With this issue of Pacifica we complete ten years of publication. There is much to be thankful for. Circulation has increased to such an extent that we are confident that the journal has a long life ahead of it. The expanding reach and range of contributions continues to surprise us. The size of the journal, you may also have noticed, has grown from 128 pages to 160 pages.
Significant changes are about to occur. At the start of 1998 a new editorial board takes over the direction of the journal. Mark Coleridge and I have signalled our retirement from the original editorial board, for want of too many other things to do. Mark is especially to be thanked for coining the title “Pacifica”, for raising much of the money needed in the early days of the journal, for his cheery wit, for looking after production of the journal in 1994, and for his careful reading of many New Testament submissions. We wish him every success as he undertakes the task of establishing Melbourne’s new Catholic Theo-logical College.
The new editorial board will include Muriel Porter, Frank Moloney and Ian Breward, who continue as editors, and Maryanne Confoy, Dorothy Lee, Dan Madigan and Frank Rees, newly appointed to the board at the last Annual General Meeting of the Pacifica Theological Studies Association. Dan Madigan, recently returned from doctoral studies in Columbia and now teaching at the United Faculty of Theo-logy, will occupy the chair of the editor-in-chief and will, we have no doubt, bring fresh ideas to the journal. These new ideas, however, will not begin to appear until the June issue of 1998.
The ten-year cumulative index, printed in the final pages of this number, gives a good indication of the interests and authors embraced by the Pacifica Association. Some 130 scholars have contributed 173 articles to Pacifica in the past ten years, some only once, and some severally. Special mentions go to Andrew Hamilton and Denis Edwards, who have each had five articles published in our first decade. Of our 130 authors, 34 are associated with the Melbourne College of Divinity, another 59 write from elsewhere around Australia, and another 37 from overseas, particularly from the Pacific rim. Some 290 books have been reviewed, about a quarter of these being local productions.
But, nearly two million words later, one cannot but ask if Pacifica has made any difference. There are good grounds, after all, for being rather sceptical about the trade in ideas: sometimes it is all too true that the academic conversation seem to occur in ivory towers. True, in Pacifica we have always urged our authors to explore the consequences of their research for the life of the community today. But what in fact has Pacifica contributed to the community, apart from offering a haven for theologians suffering from the neurosis of the need to publish?
In our first editorial, written ten years ago, we stated our hope that Pacifica might be a meeting point for many different voices. Perhaps this goal has in fact been achieved. We also remarked that: "In what is perhaps the first radically secular society in history, with no hint of religious inspiration in its origins, the Church in Australia has always been something of an outsider.... In a thoroughly pragmatic society, the theological enterprise has more often than not seemed a flourish or a distraction...."
I wonder now, however, whether the local churches themselves are so inculturated in Australia as also to be “thoroughly pragmatic” and to regard the theological enterprise as “a flourish or a distraction”. We have certainly observed, in a number of theological colleges in a number of denominations, that decisions are often made for practical rather than theological reasons.
Theology will only make a difference if it is good theology and if it is interesting and if it is read and if it is taken seriously. Perhaps also, however, it must become more and more a “lived” theology. That is to say, the time for individuals writing on individual themes might need to be replaced by genuine schools of theology which take particular interests, be they mystical or prophetic, both to heart and to barricade. Perhaps the time has come for some theologians, at least, to say that they can no longer live pragmatically if it also means living at odds with their theological convictions.
In the meantime, to all those who have supported us with donations and subscriptions, who have offered articles, who have acted as referees and proof readers, and who have undertaken book reviews, our lasting thanks. Your continuing support is absolutely necessary for the next decade of Pacifica. On behalf of all members of the Association, I wish you a Christmas of consolation and a New Year of hope.