CATHOLIC AND EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY 1 Michael Root Pro Ecclesia and the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, which sponsors the journal, have reached a transition point. Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, who founded the Center and the journal over twelve years ago, have decided to hand on the task to others. I am honored to join with Reinhard Hütter, the new editor of Pro Ecclesia, and James Buckley, the new associate director of the Center, to carry on the work that Carl and Jens did so much to further. But what precisely is the work we are called to carry on? Pro Ecclesia is "a journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology/' spon- sored by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. Every once in a while, and especially at times of transition, the question then should be asked: what is this "Catholic and Evangelical Theology" that defines the journal and the Center? The phrase "evangelical catholic" has roots reaching back into nine- teenth-century Lutheranism. The confessional revival of that time took various forms; many of them sought to reconnect the evangelical core of the Reformation to the catholic context needed to make Christian and ec- clesial sense of that core. The claim was made that the twin forces of pietism and the Enlightenment had severed the Reformation from its catholic roots in both theology and ecclesial life. That tradition of catholic confessionalism was represented in the mid-twentieth century by such men as Peter Brunner and Edmund Schlink and was carried into our time Michael Root, Director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, Dean, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, 4201 N. Main Street, Columbia, SC 29203. E-mail: mrootl@sc.rr.com 1. The following was the banquet address at the Center for Catholic and Evangelical The- ology's conference on "In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christ- ian Unity/' September 12,2005, at Princeton, New Jersey. PRO ECCLESIA VOL. XV, No. 1 9