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 paper argues that, for both Jews and Christians, the Holocaust represents a hermeneutic rupture. After Auschwitz, Jews find their belief in the God of history called into question. And Christians find their past interpretations of the Gospel as good news called into question, when forced by the Holocaust to see that it has been used to justify 2000 years of persecution, expulsion, and pogrom against the Jewish people. For Christians to acknowledge the Holocaust as hermeneutic rupture is to give it the authority of a new hermeneutic criterion for interpreting the Gospel, in which nothing is the word of God which denies the covenantal integrity of the Jewish People. The Holocaust forces a redefinition of the “canon within the canon” in which Paul's letter to the Romans and the Book of Job become central texts. Romans becomes the cornerstone of post-Holocaust theology because it predates the fall of the temple and the emergence of the anti-Judaic myth of Christian supercession and affirms the ongoing election of the Jewish people. And after the Holocaust, the Book of Job takes on new meaning as an allegory, only a desacralized Christianity which demythologizes some of its most sacred traditions in order to affirm human dignity and Jewish integrity can survive Auschwitz with any authenticity.

The stories which Jesus told, as well as the manner of his life and death, bear witness to his fundamental vision that the last are first in the Kingdom of God. With this paradox, Jesus offers a clue as to how the divine mystery is present in human experience. When this vision of Jesus is related to certain parallel images in Buddhist thought, it can help us understand transcendence as an ultimate meaning present within the human world itself. With this perspective, we may then be able to apply the paradox toward understanding the meaning of Jesus' resurrection.

This article examines the “Message” of J.B. on the basis of internal evidence from the play and direct comments by its author, Archibald MacLeish. The conclusion is that the play dismisses God as a significant factor in human experience and substitutes human love as providing an island of meaning. A reading of Job, based on the thesis that the work is ironical throughout, comes to a similar conclusion that the final author/redactor of Job also dismisses God but that he provides no new island of meaning for humanity. Thus MacLeish may be nearer to the mainstream of the canonical tradition than the final text of Job.

Edward Schillebeeckx' two-volume christological study, Jesus and Christ, offers a rich theological foundation for ethics. Three aspects of this foundation emerge. (1) Ethics is grounded in faith in Jesus the eschatological prophet, where faith means living as he did: “going about doing good” while trusting in God to grant final salvation. Central to this “praxis of the Kingdom” is suffering, a “contrast experience with critical-cum-practical force.” (2) Ethics expresses grace mediated historically in Jesus Christ. The New Testament gives the most reliable access to this mediation and presents ethical models as its expression. Grace and religion are related to ethics, especially through suffering, in a unity-in-tension. Analysis of this relationship helps to clarify Schillebeeckx' position on a specifically Christian ethic. (3) Ethical activity is sacramental, complementary to sacramental liturgy.

The promise of Christian ethics is its contribution to the forging of covenants of mutual assistance among human creatures in the variety of human activities. Such covenants bear witness to the work of the covenanting God. The pathos of Christian ethics, however, concerns the difficulty of making the language and reality of covenant intelligible in a culture bound to an ideal of autonomy. Christian ethical reflection concerning abortion and the value of unborn human life must attend to both features if it is to remain fully concrete in its faithfulness.

Karl Rahner's primary contribution to moral theology lies in his development of an anthropology able to serve as a foundation for a rehabilitated concept of natural law. Human persons in Rahner's theology are characterized by certain existentials with logical consequences for ethics. From human transcendence and freedom follows the concept of a fundamental option for or against God. From human materiality, historicity, guilt, and individuality follow the methodological necessity of distinguishing between principles and prescriptions and the unavoidable need to take risks. In contrast to unchanging metaphysical human nature, the historicity of concrete human nature and therefore of natural law requires that all material norms be recognized as conditioned by history and culture and hence limited, not universal or absolute.

This paper compares the shamanism of seventeenth-century Indians in southern New England with the religion of the New England Puritans. The paper identifies shamanic elements within Puritan religion, focusing particular attention on the visionary experiences and social control the Puritans gained through praying, preaching, reading, and writing. Although the literacy and moralism essential to Puritan religion were absent in seventeenth-century Algonquian shamanism, the powers of Puritan literacy and moralism can be understood in shamanic terms.

