Browsing by Author "Smith, J Warren"

Abstract

The inability of black and white Christians to bear compelling and sustained witness to God’s love and justice in American society is reminiscent of Churchill’s sentiment concerning Russia: it is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” This thesis seeks to explore how black leaders can faithfully engage a younger generation of black Christians who have grown increasingly frustrated with the American Church, specifically the lack of robust commitment to the liberation of black voices and bodies in the struggle against white racism. Additionally, it attempts to challenge all Christian leaders to reimagine the important work of liberation and reconciliation with this perspective in view.Based on engagement of mostly primary sources, this research delves into the remarkably relevant influences of James H. Cone and J. Deotis Roberts to the current intergenerational and interracial work before Christians in America today. I will argue that Cone’s revolutionary insight has been proven true: black rage against oppression is a very human reaction against unfreedom. Rebellion, in various forms, is a natural response to sustained systemic and structural violence against an oppressed people. However, I will also show that Roberts’ work offers a more inclusive and methodical approach to Christian unity in this perennial struggle. Cone’s liberating insight, balanced with Robert’s scriptural mandate of reconciliation between equals, still provides hope for solution-driven intergenerational and interracial dialogue and action for Christians.

The following thesis addresses an issue in ways of knowing that is both commonand destructive in the contemporary American context. Specifically, the issue of misunderstood anthropologies is posited to be an unnecessary destructive force against American churches already in decline. This damage is caused by wooden and polarizing theological and evolutionary anthropologies that underlie the basis of how many define themselves. This project endeavors to show that theological and evolutionary anthropologies are not necessarily adversarial. To this end, the theological anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa as described in On the Making of Man (de Hominis Opificio) and the evolutionary anthropology as described by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man are defined and compared. These seminal yet still authoritative works are shown to be making different statements about humanity’s coming into being, more so than confrontational ones. The lack of mutual exclusivity between these two anthropologies is heightened by a number of interesting points of connection between them, such as reason being the definitive characteristics of humanity as well as the notion that humanity is continually becoming a more good creature. These ideas will serve to remove barriers of belief for many, all the while providing for a more holistic view of the origins of humanity and thus humanity’s place in the world.

When the Roman Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus—better known to many as Julian the Apostate—perished on a Persian battlefield in 363 CE, his efforts to turn back the Christianizing currents of the Roman Empire died with him. In the final decades of the fourth century, subsequent Christian emperors only further solidified the political and social status of Christianity. Julian’s intellectual challenges, however, lingered longer. In the 420s, Cyril, the new bishop of Alexandria, composed a colossal response to one of Julian’s final compositions, the anti-Christian Against the Galileans. My dissertation is a study of Cyril’s little-examined and untranslated text, known as Against Julian, and of the intellectual conflict that he and Julian engaged.Drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre’s analysis of conflict between strong traditions, I argue that the rivalry that obtains between Julian and Cyril is “narrative conflict.” Close reading reveals that Julian and Cyril did not share adequate criteria by which their most central intellectual disagreements could be adjudicated, and as a result their arguments most fundamentally disputed the details of the narrative backdrops to their traditions and rationalities. Neither of their texts are narratives per se, but the implicit framework that makes their arguments intelligible lie in their respective maximal narratives. Through philosophical arguments, historical vignettes, ad hominem insults, and more, Julian and Cyril each attempted to outnarrate their rival—they tried, that is, to reconstrue “episodes” from their rival’s tradition-constitutive narrative as episodes in their own tradition’s narrative. The first chapter opens with an illustrative case study of narrative conflict, focusing on Julian’s and Cyril’s competing and confident interpretations of an exceedingly vague biblical text. It then explains the conceptual apparatus of traditions, rationality, and narrative, before introducing the details of Julian’s and Cyril’s contexts and texts, and the relevant larger questions in scholarship on late antiquity. The second chapter is entirely devoted to a comprehensive, narrative-conflict analysis of Julian’s Against the Galileans, the rhetorical heft of which has regularly been overlooked by Julian’s modern readers. Chapters 3 through 5 focus on Cyril’s arguments in Against Julian, with Chapter 3 tracing key features of the narrative backdrop to Cyril’s arguments, and Chapters 4 and 5 focusing on clusters of renarrated “episodes.” These latter two chapters track how Cyril rebuts Julian’s attempts to subsume Christian episodes within the Hellenic narrative and how he simultaneously dislodges episodes from Julian’s narrative and re-explains them on Christian terms. The concluding chapter introduces Cyril’s Against Nestorius as a point of comparison with Against Julian—the striking formal similarities between Cyril’s two polemical texts provide a backdrop against which the features of his inter-tradition conflict with Julian stand out even more clearly, by contrast to his intra-tradition conflict with his fellow bishop, Nestorius. The comparison further clarifies the dynamics of intellectual conflict between narratives—dynamics which I then enumerate before, finally, concluding with suggestions about the implications of my study for scholarship not just on Julian and Cyril, but on the relationship between their respective traditions, Hellenism and Christianity.

