Few commercial television series in recent memory have had as lasting an impact on audiences as has the series, LOST, which aired 2004–10, and is still available on streaming services. Its many themes still resonate today and are, indeed, timeless. Introduced in the pilot episode as a seemingly familiar “mystery/ action” drama that begins with a plane crash in the South Pacific, LOST very quickly pivoted to a complex but engaging meditation on some of the most basic questions of the human condition as well as of theological discourse: faith or reason? Religion or science? Is there an afterlife or multiple afterlives? What is time? Is there redemption? Does the arc of the universe bend toward justice? Is there meaning in existence or is it a random assortment of actions and reactions? Is there a form of proscribed order or is everything just chaos? Is there a God? Are there gods? Is there an eternal reality?

LOST also offers multiple theological themes for consideration, including: the place and meaning of sacrifice and/or suffering in the human condition; the tension between good and evil; the ethics of care; discrete ways of knowing (e.g., revelation and intuition versus analysis and calculation); the condition of community for human flourishing; the value of nature/creation and ecological understanding, the spiritual role of memory, personal transformation and the presence of grace.

Our Call for Papers welcomes submissions on LOST from a range of modalities and disciplinary methodologies that incorporate faith traditions other than western Christianity, including the faith/spiritual traditions of Asia, as well as a range of theological methodologies, including (but not limited to): systematic theology, historical theology, feminist theology, eco/eco-feminist theology, spirituality, ethics and moral theology, biblical studies (and other sacred texts, such as Qur’anic), theological anthropology, and practical theology.

Please send an abstract of no more than 350 words and an academic bio of no more than 100 words by June 30, 2025 to j-dunne@bethel.edu and GreeleyJ@sacredheart.edu.