This dissertation argues that the postliberal ecclesiologies of John Milbank and Stanley Hauerwas fail to account for Christian implication in the secular in part because they collapse the kingdom of God into the visible church. Inferring that an alternative lies in locating the kingdom both in church and society, it proposes that the Byzantine ideal of symphonia, which seeks to balance church and state under the revelation of the kingdom, presents a framework for a more consistent account of the intersections between church and secular. I conclude that formal societal refusal of the divine is inconsequential to a church that understands the Word to be the driving force of human cultural development on its way toward the kingdom of God. Even this present secular moment can be potentially revelatory, a perspective that not only warrants but even mandates creative ecclesial engagement with the secular insofar as it conforms to the revelation of the Word incarnate in Jesus.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-05042011-122949 |
| Date | 19 May 2011 |
| Creators | Dunn, David J |
| Contributors | Paul DeHart, J. Patout Burns, M. Douglas Meeks, John Thatamanil, Paul Valliere |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-05042011-122949/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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