Categories
Books Dietrich Bonhoeffer Duke Divinity School Stanley Hauerwas

Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer course with Stanley Hauerwas

I am taking a directed study course entitled “Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer” this semester with Stanley Hauerwas.  Here are the books I am reading: 

Bonhoeffer Books

Other courses I am taking

I have noted in other posts the other courses I am taking:

Books for Theology of Karl Barth course with Willie Jennings

What does Hauerwas’s course have to do with church leadership?

and the course I am precepting for:
Ken Carder’s course The Local Church in Mission to God’s World books

Categories
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Ecclesiology Sociology

Ecclesiology Dissertations: Volf and Bonhoeffer on thinking theologically about the church

Miroslav Volf’s book After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (originally published in German in 1996) was “a dissertation required for a postdoctoral degree” (p. xi) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Sanctorum Communio was his doctoral dissertation that was submitted in 1927. 

In the quotes below, both note a surge of interest in the church and both insist on the importance of better theological reflection on the church. 

With seminar papers under my belt on Rowan Williams, John Howard Yoder, the New Testament witness, Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians, David Bosch, Lesslie Newbigin and Bonhoeffer; and now Volf, Gregory the Great, and sociology of congregations; I am building conversation partners; but I will never touch the erudition of Volf and Bonhoeffer. 

Volf:
Without an ecumenical agreement of what the church is, one can either allow the diverging understandings of office to stand unreconciled next to one another, or one can try to cloak them with merely verbal convergences.  Either way, unity is feigned rather than genuinely attained.  This is why in recent years the question of the character of the church, especially of the understanding of the church as communion, has moved into the center of ecumenical dialogue.  Reflection on the ecclesial structures obviously presupposes reflection on the church.  If the structures of the church really are to be the structures of the church rather than structures over the church, then the church must take precedence over the structures.  (p. 222).

After Our Likeness: The Church As the Image of the Trinity (Sacra Doctrina) by Miroslav Volf (Paperback – Oct 30, 1997)

Bonhoeffer:
In this study social philosophy and sociology are employed in the service of theology.  Only through such an approach, it appears, can we gain a systematic understanding of the community-structure of the Christian church.  This work belongs not to the discipline of sociology of religion, but to theology.  The issue of a Christian social philosophy and sociology is a genuinely theological one, because it can be answered only on the basis of an understanding of the church. (p. 21) . . . To be sure, there rarely has been as much talk about community and church as in the last few years.  Yet it seems to me that such thinking has lacked the thoroughness of theological reflection (p. 23) 

Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works) by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Clifford J. Green, and Nancy Lukens (Hardcover – Nov 1998)

Categories
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Emerging Church Th.D. / Ph.D.

Bonhoeffer / Emerging Church paper and AETE

[I have revised this post].

At the last minute I was asked to be ready to present my paper on Bonhoeffer and Emerging Church movement at the Academy
for Evangelism in Theological Education
meeting.  But as it turned out, they didn't need me as all four presenters showed up.  The AETE met this year in Ashland, Ohio
at Ashland Seminary. 

The paper I was going to present was the one I wrote for my Duke Th.D. application.  It has been on my blog for six months and I have made the changes people suggested there.  You can see it at: Bonhoeffer and the Emerging Church: Ph.D. Application Paper

"Who is the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education?", you
might ask.  The professors on the board are United Methodist, Cooperative Baptist
Fellowship, evangelical Anglican and Southern Baptist.  The theme of this annual meeting was "engaging the
emerging church." (Download AETE
publicity.pdf
).

The presenters this year were:

Bob Whitesel – who is a church consultant, author, adjunct professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, and is finishing his Ph.D. at the School for Intercultural Studies at Fuller Seminary.  Bob tried to describe the way organic / emerging / missional church leaders think.  He tries to help older church leaders understand this mindset.      

Paul Chilcote – who is a visiting professor of evangelism at Duke Divinity School shared a paper comparing various positive aspects of the emerging church movement to the work of John Wesley. 

Bryan Stone – who is a E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at the School of Theology at Boston University, pointed out that though the emerging church may appear at first glance disgusted by the institutional church, it is deeply focused on seeing people connected into community. 

Len Sweet – who is E. Stanley Jones Professor of
Evangelism at Drew University also presented comments about the emerging church movement.

There were also a couple of papers presented by Southern Baptist pastors, Adam Greenway and William Henard.  Henard is an adjunct professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY and Greenway is a Ph.D. student.  They both have concerns with Brian McLaren's view of Scripture, doctrine, atonement, evangelism, and ethics. 

The United Methodist E. Stanley Jones Professors of Evangelism from various United Methodist seminaries sometimes attend this meeting and then meet afterward together.  The Foundation For Evangelism which funds the E. Stanley Jones professors of evangelism are also funding my doctoral program.