Ecclesiology and Ethics

The author elaborates on the relation between tradition and the concept of 'invention' within doctrinal theory. Based on examinations of how this is reflected upon in selected doctrinal theories (Alister E. McGrath, Wolfhart Pannenberg and Oswald Bayer), the author discusses 'invention' in relation to adjacent theological issues. Diverging issues seem to be whether invention should be reserved for the object of theology (Bayer), or whether invention should be the task of systematic theology, especially in relation to the constant generation of new experiences (McGrath and Pannenberg). The author also asserts that the doctrinal theory of Bayer is inventive, even though not intended to be so. Thus, the question is how to work inventively within systematic theology, not whether to do so.     

Editorial: Newman and Ecclesiology

Jerusalem is at the centre of Christian culture – the place of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection and the place of Pentecost – and the image of Jerusalem is fundamental to any Christian vision of the Church and the Kingdom. There was an earthly city and one in heaven; and since the temple was inseparable from the city, temple imagery – the Garden of Eden, the Holy Wisdom, the Messiah – appears in Christian hymns about Jerusalem. In the centuries preceding the advent of Christianity, both city and temple had become corrupt, so when Jesus cleansed the temple and prophesied the destruction of the city, many people would have applauded him. The harlot city that burned in the Book of Revelation was Jerusalem, and when the emperor Constantine built the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, he was building a Christian temple, replacing not the one destroyed in 70 CE, but the original temple of Solomon.     

Karl Rahner's Ecclesiology

For reasons of academic fashion and ecclesial politics, Rahner is often dismissed as a liberal. Though elements of his thought on the church/world relationship do not date well, and others have been so thoroughly absorbed into the mainstream as to lose their interest, there is a dimension of his thought which remains important and which in fact undercuts typical divisions between liberals and their opponents.     

Ecclesiology and ethnography with humility

Drawing on the notion that future Ecclesiologies would be wise to go through Karl Barth rather than to attempt to go around him. This article proposes a cautious humility for ethnographic approaches to ecclesiology. The article builds on the move towards ethnographic forms of ecclesiology in a Scandinavian context. From this starting point it argues that Barth’s ecclesiology suggests a series of theological checks and balances in ecclesiology and ethnography. These are explored through the notion of humility in method and approach.     

Reconsidering Ecclesiology: Feminist Perspectives

Abstract

This paper considers the task of constructing a feminist ecclesiology that rejects the binary opposition between inventing new models of the Church and maintaining a critical relation with ecclesiological traditions.

Most feminist ecclesiology has been generated out of the women-church movement and has been criticized for failing to engage deeply enough with the influential ecclesiological traditions which still shape women's experience within the Church. The creation of a critical, constructive feminist ecclesiology will enable women to participate in ecclesial self-reflection and the informed critique of patriarchal models. Essential to this process will be the self-conscious recognition that women's bodies embody the body of Christ and that they are thus engaged in the embodied performance of God's presence in the world. The traditional vehicles of word and sacrament are means of ‘speaking’ this presence that needs to be reclaimed and reinterpreted by women. Furthermore, participation in the revisioning of such performances will contribute towards subverting the gendered symbolism that has structured ecclesiological discourse in the past. The article concludes by asserting that the task of the feminist ecclesiological theologian is to reflect upon the significance of women being church in the myriad frameworks through which the Church is constituted and experienced. Women require an ecclesiological culture in which their agency and authority become apparent.     

Forgiveness,the Gift,and Ecclesiology

Abstract: This article responds to the work of George Lindbeck and John Milbank while putting forth a new position on the theology of gift and forgiveness. Saarinen constructs a rudimentary theological anthropology, focusing on God and human beings as givers. As an example of applying this “giver‐oriented perspective” he outlines a fourfold typology of forgiveness as (1) negative giving, forgetting; (2) negative and positive giving, forgetting; (3) negative giving, forgetting and remembering; (4) negative and positive giving, forgetting and remembering.     

Recovering Missional Ecclesiology in Theological Education

The first part of this paper seeks to demonstrate how predominant Christianity, under Christendom, divorced mission from ecclesiology, and marginalized missiology from the theological curriculum. This is not only a problem for the west, as this model was then exported and replicated worldwide through the agency of the Protestant missionary movement. In the second part the paper explores the factors which have led us to a more adequate ecclesiology. Since we have recovered the missionary dimension in ecclesiology the paper argues that this must also be reflected in our theological curriculum.