Religion and Dialectics carries to a new level, the critical dialogue between religious belief, dialectical thinking, and socialist practice, which has given birth, among other things, to the theology of liberation and to a new Marxist sociology of religion. On the one hand, Anthony Mansueto argues that, contrary to the claims of Marx and the dialectical materialist tradition, religion is fundamentally a force for human development and social progress and that atheism, far from being integral to the socialist project, in fact helps to legitimate the market order. On the other hand, Mansueto sharpens considerably the dialectical critique of Christianity, asking just what elements of this tradition are conducive to human development and social progress, and which are not.

Two of the worlds great contemporary thinkers--theologian and churchman Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and Jrgen Habermas, philosopher and Neo-Marxist social critic--discuss and debate aspects of secularization, and the role of reason and religion in a free society. These insightful essays are the result of a remarkable dialogue between the two men, sponsored by the Catholic Academy of Bavaria, a little over a year before Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope.

The Dialectics of the Religious and the Secular: Studies on the Future of Religion contains the work of fifteen international scholars who have wrestled with the question of the relevancy, meaning, and future of religion within the context of the increasing antagonisms between the religious and secular realms of modern civil society and its globalization. Through their chosen topics in analyzing these issues in the 20th and 21st centuries, each author also indicates the possibility of mitigating if not preventing the continuation of this antagonism by historically moving toward a more reconciled and humane future global society. Contributors are: Branko Ančić, Aleksandra Baranova, Roland T. Boer, Francis Brassard, Dustin Byrd, Donald Devon III, Neven Duvnjak, Jan W. R. Fennema, Denis R. Janz, Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, Gottfried Küenzlen, Mislav Kukoč, Michael R. Ott, Rudolf J. Siebert, and Ivica Sokol.

Recent scholarship has seen a general turn from separate entities to relations and inclusivity, from static and systemic views to a focus on historical processes and fluidity. Dialectical thinking fundamentally builds on the entwinement of social interactions, inclusivity, contradictory relations, and historical movement. Yet, it is underrepresented in current research of Roman society and religion. Therefore, this volume intends to foreground dialectical thinking as a critical and constructive way to expose and analyse the dynamism, diversity, and discrepancies of religion in the Roman world. Based on critical theories and archaeological, epigraphic, and literary sources, the authors discuss cults, ranging from Mars Thincsus and Mithras to Magna Mater and the deified emperors, in diverse contexts across the Mediterranean from East to West (the Hauran, Asia Minor, Jerusalem, Dalmatia, Gaul, Britain, and Rome). Together, they give a taste of the potential of dialectical approaches for enhancing our understanding of Roman society and religion.

In The Dialectics of the Religious and the Secular, fifteen international scholars address the question of the relevancy, meaning, and future of religion within the increasing antagonisms between the religious and secular realms of modern civil society and its globalization.

Although Karl Marx and Søren Kierkegaard are both major figures in nineteenth-century Western thought, they are rarely considered in the same conversation. Marx is the great radical economic theorist, the prophet of communist revolution who famously claimed religion was the "opiate of the masses." Kierkegaard is the renowned defender of Christian piety, a forerunner of existentialism, and a critic of mass politics who challenged us to become "the single individual." But by drawing out important themes bequeathed them by their shared predecessor G. W. F. Hegel, Jamie Aroosi shows how they were engaged in parallel projects of making sense of the modern, "dialectical" self, as it realizes itself through a process of social, economic, political, and religious emancipation. In The Dialectical Self, Aroosi illustrates that what is traditionally viewed as opposition is actually a complementary one-sidedness, born of the fact that Marx and Kierkegaard differently imagined the impediments to the self's appropriation of freedom. Specifically, Kierkegaard's concern with the psychological and spiritual nature of the self reflected his belief that the primary impediments to freedom reside in subjectivity, such as in our willing conformity to social norms. Conversely, Marx's concern with the sociopolitical nature of the self reflected his belief that the primary impediments to freedom reside in the objective world, such as in the exploitation of the economic system. However, according to Aroosi, each thinker represents one half of a larger picture of freedom and selfhood, because the subjective and objective impediments to freedom serve to reinforce one another. By synthesizing the writing of these two diametrically opposed figures, Aroosi demonstrates the importance of envisioning emancipation as a subjective, psychological, and spiritual process as well as an objective, sociopolitical, and economic one. The Dialectical Self attests to the importance and continued relevance of Marx and Kierkegaard for the modern imagination.

Doran draws extensively on the thought of Bernard Lonergan, and the work develops Lonergan's methodological insights.