In his later lectures, Foucault analyzes confession as a key exercise of the Christian pastoral power. The pastoral power’s creation of a lifelong obligation to speak the truth of oneself is a ‘prelude’ to modern practices of government, and a key facet of modernity. There has been some confusion regarding the scope of Foucault’s study. Is it medieval Christian confessional practices or Christian obedience itself that is his theme? In this article, I revisit all of the later lectures touching (...) on confession and avowal in order to clarify Foucault’s ambivalence about Christian proto-governmentality. Foucault exposes two regimes of truth, belief and confession, and offer a practice-based, confession-centred history of the pre-modern self. Connecting his lectures to his method of anarchaeology clarifies how the force of truth (the ‘you have to’) is, for Foucault, a fundamental if ambivalent historical-cultural problem of government. (shrink)

This chapter explores confession’s role in the religious and cultural imaginary of Protestantism. No longer considered a sacrament by most reformers, the confessional rite was detached from its liturgical context to take on an array of civic and political functions, anchoring the dream for a community of free desire. Far from a diminution, this change allowed confession to pass from discrete speech-act to discursive form, a medium through which the Christian citizen addressed God and her conscience, but also (...) the secular world. Appreciating the medial character of early Protestant discourse offers a new backdrop to view the formation of confession as a political and literary genre in Goethe, Rousseau, and others, and allows us to bring contemporary concerns about transparency into historical and theological relief. (shrink)

This essay argues that Jesus’s confession of ignorance about the day and hour of his return (Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32) is logically inconsistent with the Nicene-Constantinopolitan doctrine of his “consubstantiality” (homoousia) with God the Father. The essay first defines “consubstantiality”, then presents three formulations of the argument, and finally rebuts a number of possible responses: from the textual originality of the phrase “nor the Son”; from the reinterpretation of “knows” as “makes known”; from the ideas of partitive exegesis and (...) communicatio idiomatum; and from the question of the Holy Spirit’s knowledge of the things of God. (shrink)

A comedy in rustic language printed in Florence around 1520, La Biagia da Decomano, centres on the marriage of two peasants before the village priest. The work is built chiefly on a combination of two popular contemporary genres: poems in praise of country girls such as La Nencia da Barberino and Luigi Pulci’s La Beca da Dicomano, and the mogliazzi or mariazi that depict a peasant wedding. However, the marriage negotiations and ceremony enacted in La Biagia include another element, a (...) monologue by the priest that parodies the sacrament of confession. This is akin to other sacred parodies, such as Bacchic masses and confessions by the figure of Carnival, and yet is distinctive in character. Here both the focus and the language of the play move from the countryside into Florence and what Guido Ruggiero has called its masculine spaces. The priest invites the couple to pray for help from a long list of taverns in and around the city, several of which were brothels or places frequented by prostitutes, and from the sustenance they offer to customers. ‘Amor divino’ becomes ‘amor di vino’; the saints to whom prayers are addressed are foodstuffs that have suffered martyrdom to satisfy the bodily appetites of mankind. In this essay, the annotated text of the ‘Confessione’, in verse and prose, is introduced by a discussion of its combination of religious parody and celebration of food and drink. (shrink)

Beyers Naudé’s witness from 1963 to the end of the apartheid government in 1994 reflects the principles of the Belhar Confession. He was originally an ardent supporter of apartheid theology, having been part of its most influential structures at the time. Some of them were the Dutch Reformed Church, the Afrikaner Broederbond, and Stellenbosch University, where he studied theology, which was also regarded as a factory for influential apartheid leaders such as John Vorster, a prime minister and later fourth (...) state president of the apartheid regime as well as HF Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid. In the early 1960s, long before the birth of the Belhar Confession, he ‘converted’ from being an apologist of apartheid theology. He thus became a true servant of Christ who, in the wording of Black Theology, advocated a life of justice for all with God as understood to be of the side of what Mofokeng calls the ‘non-persons’ or the oppressed. Drawing on existing literature by way of a qualitative review, the author analytically links the life and witness of Beyers Naudé with the message of the Belhar Confession to examine the witness of Beyers Naudé within the parameters of the Belhar Confession after his ‘conversion’ in 1963 until 1994. In addition, the aim of this is to further explore and determine whether he could serve as an example of living the message of the Belhar Confession. The essay concludes that he succeeded in being an epitome of the message of the Belhar Confession in the apartheid context and that he remained a reliable role model for the lived experience of the Belhar Confession. Contribution: This study argues that Beyers Naudé’s witness in apartheid South Africa succeeded in enacting the message of the Belhar Confession. While it falls within the scope of Systematic Theology, it also has interdisciplinary implications for disciplines such as Missiology, Church History, Sociology and Anthropology. (shrink)

