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| Preface | |
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| Understanding Contemporary Christian Thought | |
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| Setting the Stage: Christianity and the Developments of Modernity | |
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| The Enlightenment and the Development of Critical and Autonomous Reason | |
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| Historical Criticism of the Bible | |
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| The Two Main Hypotheses of Historical Criticism | |
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| Theological Questions and Challenges Raised by Historical Criticism | |
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| Surveying the Field: Options in Contemporary Christian Thought | |
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| Biblical Literalism | |
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| Evidence for Truth | |
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| Biblical Literalists in the United States | |
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| Theological Literalism | |
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| Faith and Reason | |
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| Theological Literalists in the United States | |
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| Theological Reinterpreters | |
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| Panentheism and Its Implications | |
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| The Place of Theological Reinterpreters in the Church | |
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| Classical Christian Thought and Contemporary Transformations | |
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| God and Cosmology | |
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| Biblical and Greek Roots of the Christian Idea of God | |
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| Transformations in Reflection on God during the Enlightenment | |
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| Justifying Belief in God in the Contemporary Period | |
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| Limits of Rational Thought: Barth | |
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| Awareness of God through Ultimate Concern: Tillich | |
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| God and God's Relation to the Universe in Panentheism | |
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| Human Language about God | |
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| Metaphors of God and the Analogy of Being | |
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| Human Language about God and Contemporary Theology | |
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| Christ and History | |
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| Historical Background: Jewish Hopes for a Messiah | |
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| The Development of Classical Christology | |
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| Historical Background: New Testament Gospels to the Nicene Creed | |
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| Jesus the Christ in Classical Christology | |
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| The Historical Jesus and Christology in the Contemporary Period | |
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| The Quest for the Historical Jesus | |
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| Directions in Contemporary Christology | |
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| Liberation Theology | |
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| Existentialist Theology | |
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| Theology of Hope | |
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| Heaven, Hell, and Anthropology | |
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| Biblical and Greek Views of Humanity and Human Destiny | |
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| Mainstream Old Testament Belief in Sheol | |
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| Development of Apocalypticism and Belief in Resurrection | |
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| Greek Thought and Belief in an Immortal Soul | |
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| Classical Christian Eschatology | |
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| Fusion of Greek Anthropology and Hebrew Teleology | |
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| Original Sin, Grace, and Human Destiny | |
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| Contemporary Alternatives Regarding the Afterlife | |
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| The Interdependent and Evolutionary Understanding of Human Beings | |
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| Resurrection or Determined Agnosticism | |
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| Progress in the Afterlife | |
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| Process Theology's Limited God and the Afterlife | |
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| Christianity and Cultural Transformations | |
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| Christianity and Other Religions | |
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| A Framework for Understanding Christianity's Relationship to Other Religions | |
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| Historical Exclusivism and Articulation of the Issues | |
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| Types of Contemporary Exclusivism | |
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| Christianity Is Exclusively True and the Exclusive Place of Salvation: Sectarian Protestantism | |
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| Christianity Is Exclusively True, but Salvation Is for Everyone | |
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| The World Religions Have Some Truth, but Christianity Is the Exclusive Place of Salvation: Evangelical Protestantism | |
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| Inclusivism | |
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| Emergence of Inclusivism | |
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| Salvation Occurs in All Religions, but Christianity Is Completely True | |
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| Pluralism | |
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| Salvation Occurs in All Religions, and No Religion Is Exclusively True | |
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| Criticisms of Hick: Self-Conscious Inclusivism and Exclusivism | |
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| Christianity and Feminism | |
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| The Why and What of Feminist Theology | |
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| Feminist Theology and the Bible | |
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| The Twofold Approach to the Bible and Its Interpretation | |
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| Exposing and Critiquing Patriarchy in Text and Interpretation | |
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| Liberating Appropriation of the Text | |
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| Women's Leadership in the Church | |
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| Evangelical Protestants, the Bible, and Women's Ordination | |
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| Roman Catholics and Women's Ordination | |
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| Language for God | |
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| Significance of Male God-Language | |
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| Feminist Arguments for Change from Exclusively Male God-Language | |
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| Sin and Salvation | |
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| Sin as Self-Negation, Layered Oppression, and Structural Reality | |
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| Salvation | |
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| Christianity and Homosexuality | |
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| Sources of Authority according to the Main Christian Groups | |
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| Roman Catholicism, the Church Hierarchy, and Homosexuality | |
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| Sources of Authority in Evangelical and Mainline Protestant Groups | |
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| Biblical Passages on Homosexuality | |
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| Old Testament | |
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| New Testament | |
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| Arguments from Human Reason and Scriptural Themes | |
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| Human Reason | |
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| Biblical Themes | |
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| Christianity and the Natural Environment | |
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| The Anti-environmental Charge against Christianity | |
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| Stewardship of Creation | |
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| Salvation History, Eschatology, and Ecology | |
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| The Transformation of Nonhuman Creation | |
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| Overcoming Christianity's Ecological Ambiguity | |
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| Creation Spirituality | |
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| Original Blessing and the Cosmic Christ | |
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| The Universe Story | |
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| Discussion Questions and Further Reading | |
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| Notes | |
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| Glossary | |
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| Index | |