This paper explores a futures perspective for practical theology. Although there are some examples of a future orientation, a systematic futures perspective has not been developed. Building on futures studies (including predictive studies on foresight and design and architecture studies), the authors propose a methodological model for future-sensitive practical theology, accounting for the prob...

[Reflection on human suffering is a formative factor in the development of the theology of Schillebeeckx. The dynamic of "negative contrast experience" is significant not only for his approach to suffering but for his method of doing theology in the face of the world's suffering. Schillebeeckx dialectically incorporates the reality of suffering into the construction of a theology that neverthel...

In his article "Radical Theology and the Reorganization of the US-American Religious System," Philippe Codde uses the example of the highly popular movement of death-of-God theology in the 1960s to demonstrate the wide applicability for cultural research of Itamar Even-Zohar's polysystem theory and to illustrate the validity of Even-Zohar's assertion that peripheral elements in any system can y...

A "political theology," as I use the term here, is a society's understanding of its ultimate meaning in the context of reality as a whole, and in particular in light of what is taken to be divine or ultimate reality. Because human beings collectively as well as individually need their lives to have meaning, they will have a political theology of some sort, whether explicit or implicit, whether ...

'Modernity, having removed God from the world, not only has not exited theology, but it has only, in a certain sense, brought to completion the project of providential oikonomia'. i With these lines, Giorgio Agamben closes his latest, and longest, addition to the Homo Sacer project begun in 1995, Il Regno e la Gloria. Per una genealogia teologica dell'economia e del governo (The Kingdom and the...

the Christian theology of religions. Introduction A remarkable revival of Trinitarian theology emerged in the twentieth century. Karl Rahner, on the Catholic side, and Karl Barth, on the Protestant side, played key roles in the “ecumenical rediscovery” of the Trinity. In addition to rethinking elements of this central doctrine (e.g., nature of divine personhood, Filioque, etc.), this resurgence...

Brad J. Kallenberg, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology & Ethics at the University of Dayton (OH) where he has pioneered a course in engineering ethics that compares ethics to engineering design. After studying chemistry, then physics, on a scholarship to the University of Minnesota, Kallenberg eventually shifted his attention to topics arising at the interface of science, engineering and theology....

Recent publications on Old Testament wisdom literature perpetuate the theory of a ‘crisis in wisdom’ and leave unresolved the question of its provenance within Old Testament theology. Despite considerable diversity within the wisdom corpus, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job are in basic agreement regarding wisdom’s limitations and benefits, as well as regarding divine freedom and retribution. Thu...

Looking back on my work in practical theology so far, I have always searched for teaching and research that matters to real people. My student years were not always too fulfilling in that respect. I learned a lot of course, and some of the material we studied was intellectually rather challenging, but I found it difficult to understand the connection between the conceptual systems and ritual tr...

In this article the author first gives an introduction to his own approach to comparative theology (CT). After some introductory considerations, an outline of the idea and foundation of CT is given and is contrasted with traditional approaches to other religions; the methods, goals, and also the limits of CT are discussed; CT is differentiated from religious studies and the theology of religion...