The relation between Christianity and nation is a very old but also a permanent theme within the Ecumenical Movement. Our aim is to explain why this relation is so important for us, the Europeans, because Europe is in fact, a continent of nations that have to be known by their traditions and by the reciprocal manifestations which, unfortunately, are sometimes conflicting. This is why it is not very easy to speak or to write about it. From the Orthodox point of (...) view, the ideal of the nation can be completely integrated in the Christian ideal. Such an ideal makes possible the development of a nation’s natural qualities. It does not lead to a uniformity of nations, on the contrary, it leads to their growth within the unity of the Christian faith. (shrink)

This study examines the shame that drives the rite of confession of guilt and sin in the Toraja tradition and then dialogues with the Christian faith. In this study, a qualitative research method was used with an ethnographic approach. Observations and interviews were conducted with figures who knew the topic. The results show that Toraja people experience collective shame when community members commit moral violations. A sense of shame before others or social shame is felt. However, spiritual shame is (...) an aspect that cannot be ignored. Behind the social violations, there are efforts to interpret the relationship with God (Toraja language, Puang Matua), which needs to be brought back to lead people to repentance. Contribution: This article combines tradition and theology, particularly missional and contextual theology. The results of this study are expected to increase the efforts of each respondent to interpret God in every social violation committed to lead people to repentance. (shrink)

This article examines the moral formation of Liu Xiaobo's nonviolent courage as a virtue cultivated under conditions of entrenched state violence. Focusing on critique and confession as formative practices, I argue that while critique disrupts violent logics of rule, an Augustinian practice of confession offers a fuller account of moral transformation. As truthful self-examination before God, confession illuminates the residues of violence within the self, enables critical and creative capacities, and orients the agent toward solidarity with victims (...) and the oppressed. Read in this way, Liu's witness sheds light on the underexplored process by which nonviolent courage is formed under constraint, not only through resistance to external coercion, but also through reflective practices that reshape the self to bear the burdens of nonviolent resistance and to pursue nonviolent humanity. The article thus contributes to Christian ethics by clarifying how confession may deepen the formation of nonviolent agency in contexts of political violence in China and beyond. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate ‘the confessional’ as an aspect of Wittgenstein's style both as a mode of philosophising and as a mode of ‘writing the self’, tied explicitly to pedagogical practices. There are strong links between Wittgenstein's confessional mode of philosophising and his life—for him philosophy is a way of life —and interesting theoretical connections between confessional practices and pedagogy, usefully explored in the writings of the French philosopher, Michel Foucault. The Investigations provides a basis and springboard for understanding (...) the notion of ‘writing the self’ as a pedagogical practice which encourages a confessional mode compelling us to tell the truth about ourselves and, thus, creating the conditions for ethico-poetical self-constitution. (shrink)

I start by acquainting the reader with key themes from my 2007 book, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, sketching the background of British academic culture from which it grew. Moving swiftly into the present, and to the social context of the U.S., I then offer some new thoughts concerning institutional epistemic vices and explore, in particular, one important form of institutionalized epistemic vice that is exemplified by a standardly recommended police procedure for interrogating suspects.

This article explores Lou Andreas-Salomé's (1992) interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s work in her “Friedrich Nietzsche in His Works,” focusing on her psychological and existential reading of Nietzsche's central concepts. Salomé proposes a profound connection between life and work, arguing that Nietzsche developed his philosophy as a personal response to the crisis of Western values. The article examines Salomé’s three main interpretative axes: a) the relationship between Nietzsche's personal experiences and his philosophy, seen as a kind of “involuntary self-confession”; b) (...) Nietzsche’s multifaceted writing style, revealing a fragmented spirit resulting from the conflict and attempted reconciliation of various distinct identities (the musician, the poet, the philosopher, the philologist, the religious), in perpetual metamorphosis and self-overcoming; c) the mystical dimension of Nietzsche’s final “system,” exposing a divine ideal of transcendence projected in concepts like Eternal Recurrence, Overman, and Will to Power. Ultimately, these analyses are situated within the broader Nietzschean interpretive community, drawing panoramic comparisons with commentators like Walter Kaufmann, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Gianni Vattimo, and Alexander Nehamas, revealing the originality and influence of Salomé’s perspective in Nietzschean studies. (shrink)

La Religion dans les limites de la simple raison ne considère pas favorablement les confessions de foi, c’est le moins que l’on puisse dire, malgré le fait que ce type d’écrits dogmatiques paraît relever d’une forme particulière de « connaissance » (kennen). Bien plus, Kant associe les confessions de foi aux pires éléments de la religiosité et d’un certain cléricalisme à tendance catholique. Il y voit quelque chose de puéril et de mécanique. Cet avis négatif s’explique en partie de par (...) la fonction juridique des confessions de foi dans la Prusse du XVIIIe siècle. Mais Kant admet que son ouvrage ressemble à certains égards à une sorte de catéchisme, ou en tout cas à un essai d’édification – une entreprise philosophique que Hegel refusera net quelques décennies plus tard. La vision si négative des « confessions » chez Kant se démarque fortement d’une culture germanique qui fait grand cas des « confessions », non seulement les confessions chrétiennes, mais les documents ou symboles qui résument les principaux articles de foi de ces « confessions ». (shrink)

