Christ, Church, and World

Theodore J. Hopkins

doi:10.5771/9781978708594

Summary

As the North American church struggles to navigate the emerging post-Christian context, Theodore J. Hopkins argues that the church is identified by three fundamental relationships: Christ-church-world. By attending to the Christological center of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology, Hopkins establishes a framework for the church’s mission in the world that flows from Christ’s relationship to the church and his relationship to the world. This Christological framework also illuminates the changing relationship between the church and the world in Bonhoeffer’s works, such that Discipleship seems to demarcate the church from the world while Ethics seems to unite church and world in one Christ-reality. Following Bonhoeffer, Hopkins contends that the church is both distinct from the world and in solidarity with it in the dynamic of the crucified Lord Jesus who took the form of a servant and is present in Word, Sacrament, and community as the Risen One. Hopkins envisions the church within the story of Jesus so that preaching and teaching the Gospel identifies the church and calls it to faithfulness in Christ’s own mission. The church is formed to see itself and the world in Jesus and enabled to follow Christ’s mission of witness and service in the world.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2021
ISBN-Print: 978-1-9787-0858-7
ISBN-Online: 978-1-9787-0859-4
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 182
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. 1. Notes No access
3. 1. Note No access
4. Abbreviations No access
1. The Contemporary Ecclesiological Turn No access
2. Lutheran Ecclesiology at the End of Christendom No access
3. The Argument No access
4. The Outline No access
5. Notes No access
1. The Lutheran Ecclesiology of the Word No access
2. The Spirit and the Visible Community of the Church: Hütter’s Lutheran Ecclesiology of the Third Article No access
3. Conclusion: The Necessity of Christology No access
4. Notes No access
1. Act and Being and Lutheran Ecclesiology No access
2. Christ, Church, and World in Bonhoeffer’s Christology Lectures No access
3. Christ Pro-Me in the World No access
4. Summary of Bonhoeffer’s Christology No access
5. Conclusion: The Relevance of Bonhoeffer’s Christology for Ecclesiology No access
6. Notes No access
1. Christ For and Against His Church: A Christ-Church Dialectic No access
2. Bonhoeffer’s Scriptural Hermeneutics and the Christ-Church Dialectic No access
3. Church and World Christologically Considered No access
4. Conclusion: Toward a Story-Shaped Ecclesiology for the Local Church No access
5. Notes No access
1. Jesus Christ the Lord: Ecclesial Identity and Discipleship in the Christ-Church Relation No access
2. Jesus Christ the Servant: Solidarity and Mission in the Christ-World Relation No access
3. Lord and Servant: Christ-Church-World No access
4. Notes No access
Conclusion No access Pages 147 - 154
Bibliography No access Pages 155 - 174
Subject Index No access Pages 175 - 178
Scripture Index No access Pages 179 - 182