In 1889 eleven Oxford dons prepared a volume of essays aimed at expounding "the Christian Creed" in a manner that "put the Catholic faith into its right relation to modern intellectual and moral problems." Since the publication of Lux Mundi, as the dons chose to call their work, humankind has witnessed a century of extraordinary, almost seismic explosions in knowledge (particularly in the natural sciences), communications, and destructive weaponry. These developments have, quite naturally, placed unusually challenging intellectual and practical demands upon the church of Christ. Therefore, the time is right for another interpretation of the "faith we have received," a restatement of "its claim and meaning," and a positive presentation of the "central ideas and principles" of Christian faith under the stimulus of contemporary thought in an effort to meet current problems.
The present volume represents a contribution to that task. It should not, however, be regarded as a revision of the original Lux Mundi. Rather
Keeping the Faith
honors the original project and its authors by attempting in its own time, as the original project did in its, a clarification of "faith's apprehension of the everlasting gospel which is always needed for the gospel's transmission to contemporaries and to the future."