Not too long ago, while attending a conference on the future of systematic theology, one theologian opined to me privately that the era of systematic theology is finished. The conditions for its very existence are no longer in place: a doctrinal consensus, a common philosophical palette, and, perhaps left unsaid, patience among readers and many
Over the course of many conversations with younger theologians, it has become clear to me that publishing in a major theological journal can be a daunting undertaking. Some institutions, like Theological Studies, can intimidate even if they do not wish to. Many of us know the fear of putting our work out there for blind
As I write this editorial, I am attending a joint meeting of the Academy of Hispanic Catholic Theologians in the United States, and the Black Catholic Theological Symposium. The integrating topic for these theologians is incarceration and the fact that vastly disproportionate numbers of Black and Latino people are ushered into the “prison-industrial complex.” The
Theological water cooler talk not infrequently circles around the lament that the age of the “giants” has passed. There are no Barths, Tillichs, Rahners, Lonergans, Congars or Balthasars on the horizon, the narrative goes; most theologians at work today are lesser lights, and their theology is derivative. Systematic theology in particular has lost its way.
The results of the recent elections in the United States continue to focus the attention of people in every place on the political map. What the election portends for the long- term future we do not yet know. What we do know is that political realities, not only in the USA, but throughout the world,
The Incarnation stirs the imagination as well as the heart of faith. This issue of Theological Studies opens, then, with an essay by Neil Ormerod (Australian Catholic University, Sydney) on the trinitarian depths of the Incarnation as unfolded in the thought of Bernard Lonergan. This is the latest installment in the “Four Point Hypothesis” project
As we go to press, the church enters the final quarter of the Year of Mercy, an opportune time to consider what it would mean for the church itself to receive the transformative power of God’s mercy. For, as the Second Vatican Council confessed, the church is called to penance and renewal (Lumen Gentium 8).
One year ago, Pope Francis published his landmark encyclical letter, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. Rarely before has an encyclical been so widely anticipated or generated so much commentary beyond theological circles, or managed to accomplish so much in one document: a symphonic synthesis of theology, the natural and social sciences, philosophy,
I write this editorial en route from Colombia, where I met with several teachers of theology at the Universidad Javeriana in Cali and learned something about their questions and concerns as theologians in the church. The issues they raised were not altogether unlike those I have encountered in the United States, where theologians bemoan the
In retrospect, a decade flashes by. So it has been with my decade as editor in chief of this journal; the incoming editor waits in the wings. My predecessor, Michael Fahey, in his last editorial (December 2005), sketched the journal’s development from a journal aimed largely at Catholic seminary faculty and students to a Catholic
