Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen provides an up-to-date survey and analysis of the major ecclesiological traditions, the most important theologians, and a number of contextual approaches to both the unity and the diversity of ecclesiastic understandings and practices.

This volume will explore issues such as the nature, method and development of comparative ecclesiology; critical assessments as well as appreciations of Roger Haight's Christian Community in History. The Jesuit, Roger Haight, has written extensively in the fields of systematic theology, liberation theology, Christology and, of course, ecclesiology itself. He champions the need for the church to embrace a dialogical mission. This represents his most extensive work to date in ecclesiology and is a monumental volume study in comparative ecclesiology, volume 3 coming in 2008, building upon the insights developed in recent years in the more general sub-discipline of comparative theology. In all, Haight's pioneering work in this emerging field of comparative ecclesiology encourages us to immerse our contemporary explorations in, first, historical consciousness, thereby inculcating the disposition of humility - both in methodological terms and, when one realises how far short we fall of some of our ecclesial forebears, in terms of ecclesial life and practice as well. Second, as indicated, he commends the positive appreciation of pluralism. Third, a whole-part conception of church, neither placing universal over and above local nor vice-versa. Four, we should be attentive to embracing the gifts and human challenges of religious pluralism. And, of course, five, Haight reassures those fearful that such undertaking might entail any loss for the churches: he reminds us how such ecclesiological encounters are and should be undertaken from within a particular confessional or ecclesial identity. We have assembled a range of noted ecclesiological scholars to discuss not simply Professor Haight's work, but also to engage with the issues he raises in a wider context, such as the respective methodological debates surrounding ecclesiology 'from above' and 'from below', to the nature and promise of comparative ecclesiology in itself, to the prospects for a 'pluralistic ecclesiology' in the world today, and the challenges such an undertaking presents to the Christian churches. Roger Haight will be invited to offer his own reflections upon the various chapters.

What in the world is postmodernity? Is it the dominant reality today? If it is, what does it mean to be a church in a postmodern world? It seems that the church had a difficult time coming to terms with a modern world, an era ruled by the claims of scientific certainty. Having done so, more or less, it is now confronted by the claims of postmodernity, which seem to reverse the whole equation, to say that certainty and objectivity are chimeras. What is truth?" Pilate asked, and postmodernity 'at least as caricatured by its opponents 'responds: "There's no such thing." Gerard Mannion, in Ecclesiology and Postmodernity, addresses the situation of the church in a postmodern world. The fundamental changes in human society and culture wrought by the twentieth century require the church to consider its response in the twenty-first century. What is the church's moral Vision, how does its practice look, what is the nature of its aspiration toward holiness in our times? Mannion believes that since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has been in a kind of limbo, awaiting a Vision of its own life for the future. Rather than focusing on specific controversies, Mannion offers concrete suggestions about how the church can create a better harmony between its own self-understanding, its ecclesiological Vision, and its day-to-day life, its ecclesial practice. Gerard Mannion, PhD, educated at King's College, Cambridge University and New College, Oxford University, is Associate Professor of Ecclesiology and Ethics in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK. He is also the director of Church In Our Times: Centre for the Study of Contemporary Ecclesiology, co-director of the Applied Ethics Initiative at Liverpool Hope, co-chair of the AAR (American Academy of Religion) Ecclesiological Investigations Program Unit and co-ordinator of the Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network. Mannion is the author of Schopenhauer, Religion and Morality and co-editor of Readings in Church Authority 'Gifts and Challenges for Contemporary Catholicism, both published by Ashgate in 2003, and co-editor of the forthcoming volumes The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church andCatholic Social Justice: Theological and Practical Explorations. "

Drawing upon the methodology developed in his Dynamics of Theology (1990) and exemplified in Jesus Symbol of God (1999), Roger Haight, in this magisterial work, achieves what he calls an historical ecclesiology, or ecclesiology from below. In contrast to traditional ecclesiology from above, which is abstract, idealist, and ahistorical, ecclesiology from below is concrete, realist, and historically conscious. In this first of two volumes, Haight charts the history of the church's self-understandings from the origins of the church in the Jesus movement to the late Middle Ages. In volume 2 Haight develops a comparative ecclesiology based on the history and diverse theologies of the worldwide Christian movement from the Reformation to the present. While the ultimate focus of the work falls on the structure of the church and its theological self-understanding, it tries to be faithful to the historical, social, and political reality of the church in each period.

