Happy Golden Anniversary, Horizons! 

The entire editorial staff is excited to bring our readers a celebration of fifty years of Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society. We decided that the fiftieth anniversary of a journal of Catholic theology created in the optimistic spirit of Vatican II and operated by the lay women and men who formed the College Theology Society deserved a two-volume celebration. The collective four issues of volumes fifty and fifty-one, therefore, will each feature an anniversary “Retrospective and Prospective” roundtable, which will include a reprint of an article that the editors have deemed “a greatest hit” for Horizons and feature two scholars’ responses to the article, noting its significance for its time and commenting on the needs of the present with regard to the topic at hand. We’ll also be featuring reflections old and new from former editors, virtual issues highlighting even more “greatest hits” from our archives, and tributes from some of the contributors and readers of Horizons who have made these 50 wonderful years possible!

 

In the first installment of the Horizons anniversary collection, our anniversary roundtable features Raymond E. Brown’s article from Horizons 1.1 (1974), “‘Who Do Men Say that I Am?’—Modern Scholarship on Gospel Christology.” Pheme Perkins, Boston College, and Gilberto A. Ruiz, Saint Anselm College, respond. 

Perkins and Ruiz offer probing and appreciative perspectives on Brown’s insights that also challenge biblical scholars and theologians to a renewed cooperation in a twenty-first-century key. We hope that a refreshed reading of Brown with the assistance of Perkins and Ruiz will inspire our readers to continue the conversation. Additionally, founding coeditor Rodger Van Allen provides insights on the naming and founding of Horizons as a preface to reprinting his 1999 account of the origins of the journal. The current editors believe it is important to highlight our “origin story” for a new generation of readers and contributors.

 

 

The third installment of our anniversary collection includes a roundtable focused on Sandra M. Schneiders' "Theology and Spirituality: Strangers, Rivals, or Partners?" published in Horizons 13.2 (1986).

Professor Min-Ah Cho of Georgetown University explains that a renewed appreciation for Schneiders’s work is necessary to counter popular trends that disconnect spirituality from “its historical contexts as well as its roots in religious traditions.” Placing Schneiders’s article in the wider context of her work, Cho guides the reader through essential dimensions of Schneiders’s approach to the relationship between spirituality and theology and identifies important areas for interrogation and development in the study of spirituality needed in the present moment.

 

 

In celebration of this milestone, past editors, contributors and readers were invited to share their tributes to Horizons, their experience with the journal and its history, including: 

Bill Portier, University of Dayton
Bradford E. Hinze, Karl Rahner, S.J., Professor of Theology, Fordham University
Timothy Matovina, University of Notre Dame
Michele Saracino, Manattan College
Paul Lakeland, Fairfield University
John E. Thiel, Fairfield University
Roger Haight, S.J., Union Theological Seminary
Nancy Pineda-Madrid, T. Marie Chilton Chair of Catholic Theology, Loyola Marymount University
Elizabeth Johnson, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Fordham University
Julie Hanlon Rubio, Shea-Heusaman Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

 

 

Our anniversary roundtable for the second installment of the Horizons anniversary collection features Gustavo Gutiérrez’s “Faith as Freedom: Solidarity with the Alienated and Confidence in the Future," from Horizons 2.1 (1975). Professor Emeritus Roberto Goizueta, Boston College, and Professor Neomi De Anda, University of Dayton, respond. 

Goizueta and De Anda offer us a fresh reading of Gutiérrez’s 1975 article, including putting it in context alongside later developments in his work and leveling challenges concerning some shortcomings. Their analyses inspire readers to a renewed commitment to the praxis of a faith that liberates and to “hope against hope,” as Gutiérrez reminded us at the end of his article.

 

 

 

Our anniversary roundtable for the fourth installment of the Horizons anniversary collection features John R. Connolly's article "Revelation as Liberation from Oppression: Black Theology's Challenge for American Catholic Theology", from Horizons 26.2 (1999). 

M. Shawn Copeland (Boston College), winner of the 2024 College Theology Society’s Presidential Award, and Karen Teel (University of San Diego) generously agreed to write analyses of Connolly’s work. Their clear-eyed and expert reflections invite readers to reevaluate their engagement or lack of engagement with the charges from Cone and Connolly to reenvision white theology. Indeed, the shortcomings and sins of Horizons as complicit in structural racism and white theology necessarily emerge as a result of the roundtable. May the staff, authors, and readers of Horizons heed, ever so late, Cone’s challenges and Connolly’s example to us.