Re-Visioning the Church

An Experiment in Systematic-Historical Ecclesiology

Neil Ormerod

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781451478167
• eBook ISBN: 9781451479904
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

According to longstanding tradition, theology can be thought of as "faith seeking understanding." Ecclesiology, then, seeks to understand the theological reality we call church. Re-Visioning the Church, the outcome of nearly two decades of research and writing towards constructing a systematic historical ecclesiology, applies a social scientific and historical outlook to the story of the emergence, development, and ongoing mission and ministry of the church. Establishing a critical framework for understanding the structures of the church, the work is a wide-scale exploration of the religious, cultural, and social dimensions of what it means to be the church and what structures and ministries form the fundamental parts of ecclesial life in its relationship to the kingdom. The heart of the project is a detailed account of the history, development, and change across the centuries of the church that takes the story from the apostolic band of witnesses to the dramatic global event of the Second Vatican Council.

3

Index

1 Clement

and leadership of Roman church, 224

and structure of ministry, 193–97

Abbott, Walter: The Documents of Vatican II, on ministry, 167

Abelard, Peter

on faith and reason, 247–50

Sic et Non, 248

Abraham, call of

and solution to problem of evil, 102

absolutism, 319, 334

acts of meaning, 386–87

Adversus Haereses (St. Irenaeus) and “gnostic” groups, 189–90

Aeterni Patris (Pope Leo XIII)

and the Church’s intellectual resources, 336–37

and St. Thomas Aquinas, 322n22

Age of Authenticity, 296

Age of Mobilization

and education, 296

increasing impact of anthropological values in, 276, 281

Age of Reason and modern Enlightenment paradigm of the Church’s mission, 19

Alberigo, Giuseppe

on the Church’s vision during Reformation, 311

on Trent as definitive word on the Church, 305, 307

Alexandria, church of, 224

alumbrados, 294

Ambrose, St.

and choosing bishops, 222

American Revolution, 319

Anabaptists

and infant baptism, 290

and stand against the state, 292

anthropological culture/values/worldview, 72–73

beginning of turn toward, 228–38

deepening of, 241–77

full flowering of, 313–23

anti-modernist oath, 348

Antioch, church of, 224

anti-types, cultural or social, 87–92

apocalyptic paradigm of the Church’s mission, 18

apostolate, and mission of the laity, 169. See also Church, the: mission of

Apostolicam Actuositatem (Vatican II)

and ministry and the laity, 168

on mission of the laity, 168

apostolicity of the Church, 309

apostolic succession, and structure of ministry, 197–98

Aquinas, St. Thomas. See Thomas Aquinas, St.

Are All Christians Ministers? (J. Collins) and ministry, 170

Arendt, Hannah

on authority, 140

Arianism, 176–77, 234–35, 344

Arians of the Fourth Century, The (J. H. Newman), 380

Aristotle

realism of, 35

St. Thomas Aquinas’s adoption of, 54

Arius, 235. See also Arianism

artistic meaning, 385

Assumption of Our Lady, dogma of, 340

Athanasius, St.

Life of Anthony, and conversion, 215

realism of, 201

atheism, causes of rise in, 100n3

Augustine (of Hippo), St.

and choosing bishops, 222

and the Church as sacrament, 15

and the Church of the “pure,” 220

City of God and the medieval period, 18

Confessions

and conversion, 215

and evil as privation, 101n6

on grace, 233n61

and interiority, 376

and “turn to the subject,” 318

De Trinitate, 318

on faith and understanding, 248

on human nature, 260

and Manichaeism, 101n5

and mission of the Church, 173

and moral impotence, 77n39

and neo-Platonism, 35

and Pelagius, 233–34

and the state, 177

authenticity

and authority, 140

of doctrinal development, 375–76

and Vatican II, 371

authority

episcopal, 335

and normativity, 178

papal, 226–27, 243–45, 335

and power, 139

to preach, 251–52, 266–67

questioning of traditional sources of, 315, 317

in religious orders, 257–58

as a social structure, 139–41

and soteriological values, 249

types of, 144

autonomy, 317

Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (World Council of Churches)

on ministry, 170

Barron, Caroline

on Wycliffe’s views, 284–85

Barth, Karl

and methodological purism, 33

Baum, Gregory

on division in sociology, 32

on symbolic interactionist sociology, 41

Bausch, William

and relationship to the divine, 285

being, proportionate, 384

Bellarmine, St. Robert

on the Church as a “perfect society,” 265

and the Church as institution, 15

on implementation...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Preface
• The Structure of Systematic Ecclesiology
• Engagement with the Social Sciences in an Ecclesiological Context
• Categories for the Kingdom
• Church: Mission, Communion, and Dimensions
• Structure and Ministry
• The First Three Centuries: Founding Questions of Identity and Mission
• The Early Middle Ages and the Struggle with a Cosmological Worldview
• The High Middle Ages: Deepening the Anthropological Turn
• An Era of Reform, Conflict, and Schism
• The Era of the Wounded Church and the Rise of Modernity
• Conclusion
• Postscript. Vatican II: Toward an Ontology of Meaning
• Bibliography
• Index