A journal of academic theology

Research Article

The Exodus in the Christian Bible: The Case for ‘Figural’ Reading

[Many Christians find the Christian Bible, comprised of the Old and New Testament, diffuse, lacking unity, and therefore difficult to use in systematic theology. Yet the Bible itself uses a powerful organizing principle that spans both testaments and unites them, namely the Exodus in its dual aspects of liberation and formation. There are three Exodus

Images of God within Systematic Theology

[While respecting the freedom of expression inherent in Sally McFague’s notion of “metaphorical theology,” the author argues that the choice of a single governing image or set of interrelated images (e.g., the notion of God as a community of divine persons) is much more suitable for expansion into a systematic theology adequately representing the God-world

On Contemporary Martyrs: Some Recent Literature

[This brief ongoing survey reviews some current literature on martyrs with special emphasis on those who have died for the faith in our own time. The author also addresses the claim that this literature is not only hagiographic (in the best sense of the word) but also a frequently overlooked resource for theological reflection.]

Authority in the Church

[In section one of Notes on Moral Theology the author shows how a number of writers have argued that the weight of magisterial authority varies in accordance with the strength of the link between revelation and the teachings in question. Some have also pointed to the need to see the whole Church as a community

Moral Theology in Latin America

[Over the past several years, Latin American moral theology, in which liberation theology and its ethics play a prominent role, has been creatively developing its method and content in response to social and cultural changes. While many have incorporated the personalist approach of postconciliar moral theology, it is from the perspective of the victims that

Structure of a Systematic Ecclesiology

[Drawing on the classical understanding of theology as faith seeking understanding, the author explores the structure of a systematic ecclesiology, arguing that such a theology must be empirical, critical, normative, dialectic, and practical. He further maintains that such a goal requires the critical engagement of the social sciences. His position is illustrated though an analysis

The Children of God: Natural Slavery in the Thought of Aquinas and Vitoria

[The author seeks to show the consonance of Thomas Aquinas’s and Francisco de Vitoria’s views of natural slavery in the context of developments in natural rights theories. Against two views, one of which indicts Aquinas, and the other, Vitoria, for an unchristian perspective on slavery, the article shows that neither Aquinas nor Vitoria had the

Newman and the Interpretation of Inspired Scripture

[The author argues that the relative neglect in recent biblical scholarship regarding Newman’s understanding of Scripture during his Anglican years in favor of his late, controversial works has led to broad, sweeping statements of his thought during that period. Tracing a short history of recent scholarship and, drawing from two key works of Newman published

Dorothy Day’s Transposition of Th√©r√®se’s Little Way

[Despite initial disdain, Dorothy Day (1897–1980) eventually published an extended study of Thérèse of Lisieux, declaring Thérèse’s “little way” as the method par excellence of the social transformation practiced by Catholic Workers. To transpose convincingly the Little Way from an insular 19th-century French convent to the New York City streets of the Great Depression and

Cornel West’s Challenge to the Catholic Evasion of Black Theology

[The author contends that the thought of Cornel West is an underutilized resource for overcoming the marginalization of Black and womanist theology. His multidisciplinary and pragmatic approach to the question of what it means to be human challenges us to take seriously the interrelationship of various forms of oppression as a theological problem. Instead of

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