Beschreibung
This study confronts the current crisis of churches. In critical and creative conversation with the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), Ulrich Schmiedel argues that churches need to be elasticized in order to engage the other. Examining contested concepts of religiosity, community, and identity, Schmiedel explores how the closure of church against the sociological other corresponds to the closure of church against the theological other. Taking trust as a central category, he advocates for a turn in the interpretation of Christianityfrom propositional possession to performative project, so that the identity of Christianity is done rather than described. Through explorations of classical and contemporary scholarship in philosophy, sociology, and theology, Schmiedel retrieves Troeltschs interdisciplinary thinking for use in relation to the controversies that encircle the construction of community today. The study opens up innovative and instructive approaches to the investigation of the practices of Christianity, past and present. Eventually, church emerges as a work in movement, continually constituted through encounters with the sociological and the theological other.
Autorenporträt
Ulrich Schmiedel received his DPhil from the University of Oxford, UK. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in systematic theology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany. His research, located at the intersection of theology, sociology, and philosophy, concentrates on the critical purport and creative potential of contemporary Christianity. He has published in a number of international journals. Recently, he co-edited Dynamics of Difference: Christianity and Alterity.
Herstellerkennzeichnung:
Springer Verlag GmbH
Tiergartenstr. 17
69121 Heidelberg
DE
E-Mail: juergen.hartmann@springer.com
