‘Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Saviour’ is a verse which has long held a fascination for theologians. Aquinas, Luther, Brunner, and Barth all speak of a deus absconditus. They all, especially Barth, stress that the main characteristic of God is that he reveals himself. His hiddenness is, therefore, only a means to that end. Faith is necessary before anyone can gain knowledge of God. So Ulrich Simon in his commentary on Second Isaiah, a commentary with a markedly Barthian flavour, takes Isaiah 45:15 as the voice of the nations as they experience what he calls ‘Messianic action’. He writes:

From time to time controversy breaks out within Kierkegaardian scholarship as to the nature of Kierkegaard's concept of God. This controversy is invariably centred on Kierkegaard's claim that there exists ‘an infinite qualitative difference’ between God and humankind. The utter transcendence of God that this phrase expresses and the fact that Kierkegaard employs categories drawn from Greek philosophy to express the nature of God's transcendence have led such scholars as E. L. Allen, Richard Kroner, and Malcolm L. Diamond, to contend that Kierkegaard's understanding of God is not motivated by Christian principles but is merely a Christianization of an Aristotelian concept of God, a contention which would seem to be supported by Kierkegaard's frequent descriptions of God in terms of Aristotle's Unmoved Mover. On the other hand, such scholars as T. H. Croxall, Paul Sponheim, Niels Thulstrup, and Mark Taylor have rejected this argument and claim that Kierkegaard's concept of God is motivated by Christian principles. Unfortunately, none of these latter scholars has put forward a comprehensive defence of this position. In this article it is my intention to rectify this omission and to show that, far from being Aristotelian, Kierkegaard's concept of God is firmly based upon Christian principles.

Among recent reconstructions, Wolfhart Pannenberg's systematic theology is one of the most influential attempts to overcome authoritarianism and subjectivism. Without presenting a thorough development of Pannenberg's theology here, I shall discuss the relationship between philosophy and theology by analyzing Pannenberg's critique of Barth's ‘subjectivism’ and ‘authoritarianism’. I argue that by grounding theological knowledge in a version of Heidegger's concept of anticipation, Pannenberg has not escaped his own religious subjectivism. Thus theological meaning inevitably results from a philosophy of existence grounded in an anticipatory grasp (Vorgriff) of the totality of reality which is presumed to refer to the reality of God.

One of the most significant phenomena within the Western Church over the past twenty-five years has been the emergence of feminist theology. Fuelled by the second wave of the modern women's movement, drawing upon the theoretical and critical stances of academic feminism, and inspired by Latin American Liberation Theology, feminist theologians have achieved a remarkable body of work in a relatively short time. They have sought to establish the opportunities and validate the methods by which women, long silenced as theological subjects, may articulate their perspectives and contribute towards the reconstruction of a more ‘inclusive’ theological discipline.

The eucharist or holy communion or mass or Lord's supper is probably the ritual most participated in and most discussed in human history. It is the principal act of worship of the majority of the billion and a half or so Christians in the world today and has some importance for most of the minority. Simply as an inquiry about what happens around the world at present my title would clearly be an impossible question to answer with anything approaching thoroughness. But that might seem an odd way to take it. In theology the question usually leads in to discussing real presence, eucharistic sacrifice, valid ministry and so on. Those are of course important, but I am reluctant to forget about inquiry into actual practice. I will not be able to contribute much on the subject, but it is a significant part of the imaginative context of this paper. So I will start by trying to begin to do justice to it. That will be the springboard for an attempt in Part 2 to redescribe the Eucharist in relation to some New Testament statements, without pretending that the intervening thousands of years that have generated all that diversity have not occurred. The main concerns there will be imperatives, especially the imperative of death, and Jesus as an agent of incorporation, a critical concept being that of non-identical repetition. Part 3 will take up some of the suggestions of Part 2 in order to develop one aspect of the Eucharist and transformation: what might some characteristics of a ‘eucharistic self’ be? The conclusion will then try to summarise the answer that has emerged to the title question.

Ian Markham's contribution to the Cambridge New Studies in Christian Ethics considers plurality rather than pluralism. The distinction is important for Markham. The latter concept is identified with the relationship of Christianity to world religions and with the thought of john Hick. The former is concerned with the fragmentation of culture, both intellectually and morally. Can there be a distinctive, if not exclusive, Christian position in such a world? Plurality is therefore defined phenonemologically: “the reality of differing and conflicting traditions (or world views) arising in differing communities with different histories”. The definition appeals to the divergence of communities, each with distinctive worldviews and identities. Propositional beliefs form only a part of such an identity. Nor does it carry any theological judgment on its desirability.