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...

Natural theology is reading the book of nature, not the book of revelation, for knowledge of God. Natural theology, as a category employed by practitioners, originated within the history of Christianity, as passages from the New Testament such as Romans 1:20 raised the possibility of knowledge about God without revelation. The best-known work of natural theology is William Paley’s (d. 1805 AD) ...

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...