T&T Clark God's Church-Community: The Ecclesiology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology)

About the Author David Emerton is Director of St Mellitus College, UK. Product Description David Emerton provides a provocative but rigorous account of Bonhoeffer s ecclesiology which establishes permanently the pneumatological and eschatological interests of a theologian who is often considered to be christomonist and identifies the critical significance of Bonhoeffer s ecclesial thought for contemporary ecclesiology. Emerton argues that Bonhoeffer understands the church as a pneumatological and eschatological community in space and time, and that this understanding is thus 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. Critically, Emerton considers this approach therapeutic to an endemic problematic present 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. The book suggests that Bonhoeffer s ecclesial thought therefore breaks open a necessary third way in ecclesiological description between the Scylla of ethnographic ecclesiology and the Charybdis of dogmatic ecclesiology, and thereby establishes a programmatic theological grammar for ecclesiology per se. For the ecclesiologist and church practitioner alike, the book therefore acts as a clarion call towards genuinely theological ecclesiological speech which is allied to genuinely theological ecclesial action. Review "This book offers an incomparable account of Bonhoeffer's 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 Bonhoeffer's own approach, Emerton proffers Bonhoeffer's 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 Bonhoeffer's 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 God's future. But above all, Emerton shows how vital the invocation and work of the Holy Spirit is." --David F. Ford, University of Cambridge, UKWhat 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 Bonhoeffer's own approach, Emerton proffers Bonhoeffer's pneumatological-eschatological ecclesiology as a therapeutic alternative. --Mark R. Lindsay, University of Divinity, AustraliaThis original and convincing study shows how interconnected and fruitful some key elements in Bonhoeffer's 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 God s future. But above all, Emerton shows how vital the invocation and work of th