Who Is the Church?: An Ecclesiology for the Twenty-First Century

by Cheryl M. Peterson

Overview

Many congregations today are beset by fears, whether over loss of members and money, or of irrelevancy in an increasingly pluralistic society. To counter this, many congregations focus on strategy and purpose—what churches “do”—but Cheryl Peterson submits that mainline churches need to focus instead on “what” or “who” they are—to reclaim a theological, rather than sociological, understanding of themselves.

To do this, she places the questions of the church’s identity and mission into a conversation with the primary ecclesiological paradigms of the past century: the neo-Reformation concept of the church as a “word event” and the ecumenical paradigms of the church as “communion.” She argues that these two paradigms assume a context of cultural Christendom that no longer exists—focused on the church that is gathered—rather than the missional church that is sent out.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451426380
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	05/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	313 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Cheryl M. Peterson is associate professor of systematic theology at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. Her scholarly works include contributions to Transformative Lutheran Theologies: Feminist, Womanist, and Mujerista Perspectives (Fortress Press, 2010) and Critical Issues in Ecclesiology (2011), in addition to numerous articles for professional journals.