This study takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine the relationship

between sport and spiritual formation. By inviting to the conversation contributions

from sociological research, personal narratives, biblical themes and philosophical

arguments, it aims to examine how voluntary suffering in sport could provide a context

conducive to spiritual growth. Rather than look at physical engagement in sport and

spiritual formation as unrelated domains of pursuit, we will map the contours where the

two converge and even stimulate one another. We will analyze courage as a unique

quality fit for cultivation in suffering, and positions it as an integral part of living out

faith, hope and love. This study seeks to address the rigidity that is prevalent in the way

Christians think of spirituality and deepen the conversation as it relates to formative

frameworks in athletics.

St. Ambrose of Milan led the church to seek ministry with the poor as a mark of virtuous Christian life. With an emphasis on the sacrament of holy baptism, Ambrose demonstrated how to reciprocate God’s love by clarifying the poor as treasures in God’s economy.

While there is great reason to laud its innovative economic development and valiant leadership, this research shows how the Roman Empire failed humanity with exploitive treatment of the poor. Likewise, this research exemplifies how Ambrose’s pedagogical leadership exposes the church’s failure to lead, paving a road of justice for the poor with equality, charity, and sacrificial giving.

This thesis argues Ambrose sought to contextually reframe the church’s understanding of incarnational leadership as a form of liberality. Ambrose’s On Joseph sermon revealed the threat of prodigality and greed when Joseph is faced with his own leadership power in the pit, in the prison, and in the palace. The thesis provides substantial evidence how God’s justice and Joseph’s leadership grounded in liberality create space for grace and empathy in family relations, human social consciousness, and community economic empowerment. This work argues that Ambrose’s exemplary contextual reframing of church resources and ministry practices proves as a model for philanthropic leadership against the unintended practice of toxic charity. This work also illustrates strategic practices to identify toxic charity and to embrace a virtuous life of giving. Furthermore, this research exhibits how the virtue of liberality plays an impactful role in philanthropic traditions as strong pillars in Christian ministry today.

St. Ambrose of Milan led the church to seek ministry with the poor as a mark of virtuous Christian life. With an emphasis on the sacrament of holy baptism, Ambrose demonstrated how to reciprocate God’s love by clarifying the poor as treasures in God’s economy.

While there is great reason to laud its innovative economic development and valiant leadership, this research shows how the Roman Empire failed humanity with exploitive treatment of the poor. Likewise, this research exemplifies how Ambrose’s pedagogical leadership exposes the church’s failure to lead, paving a road of justice for the poor with equality, charity, and sacrificial giving.

This thesis argues Ambrose sought to contextually reframe the church’s understanding of incarnational leadership as a form of liberality. Ambrose’s On Joseph sermon revealed the threat of prodigality and greed when Joseph is faced with his own leadership power in the pit, in the prison, and in the palace. The thesis provides substantial evidence how God’s justice and Joseph’s leadership grounded in liberality create space for grace and empathy in family relations, human social consciousness, and community economic empowerment. This work argues that Ambrose’s exemplary contextual reframing of church resources and ministry practices proves as a model for philanthropic leadership against the unintended practice of toxic charity. This work also illustrates strategic practices to identify toxic charity and to embrace a virtuous life of giving. Furthermore, this research exhibits how the virtue of liberality plays an impactful role in philanthropic traditions as strong pillars in Christian ministry today.

