God's Church-Community: The Ecclesiology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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David Emerton argues that Dietrich Bonhoeffers ecclesial thought breaks open a necessary third way in ecclesiological description between the Scylla of ethnographic ecclesiology and the Charybdis of dogmatic ecclesiology. Building on a rigorous and provocative discussion of Bonhoeffers thought, Emerton establishes a programmatic theological grammar for any speech about the church. Emerton argues that Bonhoeffer understands the church as a pneumatological and eschatological community in space and time, and that his understanding is built on eschatological and pneumatological foundations. These foundations, in turn, give rise to a unique methodological approach to ecclesiological description an approach that enables Bonhoeffer to proffer a genuinely theological account of the church in which both divine and human agency are held together through an account of God the Holy Spirit. Emerton proposes that this approach is the perfect remedy for an endemic problem in contemporary accounts of the church: that of attending either to the human empirical church-community ethnographically or to the life of God dogmatically; and to each, problematically, at the expense of the other. This book will act as a clarion call towards genuinely theological ecclesiological speech which is allied to real ecclesial action.

Reviews

[A]s Emerton states, the book hopes to act as something of a clarion call towards genuinely theological ecclesiological speech which is allied to genuinely theological ecclesial action (p. 11). Those interested in this task, particularly those interested in following Bonhoeffers lead toward this end, will find in this book an intriguing conversation partner. * Studies in Christian Ethics *
This book offers an incomparable account of Bonhoeffers ecclesiology. Rigorous and systematic, the book breaks through older orthodoxies and sheds new and much-needed light on Bonhoeffer as an ecclesiological thinker. Not only Bonhoeffer specialists but all theologians interested in the church would be wise to drink deeply here. * Tom Greggs, University of Aberdeen, UK *
What an outstanding contribution to both Bonhoeffer studies and contemporary ecclesiology! In this rich resource, David Emerton highlights the problematic inherent in modern ecclesiological methodology, by which the being of the church is parsed primarily by either its dogmatic or its ethnographic aspect. Through a deep reading of Bonhoeffers own approach, Emerton proffers Bonhoeffers pneumatological-eschatological ecclesiology as a therapeutic alternative. * Mark R. Lindsay, University of Divinity, Australia *
This original and convincing study shows how interconnected and fruitful some key elements in Bonhoeffers thinking on the church are, such as his way of relating divine action to human responsibility, his appreciation of the sociological reality of the church and his orientation to Gods future. But above all, Emerton shows how vital the invocation and work of the Holy Spirit is. * David F. Ford, University of Cambridge, UK *

Author Bio

David Emerton is Director of St Mellitus College, East Midlands, UK.