Donald L. Gelpi – författare

The seven provocative essays that comprise Beyond Individualism reflect on the American religious tradition in order to discover in it an ethical alternative to the ideology of individualism.The contributors include Donald L. Gelpi, Stephen C. Rowntree, Drew Christiansen, Frank M. Oppenheim, John M. Staudenmaier, Carl F. Starkloff, and John R. Stacer. They provide an interdisciplinary approach to their criticism of individualism and suggest unique strategies for counteracting the moral and social fragmentation that such an ethos motivates. The first essay argues that a contemporary theology of conversion points the way beyond the moral impasses of individualism, including those encountered in family life. It is followed by a piece that ponders romantic and marital love from a philosophical standpoint. The next section argues that recent papal teaching about the common good provides an alternative to an individualistic politics of self-interest. The fourth essay addresses many of the issues raised in the first three from the standpoint of Josiah Royce's philosophy of community. The next article examines technology's capacity to create and impose values that both undermine community and foster individualism. And the last two essays explore some of the moral consequences of commitment to the human community's common good by examining the treatment of Native Americans in the United States and, in the latter essay, William Ernest Hocking's reflections on global political responsibility.Throughout, these accessible essays exhibit thematic unity and consistency. They can be read by all inquisitive readers as a discussion on our national character or can be used as a companion volume for courses on American culture along with Habits of the Heart.

The author of this study invokes Peirce's logic in order to clarify the operational procedures of dialectic, foundational, and doctrinal theology. He argues that Peirce's theory of the normative sciences casts light on three forms of conversion: affective, intellectual, and moral conversion. From a normative account of the dynamics of five forms of conversion, he derives specific criteria for authenticating and calling into question both doctrinal statements about the content of religious faith and different theories of theological method. The third and final chapter tests the adequacy of the suggested criteria by applying them to the symbolic Christology of Roger Haight.

This theological autobiography presents the experiences and events that shaped the systematic theology, which author Donald Gelpi has been crafting since 1973. Gelpi's normative theology of conversion discusses five kinds of conversion: affective, intellectual, personal moral, political, and religious. Beginning with his boyhood in New Orleans, Closer Walk describes the early development of his religious perceptions, how his formation as a Jesuit taught him how to think and instilled a passion for the U.S. philosophical tradition, his major philosophical influences, and the influence of charismatic piety on his thought. This passionate, detailed, and humorous memoir also explores the history of the John Courtney Murray Group—a research seminar in inculturated philosophical and theological thinking—and how participation in the group helped him lay the systematic foundations for his theology that was crafted during his years at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.