Editor's Note: Encouraging Change in Deeply Held Values

Abstract

As we have announced previously in this space, this will be the last issue of this Journal, a least for the foreseeable future. When our sponsoring association made its decision to cease publication under its banner, we had already committed to making this a special issue on sexuality and religion. However, we also had a number of papers in the process of review at that time, and wanted to be able to publish those that were acceptable as well. Therefore, this is a hybrid issue, containing a number of papers and book reviews on our special topic, plus additional papers and reviews addressing other topics. For that reason, this is also an extra-large issue. Mary O'Neill, our managing editor, deserves much of the credit for making that possible. Martha Cornog and Tim Perper, our book review editors, not only put together a large array of excellent reviews, but provided commentary on relevant books that were not possible to review for this issue. It was Julian Slowinski, one of our consulting editors and current Chair of the Center for Religion and Sexuality, who suggested the topic for this issue. As excited as we were about the idea, this was in some ways the most labor-intensive of all the special issues we have done over the last 5 years. When working at the interface of two very value-laden areas, authors may have strong feelings about their viewpoints. When writing for a scholarly journal, however, it is important to express one's opinions in a reasoned way and to document previous thought and research when appropriate. We thank our authors for their cooperation and our guest editor, S. Margretta Dwyer, for her diplomacy and perseverance in effectively addressing these needs. The issue is a much stronger one for those efforts. Associate