This dissertation examines the development of ideas about human nature and perfection in late East Syriac Christian thought through the writings of Bābai the Great (c. 551-628). It argues that Bābai develops an East Syrian approach to transformative participation in God that allows his theology to be seen as a localized analogue to deification. In terms of intellectual history, I also show how Bābai’s writings consistently use other late ancient sciences to construct his theological anthropology, especially Greek medicine and philosophy transmitted into Syriac through the work of an active translation movement. Bābai wrote at a significant stage in the development of Christian theology, practices, and institutions in the Sasanian Empire. As a monastic and ecclesial leader, he played a central role in this process during his lifetime and through the influence of his writings on later generations. For this reason, Bābai’s writings demonstrate important developments in dyophysite or Antiochene theological anthropology and reflect currents in the vibrant intellectual atmosphere of late ancient Mesopotamia.

First, I show how Bābai’s formal Christological theory of two hypostases (qnōmē) in a union of person (parṣōpā) allows him to develop a dyophysite version of the exchange of properties. The human nature of Jesus receives everything of divinity except nature. But Bābai applies this exchange asymmetrically, likely due to his opponents who appeared to endanger the transcendence of God. Second, I trace how Bābai’s dyophysite emphasis on preserving the order of nature licenses his use of medical knowledge for theology. Bābai uses late ancient biology to analyze the delayed ensoulment of Christ in the womb while defending his Christological theory. In doing so, he argues for the near non-separability of body and soul. Moreover, his use of biology indicates that Bābai is one of the earliest instances of East Syrian medicalization in theology, a development usually placed later in the 7th century. Third, Bābai’s conflicts with competing ascetic groups claiming perfection in this life allowed him to develop a dialectic of preparatory natural perfection leading to superadded eschatological perfection. By re-reading the work of Evagrius of Pontus against his opponents, Bābai outlines the ascetic and sacramental path of progress in this life and the gift of spiritual perfection in the next. Finally, I argue that Bābai’s idea of the resurrection reflects his ideas about the transformation that human nature undergoes in participation in God. His understanding of the resurrection body preserves specific lineaments of human form while also indicating their healing and suffusion with divine light. In discussing the resurrection body, Bābai also offers an idiosyncratic argument that the wounds of Christ in Jn 20.20 were a temporary but real miracle. In sum, Bābai reflects a significant development of earlier traditions of East Syrian towards a robust theology of human perfection in which human nature is transformed by participation in God.

“Investigating Contemplative Christian Spirituality as Christian Formation through a Process Hermeneutic: an analysis of History, Evolution, and Neuroscience in Christian Meditation” argues that a contemplative approach to contemporary Christianity may serve to deepen the formation and discipleship of Christians in a manner that endeavors to shape the worldview and the epistemological lens through which followers of Jesus experience life in this world. This thesis offers a social and theological critique that addresses a failure in Christian formation by considering obstacles to intimacy with God created by common ecclesial pedagogical approaches that neglect the experiential and the intellectual dimensions of the faith journey due to outmoded cosmological models and a lack of dialogue with neuroscientific research on the human brain. Considering theologians in the early, medieval, and modern church who have cultivated approaches to experiential understandings of faith through meditation, this thesis argues that contemplative practice in dialogue with a theology of process may provide a necessary vocabulary for the future vitality of Christian discipleship. Rooting a theological methodology in the ‘evolutionary’ perspective proposed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, in concert with findings at the intersection of religion and neuroscience, this thesis finds that convincing biological and theological warrants exist for incorporating meditation into paradigms for Christian formation.

“Investigating Contemplative Christian Spirituality as Christian Formation through a Process Hermeneutic: an analysis of History, Evolution, and Neuroscience in Christian Meditation” argues that a contemplative approach to contemporary Christianity may serve to deepen the formation and discipleship of Christians in a manner that endeavors to shape the worldview and the epistemological lens through which followers of Jesus experience life in this world. This thesis offers a social and theological critique that addresses a failure in Christian formation by considering obstacles to intimacy with God created by common ecclesial pedagogical approaches that neglect the experiential and the intellectual dimensions of the faith journey due to outmoded cosmological models and a lack of dialogue with neuroscientific research on the human brain. Considering theologians in the early, medieval, and modern church who have cultivated approaches to experiential understandings of faith through meditation, this thesis argues that contemplative practice in dialogue with a theology of process may provide a necessary vocabulary for the future vitality of Christian discipleship. Rooting a theological methodology in the ‘evolutionary’ perspective proposed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, in concert with findings at the intersection of religion and neuroscience, this thesis finds that convincing biological and theological warrants exist for incorporating meditation into paradigms for Christian formation.

