The Pauline Theology of Albert Schweitzer and the developments in this field of study a
century on from him forms the core of this current Masters dissertation. The subject of the
investigation is the extent to which Schweitzer was a catalyst in steering the conversation
toward a self-identity of the Church which can be described as a participation with Christ in
His mission. The motivation for this investigation is the growing interest and development in
what has become known globally as, âMissional Ecclesiologyâ, with its claim to be a more
faithful understanding of Paul and a true description of the nature and identity of the earliest
Church.
The dissertation concerns itself mainly with the work written in the early part of the 20th
century by Albert Schweitzer called, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. The present work
attempts to highlight and briefly describe Schweitzerâs Pauline theology on key themes such
as eschatology, Christ-mysticism, the law, justification, and more. It then takes a fair
selection of New Testament scholars who have been more influential than most in this field
and demonstrate how and where they have contributed to the main thesis â that of the selfunderstanding
of the Christian, the Church and her mission. These include such scholars as:
Rudolf Bultmann; CH Dodd; Oscar Cullman; WD Davies; EP Sanders; Lesslie Newbigin;
NT Wright, and others.
The investigation is set within the changing context from a Christendom to a post-
Christendom environment in Europe with South Africa following close on the heals of these
changes. We are introduced to the statistical data in South Africa with its present situation of
change, focussing particularly on the Church of England in South Africa as the Authorâs personal context at the time of writing. After the core work on Schweitzer and his successors
is completed with sufficient evidence of Schweitzerâs influence especially in eschatology, the
dissertation analyses the post-Christian environment of England and Scotland. It quite
deliberately focuses on the theological responses of the two large National Churches of these
countries - the Church of England and the Church of Scotland - and not on the smaller
missional initiatives from newer, independent church groups in order to observe the sense of
urgency for change despite the long and historical complexity of these organizations.
The dissertation concludes with an attempt to determine any detectable similarities between
the theological response of these national churches in a post-Christian environment and the
Pauline conversation of Schweitzer and his successors over the preceding century. The
conclusion shows an overall eschatological orientation in both as well as a similar emphases
on a corporate participation in the mission of God in Christ that determines the shape and life
of the Church as a foretaste of the Kingdom.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-10182011-123649 |
| Date | 18 October 2011 |
| Creators | Banfield, Colin |
| Contributors | Prof P Verster |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-10182011-123649/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, 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 University Free State 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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