Directory
Cyril Orji
Professor
Full-Time Faculty
College of Arts and Sciences: Religious Studies
Profile
Professor Cyril Orji is a systematic theologian and engages in critical constructive analysis of issues of contemporary significance in Christian theology. His interdisciplinary approach to education derives from the generalized empirical method (GEM) of Bernard Lonergan. Professor Orji is a member of the prestigious American Theological Society (ATS).
Faculty perspective
“All understanding has its universal aspect, for similars are similarly understood. But it is one thing to exploit this universal aspect in a professional manner; it is another to exploit the intelligibility, which is by itself universal, by adding further intelligibilities until one comes to grips with concrete situations.” – Bernard Lonergan
Research interests
Prof. Orji specializes in systematic and fundamental theology with particular emphases on Bernard Lonergan whom he brings in conversation with the American pragmatist and semiotician, Charles Sanders Peirce and the German Lutheran theologian, Wolfhart Pannenberg. Prof. Orji’s research cuts across Christology, Theological Method, World Christianity and Inculturation.
Selected publications
Books Published
Exploring Theological Paradoxes (London: Routledge, hardback 2022; softback 2023)
Unmasking the African Ghost: Theology, Politics, and the Nightmare of Failed States (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022)
A Semiotic Christology (Pickwick, 2021)
An Introduction to Religious and Theological Studies, 2nd edition (Cascade, 2021)
“All the Ends of the Earth:” Challenge and Celebration of Global Catholicism, eds., Jane Linehan and Cyril Orji (Orbis, 2020)
A Science-Theology Rapprochement: Pannenberg, Peirce, and Lonergan in Conversation (Cambridge Scholars, 2018)
Christianity and Culture Collision: Particularities and Trends from a Global South, edited Cyril Orji and Joseph Ogbonnaya (Cambridge Scholars, 2016)
A Semiotic Approach to the Theology of Inculturation (Pickwick, 2015)
An Introduction to Religious and Theological Studies (Wipf and Stock, 2015)
The Catholic University and the Quest for Truth (Anselm Academic, 2013)
Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Africa: An Analysis of Bias and Conversion Based on the Works of Bernard Lonergan (Marquette Press, 2008)
Books Forthcoming
Lonergan and Black Theology: Quest for Racial Justice (Toronto)
Books in Progress
Bernard Lonergan’s Vocation as a Religious Thinker
Tradition and Innovation: Why the Church needs a Second Enlightenment
Most Recent Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles of the Last Three Years
“The Christian Ecumenical Imagination of Avery Dulles, S.J.” Ecclesiology 18 (2022), 175-97
“Self-Appropriation: What I learned from McShane,” Didyadaan 33 (2022), 129-34.
“My Own Modest Exercise in Dialectic,” Journal of Macrodynamic Analysis 16 (2022).
“The Intercultural Hermeneutics of Lamin Sanneh.” Journal of World Christianity (2022), 1-22.
“Robert Doran: The Master Collaborator.” In Intellect, Affect, and God: The Trinity, History, and the Life of Grace. Edited by Ogbonnaya Joseph and Whelan Gerald, (2021), 185-93. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press.
“The Seminal Contribution of C. S. Peirce to Science-Theology Dialogue in the Light of Pannenberg’s Theological Questions to Scientists,” Science Et Esprit 71/1 (2019), 91-111.
“Is Race-Ism in America a Functional Refutation of the Classical Philosophical View of Understanding as Pertaining to Universal Concepts?” in Handbook of African-American Theology, ed., Fredrick Ware (London: T & T Clark, 2019), 139-49.
“A Lonerganian-Bakhtinian Novelization of Inculturation,” Semiotica: Journal of the International Association of Semiotic Studies 226 (2019), 271-87.
Recent presentations
“The Intercultural Hermeneutics of Lamin Sanneh.”Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), San Diego, CA, November 2019.
“Is Ubuntu a Solution to the Nuisance of a Nightmare of a Failed State?” Presented at Leuven Encounters Systematic Theology (LEST) XII, Leuven, Belgium, October, 2019.
“Engaging Sources: Bernard Lonergan’s Early Correspondences, His Motivations, and Early Plans to Update Catholic Education,” presented at the International Symposium on Jesuit Studies, Boston College, MA, June, 2019.
“Is Ubuntu Merely Ancient and African?” Paper presented at the 34th Annual Fallon Memorial Lonergan Symposium, Los Angeles, CA, April 2019.
“The Peircean Theology of Donald Gelpi, S.J.” Paper presented at the Annual meeting of American Academy of Religion (AAR), Denver, CO, November 2018.
“Lonergan and Me,” presented at the 45th Annual Lonergan Workshop, Boston College, MA, June 10-15, 2018.
“Is Jesus’ Identity and Mission a Sinsign of God’s Activity in the World?” presented at the 33rd Annual Fallon Memorial Symposium, Los Angeles Lonergan Center, April 19-21, 2018.
A Panel on Special Theological Roundtable on Non-Violence, Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, Nov.2-3, 2017.
“Avery Dulles’ Program of Church Reform and Renewal: Lessons for Contemporary Church.” Presented at the XI International LEST Conference,” Leuven, Belgium, October 11-14, 2017.
“The Influence of Peirce in Cotemporary Science-Philosophy-Theology Dialogue,” paper delivered at Pragmatism and Analytic-Continental Split Conference, University of Sheffield, UK, August 9-11, 2017.
“American Catholicism in the 21st century: Crossroads, Crisis, or Renewal.” A Plenary Panel Discussion on Issues and Questions in American Catholic Theology Today at the Annual College Theology Society Meeting, Salve Regina University, New Port, RI, June 1-4, 2017.
“A Lonerganian-Bakhtinian Novelization of Inculturation,” paper presented at the Annual West Cost Method Institute, Lonergan Conference, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, April 20-23, 2017.