Küng's case for the relevance of Christianity and his program for dialogue with other religions include claims for the exclusive uniqueness and normativity of Christ. This article raises the following questions: (1) Are such claims necessary for personal commitment to Christ and for fidelity to the New Testament witness? (2) Do they allow for genuine dialogue with other religions? (3) Are they even possible in the light of prevalent norms for theological and historical-critical methodology?

Throughout his numerous literary critical and theoretical essays, T. S. Eliot frequently discussed the relationship between a poet's belief—particularly, religious belief—and the sensibility informing the poet's work. Eliot contended that if a poet's belief is truly significant to his poetry the significance should be evident not simply through inclusion or reference to certain dogmatic formulae or symbols but, more profoundly, in how the poet sees and receives the world: belief should have a palpable effect on the sensibility that readers encounter in the literary work.

Now, of course, one of the most conspicuous facts of Eliot's own career is his acceptance, in middle age, of Christian belief. And Eliot's poetry after his conversion is often drenched in Christian motifs and images. But to what extent can Eliot's Christianity be said to have transformed his poetic sensibility?

This paper first rehearses Eliot's theoretical position and then employs that position in considering poems and plays Eliot wrote after he had accepted the Christian witness of faith. The conclusion is that Eliot, in his poetry did not fully achieve the “orthodox” sensibility he posited as the Christian poet's ideal.

What is remarkable about David Tracy's Blessed Rage for Order is the absence of what Bernard Lonergan has designated as the specifically theological principle: conversion. The present writer regards this absence as a flaw, despite the ambiguity of “conversion” in general and of Lonergan's use of the term in particular. An attempt at clarification is made, showing how “conversion” can operate as Lonergan intends. In contrast, the methodologically self-conscious style of the proposed revisionist theology appears to be self-defeating.

What is an authentic Zen attitude toward the Buddhist sutras? Popular misunderstandings of Zen perceive that Zen denies any value to the written word. Grounding itself on a lengthy discussion of the fundamental human problem (dualistic perception) and its resolution (satori) in Zen, this article argues that understanding the Buddhist sutras as merely useless or as instruments in the attainment of satori involves an inauthentic Zen attitude toward those sutras. The Buddhist sutras are, however, a nondualistically dual “Self-Expression of the Buddha-Nature.” This approach is in accord with the Middle Way of the Buddha and an authentic Zen attitude toward the Buddhist sutras.

Clifford Geertz is acclaimed today to be one of the most important theorists in the anthropology of religion. He has approached the subject-matter of religion from the perspective of a humanist seeking to come to an analytical understanding of the nature of culture as an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in a complex of symbol-systems. This approach, i.e., defining anthropology as a science of meaning-analysis, nurtures the study of culture as a meaning-system. Religion, too, says Geertz, is a cultural system and necessarily conveys meaning. Therefore, both culture and religion are meaning-systems and, we can conclude, both anthropology and theology attempt to analyze systematically these meaning-systems. The interfacing of the disciplines of anthropology (systematics of culture) and theology (systematics of religion) is made possible by the utilization of the category of “meaning” as a hermeneutical key to the understanding of both religion and culture as meaning-systems.

In the early 1970's courses in Women's Studies began to appear on many campuses across the country, encouraged in part by the success of Black Studies. As the whole area of women and religion is a particularly complex and significant field, courses on women began to appear in religion as well as in psychology, literature, history, sociology and even natural science departments.

It was hard to know where to begin in organizing a course on “Women in Religion.” Most teachers felt some attention must be given to both Old and New Testament studies, church history, church law, non-Western religions, moral theology, and the role women play in contemporary churches; then secular history, literature, education and psychology must all be tapped to show parallels, causes and effects. People teaching in Women Studies programs tended to do a lot of sharing of experiences and resources.

This is a look at the rise and development of religious studies in the United States, at the terms and implications of its “charter,” and then at current models and perennial phobias (theologizing being an example of the latter). There follows a plea for people working in religious studies to complete the hermeneutical circle, to return to the essence, to explore and act out the religious wager. The paper closes with a glimpse at two possible roles for such a revisioned venture: symbol repository for the university, seminary for an expanded and critical civil religion.

Professor Heinz's welcome and provocative essay serves us all. What we are about is both important and delicate enough to demand being constantly rethought. And Heinz will make us think. Many will find focussed and verbalized in his essay a vigorous defense of what they will wish they had said. And for those who disagree, there is the opportunity and obligation to identify what it is they oppose, and why.

Two disagreements will be expressed here: one is simply a matter of fact, but worth noting; the other is a matter of principle, and is worth debating. The factual matter is simply that, as far as I can detect, the “generally prevailing paradigm” which Heinz laments, at least as it involves “refraining from anything theological,” is not as prevalent on Catholic campuses as it may be elsewhere. The kind of theology that goes on is varied; there may be less of what Patrick Gaffney wants than of what Anne Carr thinks is necessary, but theology goes on. And not all of it can be characterized by either “objectivity” or “neutrality.” Heinz would, I believe, find some of it to his liking.