A Manichaean Prayer and Confession Book. Edited and translated by Nicholas Sims-Williams, with introduction by John Sheldon and codicology by Zsuzsanna Gulácsi. Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum, Series Iranica, vol. 1. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022. Pp. xxvi + 195. €100.

The Belhar Confession evolved during a moment of political and social crisis in the 1980s in South Africa. The 1980s in South Africa were marked by a deepening crisis of apartheid, fuelled by mass action, escalating violence, and the government’s increasingly repressive measures. This decade saw the ‘roaring’ of resistance, marked by a surge of protests, youth and workers’ boycotts, and strikes, as well as the declaration of a state of emergency and the deployment of troops to black townships. (...) Despite the Christian anti-apartheid struggle that played a significant role in the adoption of the Belhar Confession, its reception among the victims of apartheid is still low. The research explores the theological imperatives of two paragraphs (the first and the last) of the Belhar Confession, as well as their logical development, since they are built upon one another, forming a coherent theological framework. Contribution: The study concludes with the call to reimagine the message of the Belhar Confession in present-day South Africa. The promotion of the confession’s reception in the church could be enhanced by engaging communities through meaningful readings, exploring the interplay between self-reflection and self-action. (shrink)

Fisher, Anthony In 1834 convicts of the Norfolk Island penal colony conspired to overpower the troops and take possession of the island. A gang on its way to work turned on their guards. Others, having feigned illness and been transferred to hospital, broke their chains and came to their assistance. But the third wave, of farm workers with farm implements, arrived too late to be of any help. In the fiasco that followed several were killed and after a trial in (...) Sydney thirty-one men were sentenced to death. (shrink)

One part of the Clifford–James dispute is still with us, namely a more inclusive foundationalism which has grown out of criticism of evidentialism in relation to belief in God. ‘Evidentialism’ will here mean the view, attributed to thinkers in the middle ages, that foundational premises must be either self-evident or evident to the senses. One answer now given by some to such foundational questions is that belief in God is a properly basic belief, though not properly basic in an evidentialist (...) sense. Thus one can rationally hold such a belief without proving it by argument. I will argue that belief in some specific personal God , such as Allah, Yahweh or Jesus as the Christ , as constituted by sacred texts is the form belief takes for Christian believers and that there are special questions as to whether such beliefs can be shown to be properly basic. (shrink)

Several questions have been propounded about philosophy. Each has the form of an either-or. Is philosophy human or transcendental? Is philosophical truth dependent on or independent of man? Is the agent of thought human or transcendental?

“Towards the end of a sultry afternoon early in July a young man came out of his little room in Stolyarny Lane and turned and in the direction of Kameny Bridge in central St. Petersburg.”[1] Right then, this young man, a former law student named Rodion Raskolnikov, is caught in an agonizing conversation with himself over whether or not to commit the ultimate crime: to murder an innocent person. Exasperated, wondering what to do with such a weighty decision, he cried (...) aloud, “that’s why I don’t act, because I am always talking. Or perhaps I talk so much just because I can’t act.”[2] On this occasion, he decided not to actualize his thoughts, and so kept on pondering. A little later, as he wandered through the dusty streets of the lively St. Petersburg public market, the young man again relapses into contemplation of the character of his existence, its worth, and its meaning. If he ever did decide to commit such evil, the act would determine what kind of man he is. It is a question of the movement from thought to action... (shrink)

Philosophical writing in the advocatorial mode aims to advance a given position by reasoned argument designed to rationally persuade anyone of its veracity. Philosophical writing in the confessional mode uses theoretical reasoning and critical rigour in the course of arriving at a specific kind of philosophical self-judgment with therapeutic intent. Here I suggest that the best way to read Samantha Vice’s paper (‘How Do I Live in This Strange Place?’) is to treat it as written in the confessional, and not (...) the advocatorial, mode, and that this way of reading the paper provides an alternate way of reflecting on some of the contentious claims Vice makes. (shrink)

Waters, Ian One of the most universally acclaimed films of 2014 was Calvary, a parable of the betrayal of the Irish people by the Irish Catholic Church. The context for the film was the Irish Catholic Church, which had previously defined Ireland's soul, and had recently been revealed to have consciously and methodically covered up atrocities perpetrated in church institutions.