ABSTRACT
The author frames his response to the possibilities of a Theology Without Walls as both promising and fraught. He demonstrates how Theology Without Walls could work in the kind of inclusivist position that Roman Catholicism appears to support in its seminal instruction, The Attitude of the Church toward Other Religions. Here, he argues, it would take on the form of a comparative theology project. More boldly, he argues that a pluralist position already imagines that religions are commensurable and are invested in the same kinds of religious projects. Thus, a Theology Without Walls could fit into the very first principles articulated by this position. Finally, he suggests that one could abandon any kind of theology of religions and simply draw on the world religions’ wisdom in providing a kind of meta-theology. Nonetheless, he challenges this project, given religions’ uniqueness and reliance on metaphysical positions that cannot be synthesized. Finally, however, he suggests that the critiques arguing for such exclusive alterities are overstated. If Theology Without Walls can overcome real concerns about the otherness of the religious other, then perhaps the project could work. How it might skillfully deal with such problems is the biggest methodological task of the project.
