Drawing extensively upon anthropological and historical studies of primal and “canonical” religions (RR, 2, 232, 278, 318, 343), the philosophical theologian Keith Ward attempts in his recent book Religion and Revelation,’ to develop a comparative doctrine of revelations in order to situate Christian revelation within the plethora of revelations that are an undeniable aspect of human religiousness in its virtually infinite forms (RR, 57, 37, 23, 215-16). Yet because Ward believes that in Jesus Christ God has disclosed the true form of human redemption (RR, 280), he evaluates other revelations in light of this belief. Consequently, his theology of religions, despite its drawing upon the data of historical and comparative study of religions, is incapable of accommodating other revelations on their own terms. For example, Ward tries to read Sankara as a theist, and, thus, as an ally. In this essay, I will argue that this appeal to Sankara is misdirected since Sankara's position involves an ontological nondualism that ultimately annuls theism. I will also argue that such a misreading is an inevitable consequence of Ward’s exceptionalist theology of revelations, but is unconvincing to philosophical theologians of religions who cannot agree with Ward that the central claims of orthodox Christianity are “simply true” (RR, 279). Ward’s fideism forecloses arbitrarily upon the limits of revelation and encourages an exceptionalist parochialism This is harmless perhaps within the walls of liberal seats of theological learning, but it can foster fundamentalisms in other settings. Finally, I will argue that Ward’s fideism belies the apparently comparative character of his undertaking.

Recent events in Egypt and Algeria, as well as the continuing difficulties of Christians in Iran and the Sudan, have returned the topic of Islamic militancy to Western newspapers. Concern for the situation of world Christianity requires of Catholics some grasp, however non-specialist, of where such militancy comes from and whither it is going. The 1994 Roman Synod of the Catholic churches of Africa was much exercised by the problem, though to judge from the reported speeches of the bishops, few had more to recommend than ‘dialogue'—that contemporary Vaticanesque panacea. To understand why the revolutionary Islam characteristic of a major segment of the Muslim world in the late twentieth century aims at nothing less than the comprehensive take-over of the civil societies where Islam is present, one sine qua non is an acquaintance, at least in broad outline, with the origins and development of the Islamic faith as a whole.

A few years ago I was making a retreat in a Trappist monastery. There I met a man who, although a Protestant, would spend a few days at the monastery whenever he had to deal with a problem calling for serious prayer and sound advice. On this particular visit, the man's problem was a bitter dispute that was tearing his church apart. Two factions were at odds on abortion and women clergy. He told me the history of the conflict, and I offered him my analysis, which, he said, exactly reflected the situation (in fact, he urged me to write an article about it). Because we have an analogous problem in the Catholic Church, I offer these impressions, which are just that—impressions— and, I fear, rather obvious.

‘The Catholic liturgy is the supreme example of an objectively established rule of spiritual life.’ ‘The liturgy is the lex orandi'. These were the principles of Romano Guardini’s liturgical writings, both theological and pastoral. He sought to bring the liturgy into the centre of the Christian’s life, at the heart of the many other, more private, expressions of prayer and reverence. He offers an overview of Christian public prayer:

According to Aidan Nichols, if the principles of Romano Guardini on liturgy had been consistently applied to contemporary sensibility in the 1960s and 1970s, his influence might have stopped the post-conciliar liturgical reform from backing modernity as a winning ticket, just at the point when it became converted into postmodernism. This short sketch points to some of Guardini’s insights in the liturgical area, especially on questions which have recently been taken up anew by liturgical thinkers.