In the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) the Catholic Church for the first time recognized non-Christian religions as entities which the Church should respect and with which Christians should enter into dialogue. There are, however, conflicting views in Catholic interpretations of Conciliar theology: to what extent did the Council see other religions as means to salvation? The author offers The Catholic Doctrine of non-Christian Religions according to the Second Vatican Council as the first comprehensive and analytic piece of research on Conciliar teaching concerning the nature of other faiths. His study is based on the original Latin and covers Conciliar and pre-conciliar documents, with special focus on the Declaration on the relation of the Church to Non-Christian religions, (Nostra aetate). In his detailed and careful analysis Ruokanen demonstrates that Vaticanum Secundum understood non-Christian religions as naturally good entities, part of human culture. Religions express in many ways and to varying degrees the natural cognition of God and of natural moral law. Except for Judaism, they do not, however, possess the status of being considered channels of divine revelation or salvific grace. The seeds of truth present in other faiths must be purified and perfected by the fullness of grace and truth given in Christ and entrusted to the Church.

How does Christianity relate to other religions? Beginning with a consideration of the biblical perspective, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen offers a detailed and comprehensive survey of the diverse explanations proposed by teachers of the church down through the ages. This indispensable guide is for anyone seeking to grasp Christianity?s relationship to world religions.

"Ecclesiology which takes into account the Second Vatican Council, ecumenism, and globalization"--Provided by publisher.

This reference is an understandable and down-to-earth guide to all things Catholic. The resource is appropriate for brushing up on specific Catholic terms and concepts or learning them for the first time. (Catholic)

How are Christians to think of non-Christian religions? How are they to relate to people who do not share their faith? Two senior scholars survey the field of theology of religions from an evangelical perspective, and propose fresh approaches to long-debated questions such as salvation, revelation, the relationship between culture and religion, conversion, and social action.

Founding his argument on a close reading of St. Augustine?s De Trinitate, Keith Johnson critiques four recent attempts to construct a pluralistic theology of religions out of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

An introduction to the World's major religions from a Catholic Perspective.

Critical Mass is an in depth look at what happened in the Catholic Church during the first generation after the Second Vatican Council, a period corresponding to the pontificates of Paul VI through John Paul II. The book starts with a close look at some key conciliar documents. Other chapters study how Tradition was systematically dismantled; the roles of the clergy and laity in the post-Vatican II Church; the mindsets of liberal, traditional, and conservative Catholics; how the Church became a turgid bureaucracy all the way down to the parish level; the dumbing down of religious education; the Church's post-Vatican II approach to social justice issues; the influence of Radical Feminism on the Church. The book concludes with an interesting - even radical - prognosis for the future.

A fundamental requirement in an inclusivist understanding of the relationship between Christianity and other religions is evidence of God's salvific activity outside any knowledge of Christ. This is commonly identified in the religion of Old Testament Israel. On this basis an analogy (the "Israel analogy") is drawn between the religion of the old covenant and contemporary non-Christian religions. Closely related is the parallel argument that as Christ has fulfilled the Old covenant, he can also be seen as the fulfillment of other religious traditions and their scriptures. This study outlines the use of the Israel analogy and the fulfillment model, subjecting these concepts to a biblical and theological critique revealing that the exegetical and patristic data are misconstrued in support of these concepts. Furthermore, the Israel analogy and the fulfillment model undermine the sui generis relationship between the old and new covenants and fail to respect the organic, progressive nature of salvation history. They also misconstrue the old covenant and the nature of its fulfillment in the new covenant. The Israel analogy and fulfillment model rely on a correspondence between the chronologically premessianic (Israel) and the epistemologically premessianic (other religions), and therefore consider the "BC condition" to continue today. In so doing, they undermine the significance of the Christ-event by failing to appreciate the decisive effect of this event on history and the nature of existence. It marks a radical turn in salvation history, a crisis point, rendering the BC period complete and fulfilled. Therefore the concept of a continuing "premessianic" condition or state is seriously flawed, as are the Israel analogy and fulfillment model. Thus the inclusivist paradigm reliant in large part on these defective concepts is also problematic, and proponents of this paradigm need to reconsider its basis.