Doctrine, Context & Practice: Essay Proposal

7 Epiphany
6 Hilary

'We who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread': Understanding the 'Mystical Communion' of the Church as an Aretegenic Ecclesiology in Scripture and Contemporary Practice

In response to the increasingly common expression, 'I believe in Jesus, but not the Church,' I wish to expound on what Avery Dulles calls the 'mystical communion' model of ecclesiology as grounded in scriptural language. This is intended to offer disillusioned disciples a practical framework for believing in and living as the Church. In my exposition of the Church as a 'divinising communion,' I will use Ellen Charry's notion of 'aretegenic theology' as a guide: this ecclesiology will commend itself to disillusioned Christians as salutary and conducive to creative practices for their socialization as persons who understand themselves as taken up into the life of the triune God through their shared life as the Church.

Indicative Bibliography:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio.
Carl Braaten, Mother Church
Timothy Bradshaw, The Olive Branch
Ellen Charry. By The Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine.
Avery Dulles, Models of the Church
Rowan Greer, Broken Lights, Mended Lives
Stanley Hauerwas, Various Works.
Henri de Lubac, Various.
Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness.
Robert Webber, Journey to Jesus
John Zizioulas. Being as Communion

Alright, now to get it done.

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