Recent efforts to write the global history of Christianity respond to demographic changes in Christianity and use “global” in three ways. First, “global” suggests efforts at more comprehensive historical retrieval, especially to place the beginnings of Christian communities not within mission history but within the church history in those areas. Second, “global” can refer to the broader comparative perspectives on Christianity's history, especially the history of religions. Finally, “global” can indicate attempts to retell the entire Christian story from a self-consciously worldwide perspective. Recent works also raise new theological and pragmatic challenges to the discipline of church history.

This article discusses the pro-environmental theology of two contemporary Christian leaders. The first is the current ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I. The second is Roman Catholicism's Pope Francis. Both leaders seek to support members of their respective churches who are working to protect the environment, and also to speak globally across cultural and religious lines. Both Bartholomew and Francis believe the crisis of climate change has deep roots in modern culture's anthropocentric ethos, and hence there must be an “apocalypse” or an unveiling of this ethos as a betrayal not only of nature but also of God the Creator. Contrary to some religious environmentalists, therefore, both Bartholomew and Francis are careful to distinguish cosmocentric theology (pantheism and animism) and theocentric cosmology (monotheism centered on the Incarnation of the Trinity in creation). Francis in particular aims for a retrieval of Saint Francis of Assisi's relationship to the natural world as it was expressed by Saint Bonaventure, and later developed by Saint Ignatius of Loyola into a discipline (ascesis) of learning to see all created things as expressions of God's glory. In rivalry with the ascesis of modern capitalism, which could be described as “disciplined avarice in action,” Bartholomew and Francis advocate the classical monastic-Franciscan-Ignatian spiritual ethos of “disciplined contemplation in action.”

This article explores the contribution which a strictly normative theology of conversion might make to an understanding of Christian humanistic education. The first part of the article argues for the need for an ongoing, multidisciplinary discussion of the nature of the human in order to clarify the goals of humanistic education. Part two argues that the four secular forms of conversion—affective, intellectual, personal moral, and socio-political—set important goals for a balanced, humanistic education. Part three argues that the transvaluation of the secular forms of education effected by Christian conversion defines fundamental aims of Christian humanistic education.

This essay begins with a retrospective survey of theological responses to psychology over the last seventy-five years. These are organized by the way in which they have been shaped by two underlying religious concerns: the necessity to defend against the diminishment of the human as oriented to the transcendent (the “Catholic” position) and the concern to protect the divine against its reduction to the merely human (the “Protestant” position). In the final two sections of the essay I consider how, prospectively, the theological appropriation of psychology may enter a new phase first with a reformulation of the task of theological reflection, exemplified by Tracy's model of mutual critical correlation, and secondly by the emergence of neopsychoanalytic theory as a new dialogue partner with theology. The potential significance of the latter is explored by examining its influence on the soteriological projects of Jürgen Moltmann and Sebastian Moore.

Those who study, teach, and write about orthodoxy typically omit almost entirely any explicit consideration of human emotions. It is not surprising, then, that theology can seem an abstract activity without much effectiveness either for inspiring ritual and moral practice or for fostering attachment to Christianity. Similarly, church leaders, in their concentration on orthodoxy or orthopraxy, pay insufficient attention to the affective alienation occurring within and among Christians. This article brings to bear on theology the burgeoning philosophical and psychological research on emotions. It develops the cognitive and participative nature of emotions; their role in forming both an existential faith and community; the legitimacy and independence but also the inadequacy of conceptualist theology; the conflicts, tensions, and mutual contributions of intellect and emotion; and, finally, the role of emotion in moving ideas to practice.

Some scripture scholars argue for an interpretation of Johannine soteriology as primarily one of revelation which questions the redemptive centrality of the historical crucifixion. Others insist on the primacy of historical event in the Johannine narrative—“The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14)—and the spiritual meaning of this event, which is at once concrete in its historicity and universal in its meaning as symbol. The historical event of the crucifixion as an object of Johannine theological reflection is indeed central in his soteriology, but only insofar as he reflects upon its transcendent meaning. The three “lifting up sayings” in John's gospel offer us a window into this crucial aspect of his soteriology. In this essay, the author's textual analysis of each saying provides us with ample evidence for the redemptive centrality of the historical crucifixion; but it also will make clear that the “lifting up of the Son of Man” in his “hour” on the cross is at the same time his exaltation and glorification, when he returns to the Father whence he came.

