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This volume brings together the prestigious speakers at the inaugural Church in Our Times Lecture Series at Liverpool Hope, throughout the first 4 months of 2006, and invited contributors from and addressing wider international contexts - Africa, Sri Lanka, India and the United States. The volume explores themes such as questions of ecclesial and religious identity in these post-modern times, the advent of neo-exclusivism, divisions within the contemporary Roman Catholic and Anglicans churches, inter-faith relations and dialogue, questions of sexuality and Christian ministry, contemporary understandings of ecclesial authority, teaching and tradition, the inter-relation between the church and the kingdom of God today, an Asian appraisal of Pope Benedict''s first sermon, inculturation and the rhetoric and reality of the notion of Church as Christianity''s most distinctive and defining feature and constructive proposals for ecumenical ways forward in the future. The commonality and coherence of the papers, along with the manner in which a number of them together contribute towards making a cumulative case upon similar issues of concern for the ''church in our times'', constitute a major strength of this collection. This volume will interest faculty and students engaged in the study of the contemporary church, ecumenism, global Christianity, secularity and inter-religious dialogue, as well as appealing to ministers and pastors as well as the general reader excited by the most pressing debates pertaining to the church in these times.
List of contents
Ecclesiological Investigations: A New International Research Network - Gerard Mannion
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Foreword: Church: The Distinctive and Definitive Idea of Christianity - Keith Ward
Introduction: Church and the Grace of Otherness: Exploring Questions of Truth, Unity and Diversity - Gerard Mannion
Part I. Ecumenical and Pluralist Contexts and Questions
Ecumenical Questions on Women and Church - Phyllis Zagano
The Whole Household of God (oikos): Some Ecclesiological Perspectives - Ernst Conradie
Culture, Worship and Power: A Cast Study of South India - Paul M. Collins
The Quest for Pakistani Christian Identity: A narrative of Religious Other as Liberative comparative Ecclesiology - John O'Brien
Christianity, Feminism and the Religious Other: Beyond Eurocentrism - Jenny Daggers
Roman Catholicism and its Religious 'Others': Contemporary Challenges - Gerard Mannion
Part II. Church, Inclusivity and Diversity
A Community of the question: Inclusive Ecclesiology - Steven Shakespeare
'Being Nice in Church': rituals of Propriety and the Sin of Oblivion - Mary McClintock Fulkerson
The Eucharist: A Meal with Friends - Steve Summers
'By Schisms Rent Asunder, By Heresies Distrest': Anglicanism after the Windsor Report - Mark Chapman
Church: Law, Community and Witness - George Pattison
Part III. Constructive Explorations for the Future
Should the Church Change? - Bernard Hoose
The Church Theologian and the Kingdom of God: An Uneasy Relationship? Some Musings - David McLoughlin
Dialogue as Tradition: The Collective Journey towards Truth - Jayne Hoose
A Question of Balance: Unity and Diversity in the Life and Mission of the Church - Ola Tjohorn
Hoping to Learn: An Approach to Ecclesiology - Kenneth Wilson
Index
About the author
Gerard Mannion is Director of the Centre for Catholic Thought and Culture and Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego, USA.
