The growing shift in Catholic moral theology from reflecting on rules alone to focusing on the identity and formation of persons as moral agents prompts a further question: What impact do recent changes in the identity and formation of Catholic moral theologians themselves have on how that discipline is practiced? Young Catholic moral theologians experience a sharply different professional formation and a changed location of ongoing professional life than prior generations of moral theolog...

There is today a dramatic reexamination of structure, authority, dogma -- indeed, every aspect of the life of the Church is held up to scrutiny. Welcoming this as a sign of vitality, Avery Dulles has carefully studied the writings of contemporary Protestant and Catholic ecclesiologists and sifted out six major approaches, or "models," through which the Church's character can be understood: as Institution, Mystical Communion, Sacrament, Herald, Servant, and, in a recent addition to the book...

Malls, stadiums, and universities are actually liturgical structures that influence and shape our thoughts and affections. Humans--as Augustine noted--are "desiring agents," full of longings and passions; in brief, we are what we love.James K. A. Smith focuses on the themes of liturgy and desire in Desiring the Kingdom, the first book in what will be a three-volume set on the theology of culture. He redirects our yearnings to focus on the greatest good: God. Ultimately, Sm...

God, Sexuality and the Self is a new venture in systematic theology. Sarah Coakley invites the reader to re-conceive the relation of sexual desire and the desire for God and - through the lens of prayer practice - to chart the intrinsic connection of this relation to a theology of the Trinity. The goal is to integrate the demanding ascetical undertaking of prayer with the recovery of lost and neglected materials from the tradition and thus to reanimate doctrinal reflection both imaginative...

Stanley Hauerwas is one of the most widely read and oft-cited theologians writing today. A prolific lecturer and author, he has been at the forefront of key developments in contemporary theology, ranging from narrative theology to the “recovery of virtue.” Yet despite his prominence and the esteem reserved for his thought, his work has never before been collected in a single volume that provides a sense of the totality of his vision.The editors of The Hauerwas Reader, there...

Finally, here's a book about postmodernism that you don't need a philosophy degree to understand.In Postmodernism 101: A First Course for the Curious Christian, Heath White offers a brief and accessible introduction to the ideas of postmodernism and its relationship to Christianity. White paints the historical and philosophical background underlying postmodernism in understandable, but not oversimplified, language. He then describes what postmodernism means to our view of ...

Sarah Coakley draws both liberal and conservative camps into a new and serious reflection on ascetical theology.Each chapter of The New Asceticism concentrates on a contentious issue in contemporary theology - the role of women in the churches, homosexuality and the priesthood, celibacy and the future of Christian asceticism - in an original thesis about the nature of desire which may start to heal many contemporary wounds.Professor Coakley is as f...

The split between the Gospel and culture is without doubt the drama of our time," wrote Paul VI in 1975. Since that time there has been an increasingly urgent awareness that inculturation is an indispensable task of the church. But inculturation, the dialogue between church and cultures, demands first of all that we who would enter into the dialogue understand what "culture" itself means and what dialogue entails. To that end, cultural anthropologist Father Gerald Arbuckle gives us this im...

A theology of spirituality, community, and society. Brian Edgar has identified an element crucial to the corporate spirituality, meaningful discipleship, and effective mission of the church in our day. Friendship (with God and others) is a category that goes to the very nature of relationships. Edgar uses the wide-ranging perspectives of biblical scholarship, theology, ethics, philosophy, and sociology in God is Friendship to develop our understanding of friendship.Brian Edgar is P...

Highlights the key elements of the Catholic moral tradition and lays the foundations for Christian ethics through experiential reflections of right action toward persons, communities, and personal choices.

The old saying about being condemned to repeat the history we don’t know applies to Church history as much as to anything else. But we are often at a loss to know how to approach it. Much of what passed once for Church history was propagandist; and much of the best now written is brilliantly done but apparently detached from the Church’s present needs. We need a theological approach to Church history but not one that is just partisan. In seeking to explore this need, Rowan Williams offers ...

How can Catholic leaders effectively train and form members of our institutions in the Gospel values that are the ultimate foundation of Catholic identities?Internationally recognized author, educator, and facilitator Gerald A. Arbuckle argues that it is time to acknowledge that the programs and processes used in the past are inadequate to our postmodern age. The systems previously used to educate the staffs of our hospitals, universities, schools, and other institutions rarely suc...