Toward a Theology of Christian Faith

by John Dinges, Michael Mooney, Joe Koechler

Articles on the act of Christian faith by post-Vatican II theologians, many of them European, compiled by American graduate theology students at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and resident at Das Canisianum, an international house of study run by Jesuits. Authors are: Avery Dulles, Jean Mouroux, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Georg Muschalek, August Brunner, Karl Rahner, Gerhard Ebeling, Heinrich Schlier, P.A. Liege, Rudolf Schnackenburg, Johannes B. Metz, Otto Semmelroth, Louis Monden, Bernhard Welte.

342 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

I am a journalist who writes mostly about Latin America, dictators, intelligence agencies (usually secret ones) and human rights. I have a previous career as a theologian--not incompatible with journalism. I am the Godfrey Lowell Cabot professor of international journalism at Columbia University. Previously I worked for the Washington Post and NPR (as foreign editor and managing editor at the latter.) Current writing: democracy and media in Latin America.
I founded the nonprofit Center for Investigation and Information (CIINFO), which runs projects on investigative journalism in Latin America. Founded the Chilean on-line media organization CIPER (www.ciperchile.cl). Currently run ArchivosChile (www.archivoschile.org).

Reviews

[John Dinges]

This was groundbreaking theology at the time when "God is Dead" was on the cover of Time Magazine, the current pope Benedict XVI was still professor Josef Ratzinger and enjoyed a reputation as an liberal thinker, and the exodus from Roman Catholic Seminaries had only just begun. The context was the vibrant dialogue among Protestant (mostly Lutheran) and Catholic theologians. Liberation Theology was not yet a factor in Europe, but there was a serious conversation going on between idealists inspired by Marxism with their Christian counterparts. The articles represent the apex of open exploration of the nature of religious commitment, fully informed by post-war existentialism and post-Enlightment rationalism. In these articles you will find Kierkegaard, Martin Luther and Heidegger quoted in elucidation of the act of faith, alongside of careful Biblical exegesis. This was theology that was fun to read, before the iron door slammed shut at the Vatican, Catholic theological experimentation was cut off from public view, and the Vatican II renewal withered.