker throughout the United States.