This article examines Augustine's doctrine of the totus Christus, “the whole Christ” with Christ as Head and the Church as Body. It considers the new identity as Christ that Christians receive in the sacraments of initiation that unite individuals in the Church community, and the sacramental presence of the Church in the world as one of unifying love. This new identity forms the Church for mission as it joins Christ in a mission of love that unites people to one another as it unites them to God. The Church joins Christ in standing in solidarity with those in need, thus radiating Christ's unifying, transformative love in the world. The article ends with a suggestion that Augustine's view of the totus Christus might be a valuable resource for delving more deeply into Vatican II's vision of the sacramental unity of the Church.

Photographs of human suffering inundate everyday life in the United States. The camera lens brings the human gaze into the intimate anguish of state sponsored torture and “natural disaster.” This essay argues that photographs of suffering in contemporary culture present a nexus of ethical and moral issues. These issues arise from how photographs represent suffering “others” and how these images inform collective response to human anguish. This essay interrogates this intersection through the lens of Christian ethics' root metaphor of imago Dei. First, the essay explores the power and privilege that are invisible in the act of gazing upon a photograph of human suffering. Second, Kevin Carter's 1994 Pulitzer Prize winning photo of a Sudanese girl-child is deconstructed through the use of visual cultural studies. This analysis illustrates that photographs are not a literal depiction of suffering but rather a cultural representation which deeply condition the knowledge of human suffering. Finally, the essay argues that the photo is an invitation for the viewer to become an agent, not a spectator whose morality is realized in the sociality of imago Dei in suffering.

In Christian tradition, accounts of religious language have commonly centered on analogical predication arising from a created world that reflects its Creator. Recent decades have witnessed a change: metaphor has gone into ascendance while analogy has suffered an eclipse. This essay critiques four trends in contemporary accounts of religious language: the ascription of universal range to metaphor; inadequate accounts of the nature of metaphor; insufficient attention given to the nature of literal speech; and the consequent deficient understandings of the relationship of metaphor and analogy. I then draw on Thomas Aquinas for an account of religious speech that defends the cognitive indispensability of metaphor while arguing for the logical primacy of analogy.

Martin Buber (1878–1965) stands among the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century. While many studies have attempted to summarize the scope of Buber's writings, here I will highlight some key implications of Buber's basic insight that there exists a deeply reciprocal bond between genuine interhuman dialogue and the divine-human relationship. Buber characterized authentic dialogue as sacramental, and he suggested that it included four elemental aspects: turning, addressing, listening, and responding. Every genuine dialogue opens out toward transcendence insofar as God's presence can be glimpsed as “absolute Person,” can be tasted as the spirit of elemental togetherness. The fundamental result of engaging in sacramental dialogue, both with others and with God, both in public discourse and private prayer, is the renewal of the entire person. As Buber repeatedly described it, to become who we are created to be—dialogical partners with God—it is the responsibility of every person to participate in God's creative, revealing, and redemptive presence in that part of the world where we stand.

In a series of recent articles and books, the Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh has leveled a profound challenge to the modern state. He critiques its pretentions to be a savior and to provide social cohesion. He proposes that the church should provide resistance to, and even be an alternative to, the modern state. While Cavanaugh draws creative insights from Augustine's political thought, he misuses that thought in ways that dismiss the positive goods provided by the government. Cavanaugh also makes a positive contribution to Catholic social ethics by employing “the social imaginary” to describe the modern state, but overemphasizes the states historical distinctiveness, downplaying what it has in common with earlier forms of political community, namely the pursuit of bodily well-being and social organization.

In the last decade a number of publications have appeared regarding the life and work of the French Dominican Yves Congar. The present essay presents the “young Congar” of the 1930s, in particular his vision of what Catholic theology should be. The author defends the thesis that it is Congar who initiated the “program” of (the first phase of) the so-called nouvelle théologie (“new theology”). After a general survey of the central features of the nouvelle théologie and its development, the author gives an overview of the three ways in which Congar is to be understood its pioneer and representative.

Current theological literature on dating emphasizes issues of premarital sex and chastity. At the same time, recent sociological research suggests that dating is being replaced by the alternative practice called “hooking up” among college-age students. A key issue not addressed in these discussions is whether the current generation's contraceptive practices influence the decision to hook up rather than date. I argue that one cause of younger women's sexual assertiveness today is the increased use of contraception, which in turn promotes a mentality that sustains the practice of hooking up and an insufficient anthropology. For theologians who attempt to discuss these issues with their students, a more adequate anthropology is necessary in order to better ground a theology of dating that is able to compete against the practice of hooking up.

There is increasing pressure on religious thinkers and leaders to construct theologies thoroughly grounded in the particularities of a faith tradition but truly appreciative of religious pluralism. This essay argues that a significant contribution towards articulating a Roman Catholic theology of religious diversity can be advanced by explicitly integrating developments in pneumatology and sacramental theology. Pneumatology has obvious pluralistic implications insofar as Catholic theologians and the magisterium itself have emphasized the universal presence of the Holy Spirit. The sacramental tradition is more ambivalent. On the one hand, the sacramental principle and sacramental nature of human existence would seem to endorse the authenticity of religious pluralism. On the other hand, sacramental theology in the West has historically been shaped by a Christomonism which necessarily tends toward exclusivism. This tendency can be overcome by understanding sacraments in light of a Spirit Christology from below.