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Drawing together pieces from over twenty years that reflect her penetrating thought, Crossover Queries presents, for the first time in a single volume, the astonishing range of a major philosopher. To explore the risks, ambiguities, and unstable conceptual situations of contemporary thought, it takes modes of negation, especially the negation intrinsic to the ethical, as its central thread. Ranging from twentieth-century European philosophy to traditional Jewish thought, from analyses of dance, music, and novels to the question of the name of God, from the phenomenology of the body to recent biological research, its profoundly learned and humanely engaged discussions remain always mindful that, even as philosophy crosses over into new spaces of thought, the philosopher remains standing within and responsible a historical legacy, one conditioned by the negative.

When churches speak to their own people and to the nations on matters of international affairs, how much do their pronouncements reflect the political policies of various countries and power blocs? Is the voice of a national or regional church body likely to be very different from that of an international ecclesiastical organization? A single example will, admittedly, yield onlv partial answers, but they may suggest what a fuller studv would disclose.Consider the ways in which churches have dealt with the question of disarmament and arms control. Statements have been made by three representative groups: (1) The Christian Peace Conference centered in Prague. Czechoslovakia: (2) the National Council of Churches in the U.S.A. and one of its member churches, the United Church of Christ: and (3) the World Council of Churches. These are representative church bodies from both sides of the iron curtain and an international body which has member churches in virtually all parts of the world.

Purported evidence for purposeful divine action in the cosmos may appear to warrant describing God as personal, as Swinburne proposes. In this paper, however, I argue that the primary understanding of what is meant by a person is formed by the experience of 'I' – 'you' or second-person relatedness, a mode of relation with God that is not part of natural theology. moreover, even among human beings, the recognition of purposeful agency does not invariably lead to the attribution of personhood in the usual sense. 'Person' is therefore a misleading term to use of God on the evidence of cosmic purpose alone in the absence of suitable revelation.

Wherein lies the humanity of human beings? Many conflicting answers have been attempted in ancient and in modern times, with many focusing on the triadic relationship between humans, gods, and beasts. This article will review a wide range of suggestions, from those of ancient Greeks and Chinese, to recent anthropological proposals (by Viveiros de Castro and Descola in particular) of alternative ontologies. We have every reason to take rival human understandings seriously, but that should not be thought to lead to radical relativism, let alone to a breakdown of mutual intelligibility. Rather, they offer resources for exploring the substantive questions and for reflecting on the propensity of human beings to entertain or presuppose strong views on, precisely, what makes humans human. While evolutionary biology, ethology, cognitive science, and anthropology itself have all contributed to an increased recognition of the complexities of the question, we need the input not just of those disciplines, but also of philosophy and of history, to evaluate potential answers. In that spirit, the article offers an interdisciplinary commentary on the problems.RésuméOù se situe l'humanité des êtres humains ? On a donnéà cette question beaucoup de réponses contradictoires, depuis les temps les plus anciens. Ces réponses se concentrent souvent sur une relation triadique entre humains, dieux et bêtes. L'auteur fait ici un tour d'horizon de multiples propositions, des Grecs et Chinois de l'Antiquité aux récentes approches anthropologiques (en particulier celles de Viveiros de Castro et Descola) des ontologies alternatives. Il y a tout lieu de prendre au sérieux ces perceptions concurrentes de l'humanité, mais cela ne doit pas conduire à un relativisme radical ni même à l'abandon de toute possibilité d'intelligibilité mutuelle. Ces approches offrent, au contraire, des ressources pour explorer les questions substantives et réfléchir à la propension des êtres humains à exprimer ou présupposer des opinions vigoureuses sur ce que les rend, justement, humains. Bien que la biologie évolutionniste, l'éthologie, les sciences cognitives et l'anthropologie elle‐même aient contribuéà une meilleure reconnaissance de la complexité de cette question, nous avons besoin non seulement de ces disciplines mais aussi des travaux de la philosophie et de l'histoire pour peser les réponses potentielles. C'est dans cet esprit que l'auteur propose ici un commentaire interdisciplinaire de ces problèmes.

The topic of our conference is "systematic theology" in an East Asian context, and this very topic moves us to a fundamental question. In the face of multiple and complex contextual challenges that so much Asian theology has already addressed, as well as important and ground-breaking documents by the South Asian Bishops Conference in recent years, why turn to systematic theology again? What do we expect systematic theology as such to say to, much less do about the challenges arising from this East Asian context—or any other context, for that matter? After all, systematic theology concerns God, and more precisely the ways in which we can understand how God is revealed and encountered. It takes us into Christology and pneumatology, into anthropology and grace, and into ecclesiology and eschatology. Why specify systematic theology, as opposed to fundamental theology, biblical theology, moral theology, or ethics? Why, indeed, not turn to economics, agronomics, political economy, sociobiology, environmental biology, and other regional sciences? Are we asking too much ofsystematic theology in expecting it to be responsive to a vast East Asian context that involves so many parts, so many challenges? Do we risk reducing theology to a rhetorical construct if it only serves to justify a particular program of pastoral action? The topic forces us to look at the nature ofsystematic theology itself, for it is something other than an adaptation of non-theological projects, or the construction of a quasi-theological scaffolding from various elements of faith and the human sciences in order to build a pastoral program.

" 'That's what we need to do is to amend the constitution so it's God's standards rather than try to change God's standards,'" claims a confident Mike Huckabee in 2007 during a competitive Republican primary (Medhurst, 2009a, p. 229). Huckabee, a devout Christian leader and politician found great success in using religious rhetoric to garner votes for his campaign. In fact, religious language is used frequently by politicians attempting to gain approval or pick up votes. This study describes how God is shaped and used in American politics. It explores the meaning of God as expressed in contemporary political discourse.