John E. Thiel is a contributing author, "Romantic Difficulties: Thoughts on the Form-Content Theory of Doctrinal Development," pp.356-374.

Recently, cultural and religious traditions have found new broad and intensive attention in different areas of scholarship. This is especially true with reference to two important theoretical and practical questions. The first one is how cultural and religious traditions work and develop in the context of modern societies. The second one is how do they work and develop in the context of globalisation when they are forced to meet each other in a radical new way. The main goal of the volume is to present a more or less representative survey of the international discussion on a theory of cultural and religious traditions, in order to stimulate interdisciplinary and international collaboration. Therefore, representatives of all relevant disciplines and of as many as possible approaches are invited to contribute.