Since his death in 1988, Hans Urs von Balthasar has become one of the 20th century’s most widely read theologians. His constructive theological work has won recognition among an ecumenically diverse array of scholars, especially in the Anglophone world. But his name has long been just as familiar to the field of early Christian studies. That guild remembers Balthasar less for his later works of speculative theology than his triptych of early studies on the Greek Fathers: Origen of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor. These books remain important monuments in the history of modern scholarship on patristic literature, but they are just as often remembered for betraying more about their author’s own thought than that of their ostensible subjects. Judging by their current reputation, Balthasar’s patristic studies would seem to represent little more than artifacts of a bygone era in which eisegesis could still pass for historical research.

This dissertation limns a portrait of Balthasar at once more charitable and more critical than such recent scholarship has been able to sketch. More charitable because it mounts a defense of Balthasar’s habit of bringing his own theological convictions to bear upon the task of interpreting (late) ancient texts, and does so by showing that such prejudices are not only inescapable but indispensable to understanding the past. More critical because it does not simply cavil at the supposed anachronism of interpreting (late) ancient texts in light of theological commitments often far removed from the historical context in which the sources were situated, but rather questions the content of Balthasar’s convictions themselves.

Chapter 1 makes progress toward a more charitable reading of Balthasar’s early work by outlining a “dialectical” theory of tradition in dialogue with two bodies of literature: 1) modern scholarship on the 4th century Greek theologian Gregory of Nyssa; 2) the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, whose concept of “historically effected consciousness” (wirkungsgeschichtlichen Bewußtseins) proves essential to a specifically Christian account of tradition but ultimately inadequate to the content of its most peculiar confessions. Chapter 2 moves toward a more critical reading of the same by first identifying the particular set of theological prejudices in light of which Balthasar practiced his retrievals of the Christian past, before then demonstrating that and how these commitments to a broadly Thomistic metaphysics of the “analogy of being” (analogia entis) shaped his several essays on Gregory of Nyssa himself. Chapter 3 questions whether Gregory’s texts can really bear such a theological burden, or whether—as Balthasar himself worries at crucial moments throughout his career—the Greek patristic tradition doesn’t tend in precisely the opposite direction. Away from an “analogical” model of the relationship between God and world, that is, towards a more “dialectical” account of Christ’s retroactive transfiguration of creation as a whole. So it is that Chapter 3 substantiates the metaphysical vision broached in Chapter 1, but does so in response to the hermeneutical program assayed in Chapter 2. The result is a more or less coherent argument about the form and content of historical theology in the Christian tradition.

The New Testament contains two important and potentially conflicting understandings of resurrection. One integrates resurrection into salvation, suggesting that it is restricted to the righteous; this view is found most prominently in the Pauline epistles. The other understands resurrection as a prerequisite for eschatological judgment and therefore explicitly extends it to all; this view is found most prominently in the book of Revelation. In the former, moral transformation is part of the process that results in resurrection; in the latter, moral transformation only affects what comes after resurrection, not the event of resurrection itself. The New Testament itself provides no account of how to hold together these understandings of resurrection and moral transformation.

This dissertation is an investigation of the ways in which second- and third-century Christian authors creatively struggled to bring together these two understandings. I select key authors who are not only important in the history of early Christian discussions of resurrection but who also make extensive use of the Pauline epistles. For each author, I investigate not only how they develop or resist the Pauline connection between resurrection and moral transformation but also how they relate that connection to the doctrine of the resurrection of all to face judgment found in Revelation (if they do at all).

The results are remarkably diverse. Irenaeus develops the Pauline connection between resurrection and moral transformation through the Spirit of God but fails to account for the resurrection of those who do not receive that Spirit in this life (although affirming that resurrection nonetheless). Tertullian begins from the model that takes resurrection to be fundamentally a prerequisite for judgment and struggles to account for Paul's connections between resurrection and salvation. Two Valentinian texts, the Treatise on the Resurrection and the Gospel of Philip, adopt the Pauline model to the exclusion of the resurrection of the wicked. Origen connects resurrection to moral transformation in yet another way, making it an event that pedagogically reflects the moral transformation of all rational creatures--whether for the better or worse. For Methodius of Olympus, the resurrection of the body produces the moral transformation that is the eradication of the entrenched inclination to sin, but the moral transformation in this life that is the resistance of the promptings of that entrenched inclination produces reward after the resurrection. In each case, strategies for holding together the two views found in the New Testament reveal the fundamental theological commitments underlying the author's overall understanding of resurrection.

