ISSN

0259-9422 (PRINT)
2072-8050 (ONLINE)

Focus and scope

HTS Theological Studies is an acclaimed Open Access journal, which publishes articles from a critical theological perspective on Christian praxis to address local, contextual and international challenges.

The notion ‘critical’ refers to in-depth scholarly investigations that generate significant and innovative insights. The term ‘Christian praxis’ is understood in an inclusive ecumenical sense as the concrete activities of Christian churches, organisations and movements in history. The meaning of ‘theological’ can be explained by using the acronym HTS. It refers to Christian studies that encompass Historical Thought and Sources.

The Historical dimension of Christian praxis includes studies in the nature and development of significant movements, institutions, conflicts, myths, legends, narratives and philosophies that have impacted Christian history. Contributions are welcome that examine the history of the Christian religion in its encounter with various cultures, religions and ideologies, by studying it from perspectives such as phenomenology, psychology, philosophy and sociology.

The Thought dimension of Christian praxis refers to the concept fides quaerens intellectum (‘faith seeking understanding’). HTS welcomes contributions that critique and develop the scholarly disciplines in Christian theology that are devoted to exegetical, hermeneutical, systematic, ethical, historical, ministerial and missiological endeavours. Theological contributions on interfaith encounters and on issues of gender, culture, race, class are encouraged.

The Sources dimension of Christian praxis refers to studies on the interpretation of the written and oral sources that have shaped (and continue to shape) the Christian movement. These sources include the Hebrew Scriptures, the Septuagint, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Intertestamental literature, the New Testament and early Christian literature, Rabbinic literature, Patristics, the confessional documents of Christian denominations, and the publications of ecumenical bodies.

Contributions are welcome from every continent and theological persuasion. HTS provides a platform for research collaboration between theologians and scholars from various fields outlined above and encourages multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary studies in the international theological arena. 

Historical data

HTS Theological Studies was founded in 1943 thanks to an international endeavour involving Dutch and South African scholars. It is thus the oldest theological journal in South Africa. The Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa was the title owner of since 1957. The University of Pretoria was also closely linked with HTS since its founding. The title ownership of HTS was transferred to AOSIS in September 2019, and HTS is now an independent journal.

Publication frequency

The journal publishes at least one issue each year. Articles are published online when ready for publication and then printed in an end-of-year compilation. Additional issues may be published for special events (e.g. conferences) and when special themes are addressed.

Types of articles published

Read full details on the submissions guidelines page.

Open access

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. Learn more about the journal copyright, licensing and publishing rights.

Review process

The journal has a double-blinded peer review process. Manuscripts are initially examined by editorial staff and are sent by the Editor-in-Chief to two expert independent reviewers, either directly or by a Section Editor. Read our full peer review process.

Marketing

AOSIS has a number of ways in which we promote publications. Learn more here.

Membership

AOSIS is a member and/or subscribes to the standards and code of practices of several leading industry organisations. This includes the Directory of Open Access Journals, Ithenticate, Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, CrossRef, Portico and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Learn more here.

All articles published in the journal are included in:

• African Journals Online
• ATLA Religion Database
• Bibliographical Information Bank in Patristics
• Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, AHCI (previously known as ISI)
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• EBSCO Host
• GALE, CENGAGE Learning
• Google Scholar
• IBZ Online: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature
• New Testament Abstracts, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry
• Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers, Level 1
• Old Testament Abstracts, Catholic University of America
• Open Access Digital Theological Library
• Pontifical Biblical Institute Library
• ProQuest
• Religious and Theological Abstracts
• SciELO SA
• SCOPUS

We are working closely with relevant indexing services to ensure that articles published in the journal will be available in their databases when appropriate.

The full text of the journal articles is deposited in the following archives to guarantee long-term preservation:

• AOSIS Library
• Portico
• SA ePublications, Sabinet
• South African Government Libraries

AOSIS is also a participant in the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) initiative. LOCKSS will enable any library to maintain their own archive of content from AOSIS and other publishers, with minimal technical effort and using cheaply available hardware. The URL to the LOCKSS Publisher Manifest for the journal is, https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/gateway/lockss. Please inform us if you are using our manifest as we would like to add your name to the list above.

A journal's Impact Factor was originally designed in 1963 as a tool for libraries to compare journals, and identify the most popular ones to subscribe to. It was never intended to measure the quality of journals, and definitely not the quality of individual articles.

The Impact Factor is a journal-level measurement reflecting the yearly average number of citations of recent articles published in that journal. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field; journals with higher Impact Factors are often deemed to be more important than those with lower ones. Therefore, the more often articles in the journal are cited, the higher its Impact Factor.

The Impact Factor is highly discipline-dependent due to the speed with which articles get cited in each field and the related citation practices. The percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication varies highly amongst disciplines. Accordingly, one cannot compare journals across disciplines based on their relative Impact Factors.

We provide several citation-based measurements for each of our journals, if available. We caution our authors, readers and researchers that they should assess the quality of the content of individual articles, and not judge the quality of articles by the reputation of the journal in which they are published.