The Concrete Community

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Community Or ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sanctorum Communio ◽  
The Church

This chapter, ‘The Concrete Community’, turns to and examines Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on the empirical or existing church. For Bonhoeffer, the church is established by God only as an existing community or empirical entity. In developing and deepening this insight, Bonhoeffer again draws upon his earlier engagement with social theory. In particular, the chapter indicates how he relies upon the social-philosophical concept of objective spirit. This concept allows him to attend to the church in its concrete forms and functions (i.e. preaching and the sacraments). Moreover, this concept allows him to reflect on what kind of social formation the existing church is. Accordingly, the chapter examines what is at stake with Bonhoeffer’s claim in Sanctorum Communio that the church presents a distinct sociological type.

Christ Existing as Community

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Human Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theological Study ◽  
Sanctorum Communio ◽  
The Church

How can theologians recognize the church as a historical and human community, while still holding that it has been established by Christ and is a work of the Spirit? How can a theological account of the church draw insights and concepts from the social sciences, without Christian commitments and claims about the church being undermined or displaced? In 1927, the 21-year-old Dietrich Bonhoeffer defended his licentiate dissertation, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church. This remains his most neglected and misunderstood work. Christ Existing as Community thus retrieves and analyses Bonhoeffer’s engagement with social theory and attempt at ecclesiology. Against standard readings and criticisms of this work, Mawson demonstrates that it contains a rich and nuanced approach to the church, one which displays many of Bonhoeffer’s key influences—especially Luther, Hegel, Troeltsch, and Barth—while being distinctive in its own right. In particular, Mawson argues that Sanctorum Communio’s theology is built around a complex dialectic of creation, sin, and reconciliation. On this basis, he contends that Bonhoeffer’s dissertation has ongoing significance for work in theology and Christian ethics.

The Fall

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Critical Dialogue ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
The Social

This chapter explores how Bonhoeffer develops and deepens his theological engagement with social theory in his hamartiology or doctrine of sin. Bonhoeffer is clear that the fall into sin has radically disrupted and overturned primal social relations and formations (of the kind outlined in his chapter on creation). With the fall, the kinds of persons and relations evident in the primal state are replaced with sinful individuals who wilfully pursue their own isolation and solitude. Moreover, this chapter shows how Bonhoeffer, in critical dialogue with Augustine, draws in and reworks the social-philosophical concept of the ‘collective person’ to provide an account of how sin might be understood as simultaneously universal and personal. For Bonhoeffer, sin is universal in a way that makes individual acts of sin inevitable, but without thereby undermining the culpability of individuals for their sinful acts.

MODERN SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CONSTANTINOPLE PATRIARCHATE

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-98
Author(s):  
Bogdan Gulyamov
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Christian Realism ◽  
Community Or ◽  
Social Doctrine ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

The theology of communication suggests looking at man as a being called to communion in general and to communion with God in particular, in God he sees the first Community of Communion, each Hypostasis of the Trinity exists exclusively in a relationship of mutual gift of existence. It has been studied that the church for the theology of communication must be a reflection of the Trinity, be the communication of the individual with God and with other people, the hierarchy only serves such communication, but cannot replace it. Human society must be a space for interpersonal communication, a community or a set of communities. It turns out that the social doctrine of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is consistent with the Christian realism of Richard Niebuhr, according to which all forms of government are far from the gospel ideal, but this does not prevent to distinguish relative evil from absolute evil.

Christ, Spirit, and Church

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Church Community ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Human Community ◽  
Social Entity ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Sanctorum Communio ◽  
The Church

This chapter, ‘Christ, Spirit, and Church’, examines what is entailed in Bonhoeffer’s claim that the church is a reality of revelation. Bonhoeffer provides a rich and nuanced account of the church as established in Christ and actualized by the Holy Spirit. Nonetheless, he also insists that the church is a reality of revelation only as a human community and social entity. It is thus argued that Bonhoeffer’s engagement with social theory is integral to sustaining this dual nature of the church. This is demonstrated with reference to two of Bonhoeffer’s core theological formulations in his ecclesiology: ‘vicarious representative action’ (Stellvertretung) and ‘Christ existing as church-community’ (Christus als Gemeinde existierend). Drawing on this exposition of these core formulations, the chapter reviews and contests Ernst Feil’s charge that Sanctorum Communio lacks a robust Christology.

scholarly journals Om te gee: ’n Godsdiens- en sendingwetenskaplike perspektief

2012 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco Beyers
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
The Self ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Church

To give: A science of religion and missiological perspective. Human nature has been depicted as being utilitarian. This means that man considers all social action in terms of an optimalisation of privilege for the self. Marcel Mauss challenged this theory by investigating the possibility of human nature as being anti-utilitarian. Man does not give in order to receive. Human social action is not necessarily motivated by what man stands to gain. The diaconate of the church can be seen as the social action of giving. There is a close connection between the diaconate and the apostolate as actions of giving by the church. This article wants to determine whether these actions by the church are utilitarian in nature. Sundermeier’s use of the concept of convivence is used to illustrate how the church acts in an anti-utilitarian fashion when engaging in the diaconate and the apostolate. The social theory of Mauss, the missionary perspective of Sundermeier and the theology on the diaconate by Moltmann are brought into conversation with one another in order to illustrate the anti-utilitarian activities of the church in society.

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