The following work explores identity from overlapping vantage points; biblical/theological, historical and practical to establish a robust understanding of identity in our present time. This thesis explores the ontological elements of God and the meaning of “image bearer” through Scripture in Genesis 1-2; Psalm 8; an overview of Wisdom Literature in Job and Ecclesiastes; and the New Testament in Ephesians and Colossians. From a historical view, this thesis focuses on the work of St. Augustine and how humanity was “naturally created” in the imago Dei. Even those that are not Christ followers share in the imago Dei, as hidden as it may be, to be discovered and set free. Through this process, we see holiness (in contradistinction to morality) as foundational to our existence and reflective of God. Holiness is expressed through love in its proper order. For Augustine, our love of God conditions our love for all other things. This establishes an objective starting point, fundamental to all Christians, a proper understanding and embodiment of the Great Commandment. Finally, by practically applying a fresh understanding of one’s identity, humanity has an opportunity to thrive by acknowledging the positive implications of the embracing and embodiment of the imago Dei.The primary methodology of this thesis is through interpreting Scripture in light of the question, “what does it mean to be created in the imago Dei?” Using the work of the early Church Fathers such as Ambrose and Augustine give interpretive grounding to passages in both Old and New Testaments. Reading both primary and secondary sources on the imago Dei and its impact upon humankind and specifically the Church. Lastly, incorporating and integrating the work of modern psychology in understanding the modern person in light of the creative work of God in the beginning to our current day.

The following work explores identity from overlapping vantage points; biblical/theological, historical and practical to establish a robust understanding of identity in our present time. This thesis explores the ontological elements of God and the meaning of “image bearer” through Scripture in Genesis 1-2; Psalm 8; an overview of Wisdom Literature in Job and Ecclesiastes; and the New Testament in Ephesians and Colossians. From a historical view, this thesis focuses on the work of St. Augustine and how humanity was “naturally created” in the imago Dei. Even those that are not Christ followers share in the imago Dei, as hidden as it may be, to be discovered and set free. Through this process, we see holiness (in contradistinction to morality) as foundational to our existence and reflective of God. Holiness is expressed through love in its proper order. For Augustine, our love of God conditions our love for all other things. This establishes an objective starting point, fundamental to all Christians, a proper understanding and embodiment of the Great Commandment. Finally, by practically applying a fresh understanding of one’s identity, humanity has an opportunity to thrive by acknowledging the positive implications of the embracing and embodiment of the imago Dei.The primary methodology of this thesis is through interpreting Scripture in light of the question, “what does it mean to be created in the imago Dei?” Using the work of the early Church Fathers such as Ambrose and Augustine give interpretive grounding to passages in both Old and New Testaments. Reading both primary and secondary sources on the imago Dei and its impact upon humankind and specifically the Church. Lastly, incorporating and integrating the work of modern psychology in understanding the modern person in light of the creative work of God in the beginning to our current day.

This thesis endeavors to understand and analyze the issue of hierarchy in the leadership structure of the Korean Methodist Church by using the lens of the Reformed Tradition. There are both pros and cons to its structure, for these not only helped the Korean Methodist Church to grow rapidly in a short period of time, but also brought about problems such as secularization or classism. Interestingly, in examining church history, the same issue of hierarchy emerges at the center of its leadership structure. Several factors have affected the development of a hierarchical structure within the church. Although these factors have varied depending on the cultural, periodical, and situational circumstances, the common thread is how the churches have utilized them to their benefit. This thesis first explores the original grounds and meanings of church offices by visiting their biblical and historical grounds. Second, it offers a broad survey of church history, especially in the early and medieval church. By examining church offices in history, one can see how these have developed and functioned to strengthen churches' power and authority, eventually bringing the 16th-century reformation of the church. The Korean Methodist Church, which emerged from this Reformed tradition, faces the same dynamic of church leadership structure. By exploring this dynamic, one may better understand how to structure church leadership more fruitfully.

