Justice, Unity, and the Hidden Christ: The Theopolitical Complex of the Social Justice Approach to Ecumenism in Vatican II

by Matthew John Paul Tan

Overview

Does social justice promote Christian unity? With reference to paragraph 12 of Unitatis Redintegratio--Vatican II's declaration on ecumenism--this book argues that an emphasis on justice and unity without proper consideration of social context actually risks obscuring a clear public declaration of Christ, by having Christians uncritically accept the presumptions that underpin the sociopolitical status quo. This constitutes a failure in Christian interpretation, the crux of which is a failure in ecclesiology. Matthew John Paul Tan suggests the beginnings of a corrective with reference to works by Pope Benedict XVI, theologians such as Graham Ward, and postmodern theorists like Michel Foucault. Ultimately, Tan invites the reader to begin considering how answering this seemingly simple question will implicate not only theology, but also philosophy and political theory, as well as considering the need for the church to engage in a bolder confessional politics in place of the politics of the public square often favored by Christian and non-Christian commentators.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630871185
Publisher:	Pickwick Publications
Publication date:	01/07/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	118
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Matthew John Paul Tan is the Felice and Margredel Zaccari Lecturer in Theology and Philosophy at Campion College Australia, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Western Tradition. Prior to this, he served as a Lecturer and Research Fellow at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology in DePaul University in Chicago. He received his doctorate in Political Theology at the Australian Catholic University, and his License in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He is also editor of the theological blog, "The Divine Wedgie," and is a regular contributor on the Sydney-based internet radio station, cradio.org.au.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

1 Unitatis Redintegratio and Vatican II's Engagement with Secular Culture 9

2 The Council, Its Presuppositions, and Postmodernity 27

3 Liberalism, Capitalism, Church, and Ecumenism: Nexus or Battlelines? 45

4 Leitourgia, Diakonia, and Oikumene 62

Conclusion 83

Bibliography 93

Index 101

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This represents a long-overdue critique of self-secularizing practices in post-conciliar Catholicism. Tan shows how conceptions of the autonomy of the secular have allowed Christian charitable works to be culturally outflanked in the secular sphere. He argues that if the ecclesiology of the church as chaplain to the capitalist order has relegated the body of Christ to merely a subsection of a public circumscribed by the state/society/market complex, then the body of Christ ought to be repositioned to become a public in its own right."
—Tracey Rowland, John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family

"Tan argues that the church must be embodied sacramentally as a 'public' in its own right—not a chaplain to society, but a wholesale alternative vision of society. Only within the context of such an alternative social order can projects of justice become meaningful Christian witness. This is an important and timely contribution to a theology of culture, and a provocative reassessment of the relation between word and deed in Christian witness."
—Benjamin Myers, Charles Sturt University, Sydney

Editorial Reviews

"This represents a long-overdue critique of self-secularizing practices in post-conciliar Catholicism. Tan shows how conceptions of the autonomy of the secular have allowed Christian charitable works to be culturally outflanked in the secular sphere. He argues that if the ecclesiology of the church as chaplain to the capitalist order has relegated the body of Christ to merely a subsection of a public circumscribed by the state/society/market complex, then the body of Christ ought to be repositioned to become a public in its own right."
—Tracey Rowland, John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family

"Tan argues that the church must be embodied sacramentally as a 'public' in its own right—not a chaplain to society, but a wholesale alternative vision of society. Only within the context of such an alternative social order can projects of justice become meaningful Christian witness. This is an important and timely contribution to a theology of culture, and a provocative reassessment of the relation between word and deed in Christian witness."
—Benjamin Myers, Charles Sturt University, Sydney

From the Publisher