Christology and ecclesiology, both vital to Flannery O'Connor's thought, are reflected principally in her book reviews, letters, and essays. The reviews in particular (69 of the 143 titles reviewed pertain to subject matter that is religious or theological) attest to the range, depth, and vitality of her own theological investigation. By 1961, O'Connor's theology had been substantially influenced by that of Karl Adam, Romano Guardini, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Francis Durrwell. Through the influence of these theologians, one can trace in O'Connor's nonfiction the development of her Christology and its impact on her fiction.

This essay presents a psychological approach to understanding the creative functioning of imagination in art and religion. This approach drawn from psychoanalytic object relations theory further illuminates how the classics of art and theology engage the imagination and how distortions of the products of the creative imagination occur. Discussion of a particular innovative theme found in an artwork and related theological reflection in early Christianity exemplifies how both art and theology guide the religious imagination. Finally, various influences on the formation of personal God-imagery are assessed in the light of a case illustration, and the ongoing need for art and theology as tutors to the religious imagination is underscored.

The marriage of storytelling and spiritual formation is as old as the religious spirit of humankind. Farid Ud-Din Attar, a twelfth-century Persian poet and mystic, offers an imaginative example of this union in his Conference of the Birds, a tale describing the pilgrimage of all feathered creatures to their king. It is a spiritual journey that moves in five stages from a sense of longing for the inaccessible splendor of the royal court, through hope, boldness, and despair, to a final, shocking encounter with a majesty elusive as it is grand. The use of metaphor in describing passages of the spiritual life is demonstrated here at its best, as Attar explores the metaphors of impassioned love, the mirrored majesty of the king, and God as a treasure hidden in the world. His work suggests many parallels to the language of Christian and Jewish spirituality and his stories richly deserve retelling.

The story of Catholicism in the United States can best be understood in light of the struggle to be both Catholic and American. This question of being both Catholic and American is currently raised with great urgency in these days because of recent tensions between the Vatican and the Catholic Church in the United States.

History shows that Rome has always been suspicious and fearful that the American Catholic Church would become too American and in the process lose what is essential to its Roman Catholicism. Jay Dolan points out two historical periods in which attempts were made to incorporate more American approaches and understandings into the life of the church, but these attempts were ultimately unsuccessful.

In the late eighteenth century, the young Catholic Church in the United States attempted to appropriate many American ideas into its life. Recall that at this time the Catholic Church was a very small minority church. Dolan refers to this movement as a Republican Catholicism and links this understanding with the leading figure in the early American church, John Carroll. Carroll, before he was elected by the clergy as the first bishop in the United States in 1789, had asked Rome to grant to the church in the United States that ecclesiastical liberty which the temper of the age and of the people requires.