{"id":1885,"date":"2023-04-22T09:44:11","date_gmt":"2023-04-22T09:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/?p=1885"},"modified":"2023-04-22T09:44:12","modified_gmt":"2023-04-22T09:44:12","slug":"steven-j-battin-intercommunal-ecclesiology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/?p=1885","title":{"rendered":"Steven J. Battin: Intercommunal Ecclesiology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Steven J. Battin: Intercommunal Ecclesiology. The Church, Salvation, and Intergroup Conflict<\/em>, Theopolitical Visions 27, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022, Pb., XI+243\u00a0S., \u20ac\u00a029,\u2013, ISBN 978-1-7252-5608-8<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The title, \u201cintercommunal ecclesiology\u201d piqued my curiosity. Usually ecclesiologies define particular Christian traditions. If this ecclesiology aims to provide a bridge between Christian traditions, why not simply write \u201cecumenical ecclesiology\u201d? This study takes \u201cintercommunal\u201d in its broadest sense, as an ecclesiology that locates the Church amidst all other human communities in our societies. The author, an Afro-American Roman Catholic, sensitive to injustice and inequality by virtue of his own biography, signals the nearly inescapable conflict and violent interrelatedness of human groups, often including the church. Writing from \u201cthe underside of modernity,\u201d he seeks to complete \u201cthe unfinished project of decolonization\u201d (18\u201319). His guiding questions are, what is God\u2019s purpose in creating yet another human group amidst all the others? What is God\u2019s soteriological intention in creating this new community, the Church?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project proceeds in three phases. Phase one investigates intergroup relationships. Phenomenologically, the Church is one among many human groups, with its own distinctive culture, beliefs and practices. At the group level, \u201csin\u201d is not primarily an individual, interior conception but a mechanism of moral exclusion as a major cause of violent intergroup relatedness. \u201cMoral exclusion occurs when individuals or groups are perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values, rules and considerations of fairness apply\u201d (20\u201321). Moral exclusion functions at the biopsychosocial level to shape our in\/outgroup perception, our belonging and self-identity, and our parochial altruism. This mechanism underlies the dynamics of inequality and discrimination, and may be triggered by persecution or trauma. It may lead to infrahumanization, the tendency to perceive ingroup members as more human than outsiders, often a precursor to outgroup violence. Such forces in church history actively shaped the perception of \u201cChurch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phase two explores salvation as a human experience in a disclosive divine encounter. Such \u201coriginary experiences\u201d shape the life-world of all religious groups, but with the rise of modernity, Christians began to view all others as not having true access to the divine. This engendered Western infrahumanization, leading to intergroup violence. Salvation, then, is God\u2019s response to this intergroup violence, which is not primarily a doctrine or belief, but a theologal<\/em> event in which divine and human action flow together. Salvation pertains \u201cto the preservation of life and the creation of right interrelationship\u201d (108) and is a patterned series of events. As testified in the Exodus as well as in Jesus\u2019 ministry, God hears and sees the problem, God takes decisive action to restore life and right relationships, along with human co-agents, and in a concrete historical process full of eschatological hope. This structure of salvation becomes the protocol of intergroup interaction for God\u2019s new community, the Church, participating in the divine ministry of reconciling the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phase three connects the argument with the identity and mission of the church. The church\u2019s identity is formed in the originary experience of Jesus and the human group he initiated. Pentecost provided the theological affirmation and spiritual empowerment of this community, as it moved into the world. Christ acted to \u2018save\u2019 this community in Paul\u2019s Damascus Christophany, to bring life and right relatedness through the Church to the world. Here, Paul discovered the reality of the Church as Christ\u2019s Body, indicating that the Church is Christ\u2019s collective embodiment to participate in Christ\u2019s ministry of reconciliation for the world. Battin\u2019s study offers a phenomenological ecclesiology for understanding the identity and purpose of the church at the intersection of social psychology, biblical studies and early (eastern) patristics. His approach fits well with practical theological attention to human experience and groups. The church as the Body of Christ is God\u2019s co-agent in bringing salvation to the world. Battin thus positions the Church as God\u2019s response to the problem of violent intergroup relatedness. His approach aligns nicely with an incarnational, missional ecclesiology, although he does not use missional language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jack Barentsen, Professor Practical Theology, Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven (Belgium)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven J. Battin: Intercommunal Ecclesiology. The Church, Salvation, and Intergroup Conflict, Theopolitical Visions 27, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022, Pb.,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":1886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-praktische-theologie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1887,"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions\/1887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezensionen.afet.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}