In this unique book, readers are taken on a journey to explore the role of the imagination in the face of mystery, whether it be the mystery of God, whose full reality lies beyond our earthly horizons, or the deepest mysteries of life hinted at in the work of fiction. By attending to a series of novels, Paul Lakeland proposes serious fiction as an antidote to the failure of the religious imagination today and shows how literature might lead the secular mind at least to the threshold of mystery.

Drawing on the wisdom and teaching experience of highly respected theologians, the "Engaging Theology" series builds a firm foundation for graduate study and other ministry formation programs. Each of the six volumes '"Scripture, Jesus, God, Discipleship, Anthropology, " and "Church" 'is concerned with retrieving, carefully evaluating, and constructively interpreting the Christian tradition. Comprehensive in scope and accessibly written, these volumes, used together or independently, will stimulate rich theological reflection and discussion. More important, the series will create and sustain the passion of the next generation of theologians and church leaders.

Pal Lakeland's recent award-winning books on the place of the laity in the contemporary Roman Catholic Church have prepared him well to take on this ecclesiology from below." While paying close attention to the classical "marks of the Church, "Lakeland's focus is on what we can learn about the nature of the Church as living communion by examining the values and practices of ordinary believers. Following the advice of Bernard Lonergan, Lakeland adopts a resolutely inductive approach to ecclesial reflection. He explores ten questions that the Church must address, both those that affect the internal workings of the faith community and those that have to do with its relationships to other groups, religious and secular. Finally, he offers a constructive proposal for a contextual ecclesiology of the U.S. Catholic Church that utilizes the images of hospice, pilgrim, immigrant, and pioneer.

"Pal Lakeland is the Aloysius P. Kelley SJ Professor of Catholic Studies, and director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University. He is active in the American Academy of Religion, the Catholic Theological Society of America, and the Workgroup for Constructive Theology. His two most recent writings, both winners of Catholic Press Association awards, are "The Liberation of the Laity: In Search of an Accountable Church" and "Catholicism at the Crossroads: How the Laity Can Save the Church."

The present crisis in the American Catholic Church stems from a two-fold source: lay people are powerless while the bishops are accountable to no one but the pope and the curia. While the number of lay people exercising ministries in the Church has grown enormously over the past thirty years (largely due to the shortage of priests), there has been little or no theological reflection till now on the genuine role of the laity. It is only from such reflection that structural reform of the Church will come. The first half of The Liberation of the Laity concentrates on the fortunes of the laity, theologically speaking, between Vatican I (1870) and Vatican II (1962 - 65). It examines the growth of the 'new theology' in France in the 1940s and 1950s, and shows how in the work of one of its leading practitioners, Yves Congar, much of the vision of the laity expressed at Vatican II was anticipated. Seeing the years after the council as decades of missed opportunity to recognize the role of the laity, the book turns to a series of constructive proposals for the liberation of the laity, and thus the liberation of the Church. It discusses the importance of 'secularity,' the need for a 'lay liberation theology,' and the centrality of the struggles against global capitalism in the mission of the Church. It ends with a chapter envisioning dramatic changes in ministry and governing structures, in which accountability will be central, 'servant leaders' will include women and married people, and both ecclesiastical careerism and the College of Cardinals will be history.

More than a guidebook to the postmodernity debate, Lakeland's volume clarifies the impulses and critical impetus behind the cultural, intellectual, and scientific expressions of postmodern thought. He goes on to identify the import and issues it presents for religion and for areas of Christian theology. Concentrating on God, Church, and Christ, Lakeland outlines the church's mission to the postmodern world, including a constructive theological apologetics.

- Concentrated on key loci: God, Christ, sin and evil, Christian community, eschatology
- Lively text with ample treatment of special historical and theological topics
- Helpful pedagogical tools on the CD-ROM

Try to define a layperson without using the word not: cannot preach or say mass, is not a priest, is not in a position of leadership in the church. This generally negative or passive understanding of the laity was epitomized in a statement of Pope Pius X: The one duty of the multitude [i.e., the laity] is to allow themselves to be led and, like a docile fl ock, to follow the Pastors. The Second Vatican Council, with its emphasis on the priesthood of all believers rooted in baptism, changed all that. Yet, writes Paul Lakeland, many of our bishops and not a few of the lay members of the church are attracted to a dangerously incomplete vision of Catholicism...one that sidesteps the major themes and key insights of Vatican II. In Catholicism at the Crossroads, he teases out themes fi rst developed in a much more formal way in his prize-winning The Liberation of the Laity. In his new book he is talking to ordinary Catholics in language that requires no special expertise in theology and does not necessitate constant reference to a dictionary. Baptism, says Lakeland, not priestly ordination, is the basis for all mission and ministry, and the mission of those baptized into Christ is to be the sacrament of God's love in a world rife with violence and brutal inequity. The specifi c mission of the laity is to the world, whereas the mission of the clergy is to the household of the faith. Yet lay people can't leave church business exclusively to the clergy, and the clergy can't leave the church's worldly mission exclusively to the laity. The key to resolving these overlapping responsibilities is by becoming an adult church, an open church in an open society. In pursuing this goal, Lakeland develops ten steps toward a more adult church. Try to define a layperson without using the word not: cannot preach or say mass, is not a priest, is not in a position of leadership in the church. This generally negative or passive understanding of the laity was epitomized in a statement of Pope Pius X: The one duty of the multitude [i.e., the laity] is to allow themselves to be led and, like a docile fl ock, to follow the Pastors. The Second Vatican Council, with its emphasis on the priesthood of all believers rooted in baptism, changed all that. Yet, writes Paul Lakeland, many of our bishops and not a few of the lay members of the church are attracted to a dangerously incomplete vision of Catholicism...one that sidesteps the major themes and key insights of Vatican II. In Catholicism at the Crossroads, he teases out themes fi rst developed in a much more formal way in his prize-winning The Liberation of the Laity. In his new book he is talking to ordinary Catholics in language that requires no special expertise in theology and does not necessitate constant reference to a dictionary. Baptism, says Lakeland, not priestly ordination, is the basis for all mission and ministry, and the mission of those baptized into Christ is to be the sacrament of God's love in a world rife with violence and brutal inequity. The specifi c mission of the laity is to the world, whereas the mission of the clergy is to the household of the faith. Yet lay people can't leave church business exclusively to the clergy, and the clergy can't leave the church's worldly mission exclusively to the laity. The key to resolving these overlapping responsibilities is by becoming an adult church, an open church in an open society. In pursuing this goal, Lakeland develops ten steps toward a more adult church.