Theology and Society: Faith, Social Sciences, and the Unity of Knowledge

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to invite you to contribute to ‘Theology and Society: Faith, Social Sciences, and the Unity of Knowledge’, a Special Issue of Religions devoted to a new research perspective that explores the relationship between theology and the social sciences within the broader horizon of Christian theology as a field of rational inquiry.

Christian theology has long been regarded as a discipline peripheral to the mainstream of scientific and social inquiry. Yet throughout its history, the Judeo-Christian revelation had a profound impact on the development and identity of Western culture. According to Christopher Dawson “[Christianity] is the culture to which we all in some sense belong” (Dawson, 1950, 15). The influence of Western thought is evident in various domains such as art, literature, philosophy, science, religion, law, government, architecture, and political organization (Tagliapietra, 2023). Theological reasoning has engaged substantively with the full range of human knowledge—from cosmology and history to ethics, esthetics, and political philosophy—offering a pivotal contribution to the shape of Western society and the relationship between societies and the environment. Faith is a spiritual (lived) and theological (thought) reality but also a social fact, and it never occurs in the abstract: it is always mediated by languages, practices, institutions, memories, conflicts, forms of belonging, educational processes, urban conditions, economic structures, and technological transformations.

This Special Issue aims at creating a methodologically rigorous space of dialogue between theology and social sciences. On the one hand, theological themes may be reconsidered in light of the sociology of religion, urban sociology, social and cultural psychology, cultural anthropology, history, economics, political science, geography, law, communication studies, linguistics, systems theory, and contemporary reflection on artificial intelligence. On the other hand, classical themes in the social sciences may be rethought through theological categories, especially when they touch on questions such as meaning, symbols, the sacred, authority, conversion, socialization, language, and the dimensions of civic life (work, education, and the ‘everyday’). The overall aim of this Special Issue is twofold: to contribute to the renewal of fundamental and pastoral theology and to show how theology can participate in the broader inquiry into the human person, society, and the unity of knowledge.

This Special Issue welcomes original research articles and reviews that clearly articulate their interdisciplinary methodology and demonstrate how empirical data, social analysis, and theological argument can be brought into dialogue without collapsing their distinct levels of inquiry. Contributions may move in either direction: theological topics examined in light of the social sciences, or social–scientific topics reconsidered through theological inquiry. Relevant research areas include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Christian Theology and Istitutions: Evangelization, mission, and the social dynamics of religious transmission; the understanding of ‘everyday’ life in philosophy, sociology, theology, etc.; and theological underpinnings of historical and cultural institutions in the world.
• Revelation, Tradition, and Credibility in Society: Revelation, scripture, witnesses, ecclesial reception, the language of the Church, and public credibility.
• Sociology of Religion and Fundamental Theology: Religious socialization, believing and belonging, religious institutions, secularization, atheism, syncretism, pluralism, ecumenism, lived religion, and changing forms of belief.
• Urban Theology: Religion, the City, the Environment, and the Public Space: Religion and urban life, the sacred in urban space, parish and metropolis, mobility, proximity, ecological theology, and the science of complex socio-natural systems
• Political Theology: Power and Institutions: Authority, institutional language, formation, spiritual movements in the ecclesial sphere, public Catholicism, and the university as a place of synthesis among the disciplines.
• Theology and Psychology of Social Life: Conversion, charisma, affects, and socialization; social psychology of religion, spiritual movements, charismatic movements, education, moral development, theology of play, and religious socialization and formation; and religious psychology, psychodynamics and social life.
• Theology and the Foundation of Social Life: Work, family, theology and socio-economic models (capitalism and socialism), civil economy, poverty, desire, consumption, and institutions ordered to the common good.
• Theology and Digital Media, Cybernetics, AI, and Complex Systems: Philosophy of AI, the ethics of algorithms, technological mediations of belief, relationality, complexity, and new conditions of rationality.

Prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially are asked to submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor, Dr. Claudio Tagliapietra (c.tagliapietra@pusc.it), or to the Assistant Editor Mrs. Kiki Zhang (kiki.zhang@mdpi.com) of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editor for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

References:

Dawson, Christopher. 1950. The Significance of the Western Development, in Religion and the Rise of the Western Culture (Gifford Lectures 1948-1949), New York: Sheed & Ward, pp. 11-25;

Tagliapietra, Claudio. 2023. Christian origins of Western culture, in G. Tanzella-Nitti, I. Colagé, & A. Strumia (Eds.), Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science. https://doi.org/10.17421/2037-2329-2023-CT-1

Dr. Claudio Tagliapietra
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.