This article examines political and liberation theologies as instances of apocalypticism, focusing in the work of Johann Baptist Metz and Jon Sobrino. The first section develops a heuristic framework for identifying and analyzing apocalyptic discourse in general, using the historical work of Bernard McGinn and the rhetorical analysis of Stephen O'Leary. The second section applies this framework to Metz and Sobrino, arguing that their theology is a legitimate, provocative, and instructive instance of apocalyptic discourse today, in part because of the way it integrates apocalyptic eschatology with Christology. In a final section, the intelligibility proper to this apocalyptic discourse is discussed by arguing a correlation with mystical theology with its discursive pair of cataphasis and apophasis. Just as this pair finds its context of meaning in the practice of contemplative prayer, apocalyptic affirmations and the reserve expressed in the eschatological proviso find their context of meaning in the practice of opting for the poor.

This essay explores the much-debated question regarding the extent and viability of Thomas Aquinas as a theological source for expanding Christian ethical concern for the nonhuman creation, particularly nonhuman animals. This exploration focuses on the intersection of two foundational issues in Aquinas' theological framework, nature and teleology, as well as the effects of this intersection in Aquinas' work concerning nonhuman creation. From these examinations, I suggest that Aquinas can provide significant contributions for augmenting concern for the welfare of nonhuman animals because his theological framework demands that humans preserve the natural order through conservation. However, Aquinas' ecotheological ethics of conservation is foundationally anthropocentric and only permits indirect moral concern for the nonhuman world.

Disaffiliation—when members of religious communities leave—has recently become a popular topic for theological and social scientific investigation. Today, fewer Roman Catholics than in recent memory describe themselves as strong members of their church. Many have left to seek other spiritual paths, and many of those who remain do not believe and practice as the Church teaches that they should. These essays propose that the theoretical framework of “deconversion” provides a broader and more effective way to understand forms of religious change that are occurring in contemporary America. In the classroom, teaching theology can take on a specific productive shape when the surrounding culture challenges theologians to take deconversion seriously as an element of, and larger context for, spiritual identity today. Theology remains vital when patient curiosity about the current adventure of religious identity is foregrounded pedagogically. Concluding thoughts sketch some important characteristics of an evangelical church, more concerned with its mission and witness in the world than with maintaining its internal life.

The history of theology demonstrates that theological exploration, seeking to understand fully an already given theological concept, regularly brings forth unexpected insights. This article seeks to do just that. Reflecting on an ancient theological word, perichoresis, coined in its original Greek to express the intimate communion of, first, the two natures in the one person of Jesus and, second, the three persons in one God, the article seeks new theological insight into the communion that is essential in, first, Christian marriage and then, church. The analysis underscores communion-through-perichoresis as essential to the definitions of God, marriage, and church, and relates the three one to the other.

A theology of infertility is needed to help couples and the broader ecclesial community understand the theological implications of infertility. Infertility raises questions about human freedom, finitude, embodiment, childlessness, and parenthood. In this article, dominant cultural assumptions surrounding each of these areas when considering reproductive technologies are sketched. Official Roman Catholic teaching on reproductive technologies (Donum Vitae), while rejecting most forms of such technologies, does provide a viable response to the presupposition that reproductive technologies resolve infertility. Given the dominant cultural assumptions and insights from Roman Catholic teaching, this article advocates for several ecclesial changes when considering infertility. Finally, theological resources for developing a theology of infertility are offered. Specifically, insights from Karl Rahner's theology of concupiscence are examined with an eye toward how they provide a framework for rethinking the cultural assumptions about freedom and finitude when considering reproductive technologies.