A precise definition for Christian spiritual formation is elusive and how it is described varies from one faith tradition to another. It also varies over periods of time, as a faith community meets the challenges which they encounter. One of the primary roles of pastoral leaders is to “make disciples” of Jesus Christ by communicating and embedding the essentials of the Christian faith into the lives of congregants and to evaluate the spiritual formation process, which guides them into spiritual maturity. Historically, methodologies concerning Christian spiritual formation have approached spiritual development in one of three ways: through ideas, through embodied habits and practices, or a combination of both.

This thesis traces spiritual formation in the African American Baptist tradition from the early twentieth century to modern time by using a typology which describes the combination of African American Baptist religious thoughts and ideas as well as the spiritual habits and practices they embodied. The spiritual formation types discussed are social, evangelical, and contemplative. Each spiritual formation type offers its own fundamental precepts from Christian Scripture, tradition, and doctrine and guides spiritual development towards a specific destination or purpose. The primary context for this research is African American Baptist churches; however, it will be drawing upon resources from the wider scope of Baptists in America and American Christianity. The questions raised in this thesis are whether there is a typology for spiritual formation that describes African American Baptist spirituality and is there a way to discern the spiritual formation types as useful indicators for guiding pastoral leadership, administration, and management. This thesis makes connections between the spiritual formation types and biblical leadership motifs in order to place spiritual formation into conversation with pastoral leadership, in hopes of discovering new ways to understand and serve the spiritual need of the congregation and community.

The methodology of this thesis employs qualitative research which includes church historical records, literary and scholarly journals, autobiographical resources, and contemporary internet source material. The theological approach taken in the thesis is to consider the hermeneutical lens that is being used by the pastoral leader, church, or Baptist organization and view the telos from their point of view. This thesis does not argue for one spiritual formation type over another but rather argues that African American Baptist spirituality utilizes all three types, most times simultaneously, but one is usually predominate with respect to the others. The claim that is made is that by discerning the spiritual formation type, pastoral leadership is empowered with insight on how to best guide and nurture spiritual formation in African American Baptist churches.

This thesis will address the role of nonverbal communication for clergy, while examining the impact such communication has on the ability of a congregation to most fully receive the gospel. My thesis contends that information shared by clergy is not received adequately by congregations when those providing these messages fail to understand the connection between content being offered, and the manner in which the content is delivered. My contention is not that communicating is merely a matter of technique; the Spirit works through our shortcomings as speakers to provide powerful messages which inspire transformation. Instead, my assertion is that we as clergy have a responsibility to embrace nonverbal communication practices that best serve to enhance reception of the good news, whether that communication is shared during a sermon, while teaching a class, participating in a meeting, or offering pastoral care.

Methodology to be employed during this work will draw together resources and experiences shared by communication consultants from my earlier employment as a television meteorologist, and research offered through texts related to nonverbal communication practices and the psychology of communication. Offerings from both early and contemporary church leaders will be included, as I seek to incorporate theology and homiletics related to nonverbal communication.

The primary conclusions of the study are 1) Oral communication is enhanced or subverted depending on the manner in which nonverbal communication accompanies the spoken word. 2) Nonverbal communication is transmitted in numerous ways, including facial expression, gestures, body posture, and eye contact. 3) Gender plays a role when interpreting nonverbal communication.

The challenge is the Roman Catholic Church's need for a bit more aggiornamento in the ecclesiology of parochial ministry. The persistent priest shortage has been met with provisional solutions, harboring hopes that increased ordinations of new presbyters would replenish the altars now empty. The restoration of the deacon in the United States has resulted in ordination of nearly eighteen thousand older Caucasian men to a service more attuned to the subordinated liturgical diaconate that fell into extinction a millennium ago. Instead, I believe that the model of the first deacons called to serve by the apostles to steward the temporal administration of the church shows this order's true calling, as personified by the great service of their medieval archdeacon successors. The challenge is to draw from this history a theology intended for the diaconate, seek out its canonical limitations and establish a new ecclesiology ready for implementation in praxis today.

In this work I will first explore today's challenges to ministry in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and the circumstances surrounding the priest shortage. A brief quantitative analysis of the church and its ordained ministers will be contrasted to the sociological trends they paralleled. Then the historical church legislation and the leaders that influenced it will be examined to ferret out theological and canonical possibilities and limitations for the restored diaconate's service. Analyzing the ordination, approved diaconate functions, and possible roles in a parish where a priest is not serving as pastor will be addressed by investigating Vatican II Conciliar documents, the codes of canon law, and guidelines from both church wide universal law and the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops.

In examining this history of the origin of the diaconate, its greatest success came in serving the temporal works of the church. The diaconate in theological and canonical terms suffers no divine legal blockades from being populated by a truer more experientially matched cross section of God's people in the pews. The possibilities for the role of the deacon in the future are married to the seriousness of the commitment to the permanence of its restoration; it is here that I propose the church must seek the theological possibilities for a more fully evolved sphere of ministry for the deacon and a canonical approach to a new ecclesiology implementing an ecclesiastical role for the deacon in the parish reporting to his bishop. The prescriptive elements will then seek out these supportive structures in order to insure beneficial orthopraxis in diaconal ministry. My conclusion is that the deacon can once again, as a phoenix rise or fall to ashes, raised by the ecclesiology of the Apostle's first calling of the seven to serve or left to fall as a subordinated solely liturgical order.

Church leaders, both lay and clergy, shape Christian community. Among their central tasks are: building communal identity, nurturing Christian practices, and developing faithful structures. When it comes to understanding the approach of the earliest Christian communities to these tasks, the Didache might well be the most important text most twenty-first century church leaders have never read. The Didache innovated on tradition, shaping the second generation of Christians to meet the crises and challenges of a changing world.

Most likely composed in the second half of the first century, the Didache served as a training manual for gentile converts to Christianity, preparing them for life in Christian community. This brief document, roughly one third the length of Mark’s gospel, developed within early Jewish-Christian communities. It soon found wide usage throughout the Mediterranean region, and its influence endured throughout the patristic and into the medieval period.

The Didache outlines emerging Christian practices that were rooted in both Jewish tradition and early Jesus material, yet were reaching forward in innovative ways. The Didache adopts historical teachings and practices and then adapts them for an evolving context. In this respect, the writers of the Didache, as well as the community shaped by its message, exemplify the pattern of thinking described by Greg Jones as “traditioned innovation.”

The Didache invites reflection on the shape and content of Christian community and Christian leadership in the twenty-first century. As churches and church leaders engage a rapidly changing world, the Didache is an unlikely and yet important conversation partner from two millennia ago. A quick read through its pages – a task accomplished in less than half an hour – brings the reader face to face with a brand of Christianity both very familiar and strikingly dissimilar to modern Christianity. Such dissonance challenges current assumptions about the church and creates a space in which to re-imagine our situation in light of this ancient Christian tradition. The Didache provides a window through which we might re-examine current conceptualizations of Christian life, liturgy, and leadership.

This thesis begins with an exploration of the form and function of the Didache and an examination of a number of important background issues for the informed study of the Didache. The central chapters of this thesis exegete and explore select passages in each of the three primary sections of the Didache – the Two Ways (Didache 1-6), the liturgical section (Didache 7-10), and the church order (Didache 11-15). In each instance, the composers of the Didache reach back into a cherished and life-giving aspect of the community’s heritage and shape it anew into a fresh and faithful approach to living the Christian life in a drastically different context.

The thesis concludes with three suggestions of how the Didache may provide a resource for the way the Church in the present thinks about training disciples, shaping community, and developing leadership structures. These conversation starters offer beginning points for a richer, fuller discussion of traditioned innovation in our current church context. The Didache provides a source of wisdom from our spiritual forebears that modern Christian leaders would do well not to ignore. With a look through the first century window of the Didache, twenty-first century Christians can discover fresh insights for shaping Christian community in the present.

Abstract

This thesis examines the ineffectiveness of the 21st century Church's work among the poor and reimagines this engagement through the lens of sermons given by Clement of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, and John Chrysostom. The Church is the most charitable entity on the planet, however, despite giving away hundreds of billions of dollars a year and investing considerable time and effort towards the work of social justice, circumstances for the poor remain largely unchanged. The patristic period in question represents a vital conversation partner because their ministry to the poor catalyzed a movement that yielded exponential growth within their churches and made them significant players in the socio-political landscape in the Greco-Roman world. This study engages three sermons delivered by these pastors as a means of garnering a more granular feel for the common life within the Church. This thesis considers explicitly their use of the gospel as the modus operandi for ecclesial and social change and how reimagining our witness though this lens can be a catalyst for renewal.