Ivana Noble

In Search of the Heart

Tim Noble

A Critical Re-Evaluation of The Theological Reception of Karl Marx

Viorel Coman

The Union of Heart and Mind: A Christian Anthropological Theme and Its Current Relevance

Michaela Kušnieriková

Learning to Love: Love after Violence

Michael Kirwan SJ

Is There Any Way Out of the Heart of Darkness? A Conversation with Joseph Conrad

Pavel Hošek

The Lord of the Rings: A Journey from the Realm of Original Good through Darkness into the Heart of Good

Pavol Bargár

“Imagine!”: Culture, Theology, and the Power of Imagination

Tabita Landová

Book review "Companion to Central and Eastern European Humanism: Czech Lands, Part 1"

Author:

Ivana Noble

Abstract:

Editorial

Cite As:

Noble, Ivana. "In Search of the Heart." Communio Viatorum, vol. 63, no. 2, 2021, p. 87-90.

Author:

Tim Noble

Abstract:

Starting with Karl Marx’s famous definition of religion, the article seeks to offer a re-appraisal of what lies behind the claim that religion is the heart of a heartless world. It looks at reactions to Marx, from the first papal rejections of “communism”, through to later nineteenth-century appropriations in literature, where the first signs of a contextual approach are apparent. It then moves on to twentiethcentury papal and other engagements with Marx, ending with the reception of Marx in Latin American liberation theology. Positively, the article argues, theologians have responded to Marx’s refusal to accept that alienation and exploitation are natural or right, giving a theological grounding to the claim and seeking to show that, if not religion, at least Christ is the heart of the world.

Keywords:

Karl Marx - Twentieth-century popes - Gerard Manley Hopkins - liberation theology

Cite As:

Noble, Tim. “A Critical Re-Evaluation of the Theological Reception of Karl Marx.”Communio Viatorum, vol. 63, no. 2, 2021, pp. 91–106.

Author:

Viorel Coman

Abstract:

The present article engages with the debate between the meanings and place of heart and mind in an attempt to revisit a theological theme that stands at the centre of Eastern Christian spirituality and practice. In doing so, the article has a threefold goal: (i) to emphasize that even though the divorce between mind and heart looks like a modern invention, Christianity had - to a lesser extent - faced similar problematic tendencies prior to modernity; (ii) to show the way in which the spiritual practice of Eastern Christian tradition had tried to overcome any possible conflict between mind and heart; and (iii) to shed light on the contemporary theological relevance of the union between mind and heart, as well as on some problems and challenges associated with it.

Keywords:

Union of heart and mind - Christian anthropology - Hesychasm - disability

Cite As:

Coman, Viorel. “The Union of Heart and Mind: A Christian Anthropological Theme and Its Current Relevance.” Communio Viatorum 63, no. 2 (2021): 107–23.

Author:

Michaela Kušnieriková

Abstract:

This article explores how it is possible to love again after experiencing violence. What scars does violence leave on this human capacity? And what exactly is violence? Do we need other’s permission to claim we were violated or is our inner experience to be the judge? Drawing from Aristotle Papanikolaou, the concept of theosis understood as a way of learning to love is explored first in identifying the effects violence has on human soul and its ability to love and later in search for remedy in attempting to love again after violence. Since violence, as explored by Judith Butler, is a complex phenomenon that escapes any attempts of simplified definitions, those responses will touch upon its various forms and contexts as lives of individuals, society and social structures are concerned. The question of how God, spirituality and tradition can be of help will be addressed, so as also to what extend a person who suffered or perpetrated violence is to také the journey to love again on his or her own and, following Dorothee Sölle, what role a community might have in this endeavour.

Keywords:

Love – violence – Aristotle Papanikolaou – Judith Butler – Dorothee Sölle

Cite As:

Kušnieriková, Michaela. "Learning to Love: Love after Violence." Communio Viatorum 63, no. 2 (2021): 124-141.

Author:

Michael Kirwan SJ

Abstract:

The article offers a reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness through the lens of Nietzsche, offering a bleak and apparentlyhopeless view of the world, contrasted with a Christian anthropological reading that insists also on a more positive relationship to the world around us. The article begins by noting Conrad’s simultaneous attraction to and revulsion with Nietzsche, and argues that the narrator Marlowe in the novel plays a crucial role in turning against the worst forms of Nietzsche’s vision. A more explicitly Christian response can be found, the article suggests, in a number of places, such as Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ and its calls for an integral ecology.

Keywords:

Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness – Friedrich Nietzsche – Laudato Si’ – integral ecology

Cite As:

Kirwan, Michael. "Is There Any Way Out of the Heart of Darkness? A Conversation with Joseph Conrad." Communio Viatorum 63, no. 2 (2021): 142-154.

Author:

Pavel Hošek

Abstract:

This article, focusing on three major works of J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, examines their shared narrative pattern, portraying a journey from original good through the realm of evil into the heart of final good. The article starts, though, by recalling Tolkien’s own life experiences of the struggle between good and evil, including the death of his parents and the trauma of service in the First World War. It then turns to three levels of the shared narrative pattern. First it focuses on the cosmic level, before examining the existential level. It concludes with the level of the experience of the reader.

Keywords:

J. R. R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings – The Hobbit – struggle between good and evil

Cite As:

Hošek, Pavel. "The Lord of the Rings: A Journey from the Realm of Original Good through Darkness into the Heart of Good." Communio Viatorum 63, no. 2 (2021): 155-163.

Author:

Pavol Bargár

Abstract:

The point of departure for this article is the essential conviction that culture has much to contribute to Christian theology. Discussing various examples from literature, music, and film, it explicitly focuses on the significance that the imagination has for theological reflection. More broadly, the article’s main argument was developer around the emphasis on the crucial role that the imagination plays in human life. Profoundly ambivalent, the imagination can be transformed through God’s mercy. Closely connected to the concept of the body, the imagination has the power to deconstruct the constraining shackles of reality, while also empowering human beings to relate their own stories to other stories and thus, ultimately, also to the other/Other. The imagination thus represents one of the ways the common good, the “heart of the world,” can be discovered, encountered, cultivated, and cherished.

Keywords:

imagination; body; culture; story; theology; imagined body; Jim Morrison; J. R. R. Tolkien; Joseph Conrad

Cite As:

Bargár, Pavol. "“Imagine!”: Culture, Theology, and the Power of Imagination". Communio Viatorum 63, no. 2 (2021): 164-177.

Author:

Tabita Landová

Abstract:

Book Review of: Lucie Storchová (ed.), Companion to Central and Eastern European Humanism: Czech Lands, Part 1, Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2020. Pp. 782. ISBN 978-3-11-064642-9

Cite As:

Landová Tabita. "Book review: Companion to Central and Eastern European Humanism: Czech Lands, Part 1." Communio Viatorum 63, no. 2 (2021): 178-181.