New Century Theology – serie

The concept of sin has become unfashionable in the modern world. In a society which claims to be psychologically sophisticated, explanations for human behaviour tend to diminish human responsibility. In the age of Myra Hindley, Dennis Nielsen and the murder of Jamie Bulger, these issues are urgent issues by any reckoning. Hugh Connolly argues for a renewed sense of sin that he believes will lead to our greater moral and spiritual wellbeing. He examines our understanding of sin, going back to the pre-Christian era and rescuing what is best from the past. Along the way, he tackles St Augustine, Martin Luther, Calvin but also looks at examples from literature, philosophy and contemporary culture. The biblical tradition is also examined with great care.

The goal of the Christian life is to become a people among whom the Holy One dwells. For Christians, holiness can only be achieved through a relationship with Jesus. Donna Orsuto begins by examining the Hebrew Scriptures and showing how the concept of holiness is intimately intertwined with the idea of God, who is "Wholly Other" and transcendent, and yet paradoxically calls us into intimacy. Both individuals and the Church are "temples" where God dwells. Although there are common characteristics of holiness, there are also many diverse ways of being holy. The sacraments, prayer and reflection on the word of God have traditionally been seen as ways of opening oneself up to the Holy One and of embracing one's responsibility as a Christian in society. Orsuto offers a contemporary Christian understanding of holiness and considers topics such as the uniqueness of Christian holiness in a multi-faith society, the use and abuse of psychology in the quest for Christian holiness, and the dilemma of how the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church" can also be in need of reform.

This theological investigation explores the significance of woman in the Christian tradition from various perspectives. It is written as an open-ended quest for meaning in the form of a "theopoetics" rather than as a systematically developed argument. Weaving and circling around the Christian idea of woman, the book offers an unfolding vision of the problems and possibilities inherent in the story of Christ and the Church, with its historical legacy of silencing and exclusion and its unfulfilled promise of freedom and flourishing. Is it possible that the Church might become a life-giving and inclusive community capable of responding to the challenges that women pose to religion and society at the beginning of the third millennium, or is it, as some feminists suggest, an anachronistic and irredeemably patriarchal institution? Tina Beattie concludes that woman is not a form of being but a way of becoming, a dynamic and unfolding discovery of self in relation to God, humanity and nature, which is always in process, never completed.From a Christian perspective, this project of becoming a sexed human being - man or woman - needs to be understood as part of a larger and more encompassing human vocation to become divine according to the orthodox concept of "theosis", through the ongoing incarnation of God in Christ, the Church and the world.

In recent years Mary has stepped out of the closet of piety and devotion and become the subject of serious theological study and work. For too long Mary was an icon for the repression of women by a male dominated Church, but now Mary is seen as a vital theological symbol, a symbol of true femininity and true humanity for the Church and the modern world. Jung has argued that the Definition of the Doctrine of the Assumption was the most important religious event since the Reformation: the feminine principle has been absorbed into the Godhead. Yet amongst some modern Catholics, as well as most Protestant Christians, the Virgin Mary is still seen as someone who has a very small part to play in the drama of salvation and creation. In Mary, Sarah Jane Boss seeks to correct this view. She argues that Christian theology should conceive of the created order, both physical and spiritual, as sacred in the highest degree, and that this understanding is already implicit in traditions of Marian doctrine and devotion. Far from being peripheral this understanding of Mary is central to Christian doctrine.It must underlie any attempt to answer the fundamental ethical questions of our age, namely that of the extent to which human beings are entitled to intervene in the natural order.

Law develops his theory of inspiration starting with texts as varied as Virgil's Aeneid and Shakespeare's plays before focusing on the Bible. Following Karl Jaspers, Law views all human knowledge as having limits beyond which there exists the Transcendent. He believes that there are symbols, signs and characters-or ciphers-that inhabit religion and art and which point beyond these horizons. Perceiving these is at the heart of inspiration and the knowledge of God. For Law, the key to the question of inspiration and the Bible lies with understanding the reader's encounter with these ciphers, the supreme of which is Christ.

Keith Pecklers aims to give theologians, liturgists, priests, pastors and laity of all denominations a new sense of the theology of liturgy. Grounded in the theology of the Mystical Body of Christ, the author calls for full and active liturgical participation necessarily including social responsibility. At the heart of the liturgical movement is one fundamental principle: liturgy and social justice are inseparable. The author calls for a new liturgical movement and for the rediscovery of that inseparable relationship within the church.;He begins by answering the question "what is liturgy?" and he gives a brief history of the liturgy in the west. The principle of lex orandi, lex credendi (we pray what we believe) is also examined. Pecklers argues that liturgy can be used as an instrument of social and moral transformation. For example, how do we show liturgical hospitality to those who are often made to feel like pariahs in our assemblies - the disabled, elderly, immigrants, divorcees and other minorities? And how does the Christian liturgy relate to our Jewish and Muslim neighbours?He also considers how the liturgy may be used to address problems within the churches, such as the b