This is a sequel to the author's “The Theology of Faith” in Horizons of Fall, 1975. In that first survey article it was suggested that Christian faith is now seen as a radical commitment to God precisely through the ordinary things of our world and our history. The present article asks the questions: was this the faith of Jesus, the founder of our faith? Can one speak of Jesus as a man of faith at all? And if one can, how did Jesus himself become the object of a confession of faith, as he certainly did become in our tradition?

The interaction among religion, ideology, and history must be kept in mind if one is to understand any of these or their role in society. Within the Hebrew Bible, the Caleb Tradition illustrates how religion and politics influenced several writers' interpretations of early Judahite and Israelite history, and in turn, how their histories were employed for religious and political ends. By recognizing these relationships, the reader is able to unravel one of the most complicated periods in Israel's history, which has been obscured by early historians-politicians-theologians. The study also suggests problems that may be expected when a biblical basis is proposed for modern society.

In viewing women as other “Mary's” many American Catholics have contested movements such as suffrage and higher education, believing them to be threats to a stable society and women's natural position in the home. Such a concept contained the seeds of its own destruction, for other Catholics, on the basis that pious, pure, females were superior to males, advocated that women's influence be extended beyond the immediate family. Contrasted with this “Mary” perception was that of woman as a tempting “Eve” whose societal activities must be confined, since she might undermine male spirituality. These stereotypes, each contributing to anti-feminism, have also influenced historians of Catholicism who tend to ignore the lives and problems of Catholic women. At this juncture in American Church history there is need for-an analysis of feminism's apparent erosion on the faith of Catholic women, and of an explanation as well of how prominent, influential women were able to reconcile their lives outside the home with their Church.

If religious education is to have a proper place in seminary, college and university curricula, it needs to acquire a clear identity as an academic discipline. A course must be developed which deals with foundations of religious education, its history and philosophy. Its relationship with theology and moral education demands special treatment.

For decades, orthodox Marxists understood Marxist dialectical materialism merely as a turning upside down of Hegel's absolute idealism. Humanistic Marxists have corrected the Marxist concept of the relationship between economic basestructure and cultural superstructure which in turn leads them to a more differentiated view of religion as part of the cultural superstructure. Since the 1920's, Western Marxists discovered that the relationship between Hegel's idea dialectics and Marxian reality dialectics is much more complicated than orthodox Marxists and their opponents, the positivists, previously assumed. Marxist dialectical materialism is not necessarily an ontological materialism, but rather a regional one. That allows Humanistic Marxists today to speak more favorably about some metaphysical and theological trends and to produce a more adequate and deeper critical theory of religion than Marx himself was able to create.

For nearly two decades an unusual phenomenon has been taking place. Christians and Marxists, traditionally regarded as bitter opponents, generated among their adherents a small, but influential number who engaged in dialogue. The dialogue emerged, in some instances with surprising vigor and spontaneity, only to be practically suppressed or greatly hindered in most locations. Yet interest, academic and existential, persists. And there is some evidence that, while one stage of the dialogue has ended, new impulses toward dialogue will insure its continuation.

A fairly large number of books and articles, some of them of outstanding quality, have emerged. A small number of educators judged this dialogue to be worthy of close scrutiny and development. The interest has been sustained and increased. This bibliography is offered as a tool to those colleagues who wish to complement their course offerings or start new courses which would be devoted either partially or completely to the subject matter of the Christian-Marxist dialogue.

It is my guess that the vast majority of students taking such courses know too little about Marxism and, possibly, too little about Christianity. Therefore, they will need to be referred to a bibliography that includes works on the nature of Marxism and Christianity, on the Marxist analysis of religion, on the Christian attitudes toward Marxism, and so forth. Little of this is attempted here. The bibliography contains almost exclusively books dealing with the more narrow field of the theoretical or practical aspects of the actual dialogue. Some positive and constructive approaches to the background needs of students are presented by a few of the entries, usually not the most recent books.