Heart of the World, Center of the Church: Communio Ecclesiology, Liberalism, and Liberation

by David L. Schindler

Publishers:

T&T Clark; Eerdmans

, 1996

Overview

Today, 30 years after the Second Vatican Council, there can be little doubt that the notion of communion is at the center of Catholicism’s renewed understanding of the Church. In Heart of the World, Center of the Church David L. Schindler shows that communion is also at the heart of the Church’s worldly mission. Invoking God’s spousal relation to the world, Schindler argues that the Church’s answer to the question of worldly freedom is nothing less than its own communion. Yet the claim that the Church promotes the “legitimate autonomy of earthly realities” by penetrating the world with its own intimate reality is hardly a matter of arcane speculation. Heart of the World, Center of the Church develops its thesis in critical dialogue with Western (especially Anglo-American) liberalism, whose ascendancy especially after the events of 1989 poses a host of urgent questions for the Church. Examining liberalism in politics, economics, and the academy, Schindler exposes its inadequate theology of human freedom and “worldly” autonomy, while suggestion how communion both transforms and protects freedom and autonomy in their varied cultural expressions. In the spirit of Pope John Paul II’s call for a “new evangelization,” Schindler contributes to what the Pope himself has strongly reaffirmed as “the positive value of an authentic theology of integral human liberation.” (Centesimus Annus, 26) Anyone concerned with the problem of nature and grace or with the Church’s engagement with culture in a contemporary context will find this book not only a useful resource but also a spur to further reflection.

Product Details

• Title: Heart of the World, Center of the Church: Communio Ecclesiology, Liberalism, and Liberation
• Author: David L. Schindler
• Publishers: T&T Clark, Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 1996
• Logos Release Date: 2016
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Church and the world; Church; Jesus Christ › Person and offices; Catholic Church › Doctrines
• ISBNs: 9780802839855, 0567085414, 0802839851, 9780567085412
• Resource ID: LLS:HRTWRLDCNTCHRCH
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T20:02:08Z

About David L. Schindler

David L. Schindler is Edouard Cardinal Gagnon Professor of Fundamental Theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America, Washington DC. He is also the author of Love Alone Is Credible: Hans Urs Von Balthasar as Interpreter of the Catholic Tradition, Heart of the World, Center of the Church, and Ordering Love.