For the Life of the World: Jesus Christ and the Church in the Theologies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Stanley Hauerwas

Abstract

The church-world problematic has occupied a prominent place in modern theology and church life. However, the anemic ecclesial imagination of much of modern Protestantism has left it ill-equipped to engage the issue. This dissertation proposes that the theologies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Stanley Hauerwas provide a rich and complementary set of resources for aiding the contemporary church in negotiating the complexities of its relationship to the modern world. Through their de-theorizing of Christology and focus upon the particular identity of Jesus Christ, both Bonhoeffer and Hauerwas are able to recover the ethical and political character of the Christian faith. The apocalyptic and participatory character of their Christologies provides the grounds for the recovery of a robust conception of the identity and mission of the church. The church is not an add-on or afterthought for either man, but rather is internal to the Gospel itself. The ecclesiological density of their thought, which stems from their radical Christological concentration, allows for a different orientation to the church-world problematic than the predominant approaches to the problem in modernity. On the basis of these central Christological and ecclesiological convictions, the theologies of Bonhoeffer and Hauerwas are, at different points, able to helpfully serve as a correction and supplement to one another.