One Of the many challenges of the theology of liberation of Latin America (TL or LT) has been to rethink the relation between theory (theology) and praxis. A debate, which has been going on for over a century among philosophers and social thinkers since Hegel and Marx has finally hit the serene shores of Christian theology. Are theory and praxis two co-equal dimensions of human existence, or is the one derivative from the other? Is Christian faith primarily a matter of theory, belief and truth, or is it primarily a matter of praxis, action and justice? Is theology only a reflection on faith or a reflection in faith as well? What is the relation between theology and contemporary historical praxis? Does theology have to remain ‘external’ to that praxis in order to preserve its critical objectivity, or is participation of theology in that praxis the very condition of its objectivity? Is the prior commitment of theology— so much insisted on by TL — to the praxis of liberation detrimental or necessary to the integrity of theology? In this essay I propose to deal with these issues in the context of recent debates between Schubert Ogden and the Vatican on the one hand and TL on the other. I shall first review Ogden's and the Vatican's critique of TL, then present the position of TL, and finally evaluate both TL and its critics and reconstruct a theory of the relation between theology and praxis in light of the preceding discussion.

Recent ecumenical discussion on ministry has tended to emphasise the sign-value of the ordained ministry. This is particularly so in statements concerning episcopacy, but also with respect to presbyteral and diaconal ministry. Close attention is being paid to ‘sacramental’ aspects of ordination and ordained ministry in both ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ circles. And certainly there is good reason to examine the subject of ministry in terms of sign-value, if not in terms of ‘sacramentality’. But the question is being asked, shyly by some and more stridently by others: We can see what ministers represent, we can even see the sign-value of bishops, but what are they supposed to do?

Easter 1985 in the Church of England was a strange experience, resounding with the controversy which David Jenkins had begun the previous year during a television interview, after he had been elected Bishop of Durham. The scenario has been widely discussed by the media, by professional theologians, and by ordinary church-folk, north and south of the border. For the writer, it was the first Easter he can remember since being ordained when the resurrection was actually being discussed, not just in Senior Common Rooms, but in pubs. I was even taken to task by someone working in my local wine-store. In some respects, the furore was well summed-up in his attitude: he had long ceased to attend church, but shouldn't church-leaders believe in what they are supposed to believe?

Eberhard jüngel'S reputation as a severely professional systematic and philosophical theologian is beginning to drift across to the English speaking world. His Gott ah Geheimnis der Welt, which first appeared in 1976 and whose third edition is here translated by Darrell L. Guder, is a curious book. It is perhaps best read not so much as a single argument but as a series of studies which at important points overlap or converge. It is a remarkably wide-ranging book: indeed, so wideranging that the argument becomes frustratingly difficult to get hold of in its entirety. Jü ngel writes illuminatingly about a variety of philosophical and theological traditions, and does so in order to advance some large-scale proposals about how a contemporary Christian doctrine of God ought to be pursued. And yet at the end of the book, even the reader who has put in the demanding work of mastering Jüngel's complex argument is left with an odd feeling of dissatisfaction, as if the book somehow lacks a recognisable, sustained treatment of its central theme.