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- Joseph Martos is a retired professor of religion and philosophy living in Louisville, Kentucky, where he divides his ... moreJoseph Martos is a retired professor of religion and philosophy living in Louisville, Kentucky, where he divides his time between writing, social activism, and public speaking. He has held full-time teaching positions in Louisville KY, Allentown PA, Cincinnati OH, and Sioux City IA, and he has taught summer courses in over a dozen universities in the United States, Canada and Australia. Earlier in his career, he was a high school teacher and, before that, a parish religious education director. He did graduate study in philosophy and theology at Gregorian University and Boston College, and he earned a doctorate from DePaul University in Chicago, writing a dissertation on Bernard Lonergan’s theory of transcendent knowledge. Dr. Martos has written seven books on the sacraments, the most popular of which is Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church. He has also co-authored four books on spirituality with Fr. Richard Rohr, and he has co-edited two books on Christian history and church practices with sociologist Pierre Hégy. May God Bless America: George W. Bush and Biblical Morality, written just prior to the 2004 election, was on religion and politics. His book, The Sacraments: An Interdisciplinary and Interactive Study, has an accompanying website, www.TheSacraments.org. Deconstructing Sacramental Theology and Reconstructing Catholic Ritual, written for an academic audience and published in 2015, documents the historical development of Roman Catholic doctrines about the sacraments, proves that they are based on misinterpretations of biblical and early church texts, and shows why they have become disconnected from the lives of Catholics today. Honest Rituals, Honest Sacraments: Letting Go of Doctrines and Celebrating What’s Real, published in 2017, makes the same argument for the general reader, using less technical language and suggesting ways to develop authentic sacramental practices in the future. His current project is reworking a course about Bernard Lonergan’s Insight: A Study of Human Understanding into an online program that can be accessed by people who are interested in learning how the human mind works by becoming familiar with their own cognitional operations. Dr. Martos has a continuing interest in world peace, social responsibility, and ecology. He has taught courses on Christian ethics and he has been a member of local and national organizations such as Pax Christi, Bread for the World, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Amnesty International. As a member of his parish’s social justice committee, he has visited Nicaragua and reported on conditions there, and he has also made trips to rebuild hurricane-damaged homes. He is an avid news reader and distributes internet articles daily to people interested in national and world affairs through his free news service, NewsLinks.Dr. Martos and his wife Arden live in a Victorian house in Old Louisville, where they are active members of the neighborhood association. Both remarried, between them they have eight children, fourteen grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.edit
Argues that moral laws are derived from the natural consequences of human behavior
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A brief summary of the meaning of shalom in the Hebrew scriptures
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A brief summary of the just war theory in Christian social ethics
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Presents the argument in "Deconstructing Sacramental Theology and Reconstructing Catholic Ritual"
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Summarizes scriptural principles about how people should be treated
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Summarizes the social ethics presented in the gospels and the epistles
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Summarizes the evolution of social ethics in Israel from the exodus to the prophets
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Compares principles of environmental stewardship and government policies
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Examines how principles shape personal behavior and inform government policies
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A review of the just war theory, biblical teachings, and Christian pacifism
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If sacraments are church rituals, they are not received but performed.
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Exposes the questionable foundations of Catholic sacramental doctrines
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Applies a philosophical analysis of meaning to ritual performances
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Prohibiting deacons to remarry is based on bad exegesis.
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Correcting errors about transubstantiation and the real presence of Christ
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Comparing two approaches to understanding worship
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Examines arguments for competing interpretations of this Catholic sacrament
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Summarizes Chauvet's theological interpretation of the Catholic sacraments but does not offer a critique of his approach.
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Shows that Catholic parishes do not have to be led by priests, In fact, lay leadership can work better. This shot article in a Catholic periodical shows how.
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Argues that the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is based on religious experience and is not just a matter of belief
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Succinctly argues that the official Catholic theology of marriage may have been true in the Middle Ages, but no longer.
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Recent revelations about pedophilia by priests has caused a crisis of faith for many Catholics, but not for me.
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Argues that sacramental theology got disconnected from Christian living in the fourth century, that it reflected Christian experience in the Middle Ages, and that it no longer connects with the lived experience of most Catholics.
