How should the church relate to the public sphere? The body politic?
The state? The economic order? The natural world? For too many
Christians and churches, being "in the world but not of it" has
resulted in either a theocratic impulse to seize the reins of secular
power or a quietistic retreat from the world and its material
concerns. The Church in the Public shows how this dualism has
corrupted the church's social witness and allowed neoliberal and
neocolonial ideas to assert control of public and political life.
Dualism has rendered the church not only indifferent to but also
complicitous with the state's bio- and power-politics. Because of this
outdated framework of the church's political theology, the church has
been reluctant to engage in challenging structural and systemic
injustice in this world. But rather than counseling despair or making
a case for Christendom, Ilsup Ahn argues for a public church, one that
collaborates and cooperates with other public actors and entities in
the promotion of a just social order. The book traces this "third way"
back to the apostolic age and offers practical approaches for enacting
it today. Central to this vision is the analogy of the rhizome--that
strange, unique form of life that lives underground, grows
horizontally, and is capable of regeneration. The Church in the Public
draws on this image to develop a political theology for engaging the
world, identifying with the oppressed, and binding up the broken.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781506467979
Publisert
2022
Utgiver
Vendor
Fortress Press NBN
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter