Many years before the death of Lutgard of Aywières (1182–1246), a thirteenth-century Cistercian nun renowned for her asceticism and visionary insight, Thomas of Cantimpré (ca. 1200–ca. 1270) approached a group of nuns and lay brothers to arrange for the disposal of her relics should she die during his absence. Thomas—a Dominican preacher and theologian who penned a hagiography of Lutgard in addition to several other holy women of the mid-thirteenth century Low Countries—wanted her hand as “a sacred memorial” (sacram memoriam). The abbess Hadewijch agreed to his request. Repeating a medieval misogynistic commonplace, Thomas then wrote that “since it is women's nature to be unable to keep secrets. . . the nuns told Lutgard how I had ordered her hand to be cut off.”

For all of the criticism that Pope Gregory XVI (1831–1846) has attracted in the historiography for his severe, backward-thinking papal policies, such as condemning freedoms of speech and the press (Mirari vos; 1832) or his refusal to grant the construction of railroads, his reputation as a gifted theologian has remained untainted. Owen Chadwick called him “the best educated pope for nearly three-quarters of a century.” At the bottom of this assessment lies Gregory's only monograph, Il trionfo della Santa Sede (The triumph of the Holy See; 1799). Many have attempted to use this work to provide continuity or an appropriate backdrop to Gregory's later (papal) career. His order's own biographer has suggested that Il trionfo was responsible for his becoming cardinal. Alan Reinerman has claimed that the work's “fervor and erudition won him the esteem of the Curia” since it was written “at one of the darkest moments in Papal history.” Il trionfo acquired for Mauro Cappellari (later Gregory XVI) “an honored name among apologists,” claimed lifelong doting barber-turned-assistant Gaetano Moroni. Regarding its more immediate impact, Jean Leflon believed that Il trionfo caused Cappellari to be expelled from Rome.

In his expository remarks on 1 Pet 5:13, Clement of Alexandria portrays Mark as the preserver of the apostle Peter's gospel proclamation to those who not only dwell in Rome, but also belong to the Roman elite. In this regard, Clement's testimony coincides with the near unanimous voice of the Church Fathers, who locate the composition of the Gospel of Mark in the city of Rome (e.g., Irenaeus Haer. 3.1.1; Eusebius Hist. eccl. 2.15.2).

In the twentieth century, historical circumstance in the form of the Holocaust led to theodicy's returning to the forefront of the philosophical agenda, particularly in Jewish thought. As a result, post-Holocaust theology is almost always an element of introductory courses on modern and contemporary Jewish philosophy, if not introductory courses on modern Judaism simpliciter. Many working in the field of Jewish philosophy, therefore, probably first encounter Emil Fackenheim (1916–2003), and the infamous turn of phrase that ensured his immortality in the realm of Jewish thought, early on in their studies. Fackenheim was one of the most influential post-Holocaust philosophical voices in what soon became a cacophony. This German-born philosopher's (and ordained Reform rabbi's) concept of the 614th commandment—not to grant Hitler a posthumous victory (in his own words “the only statement of mine that ever became famous”)—has captured the imagination of many a student and often made a lasting impression. Yet it seems that one of the concerns at the forefront of this new expansive monograph on Fackenheim's philosophy is that for the majority, this constitutes both their first and last exposure to his thought, leaving them with an extremely contracted view of his conceptual palate. The result, noted in the book's introduction, is that Fackenheim has never really been considered a Jewish philosopher worthy of mention in the same breath as Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, or even latterly Emmanuel Levinas and Joseph Soloveitchik. In this volume, a case is presented for including him on that list.

Anyone who has struggled to navigate the challenges that evolutionary and other natural sciences pose to a rich religious sense of the importance of human dignity will enjoy reading this book. Alan L. Mittleman gives the reader more than a robust understanding of the sciences; he also probes carefully their philosophical premises and makes a case for why a detailed engagement with Jewish sources in particular allows one to construct a reasonable and intellectually satisfying alternative to a purely naturalistic account based on the sciences. In the course of his investigation Mittleman deals skillfully with popular scientific motifs that were in the air half a century ago and that remain remarkably persistent today, such as the reductionist view, stemming from well-known writers like Desmond Morris, that humans are little more than naked apes; even at the height of Morris's popularity that view clashed with other philosophical perspectives that were equally prevalent and that stressed the existential alienation of human beings in the world.

These are encouraging days for the discipline of systematic theology. Recent seasons have seen the publication of a number of one-volume accounts of Christian dogmatics, with parts of various multi-volume offerings also appearing with regularity. This exuberance for serious enquiry into the meaning, coherence, and implications of Christian doctrine has been present not only in those areas of theological inquiry which have consistently exhibited a long-standing passion for such endeavor; an important feature of recent trends is a passion for systematic work also becoming evident in confessional domains which on occasion in the past have treated such activity with indifference or even suspicion. The result is an increasingly rich and contoured landscape in contemporary dogmatic theology, hopefully to the benefit not only of the academic scholar but of the churches both challenged and sustained by such work.

A crisis of authority defines modernity. The crisis in the Christian West dates to the Reformation and the church-and-state conflicts based upon the question: whose Christianity? The crisis deepened during the Enlightenment as advances in science, reason, and technology changed the question: Christianity or not? By the 1960s, post-structuralism or postmodernity had posed the very question of authority and asserted competing authorities.

Alexander Campbell (1788–1866), a controversialist and prolific writer, often addressed his theological opponents with an acid-tipped pen. Early in his career, few topics received as much attention as regeneration, conversion, and the role of the Holy Spirit. Campbell and his coreligionists on the frontier were hardly the only theologians who focused on these doctrines during the first half of the nineteenth century. Campbell's early polemics make it clear that he had substantially modified or rejected many of the major tenets of the Presbyterianism of his youth regarding these topics. His early writings find his literary resources arrayed against such doctrines as human inability and metaphysical regeneration that his Reformed opponents held. Campbell's biographer even tells us that Campbell's views of regeneration and conversion shifted. In this paper, I argue that one of the major factors driving Campbell's rejection of these widely held Reformed doctrines was his appropriation of the thought of John Locke and Scottish Common Sense Philosophy (SCSP). More specifically, I argue that Alexander Campbell's understanding of testimony, firmly rooted in the thought of Locke and SCSP, was the sine qua non of his conception of regeneration, conversion, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

In The Theological Project of Modernism, Kevin Hector of the University of Chicago Divinity School offers a nuanced and timely defense of what he sees as an unjustifiably maligned tradition in modern Christian theology. He focuses on what is commonly labeled the liberal or revisionist tradition, centered in its early stages on figures such as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schleiermacher, G. W. F. Hegel, Albrecht Ritschl, Ernst Troeltsch, and, more recently, Paul Tillich. By carefully reconstructing key arguments from these thinkers, Hector shows not only how this trajectory hangs together as a tradition, but also how its animating impulse differs from what many critics have assumed. Hector's central claim is that this tradition is fundamentally concerned with a distinctive problem, namely, how to relate religious faith to a sense of one's life as one's own—or, put differently, how one's faith can be self-expressive. Hector labels this the problem of “mineness,” or the problem of “how persons could identify with their lives or experience them as ‘mine,’ especially given their vulnerability to tragedy, injustice, luck, guilt, and other ‘oppositions’” (viii). Hector argues that for his chosen thinkers in this tradition, faith—more specifically, faith in a God who is able to reconcile such oppositions—plays a crucial role in resolving this problem.

Due to a Publisher's error, the article by Paul Gavrilyuk published in November 2013 via FirstView was duplicated in the April 2015 issue of Harvard Theological Review. The article should be cited using the doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0017816013000321.

The publisher regrets the error.

Gloria Anzaldúa's understanding of suffering is inextricably connected to subjectivity and spirituality. Tracing her rethinking of stories/histories involving the violent dismemberment of female religious figures, specifically Teresa of Ávila and Coyolxauhqui, I show how Anzaldúa's critical engagement and creative reimagining of these stories/histories led her to develop a conception of fragmentation and wholeness that resists dualistic epistemologies. For Anzaldúa, suffering emerges from dualism and the violence inherent in processes of categorization, especially as they function in identity formations. “Self,” Anzaldúa argues, cannot be neatly organized or fully understood; it is always in process. Writing, as an act of “spiritual activism,” mirrors this process of becoming because it demands critically and creatively analyzing the stories/histories that inform our understandings of self and others–of nos/otras. Writing becomes a spiritual and shamanic act capable of inviting personal and political transformation. Through her writings, I argue, Anzaldúa acts as poet-shaman, calling us toward a spirituality of transformation and inspiring visions of what it might mean to live together in nonhierarchical multiplicity.