NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 43, Issue 3, 1989

Spirit possession, a fashionable field of study among anthropologists, is still a delicate topic among Western theologians. this article attempts to show that the concept can be applied to Christian as well as non-Christian cultures. It defines spirit possession as a mode of communication between believers and an ‘unseen’ being, and discusses various aspects of it. It particularly looks into the aspect of power and discusses the case of Milingo, former Archbishop of Lusaka, from this perspective.

PT is an academic field merging for new ways: It no longer wants to be a pure ‘application of systematic theology for ecclesial practice’. It attempts to find its own subject matter and methodology. Scholars seek the field (subject matter) of PT in the work of the pastor (clerical model), in the church as part of society (ecclesial model), or in the paradigm of liberation. The methodology of PT has been strongly influenced by the rise of the social disciplines: psychology and sociology. Moreover, methods from the field of cultural anthropology (Geertz, Turner) and hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur) are to be seen in the field of PT at this moment. For the normative aspects practical theologians not only seek their resources in biblical and systematic theology, but also in ethics (Browning) and in hermeneutical approaches (Gerkin).

One of the most important discoveries of contemporary philosophy of language is the fact that metaphor is not merely a figure of speech but an essential characteristic of human thinking as such. This has important consequences for our understanding of all areas of human thought including scientific inquiry, religious belief and systematic theology. The main aim of this paper is to trace these consequences for the nature and task of systematic theology. Before doing that, however, an explanation is provided of the sense in which human thought is metaphorical, and of the way this fact manifests itself in scientific inquiry and in religious belief.

In this article the author reviews 16 new Dutch, English, German and French publications on early Judaism that appeared between mid 1987 and mid 1988.