Being Open, Being Faithful: The Journey of Interreligious Dialogue

What does Christian identity mean in the face of religious pluralism? In some ways, the frontier of global Christianity lies not in repairing its past divisions so much as bravely facing its future in a world of many other faiths and conflicting convictions. Being Open, Being Faithful is a brief history, astute analysis, and trustworthy guide for Christian encounters in this pluralistic environment. A central argument of this perceptive book is that interreligious dialogue has moved so far as to fundamentally change the attitudes and openness of world religious traditions to each other, promising a future more open and less hostile than one might otherwise think. The book presents and reflects on the recent history of interreligious encounter and dialogue, and it traces the manifold difficulties involved, especially as they are experienced in Roman Catholic and World Council of Churches' engagements with other faiths. Yet, it goes even further: along with the history of such encounters, Being Open, Being Faithful examines the issue of Christian discipleship in the context of interfaith engagement, the operative models, the thorny issue of core theological commitments, and what might be the shape of Christian identity in light of such encounters.

T Cell Motility as Modulator of Interactions with Dendritic Cells

It is well established that the balance of costimulatory and inhibitory signals during interactions with dendritic cells (DCs) determines T cell transition from a naïve to an activated or tolerant/anergic status. Although many of these molecular interactions are well reproduced in reductionist in vitro assays, the highly dynamic motility of naïve T cells in lymphoid tissue acts as an additional lever to fine-tune their activation threshold. T cell detachment from DCs providing suboptimal stimulation allows them to search for DCs with higher levels of stimulatory signals, while storing a transient memory of short encounters. In turn, adhesion of weakly reactive T cells to DCs presenting peptides presented on major histocompatibility complex with low affinity is prevented by lipid mediators. Finally, controlled recruitment of CD8(+) T cells to cognate DC-CD4(+) T cell clusters shapes memory T cell formation and the quality of the immune response. Dynamic physiological lymphocyte motility therefore constitutes a mechanism to mitigate low avidity T cell activation and to improve the search for "optimal" DCs, while contributing to peripheral tolerance induction in the absence of inflammation.