What happens to systematic theology if it relies in the first instance on methods derived from the sociology of knowledge? This is the question that I will be trying to answer in this study. More specifically, I will be attempting to advance an understanding of theology as a social system and seeking ways it may be related to present-day Western society.

The task undertaken in this essay is to consider the significance for Christology of a relatively orthodox incarnational kind, of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a first century Jew. In other words the frame of reference taken here is the Christianity of the Christian creeds. The question asked is what the Jewishness of Jesus means for that. The task, no doubt, would have been much easier, though less interesting, had we followed the example of those who seek to demythologise the doctrine of the Incarnation, either in the interests of an eirenic global, pluralist, theology of religions, or in the interests of a purely expressivist, anti-realist, analysis of Christian faith. Even on such views as these, as represented by John Hick and Don Cupitt for example, there would be some interesting questions remaining: what still differentiates Christianity from Judaism? Why follow the Jewish prophet, Jesus, rather than some other? Does the Christian ideal necessarily retain its historical links with the Jewish ideal? But these are not the questions pursued here. It is not necessary to abandon the characteristic tenets of one's faith in order to make progress in inter-faith dialogue. Rather, what we bring to the dialogue and submit to mutual questioning are the distinctive and representative faith-stances, true to the patterns of belief and worship of the majority of our coreligionists.

The concept of the sensus literalis is a continuing theme in the history of biblical exegesis. This paper attempts to trace the development of this theme, its changing nature and definition, in the work of selected major theologians and exegetes from the ancient through the Reformation periods.2 The survey demonstrates that the sensus literalis provides a hermeneutical key for describing and evaluating exegetical method and biblical interpretation in the Christian tradition.

The act of God in bringing salvation to the human race and summoning individuals into a community to serve him is due solely to the mercy and grace of God, mediated and manifested through Jesus Christ in his ministry, atoning death and rising again.1 This statement of belief, taken from the recently published ARCIC II document Salvation and the Church, is one to which Christians of most denominations could probably subscribe. Yet the very existence of the document is testimony to the fact that within the Christian Church there have been widely differing interpretations of the precise nature of salvation and its implications for humankind. At the time of the Reformation disagreement as to the theological import of terms such as ‘grace’, ‘justification’ and ‘sanctification’ was a major cause of division between Rome and the Protestant churches. Were they primarily to be given an objective or subjective, an extrinsic or intrinsic reference in relation to the believer? ARCIC II demonstrates that these are still live issues at the interface of ecumenical dialogue today, and must be resolved if real moves are to be made in the direction of Christian unity.

September 1988 saw the twentieth anniversary of the untimely death of Ronald Gregor Smith, one of the most creative and most neglected theologians of the post-war years in Britain. Although associated with the ‘secular theology’ of the sixties, Smith transcended the faddishness of much of this trend with his quest for a theology which could do justice to the existential reality of faith as a mode of being, an orientation of life operative within a secular context. This article seeks to indicate the value of Smith's work to contemporary debates about the nature of Christian believing, and in particular to the possibility of faith taking on a critical and reflective form within the congregation.