Browsing by Subject "Ecclesiology."
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Item Authority, unity and truthfulness : the body of christ in the theologies of Robert Jenson and Rowan Williams with a view toward implications for free church ecclesiology.(2010-10-08T16:14:43Z) Cary, Jeffrey W. (Jeffrey Wayne), 1973-; Harvey, Barry, 1954-; Religion.; Baylor University. Dept. of Religion.Those within the free church tradition have often appealed to the notion of the invisible church to account for the unity of Christ's Body. A growing number of free church theologians, however, are arguing for the necessity of visible ecclesial unity, which immediately raises the perennial problem of the authorities by which unity is maintained. There is also a growing recognition among free church theologians of the need to recognize the authority of tradition alongside the authority of Scripture. Chapter two charts and affirms these recent developments but then inquires whether a turn toward visible unity together with an embrace of the authority of tradition can eventually be coherent without also embracing the authority of an extra-congregational teaching office. Chapters three and four engage two theologians from outside the free church tradition. Robert Jenson and Rowan Williams both argue that authority is located in the classic loci of Scripture, tradition and an episcopal teaching office. These chapters will observe what vision of visible ecclesial unity emerges from the ways in which each of these theologians construes the relationships among these three loci. While there are significant differences between their visions of visible unity, together they present serious challenges to those within the free church tradition concerning authority, unity and truthfulness. Chapter five will engage free church theologian James McClendon, a pioneer of these newer free church developments. While McClendon has made invaluable contributions within the free church tradition, this chapter will argue that McClendon's account of ecclesial unity and his defense of a free church polity arise out of certain theological deficiencies which can be supplemented by the work of Jenson and Williams. The conclusion will argue that more recent free church theologians have advanced beyond McClendon, especially in his areas of deficiency. Yet it is precisely these advances that make a free church polity even more problematic, especially as a long term project. This study concludes that a move toward visible unity along with a retrieval of the authority of tradition leads naturally toward the usefulness of, if not the need for, some form of global teaching office.Item Church and secondary societies in Korean ecclesiology and the Christocentric perspective of Karl Barth.(2011-05-12T15:44:54Z) Oh, Sung Wook.; Patterson, Bob E.; Religion.; Baylor University. Dept. of Religion.My purpose is to critically map out the relationship between Church and society in the current Korean context in light of three models: difference, identity, and harmony, and to propose a better relationship between Church and society in the Korean context from Karl Barth’s Christocentric vision of the Church. First, the difference model between Church and society is represented in the “Fourfold Gospel Theology” whose theological basis is John Wesley’s teaching of sanctification. This theology says that the Church and society are two distinctive territories and have their own different tasks, not to be confused with each other. Second, the identity model of “Korean Indigenization Theology” has emerged as a theological position that contradicts the difference model. This theology holds that the ultimate reality of Christianity already exists everywhere; salvation can be found outside the Church, and thus there exists an essential identity between Church and society. Third, the harmony model is an alternative position between the difference model and the identity model, and is proposed by “Minjung Theology.” Minjung Theology focuses on the poor who suffer economic crisis and domestic violence and supports Christian’s active participation in the socio-political conflicts. Hence, the Church and society should cooperate toward building a utopian society as an “all-comprehensive society” within which the Church fulfills its function as a subsystem. By contrast with these three models, Karl Barth (1886-1968) suggests a new vision of the relationship between Church and society. Barth unfolded his theory of Church and society under a Christocentric perspective: Christ the Lord is at the center, the Church is in the inner circle next to Christ, and society is in a more distant outer circle. Although Church and society cannot be mixed and confused, Barth believed that society is not an “independent entity,” and the Church is not a neutral space completely independent of politics. However, Barth prioritizes the Church over society. As an “asymmetrical” relationship, society becomes secondary to the Church in God’s redemptive economy. Consequently, the Church has a duty toward secondary societies as a model of peaceful behavior and should serve as a non-violent judge.Item Meditative poetry, covenant theology, and Lucy Hutchinson's order and disorder.