After tracing the history of the term “spirituality” and the discipline of spirituality up to the mid-twentieth century, this article describes the contemporary understanding of spirituality as lived religious experience and of the academic discipline which studies this subject. This phenomenology of the discipline grounds a position on the relationship between lived spirituality and theology on the one hand, and the academic disciplines of spirituality and theology on the other.

This article will outline a feminist interpretation for responses of the Roman Catholic Church to particular events in modern history, and sketch feminist proposals for solving the resulting problems of the Church today. The first section interprets the Church's initial response to scientific and philosophic discoveries and movements of the late Renaissance and the Enlightenment period as responsible for the feminization of the image of Roman Catholicism in the secular mind. The second section interprets the Church's response to liberalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as confirming for the secular, and increasingly popular, mind this feminine image of Catholicism. The third section depicts Vatican II as a contemporary attempt to create a more masculine image for the faith by moving the Church's sphere of action from the feminized private sector to the public world characterized by masculine rationality and technology. The final section sketches some ways in which modern feminist scholarship and its perspective can be a major and necessary contributor to the eradication of this feminine view of religion through the elimination of public/private dualism.

This article examines Liberal Theology's claim regarding a universal religious experience and George Lindbeck's rejection of this claim. Since a universal religious experience is frequently put forth as the basis for the transcendental unity of religions, the theological debate regarding such an experience is very pertinent to the current discussion of religious diversity. The author argues that neither Liberal Theology's appeal to religious experience nor Lindbeck's rejection of this appeal is helpful. In lieu of a comprehensive theology of non-Christian religions based on an appeal to a universal religious experience, the author proposes a comparative theology as the best candidate for dealing responsibly and creatively with the plurality of religions.

Reaction among conservatives to Pope Francis' Evangelii Gaudium has most often been negative. Ross Douthat, however, in his 2013 New York Times op-ed, has offered a more nuanced critique. Our four Roundtable authors respond to Douthat's implied invitation to a discussion by responding from the viewpoint of Catholic social thought.

An important but little-noticed debate is quietly going on between some theologians of the religions and some comparative theologians. The former, without negating the need for comparative theology, insist on the need for a theology of the religions; the latter call for a moratorium on construction of theologies of religion and a focus instead on comparative work. This essay sides with the theologians of religion and argues that contrary to the one-sided position of the comparativists and the premature judgments of some theologians of the religions, there is a need for both a theology of the religions and comparative analysis and synthesis because the two are the distinct but inseparable and integral a priori and a posteriori moments of a single theological project which aims at bringing Christianity into fruitful engagement with the non-Christian traditions. Because this engagement is essential to Christianity, the present debate is an important one even though it goes on in a field little tended, unfortunately, but many theologians.

This article explores modern psychoanalytic object relations theory as a potential resource for Christian spirituality in the development of an integrated theological and psychological model of the self. The necessity for such a model is first suggested by considering some potential dangers within the current revival of modes of “imageless” prayer. A suggestive effort that has already been made to construct a “spectrum” model of self development that combines psychoanalytic insight with the psychology of Theravada Buddhism is then examined. The final section assesses the interpretive power of a similar model worked out for the distinctive religious vision of Christian spirituality.

It should warm the self-righteous cockles of Catholic hearts to read Protestant theologian Emil Brunner's remark that “while the Catholic Church, drawing on centuries of tradition, possesses an impressive systematic theory of justice, Protestant Christianity has had none for some three hundred years past.” The cockles, however, are in for a chilling with the realization of how little we have done, particularly in the United States, to give this noble tradition salience and application in Catholic thought, or to give it voice and currency in national and international political discourse. With such an in-house treasure as Brunner noted, why were we content to live as misers responding so little to the poverty in justice theory that scars our national setting? There were some notable exceptions, but they never became mainstreamed in American Catholic life. Why?

The principal reasons, I submit, are these: Catholic thought was (I) prone to conflate the just and the juridical; (II) distracted by charity to the neglect of justice; (III) insufficiently nourished by the justice preoccupations of the Bible; (IV) inattentive to the need to clarify and develop the theories underlying our social justice tradition.

This essay begins with a retrospective survey of theological responses to psychology over the last seventy-five years. These are organized by the way in which they have been shaped by two underlying religious concerns: the necessity to defend against the diminishment of the human as oriented to the transcendent (the “Catholic” position) and the concern to protect the divine against its reduction to the merely human (the “Protestant” position). In the final two sections of the essay I consider how, prospectively, the theological appropriation of psychology may enter a new phase first with a reformulation of the task of theological reflection, exemplified by Tracy's model of mutual critical correlation, and secondly by the emergence of neopsychoanalytic theory as a new dialogue partner with theology. The potential significance of the latter is explored by examining its influence on the soteriological projects of Jürgen Moltmann and Sebastian Moore.

This article explores the contribution which a strictly normative theology of conversion might make to an understanding of Christian humanistic education. The first part of the article argues for the need for an ongoing, multidisciplinary discussion of the nature of the human in order to clarify the goals of humanistic education. Part two argues that the four secular forms of conversion—affective, intellectual, personal moral, and socio-political—set important goals for a balanced, humanistic education. Part three argues that the transvaluation of the secular forms of education effected by Christian conversion defines fundamental aims of Christian humanistic education.

Some scripture scholars argue for an interpretation of Johannine soteriology as primarily one of revelation which questions the redemptive centrality of the historical crucifixion. Others insist on the primacy of historical event in the Johannine narrative—“The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14)—and the spiritual meaning of this event, which is at once concrete in its historicity and universal in its meaning as symbol. The historical event of the crucifixion as an object of Johannine theological reflection is indeed central in his soteriology, but only insofar as he reflects upon its transcendent meaning. The three “lifting up sayings” in John's gospel offer us a window into this crucial aspect of his soteriology. In this essay, the author's textual analysis of each saying provides us with ample evidence for the redemptive centrality of the historical crucifixion; but it also will make clear that the “lifting up of the Son of Man” in his “hour” on the cross is at the same time his exaltation and glorification, when he returns to the Father whence he came.