The trauma that results from violence against women presents a challenge to theological reflection on the meaning of suffering. The mysticism of suffering unto God in the theology of J.B. Metz offers an essential contribution to this reflection. There is a remarkable compatibility between women's experiences of trauma and healing and Metz's understanding of suffering unto God, especially in its refusal to glorify suffering. Further, Metz's understanding presents a much needed mystical-political dimension to theological reflection on violence against women, because of its capacity to nurture on going resistance to the victimization of all women, past and present. Metz's mystical stance, holding together both anguish and radical hope, challenges feminist theology, in its treatment of violence against women, to attend to the relationship between the mystical and political.

Theologians have long recognized that the Augustinian formulation of the doctrine of original sin, based on a historicized reading of Genesis 3, is at odds with biblical scholarship and with what science has established concerning our evolutionary origins. Setting aside Augustine's anti-Gnostic Adamic myth, some attempt to recast the doctrine within an evolutionary worldview by developing an anthropology within the framework of genetics and sociobiology, now evolutionary psychology. This essay argues that a wholly biological explanation of the human tendency to evil is inadequate, even reductionist, and it attempts a constructive reformulation of the doctrine that, while incorporating insights of evolutionary psychology, appeals also to ontological, psychological, and social dimensions of humanity that must also be considered if we are to retrieve the central, still valid point of the doctrine, that deep within human being there inheres a proclivity to evil.

This essay challenges the various considerations of people with disabilities that have long excluded them from interpersonal relationships beyond those they enjoy among themselves and their families. The Gospel calls for a different stance especially in light of Jesus' outreach to those with disabling conditions of many kinds, as well as in light of the crucifixion which marks Jesus forever with the disabling and disfiguring scars of a scandalous execution. The essay exposes a history of stigma and oppressions from which people with disabilities have suffered and asks where justice and mercy must serve people who have been set apart.

Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar have criticized my “Theology of Hope” as being written “messianically” in the spirit of Joachim de Fiore and grounded from an Old Testament-Jewish perspective, whereas they claim true Christian hope is “present” in character and oriented vertically: not the future but the heavenly eternity is its fulfillment. Because both of them call upon Thomas Aquinas I have undertaken in this article a dialogue with Joachim de Fiore and Thomas Aquinas in order to elucidate my own position in conversation with them: the biblically grounded Christian hope is directed toward the parousia of Christ and sees in it future for Israel and future for the world. Chiliasm and eschatology designate the immanent and the transcendent sides of this future of Christ. Christian hope is messianic hope in the horizon of eschatological expectation.

Following the work of gender theorists who find the terms “male” and “female” to be socially constructed, feminist theology has tended to repudiate essentialism. The position that results is one of agnosticism about biological sexuality, a position that is only reinforced by the essentialist excesses that ground the discussion of the “psycho-physical structure” of women found in official Catholic teaching. This article suggests that the polarity of feminist theology and official Catholic teaching on questions of sex and gender can be overcome by using the framework of a “critical essentialism,” a position that retrieves the Catholic theological tradition of reflection on “male” and “female” while allowing its claims to be appropriately winnowed by the insights of gender theorists.

When I undertook to teach a course on spiritual direction in 1976 I discovered that there were practically no books in English available on the subject. John McNeill's classic work in comparative history had been reprinted. Merton's little essay, already fifteen years old and more monastic in approach than was suitable for my students was still available. Jean Laplace's substantively excellent, but somewhat old-fashioned and clerical, treatment of the subject had just been translated from the French. With these exceptions, almost all useful material on the topic of spiritual direction was in the form of articles on specific aspects of this ministry appearing with increasing frequency in periodicals devoted to spirituality and religious life.

With the appearance the following year of Kenneth Leech's very fine study, Soul Friend, perhaps still the best overall treatment available, a veritable publishing phenomenon began. In the last five years dozens of full-length books and a number of long essays as well as various collections of articles on spiritual direction have appeared. In what follows I will attempt to describe and evaluate this phenomenon by briefly commenting on a number of recent books on the subject of spiritual direction.