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Briefly explains the difference between the two kinds of rights
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Looks at classical teachings on justice as found in the Bible.
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Argues that words and symbols have no meaning in themselves
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Shows how ethical principles square with biblical teachings about justice
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Argues that Catholic sacramental doctrines are twice removed from the religious practices that gave rise to them.
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Reinterprets the traditional teaching in existential terms
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Three takes on my religious development, written at different times
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Discusses terms and phrases in common usage, even though they are misleading.
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Argues against the belief that liturgy has meaning in itself.
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Symbols open our minds and hearts to spiritual realities
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The Catholic sacraments need to be revised much more radically to celebrate the spiritual realities in people's lives.
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Argues that the meaning of a ritual is not found in the texts but in the participants
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Argues that the Aristotelian explanation of eucharistic change was based on religious experience
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Preaching can offer words and images that enable the perception of spiritual realities
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Understanding how one's own mind works is helpful for understanding how human beings think
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Sacramental theology after Vatican II is done very differently than before, but some problems remain
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Argues for a neutral concept of magic analogous to the concept of myth as used in religious studies
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Argues that it is a mistake to base sacramental theology on church doctrines
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Argues that words in the NT did not mean what they were later thought to mean
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Blaming priests and bishops for sexual abuse in the recent past is short sighted and not what Jesus would do. Historically, Christians engage in immoral behavior that is socially ignored or culturally accepted -- until society as a whole... more
Blaming priests and bishops for sexual abuse in the recent past is short sighted and not what Jesus would do. Historically, Christians engage in immoral behavior that is socially ignored or culturally accepted -- until society as a whole begins to perceive it as wrong.
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Explains how Catholic rites worked well in an earlier culture, but not today
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Offers an experiential interpretation of a sacramental relationship
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Suggests we should think about these terms as referring to experienced realities
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Argues for a rehabilitation of the concept of magic in religious studies
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Argues against wishful thinking and naive acceptance of sacramental doctrines
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Presents high and low points in 50 years of theorizing about Catholic rituals
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Introduces the idea that religious rituals connect and reconnect us with spiritual realities
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Suggests looking at vague and misleading language surrounding Catholic church rituals
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Suggests looking at church rituals without their theological clothing
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Argues that the ambiguities surrounding this sacrament are due to its not having any discernible effects
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Uses a psychological understanding of magical perception to interpret the automatic effects of religious rituals
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Written for an academic audience, Deconstructing Sacramental Theology and Reconstructing Catholic Ritual proved that current Catholic sacramental doctrines are intellectually indefensible. This book addresses a more general audience,... more
Written for an academic audience, Deconstructing Sacramental Theology and Reconstructing Catholic Ritual proved that current Catholic sacramental doctrines are intellectually indefensible. This book addresses a more general audience, arguing that religious rituals have no meaning in themselves, but their meaning is found in the minds of their participants. Consequently, rituals such as the sacraments are meaningful when they celebrate values and principles that are giving meaning to people's lives. The last chapter suggests ways to re-imagine how the sacraments might function in a global and multicultural church.
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Why do Catholics--and only Catholics--talk about sacraments as being given and received? After writing Doors to the Sacred, this question haunted me, but I was not able to research the origins of this theological terminology until the... more
Why do Catholics--and only Catholics--talk about sacraments as being given and received? After writing Doors to the Sacred, this question haunted me, but I was not able to research the origins of this theological terminology until the early 21st century, when virtually all of the relevant texts in Greek and Latin could be searched electronically. My research led me to conclude that Catholic sacramental theology, even after Vatican II, was based on misinterpretations of biblical and patristic texts. Supported with almost 900 footnotes, the book clearly establishes the Catholic Church's sacramental doctrines, it summarizes the historical developments described in Doors to the Sacred, and it analyzes those developments in great detail. The last chapter offers ideas for starting afresh, as it were, suggesting how the traditional seven sacraments might celebrate Christian values and principles in a variety of cultural settings.
