With this issue, the editors of Horizons continue the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of this journal born of the College Theology Society and the laypeople who have devoted themselves to a vision of engaged theology that seeks to do justice, to love mercifully, and to walk humbly with God and one another. Our world is marked by multiple wars. In fact, Pope Francis has frequently opined that World War III has actually begun, given the violent conflicts rending the world. Theology contributes to reducing violence and harm in the world when it better elucidates the Christian message, diagnoses and reduces violence of various types in the churches, and considers how best to be Christian in the world today. Our second “Retrospective and Prospective Anniversary Roundtable” illustrates these contributions.
Our celebratory article reprint for this issue is Gustavo Gutiérrez’s “Faith as Freedom: Solidarity with the Alienated and Confidence in the Future,” originally published in Horizons 2, no. 1 (Spring 1975). We are very pleased that the roundtable respondents to Gutiérrez are Professor Emeritus Roberto Goizueta, Boston College, and Professor Neomi De Anda, University of Dayton. They 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. The analyses of Goizueta and De Anda 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 peer-reviewed section ranges over diverse territory, but each article in its own way offers an analysis that can potentially reduce conflict and violence. Craig Ford uses the “Galileo Affair” to consider the Catholic Church’s positions on gender and sexuality that exclude. Lucas Briola (“Eucharist and Friendship”) and Anthony Scordino (on Charles Taylor and James K. A. Smith) consider the forms Christianity might take in a digital and secular world. Dušan Lužný discusses how Christian missions might better encounter and coexist with original Indigenous peoples, using the experience of encounter in Papua New Guinea as the basis for his study.
Brian Flanagan’s presidential address to the College Theology Society, a roundtable on the theological contributions of Paul Lakeland, the annual report from the CTS, and the book review section complete this issue.
Part of the anniversary celebration is hearing in some way from the previous editors. Cofounding editor Rodger Van Allen offered words of insight into the beginnings of Horizons in our June 2023 issue. Walter Conn served as editor from 1980 to 2007 building on the work of Van Allen and Bernard Prusak and developing the journal in new and exciting ways. Unfortunately, though he wishes the journal well, he is unable to contribute to this anniversary. The current editors are cognizant of Conn’s efforts to grow the reputation of Horizons and to mentor new authors. We honor his efforts and are grateful for his many years of dedicated service and wise editorial leadership. I attended a publishing workshop that Walter Conn gave when I was just starting out in my teaching career. In the workshop, he was mentoring new authors and explaining the various pieces of the publishing process, but he minced no words. He said to the workshop attendees, “You have to submit perfect pieces or editors will not look at them.” He certainly set the bar high! It was a bit terrifying, truth be told. Yet, he was truly encouraging authors to take the work most seriously and to respect the time, expertise, and effort that editors and reviewers would put into any submission. It was also a way to make new authors realize that they had to respect their own work. Why submit something that does not reflect the very best theological work that you could produce?
Under Walter Conn’s guidance, Horizons marked its twentieth (21, no. 1), twenty-fifth (26, no. 2), and thirtieth (31, no. 1) anniversaries. For the twentieth anniversary, Conn curated a set of articles that focused on “nature and earth, science and cosmology.” He also provided a hearty word of gratitude for the many people who had helped produce Horizons in those twenty years, listing them by name. He dedicated the issue to Fr. Gerard Sloyan, a “futile gesture,” he said, to recognize the countless contributions of Fr. Sloyan to the College Theology Society and to Horizons.
For the twenty-fifth anniversary, Conn organized a special section of twenty mini-articles of critical appreciation for Horizons. It is well worth the reader’s time to visit our website and peruse those contributions in volume 26, number 2. The writers provide a wide range of insight not only about the contribution of Horizons to the field, but more importantly about how various theological and ethical disciplines had grown and developed in the journal’s first quarter century.
Continuing to foreground his writers and collaborators, when it came to the thirtieth anniversary of the journal Conn wrote: “This issue of Horizons celebrates a fittingly double anniversary: the Fiftieth Anniversary of the College Theology Society and the Thirtieth Anniversary of Horizons. So, without naming names, this issue is dedicated to all of those whose vision and effort brought the Society into being and have sustained it over the decades, and to those who have done the same for Horizons.” Conn invited seven articles to mark the double anniversary. Father Gerard Sloyan’s “Present at the Sidelines of the Creation” is the lead article reflecting on fifty years of CTS. Conn, correctly, does not allow the reader to forget the importance of Sloyan, and he wrote: “Of course, most of us know that he [Sloyan] has been much more to the Society and to Horizons than an observing eye-witness. Indeed, the very existence of the CTS and Horizons is a witness to his wisdom and devotion.”
The current staff thanks Emeritus Editor Conn for his expert stewardship of Horizons.
As we continue our anniversary celebration, I thank our authors past and present for sharing their scholarship with our readers, and I thank all of the members of the current Horizons editorial team for their collegiality, our spirit of mutual support, inspiring creativity, diligent work, and unwavering commitment to excellent scholarship. Let the celebration continue!
