Vatican II's Gaudium et Spes (GS) has had an unmistakable and demonstrable impact on Latin American liberation theology. Likewise, any sufficient account of the impact of GS on the wider church would need to attend to liberation theology. This article affirms this basic point, then explores the often-underappreciated relationship between liberation theology and Lumen Gentium (LG). In particular, it investigates how Gustavo Gutiérrez and Jon Sobrino interpret a fundamental ecclesiological affirmation of LG: the church as a sacrament of salvation and unity. Gutiérrez's early work provides, and Sobrino deepens, the basic point that the church's work as a sacrament inherently demands an option for the poor. Rather than being simply part of its social teaching, this option is at the heart of the church qua church. It is essential both for an adequate interpretation of LG and for a church seeking to be a credible sign and effective instrument of salvation and unity in the world.

This article expands a project begun as a participant in the first American Academy of Religion and Lilly Endowment Teaching Workshop on Religion. The original project examined feminist teaching methodologies and how a male theology professor could use these methodologies in a general undergraduate theology classroom. This work describes the processes of feminist and personalist teaching methodologies and analyzes their impact on undergraduate theology classrooms.

While these approaches help students come to a greater sense of participation in and ownership of their knowledge, there has also been the attending risk that such pedagogies seemingly involve the student too intensely, too personally, and the course becomes a form of therapy. This study examines how this therapeutic turn appears to develop. It concludes with a discussion about the need for clearly articulated teaching methodologies and how their use where appropriate helps us anticipate and respond to therapeutic classroom dynamics.

While the writings of Thomas Merton sustain their popularity twenty-five years after his untimely death, his later reflections on Eastern religions have led some to believe he was no longer really a Christian in his last years. This article places the question within the current discussion of Christianity and other religions and then argues for the centrality of Merton's Christianity in his appropriation of other traditions of transformation. It does this by underscoring his focus on experience rather than doctrine and suggesting the abiding Christian center of that appropriation.

This article examines the theological and ecological significance of the International Pastoral Letter on the Columbia River Watershed issued by the U.S. and Canadian Bishops in 2001. It argues that through its inclusive, participatory process, its emphasis on the watershed as a significant locus for theological reflection, and its strong moral, spiritual vision regarding what a watershed is and can be, the Letter makes a significant contribution to Catholic teaching on the environment. However, the article also claims that due to its generalizing rhetorical style, its weak vision of spirituality and its lack of a critical, prophetic edge, the Letter fails to realize its full potential. The article poses questions about the central meaning and purpose of such pastoral letters and about what the Roman Catholic community can learn from the present Letter that might strengthen future attempts to address environmental or other pressing concerns.

Both Native American shamans and mind-cure practitioners dispel disease by visualizing it in symbolic form and enable recovery by invoking symbols of well-being. This paper shows how comparative study of shamanism and mind-cure furthers understanding of the techniques of symbolic healing characteristic of each religious tradition. Mind-cure techniques of hypnotic suggestion illumine the Native American idea that prayers, songs, and stories are spiritual forces. Conversely, the performing arts practiced by Native American shamans contribute to further understanding of the effective healing techniques practiced by Mary Baker Eddy and her teacher, Phineas P. Quimby. The paper also comments on the implications of studying particular forms of Christian theology and practice, such as the mind-cure movement, in light of shamanism.

The “anthropic principle” has grown from scientific and philosophical reflection on the unlikely combination of circumstances needed, from the moment of the Big Bang through evolutionary history, to produce human life as we know it. This article describes the anthropic principle, in its “strong” and “weak” forms. It concludes with some thoughts on the possible theological implications of the anthropic discussion. From a theological perspective, the anthropic principle can be seen as part of the ongoing human effort to employ myth in the construction of a cosmology. It suggests both a sense of the design of the universe as well a the possible need for a Designer with some purpose and overall plan.

It is difficult to speak calmly and quietly about what one loves passionately, and next to my wife and my children I love the Catholic church more than any other thing. The passion for it has perdured all the years, and grows stronger the longer I live in it even though it must be said that my years with it have been far from easy. I do not love the church because I examined it and found it lovable; I loved it long before I could have examined it, and no examination has lessened my love for it. I cannot go back far enough in time or dig deeply enough in my psychic archaeology to find the root of that love. I think the root is the grace of God, yet I do have memories of important places and persons.

The classical christology employed the categories of nature and person in its attempt to elucidate the meaning of the incarnation. Today actional categories seem preferable and are used here in an experimental and exploratory way. The incarnation is, as a result, described as the conjunction of God's giving and man's receiving, a conjunction which in turn gives rise to man's giving in imitation of the divine activity. The analysis of the divine giving focuses particularly on the actional or “economic” meaning of the trinitarian doctrine while the analysis of the human receiving concerns itself principally with the question of human freedom and sinlessness and its implications for a processive understanding of incarnational communion. These christological reflections give rise, in conclusion, to some brief soteriological considerations on Jesus' catalytic influence in the process of human growth or salvation.

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.

Interreligious dialogue, like all else, is having its own way in Asia and reveals its own theology of religion. This has to be seen against the background of what transpires in the Western patriarchate in the same field of theology. Here I will focus on one particular model which has created tension between the two magisteria that function dialectically in the church today: the “academic magisterium” of the theologians and the “pastoral magisterium” of the bishops and in particular the bishop of Rome. They differ in their responses, but they begin their theology of religion by asking almost the same question.

The debate about salvation history brings to the surface a variety of issues, problems, and proposals that can be designated with some justice postmodern. In an effort to explore these contested issues, I offer a composite portrait of the meaning and uses of the concept of salvation history, drawing attention to its importance for recent Roman Catholic theology. I then review the various kinds of criticism leveled against salvation history models in an attempt to show that Peter Hodgson's contention is warranted: that is, the concept salvation history is problematic both as a category for interpreting the scriptural witness and as a pivotal category for fundamental and systematic theology. Thus, postmodernity, understood in broad terms, should mean the end of salvation history. The final section will explore how the legitimate concerns that generated interest in salvation history models can be recast in light of these broader postmodern approaches.

The article is divided into two parts. The first deals with the subject of spiritual discernment in Christian tradition: its nature, importance in the spiritual life, and the aspects of the spiritual life on which it bears. The second part deals with Catherine of Siena's particular approach to the subject of discernment: an explanation of the three images she uses to illuminate the meaning and operation of discernment and an exploration of the theological sources of her teaching on this subject.