Review of At Play in the Lions’ Den, A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan by Jim Forest

In 1957 Daniel Berrigan (1921-2016), a thirty-six-year-old Jesuit priest, about to begin teaching New Testament at Lemoyne College in his hometown of Syracuse, New York, published his first book. A book of poetry entitled Time Without Number, it won the Lamont Poetry Award and was also nominated for a National Book Award. At the time, he realized that, Publishers would now take almost anything I chose to compile; the question of quality was largely in my own hands and my own sense of things (47). In the next four years, he published two more books of poetry and two books of essays. Poetry and writing were only one facet of this extraordinary spirit’s gifts. As his younger friend, the Jesuit artist William Hart McNichols put it, Dan Berrigan had been given the ambiguous favor of the Joseph coat (257)

Assembly Required: Christ\u27s Presence in the Pews

When I attempt to articulate what I get out of going to church, I find myself increasingly emphasizing the real presence of Christ in the assembly. It has been almost 50 years since Vatican II, so it is well to recall what the council\u27s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy said in 1963 about that presence. It taught that in order to accomplish the work of salvation for which the Father sent him, Christ is always present in the church, especially in the church\u27s liturgical celebrations

Here Come the Nones! Pluralism and Evangelization after Denominationalism and Americanism

This essay begins with a four-part overview of American Catholic history focused on the building and dissolution of an immigrant Catholic subculture. The final period, “Catholics and the Dynamics of Pluralism (1968-present)” leads naturally into a discussion of the demography of Catholics in the United States. Particular attention is given to the trend to disaffiliation among millennials and how best to interpret it. Pastoral and theological reflections on the demography of disaffiliation emphasize the need for the church in the United States to take on an evangelical form more suited to a pluralism that is post-denominational and post-Americanist, and how this need might be approached in terms of “evangelization” as described in the 1975 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi. Concluding thoughts sketch some important characteristics of an evangelical church, more concerned with its mission and witness in the world than with maintaining its internal life

Jesus and the World of Grace, 1968-2016: An Idiosyncratic Theological Memoir

This article offers an impressionistic look back over the past five decades, from 1968 to 2016, in Catholic theology in the United States. At the heart of this story are Christology, the world of grace, and their relationship. This memoir unfolds in three parts: “Running on Empty, 1968–1980”; “Jesus and the World of Grace, 1980–2016”; “Can Liberal Catholics Come Back?” It identifies the most neuralgic question left to us from this period: How is Christ related to the world of grace

Hauerwas on Hauerwas: Review of \u27Approaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life\u27

Stanley Hauerwas has achieved singular preeminence among theologians in the United States as a public intellectual. Writing on subjects from Christian ethics to law, pacifism, bioethics, and political philosophy, he has provided bountiful fodder for academics while managing to leave footprints in the general culture-he is surely one of very few theologians ever to appear on Oprah. Any new book bearing Hauerwas\u27 name is noteworthy, and the latest one doesn\u27t disappoint

Response: A Scary Resurrection

With an eye toward reuniting the church and the academy, this book focuses on the role that scholarship can play in making good preachers into really great preachers. This is the bridge between scholarly and popular writing that informs the sermon and makes it more powerful and meaningful for the people who regularly listen to sermons. Preachers are challenged to raise the level of their commitment to scholarship as well as overcome any pre-existing prejudices with scholarship. The preacher as scholar is the perfect way for the pulpit to respond to the challenges of a secular, post-modern world that often wonders if smart people can even believe in God