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Originally published shortly after Doors to the Sacred, this book lays bare the conceptual framework for the earlier book and my subsequent work on sacraments. Chapters on the psychology of religion, the sociology of religion, the history... more
Originally published shortly after Doors to the Sacred, this book lays bare the conceptual framework for the earlier book and my subsequent work on sacraments. Chapters on the psychology of religion, the sociology of religion, the history of sacraments, the theology of sacraments, and sacramental spirituality were supplemented in the expanded edition with chapters on ritual theory and the moral implications of sacraments. The expanded (2009) edition is coordinated with a website, www.TheSacraments.org.
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First published in 1981, this book is now in its fourth edition. There are no footnotes because the information in the first edition was gleaned from a relatively few works, which were listed at the end of every chapter. In subsequent... more
First published in 1981, this book is now in its fourth edition. There are no footnotes because the information in the first edition was gleaned from a relatively few works, which were listed at the end of every chapter. In subsequent editions, I listed books for further reading and for further study, and now the bibliographies at the end of each chapter are rather extensive. The five chapters in Part One give an overview of developments in ritual and theology, covering comparative religions, Christian beginnings, medieval developments, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and the contemporary church. The seven chapters in Part Two cover each of the seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Marriage, and Ordination.
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Argues that the teachings of Jesus and early Christian meals were intended to subvert an oppressive social order and replace it with one of social equality
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Explains the theory of transubstantiation as developed by Thomas Aquinas to explain how bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ
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Reviews and summarizes recent research into the religious beliefs and practices in Israel/Palestine before the development of monotheism
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A collection of essays about a Catholic intellectual born of Spanish and Indian parents who became a priest and academic with some highly original ideas
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Employs a sociological model for analyzing and comparing worship events in various iterations of Catholic liturgy
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A biography of the popular Catholic writer, speaker, and leader of women in religious orders
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Attempts to reconstruct how the first followers of Jesus formed a community in Jerusalem and came to understand him in messianic terms
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Argues that the language of liturgy or religious ceremony ought to be more solemn than ordinary speech, both revealing and concealing the mysteries of faith
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An introduction to Plato's Dialogues, with special attention to what it takes to be honest and sincere in the search for truth
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A detailed overview of people and movements that sought to apply the teachings of Jesus to social problems in America
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Presents the medieval concept of sacramental causality, then critiques that concept as no longer applicable in postmodern culture
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Reviews changing attitudes toward sin, various penitential practices, reviewing both the rise and the fall of the sacrament of penance aka reconciliation
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Autobiographical recollections of Catholic sociologist Gregory Baum
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Integrate biblical teaching and scientific research on the topic of religioujs conversion and religious formation
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Argues that capitalism has replaced Christianity as the dominant ideology, leading to a decline in religious fervor and church attendance
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Examines Kevin Irwin's attempt to construct a liturgical sacramental theology based on the words and actions found in Catholic worship
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Discusses the religious phenomenon of spiritual presence using primarily Catholic examples but open to a broader interreligious interpretation
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Summarizes Roger Haight's monumental work on the Christian church, aiming toward a constructive ecclesiology that crosses denominational boundaries
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Examines a Protestant attempt to fashion a sacramental theology by reviewing writings on topics found in a variety of recent works
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Examines the ideas of neoconservative Catholics in the late 20th century, especially Michael Novak, Richard Neuhaus and George Weigel
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A lengthy and critical examination of contemporary, especially postmodern, explanation of the meaning of presence (e.g., Christ's presence, the presence of grace) in the Catholic theology of sacraments
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Develops a unique interpretation of how the doctrine of the Trinity was established through a unique method of exegesis
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44 articles covering historical and theological aspects of sacraments in different church traditions
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A study of how the written gospels grew out of early oral traditions, written by an Evangelical scripture scholar
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This is the last book in a biographical series about the English theologian and his ideas about salvation
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Traces the development of the Greek Old Testament and its role in the development of Christian theology
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Uses sociology to analyze church decline and possibilities for renewal
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Argues that salvation should be understood as becoming more loving, making lives better, and transforming society
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Theological reflections of a Catholic monk who worked among Muslims in North Africa
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Essays in the Reformed tradition that examine the role that evidence should play when adopting religious beliefs
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Reviews secular interpretations of religious conversion and growth