Toward a salvageable Tillich: The implications of his late confession of provinicialism

In occasional addresses late in his life Paul Tillich confesses to a lingering provincialism in his theology during the same period in which he was completing the third volume of his systematic theology where many of these same provincialisms appear. The article identifies such provincialisms in his ecclesiology, missiology, christology, history of religion and eschatology. The article then argues that his final position, embodied in his understanding of the Religion of the Concrete Spirit, endorses a universal sacramentalism in interplay with mystical and prophetic elements that would appreciate all religions but deny any an absolute claim while able to compensate religious needs specific to each cultural moment. The revisioning of humanity's religious propensity as supporting a mutually relative relation among religions remains valuable in an historical period when the human future may be threatened by competing unqualified religious claims and their secular equivalents.