Niklaus Brantschen is a Zen master in the White Plum Sangha, the cofounder of both the Lassalle Zen lineage and the Lassalle-Institut, and the former director of Haus Bad Schönbrunn and Lassalle-Haus. He is an experienced seminar leader and the author of The Advantage of Being Good and On the Zen Path: A Christian Buddhist.

Professor Ninian Smart was J. F. Rowny Professor of Comparative Religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and was the founding professor of the first major department of religious studies in England at Lancaster University. He published 32 books, both technical and popular, addressing the history of religions, Indian philosophy, philosophy of religion, methodology and theory, religious dialogue, education, politics, and Christian thought.

Dr. Norman Arthur Beck (born February 27, 1933) is an Evangelical Lutheran Lutheran Church in America pastor, and he serves as the contract pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Stockdale (Denhawken), Texas. He is also a Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation Professor, and writes and speaks about the relationships between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Also, he is the Poehlmann Professor of Theology and Classical Languages and the Chairman of the Department of Theology and Philosophy at Texas Lutheran University.

Norman P. Tanner, S.J., is an author and editor, specializing in the medieval period. He lectures on medieval history at Campion Hall, Oxford University, and on church history at Heythrop College, London University.

Oblate School of Theology, located in the vibrant and diverse city of San Antonio, Texas, is a recognized leader in the fields of Practical Theology and Christian Spirituality. Our primary objective in Offerings is to serve what we believe to be an urgent contemporary need: the dissemination of innovative research at the intersection between the disciplines of Practical Theology and Spirituality.

A Benedictine monk at Maria Laach, Odo Casel was a major force in the movement for renewal of liturgy in this century. He objected to rationalistic or anthropocentric interpretations of the Christian religion that would reduce it either to a collection of doctrines or to a moral code. Instead, he insisted that the core of Christian faith is the worship of a sacred mystery.