Ecclesiologists and other experts from around the world address various forms of exclusion in the Catholic Church. These essays address the many forms of exclusion in churches around the world, with a major focus on the Roman Catholic Church but also addressing exclusion in other churches. Topics included are exclusion of marginal people, exclusion and racial justice, exclusion and gender, exclusion and sacramental practices, and exclusion and ecumenical reality. Contributors include Paul Lakeland, Gerard Mannion, A. E. Orobator, Bryan Massingale, Phyllis Zagano, Neil Ormerod, Bradford Hinze, Mary McClintock Fulkerson, and Susan K. Wood, among others.

The book explores the variables and invariables of the church. Its argument is that self-awareness of the church was often a matter of change, depending on historical circumstances. It encourages appreciating plurality in the church and sets the system of coordinates for identifying the ecclesial 'self'.

The field of ecclesiology is rapidly expanding as new material, theories, methods, and approaches are being explored. This raises important and challenging questions concerning ecclesiology as an academic discipline. This book takes the reader into the trenches of ecclesiological research where the actual work of reading, writing, interpreting, and analysing is being done. Ecclesiology is dealt with as a systematic, empirical, historical, and liturgical discipline. Essays explore theology in South Africa as shaped by apartheid, liturgical theology, the diaconate in an ecumenical context, Free Church preachership, suburban ecclesial identity, medieval church practices, liturgical texts, church floor plans, and ecclesiology as a gendered discipline. Ecclesiology in the Trenches is a book for anyone who is interested and involved in ecclesiological research.

A rich collection of fifteen articles by European, North American and Asian theologians, concerned with the concept, life, unity and future of the church.

This volume proposes a fresh strategy for ecumenical engagement - 'Receptive Ecumenism' - that is fitted to the challenges of the contemporary context and has already been internationally recognised as making a distinctive and important new contribution to ecumenical thought and practice. Beyond this, the volume tests and illustrates this proposal by examining what Roman Catholicism in particular might fruitfully learn from its ecumenical others. Challenging the tendency for ecumenical studies to ask, whether explicitly or implicitly, 'What do our others need to learn from us?', this volume presents a radical challenge to see ecumenism move forward into action by highlighting the opposite question 'What can we learn with integrity from our others?' This approach is not simply ecumenism as shared mission, or ecumenism as problem-solving and incremental agreement but ecumenism as a vital long-term programme of individual, communal and structural conversion driven, like the Gospel that inspires it, by the promise of conversion into greater life and flourishing. The aim is for the Christian traditions to become more, not less, than they currently are by learning from, or receiving of, each other's gifts. The 32 original essays that have been written for this unique volume explore these issues from a wide variety of denominational and disciplinary perspectives, drawing together ecclesiologists, professional ecumenists, sociologists, psychologists, and organizational experts.

Restoration through Redemption offers examples of three ways in which John Calvin’s theology can be revisited: by analysis, assessment, and reception. This volume contains analyses of Calvin’s position on the trinity and on politics, as well as assessments of his theology for evolutionary biology and comparative ecclesiology. It also discusses the reception of his heritage, for instance, in North America and South Africa. The central theme in this volume is Calvin’s approach to the renewal of creation that hinges on Christ the Redeemer. One of the golden threads is Calvin’s emphasis upon the meditatio on the future life, the turning of the believer towards the eschatological perspective. Contributors include: J. Todd Billings, Johan Buitendag, Jaeseung Cha, Ernst M. Conradie, Roger Haight, I. John Hesselink, Rinse Reeling Brouwer, Philippe Theron, Henk van den Belt, Gijsbert van den Brink, Cornelis van der Kooi, J.H. (Amie) van Wyk, J.M. (Koos) Vorster, Nico Vorster, Robert Vosloo, and Paul Wells.