Exploring Catholic Theology – Essays on God, Liturgy, and Evangelization - Softcover

Robert Barron is one of the Catholic Church's premier theologians and author of the influential The Priority of Christ. In this volume, Barron sets forth a thoroughgoing vision for an evangelical catholic theology that is steeped in the tradition and engaged with the contemporary world. Striking a balance between academic rigor and accessibility, the book covers issues of perennial interest in the twenty-first-century church: who God is, how to rightly worship him, and how his followers engage contemporary culture. Topics include the doctrine of God, Catholic theology, philosophy, liturgy, and evangelizing the culture. This work will be of special interest to readers concerned about the so-called "new atheism."

"Father Barron's bracing, stimulating essays remind us that the 'Church in permanent mission' to which Pope Francis has called Catholics must be thoughtful as well as merciful, culture-challenging as well as culture-forming, intellectually sharp as well as pastorally sensitive."
--George Weigel, author of Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church

"These essays remind us how indispensable Fr. Barron is as a spokesman for the integrity and beauty of the Christian faith. He combines theological learning and depth with a remarkable gift for knowing what needs to be said--and how to say it."
--R. R. Reno, editor, First Things

"Father Barron is a man of faith whose thirst for God has engendered an authentic intellectual quest. This book is the rarest of achievements, namely a demonstration in one short volume of how the doctrine of God, Christology, the Church, ethics, liturgy, and history go together in lived experience."
--Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary

"Today the Western Church has to proclaim the gospel in a culture that says it has outgrown religion, Christianity in particular. In this new and perilous situation, we have no more honest and reliable guide than Fr. Barron. He shows us how to remember and teach the truths about God and ourselves that our culture once knew but is now trying to forget--and trying to tempt the Church also to forget."
--Bruce D. Marshall, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University

"An exceptionally readable introduction to modern theology. Exploring Catholic Theology could be read for pleasure and for profit by undergraduate students, professors, pastors, and lay parish leaders. Barron is recreating apologetics at a more imaginative and challenging level. Everyone who meditates on this book will discover something new about how to witness to the truth of Christianity in a postmodern culture."
--Francesca Murphy, University of Notre Dame

"In this book, Fr. Barron models the kind of pastoral theology and ressourcement envisioned by Vatican II. His is a theology founded on Scripture, tradition, and liturgy--but with windows open onto the world, engaging pop culture and high culture, politics and poetics, evangelicals and postmoderns, the new atheism and the old. Highly recommended, especially for pastors, scholars, teachers, and seminarians."
--Scott Hahn, Franciscan University of Steubenville; St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology