{"title":"Reflections on Demonic Activity, the Reality of Hell, and Universalism","authors":"Richard E. Gallagher","doi":"10.1111/dial.70005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.70005","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This article addresses several critical questions of current vexed debates about the existence of evil spirits, the nature of hell, and the possibility of human damnation. First, it explores the evidential sources and plausibility of traditional notions of demonic activity and hell. Second, it presents a theological understanding of related subject matter that confuses and disturbs so many modern individuals while discussing the trend of not a few contemporary Christian theologians’ opting for universalism.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":42769,"journal":{"name":"Dialog-A Journal of Theology","volume":"65 3","pages":"119-126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148943182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Kierkegaard and Luther","authors":"Allen G. Jorgenson","doi":"10.1111/dial.70027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.70027","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42769,"journal":{"name":"Dialog-A Journal of Theology","volume":"65 3","pages":"143-144"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148943485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Margrethe Kamille Birkler, Emily Jean Cornwell, Rebecca Leigh Rutt
{"title":"“We Can't be Quiet. We Can't Sit Back.”: Examining the Indecent Eco-Theology Praxis of Christian Environmentalists in Trump's America","authors":"Margrethe Kamille Birkler, Emily Jean Cornwell, Rebecca Leigh Rutt","doi":"10.1111/dial.70018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.70018","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In this time of crises, we analyze whether and how Christian environmentalism in the United States embodies ‘indecent eco-theology’ (IET): a critical theological approach centering the experiences of especially marginalized groups in (re)defining Christianity alongside action toward eco-justice. Using qualitative research and a case study, we examine how one organization is challenging dominant U.S. political and Christian norms that ignore ecological concern, and instead forwards an eco-justice-, practice-based faith. Specifically, we document the iterations between their practice and theological perceptions, advancing an interdependence with the more-than-human world while destabilizing dominant theological assumptions of the linear path from perception to practice. We also explore how they understand and mobilize ‘justice’, intersectionality, and engage with marginalized groups and the more-than-human world. Throughout, we draw insights to advance IET. Our findings thus reveal the organization's resonance with IET alongside the particularities that emerge from a situated case study that are fruitful for further theoretical development.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":42769,"journal":{"name":"Dialog-A Journal of Theology","volume":"65 3","pages":"127-135"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148943479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When God Does Not Answer: Prayer, Silence, and Response in the Age of AI","authors":"Anna Cho","doi":"10.1111/dial.70026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.70026","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This article examines how artificial intelligence reshapes expectations of response within Christian prayer and spirituality. While AI systems generate immediate and linguistically coherent outputs, such responses remain non-intentional and lack ethical and ontological responsibility. Drawing on speech act theory, the study clarifies the distinction between simulated responsiveness and divine address. Prayer is interpreted as a performative practice marked by waiting, vulnerability, and openness to transformation, while divine silence is understood not as absence but as a mode of temporality. Rather than proposing a new spirituality, the article offers a speech act-theological clarification of classical Christian spirituality under altered linguistic conditions.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":42769,"journal":{"name":"Dialog-A Journal of Theology","volume":"65 3","pages":"136-142"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148943565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Confronting Authoritarianism: Some Lessons From the Barmen Declaration","authors":"Brent A. R. Hege","doi":"10.1111/dial.70035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.70035","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The Theological Declaration of Barmen, adopted by the German Confessing Church in 1934, offered a theological response to the authoritarian and totalitarian threats of the Nazi government in the first years of the Third Reich. As such, it can serve as a resource for thinking theologically about what it means to be the church in our own time of increasing authoritarianism in the United States and elsewhere. Most significantly, the Barmen Declaration's forceful denunciation of the idolatry of leader, state, and ideology, coupled with its insistence on the Reformation principle of <i>solus Christus</i>, reminds Christians of where their ultimate loyalties must lie. At the same time, the Barmen Declaration's silence on the Nazis’ persecution of the Jewish people is a stark reminder of the limitations of Barmen, calling churches and Christians in our present moment to stand in solidarity with all those who are targeted, dehumanized, and persecuted by the state. This article explores the context and the arguments of the Barmen Declaration, its foundations in Luther's Two Kingdoms doctrine, and additional resources within the Lutheran tradition for going “with Barmen beyond Barmen” to rise to the challenges of our own moment of crisis.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":42769,"journal":{"name":"Dialog-A Journal of Theology","volume":"65 2","pages":"90-99"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148194033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Excerpt From Disciples of White Jesus","authors":"Angela Denker","doi":"10.1111/dial.70032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.70032","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>I write on a spring morning in America where we find ourselves, inauspiciously but unsurprisingly, on the brink of a Holy War in the Middle East, spurred on by the very sorts of Christian men who I reported on in my 2025 book, <b>Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood</b>. In such times as these, it can be difficult to take a step back from the chaotic daily headlines and missives of death, from schoolgirls in Iran to American military members serving overseas, to take stock of the underlying theological motivations of the right-wing politicians dictating such military orders. That's why I'm grateful, however, for this issue of <i>Dialog</i> on the topic of Authoritarianism. I am grateful too for the opportunity to contribute an excerpt of my book that speaks to the manipulation and recasting of Jesus into a violent warmonger, akin to the weaponized and racist theology that undergirded the Crusades of the Middle Ages. I hope that readers see not only the danger of this White Jesus, but also find hope in lifting up instead the authentic, crucified Jesus of the Bible, in whom I place my ultimate faith even in dangerous days such as these. And so I offer this excerpt from my book, Chapter 4.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":42769,"journal":{"name":"Dialog-A Journal of Theology","volume":"65 2","pages":"107-110"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148194086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Meaning of Obedience in a Time of Authoritarianism: Ethics of Care in and beyond the Military","authors":"Pauline Shanks Kaurin","doi":"10.1111/dial.70034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.70034","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In my book, <i>On Obedience, Contrasting Philosophies for Military, Community and Citizenry</i>, I anticipated emerging and different problems of authority and the nature/character of obedience in military and civic cultures. My anticipations proved to be correct, and more urgent questions have emerged. I pay new attention here to faith perspectives and their roles within communities of care (COC), along with the moral perspective implied within COCs. The religious/moral examples of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Magda Trocmé provide practical grounding for my thesis.</p>","PeriodicalId":42769,"journal":{"name":"Dialog-A Journal of Theology","volume":"65 2","pages":"84-89"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dial.70034","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148193980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mercy and Merit","authors":"John F. Hoffmeyer","doi":"10.1111/dial.70040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.70040","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42769,"journal":{"name":"Dialog-A Journal of Theology","volume":"65 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148193981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resisting and Confronting Authoritarianism","authors":"Paul Ziese","doi":"10.1111/dial.70036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.70036","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42769,"journal":{"name":"Dialog-A Journal of Theology","volume":"65 2","pages":"111-116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148194149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}