God's Grace in post-Christendom Societies: Edward Schillebeeckx's Christology for an unapologetic public theology

This dissertation examines the relevance of Edward Schillebeeckx’s Christology for the question of Christianity’s political role in a post-Christendom context. I approach the question from a Christian theological perspective insofar as it relates to discussions about nature and grace as well as to Christology. My contribution consists in constructing an alternative response to the presently most prominent and contrasting ones provided by contemporary British public theology on the one hand, and Radical Orthodoxy on the other. Whilst appreciative of public theology’s awareness that the contemporary post-Christendom context deserves particular theological attention, I draw on Radical Orthodoxy in order to criticise public theological justifications of Christianity’s political relevance in secular terms. Contemporary British public theologians, operating from within the liberal Protestant tradition, risk believing in secularism’s neutrality and therefore not only accommodating the Christian tradition to secularist expectations but also maintaining a version of Western dominance. This dissertation thus takes up the more valuable public theological intuition that Christianity’s public relevance in a post-Christendom context could equally be justified on the basis of a theological understanding of grace. Since theological discussions of grace have not yet been sufficiently developed within the emerging discipline, I build on Radical Orthodox theologians, who, at present, most prominently demonstrate the political relevance of theological discussions of nature and grace. The remaining problems with Radical Orthodoxy are associated with their respective conflation of Christ into the church, to the effect that the church’s active participation in the world’s redemption is stressed at the expense of the church’s dependence on Christ’s grace. Consequently, I draw on the Christology of John Howard Yoder who provides considerable theological reasons for the rejection of any kind of Christendom, but whose understanding of grace shares similar problems with that of Radical Orthodoxy. Kathryn Tanner’s Christology is then presented, since it most coherently stresses the church’s sinfulness and continuous dependence on Christ’s grace; an emphasis that remains underdeveloped in all other accounts introduced thus far. Altogether, this critical assessment of contemporary British public theology’s, Radical Orthodoxy’s, Yoder’s, and Tanner’s respective understandings of Christianity’s role in a post-Christendom public paves the way for my own constructive work. This consists in systematically elaborating how Edward Schillebeeckx’s engagement with the surrounding public of his time exhibited a certain understanding of grace in terms of mercy. Arguing from the perspective of an ontological vision that bears great similarities with a Radical Orthodox ontology of peace, Schillebeeckx at the same time shared public theology’s rejection of any remnant of Christendom. I argue that he was able to balance the two because he understood grace as pure positivity, which is, however, mediated by the church as well as by the extra-ecclesial public to a similarly imperfect degree. This interpretation of the extra-ecclesial public as mediating God’s mercy for the redirection of a sinful church to God, and of the church as being called to approach the extra-ecclesial public failures with mercy, should be retrieved for a contemporary public theology.status: publishe