The purpose of this article is to study critically the positions of six authors on the foundations of the professions and of professional ethics. These positions are placed along a continuum which is created by correlating two variables that appear in each author's writings. The implied or explicit anthropology and metaethical theory of the authors are central concerns of the study. The issue whether the professional is governed by role-specific duties or by role-distinctive duties is analyzed in depth. In the end, the author cannot accept any of the six positions and so the final section of the article fashions a constructive proposal grounded in a social metaphysics of the human person.

In the encyclopedic poetry of one of Islam's most prominent mystics, Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī (1207-73), one can discover a great deal about the main lines of classical Islamic cosmology and psychology. Conceiving of all of creation as a mirror with two sides, both of which have their reflective values, Rūmī describes both the macrocosm and the microcosm as theaters of divine revelation. In the end, one must come to know God's reflection in the intimacy of the solitary heart; but the cosmos will do for a start. Through his classic understandings of space, time, causality, the evolution of consciousness, and the attractive power of like beings in creation, Rūmī tells of Creation's potential for making known the Creator. And in his images of body, spirit, intellect, and heart, the poet limns the outlines of the essentially human. In the process, he proceeds from macrocosm to microcosm and back; for just as the heart of the individual is the locus of God's reflection in the person, His prophets are as Heart to the Body of the cosmos, in their function of revealing the divine presence and word.

Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar have criticized my “Theology of Hope” as being written “messianically” in the spirit of Joachim de Fiore and grounded from an Old Testament-Jewish perspective, whereas they claim true Christian hope is “present” in character and oriented vertically: not the future but the heavenly eternity is its fulfillment. Because both of them call upon Thomas Aquinas I have undertaken in this article a dialogue with Joachim de Fiore and Thomas Aquinas in order to elucidate my own position in conversation with them: the biblically grounded Christian hope is directed toward the parousia of Christ and sees in it future for Israel and future for the world. Chiliasm and eschatology designate the immanent and the transcendent sides of this future of Christ. Christian hope is messianic hope in the horizon of eschatological expectation.

After a brief explanation of the feminist theological perspective, this essay explores three critiques from that perspective of the marian tradition, highlighting ways in which the symbol of Mary has been used to the detriment of the full humanity and dignity of women. A reinterpretive move than examines three parallel possibilities for a new naming of Mary which would cohere with the full liberation of all human beings. No definitive resting point is arrived at, the conclusion being that a renewed theology of Mary will emerge only with renewed attitude and praxis regarding women in the churches.

Is it possible to write contemporary scripture? This discussion highlights the pedagogical value not only of teaching with primary resource materials, but also of having students creatively rewrite sacred texts. First, I discuss the purpose of a religious studies journal, and then provide some practical guidelines for journal-keeping along with suggestions for grading them. Secondly, I focus upon one type of creative journal exercise—rewriting sacred texts. In response to Ira Progoff s statements that we can create the Bibles of the world anew by recording images drawn up from our depth consciousness, I encourage students to write scripture-styled passages which deepen their appreciation for and understanding of sacred texts. To conclude, I provide six sample creative journal exercises, one from each of the sacred texts read in my Eastern Religions classes, along with several student responses.

This upper-level undergraduate theology course (trendily renamed ”Icons in Interface” by one of the wags in my department) originated from long-standing interest and involvement in the Hindu-Christian dialogue. More immediately, it resulted from a grant which allowed me to spend a summer in India, conversing with experts in the dialogue and generating ideas on how to present the dialogue in the form of a course. Since then, I have taught the course three times, and find that it kindles an interest, in both the students and me, qualitatively different from any other course I teach or they take. This is as it should be if the course is to reflect the subject-matter—an idea which has been one of the course's structuring principles. Consequently, there is an attempt to echo the mood and content of interreligious dialogue in the format and atmosphere of the classes. There are severe limitations to this: it would be otiose, and contrary to authentic dialogue, to try to make a Hindu ashram appear, complete with yoga at dawn and silent, vegetarian meals, on an American campus. But use of a chapel instead of a classroom, and of meditation during class time, for example, might help achieve distinctness without being distracting. But, before I get ahead of myself, let me present the particulars of the course in order, as follows: the course's nature, its students and possible teachers, its format, readings, requirements, and central ideas and goals. Evaluative comments will be made in passing, and some bibliographical suggestions appended.