(2014-06-11) Wright, Seth Andrew.; Donnelly, Phillip J. (Phillip Johnathan), 1969-; English.; Baylor University. Dept. of English.I argue that Order and Disorder (1679), Lucy Hutchinson’s biblical epic on Genesis, is a meditative poem, while claiming that Hutchinson’s study of Independent theologian John Owen’s covenant theology informed her narration of the events in Genesis. I offer a reading of the poem as a whole to show how these claims illuminate Hutchinson’s construal of Genesis. These claims permit me to engage scholarly literature on three heads. First, by demonstrating that Order and Disorder is a meditative poem, I seek to extend the current discussion of seventeenth-century meditative poetry to include poems narrating the content of the poet’s meditation alongside poems narrating the process. Second, by showing Order and Disorder’s specific theological background, I challenge accounts claiming Lucretian atomism and Republican politics as the poem’s intellectual foundation. Finally, I offer the first extended account of meditation in Owen’s theology. Chapter One puts Hutchinson and her work in the historical and critical context, while Chapter Two argues that Owen understood meditation as an intellectual duty whose final cause is communion with God by understanding biblical revelation, and that Hutchinson assumed a similar view in Order and Disorder. As she discerned scriptural truth through meditation, Hutchinson rejected the Epicurean philosophy she had encountered while translating Lucretius. In Chapter Three, I argue that Theologoumena Pantodapa, Owen’s major treatise on covenant theology, which Hutchinson studied closely, implicitly confronts Thomas Hobbes’s contract theory by arguing that communion with God is the highest end of humanity. Chapters Four—Six show how Hutchinson’s approach to meditation and covenant undergird her dilations of Genesis 1—3 in Cantos 1—5. By contending that people can commune with God by meditating on Creation, Providence, and the covenant, Hutchinson denies the ontological materialism found in Lucretius. Finally, Chapters Seven and Eight argue that Hutchinson uses Cantos 6—20 to narrate Genesis 4—31 in terms of an Independent ecclesiology grounded in Owen’s covenant theology. By claiming that the Church is distinguished by acknowledging Providence through meditation, Hutchinson contests the definition of the Church in the Act of Uniformity. The Epilogue suggests Owen regarded Hutchinson’s meditative project as successful.Item Ontology, ecclesiology, nonviolence : the witness against war in the theologies of John Howard Yoder, Dorothy Day, and William Stringfellow.(2011-09-14) Werntz, Myles.; Harvey, Barry, 1954-; Religion.; Baylor University. Dept. of Religion.This dissertation argues that nonviolence bears witness to a particular form of social existence visible in the church. War, I argue, describes a form of social existence which is a counter social ontology to the existence given by Christ to the church. By examining the interrelationship of social ontology, ecclesiology, and nonviolence in the work of John Howard Yoder, Dorothy Day, and William Stringfellow, I argue that a nonviolence which is thoroughly Christian must account for how nonviolence is related to the structures and practices of the church, but also how nonviolence bears witness to a new form of social existence in the church. Discussion of these three figures occurs broadly within the context of the Vietnam War, exploring how nonviolence for each was not an abstracted ethic, but an act which witnessed to a new social reality present in the church. Discussing how nonviolence bears witness to a new social existence made known through the church occurs in uniquely configured ways for each figure, which I describe in chapters devoted to each one. The result is an ecumenical dialogue among Yoder (a Mennonite), Day, (a Roman Catholic), and Stringfellow (an Episcopalian) about how to describe this social existence, how the church structures and practices contribute to the articulation of nonviolence, and how to speak theologically about the normativity of nonviolence for Christian faith and practice. In the conclusion, I bring the insights from these three together, arguing for a more fulsome way to describe Christian nonviolence. I describe the church’s social ontology as “given” in Christ by the Spirit, its ecclesiological practices as under the judgment of Christ, and its nonviolence as dependent upon the humanity of Christ which is the basis for all human existence. In this way, I bring the triune context of Christian nonviolence to the forefront, in that nonviolence is not simply about making an ethical stance, but bearing witness to a way of social existence given by Christ and displayed through the practices and institutions of the church.Item A re-membering sign : the Eucharist and ecclesial unity in Baptist ecclesiologies.(2010-02-02T19:48:19Z) Bullard, Scott W.; Harvey, Barry, 1954-; Religion.; Baylor University. Dept. of Religion.This dissertation argues for the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist, as a vital basis of the church’s unity as the body of Christ. It focuses especially on the theology of James Wm. McClendon, Jr., who, though a member of a largely non-sacramental (“free church”) tradition, nonetheless insists upon Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and that through the Eucharist God “re-members” the church as the body of Christ. While the study lauds McClendon’s foresight and direction, it also argues that he ultimately shies away from a sacramental understanding of the Supper and that he skims over the unitive function of the Eucharist. Added to the discussion, then, are two voices from outside the free church tradition: Henri de Lubac, a Catholic, and Robert Jenson, a Lutheran. Together with McClendon, these twentieth century figures and their theologies have had an enormous impact on contemporary discussions about ecclesial unity. In a final chapter, therefore, the study illustrates how they have influenced a number of contemporary Baptists dubbed the “new Baptist sacramentalists,” a younger group of Baptist theologians who offer a fresh approach to the ongoing puzzle of the church’s disunity through the Eucharist.