This book is the fruit of years of friendship and conversation on matters religious, moral, and personal. The friendship has deepened through times of success, but also in periods of grief, loss, and travail. The fires of experience have melded kindred spirits dedicated to understanding and orienting our
lives in these global times.book represents conclusions that the authors have reached from different vantage points and legacies of thought, different fields of expertise Collaboration implies differences, and we should acknowledge ours. This
( within the Christian tradition, in our cases Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity. We even express theological humanism with different These differences are reflected in the writing that follows, although we have philosophical theology and theological ethics), and even different heritages sensibilities.
reworked together the whole book. Our differences are important in order to show that there are various ways of being a course, we know that some readers will find our work or dogmatic or orthodox or religious. Others will reject the philosophical theological humanist. Of insufficiently Christian
and hermeneutical stance we adopt and try to advance. We can only remain true to the journey which has led us to this point. Our hope is that others will join us from within their own distinctive traditions and convictions.We have many people to acknowledge. The initial conversations about
this book were supported by an Interdisciplinary Research Grant awarded to the authors during the summer of 2001 at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa. David Klemm was supported during 2006–7 by a Career Developmental Assignment also spent at the Obermann
Center. William Schweiker wishes to thank the University of Chicago Divinity School, the Martin Marty Center, and the InternationaleAcknowledgments
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