Browsing by Author "Wainwright, Geoffrey"

This dissertation attempts to retrieve the integration of prayer and theology in the life of the church. Prayer is a spiritual and bodily theological activity that forms Christian identity and virtuous character. The bodily dimension of Christian prayer plays an essential role in theological understanding and moral formation. However, the embodiment of prayer has been mostly neglected in modern academic theology. This study highlights the significance of the body at prayer in theological studies and spiritual formation.

Chapter 1 presents Karl Barth’s theology of prayer as a model of the integration of prayer, theology, and Christian life (lex orandi, lex credendi, lex agendi). However, Barth’s attempt to overcome the dichotomy between theory and practice in theology did not pay much attention to embodiment of prayer. Through ritual studies and phenomenology (Marcel Mauss, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Pierre Bourdieu), chapter 2 shows why the bodily dimension of the practice of prayer should be recovered in theology and ministry; then it explains how Christians in the early and medieval church actually prayed with the body, how their bodily actions were understood in their theological paradigms, and how their actions contributed to the formation of Christian character. Chapter 3 narrows the focus to the formation of the heart in the making of Christian character. The practice of prayer has been emphasized not only as an expression of the inner heart of pray-ers but also as a channel of grace that shapes their affections as enduring dispositions of the heart. Furthermore, historically the bodily practice of prayer gave theological authority to the devout Christians who were marginalized in academic theology or ecclesiastical hierarchy, and Chapter 4 presents the lex orandi of praying women who gained their theological knowledge, wisdom, and authority through their exemplary practices of prayer (Catherine of Siena, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Teresa of Avila). These historical examples reveal how Christian communities appreciated and celebrated the theological voices from the margins, which developed from theological embodiments in prayer.

This dissertation concludes that academic theology needs to heed these diverse theological voices, which are nurtured through everyday practice, as an integral part of theological studies. Therefore, it calls for a new paradigm for understanding the relationship between theory and practice in theological education. The integration between theory and bodily practice is necessary for both academic theology and spiritual formation. A more holistic understanding of Christian practices will not only enhance the training of scholars and clergy but also give the laity their own theological voices that will enrich academic theology.

Eucharistic sacrifice is both a doctrine of the church and a sacramental practice. Doctrinally, it explains in what manner the sacrament is a sacrifice, or at least its sacrificial dimension; liturgically, it refers to the offering that is made in the church's celebration of the eucharist, that is, who and what is offered and by whom. Since the Reformation, Catholics and Protestants have been divided over of eucharistic sacrifice, and for most of its history after the death of the Wesleys, Methodism somewhat uncritically followed in the Protestant tradition. Now, after four decades of productive ecumenical dialogue, Catholics and Methodists seek to discern the points of convergence and divergence between them on this controversial doctrine. In short, where do Catholics and Methodists agree and disagree on eucharistic sacrifice? This dissertation is a work of systematic theology that draws from the insights of several related fields: liturgical theology, historical theology, sacramental theology, ecclesiology, and ecumenism. An investigation into what Catholics and Methodists have shared with each other to date in ecumenical dialogue serves to elucidate the state of affairs between the two churches. The traditioning voices of Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley provide instances of detailed teaching on eucharistic sacrifice. Aquinas' theology has continued to inform Catholic teaching, while Wesley's was largely forgotten in nineteenth century Methodism. His theology of eucharistic sacrifice anticipates significantly the convergence that the liturgical and ecumenical movements have achieved on this topic through their attention to the theology of the early church, yet only a handful of contemporary Methodist theologians have explored Wesley's theology of eucharistic sacrifice in detail, and fewer still from an ecumenical perspective. In recent decades, Catholic and Methodist churches have circulated official teaching on eucharistic sacrifice and made significant revisions to their eucharistic liturgies. An analysis of these texts demonstrates how each church currently articulates its doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice and celebrates it sacramentally. The analysis also allows for an assessment of the current degree of convergence between the two churches on eucharistic sacrifice. The conclusion is that, first, Methodism has begun to recover a strong doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice, and greater attention to its Wesleyan heritage can only strengthen it further. Second, the two churches share more on eucharistic sacrifice than is frequently appreciated; indeed, Methodism should recognize in Catholicism a doctrine and a liturgy with which it can fully agree. Third, eucharistic sacrifice necessitates a clearly-formulated ecclesiology, which is a topic in the dialogues where Catholics can continue to prompt Methodists for deeper reflection. Convergence on eucharistic sacrifice, if recognized by both churches, would constitute a significant step forward on the path to full communion between them.

This exercise in constructive Christian theology presents the relation between the testaments as a critical problematic for the figural reading of the Old Testament. The project consists of two parts, the first focusing on Augustine and Calvin, and the second primarily on the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The first part provides a typological comparison between Augustine and Calvin on the continuity and discontinuity of the testaments (chapters 1-2), the people of God across the testaments (chapter 3), and the purpose of Scripture in redemptive history (chapter 4). Augustine defines the unity of the testaments according to a sign-referent framework whereby the Old Testament signifies the New. Calvin, on the other hand, locates this unity in the one covenant, grounded in Christ across the testaments. Since Augustine thinks the grace of the New Testament was veiled before the time of Christ, he asserts the necessity of interpreting the Old Testament according to two levels of meaning: the literal and the spiritual. Since Calvin thinks both the Old and New Testaments reveal the knowledge of God, he restricts interpretation to the literal sense, though this sense can have multiple referents: Israel, Christ, the church, and the eschaton. Each figure struggles to account for Israel and the Old Testament saints. For Augustine, the saints belonged to the New Testament as they mediated the Old. Calvin alternately identifies Israel as the church during Old Testament times, and the Old Testament saints as redemptive-historical aberrations.

The second part draws upon this typological comparison to consider the Epistle to the Hebrews with reference to its depiction of redemptive history (chapter 5), its appropriation of the Psalms (chapter 6), and its overarching vision of Scripture (chapter 7). Hebrews locates the discontinuity between the testaments in the establishment of Christ as high priest, and the continuity in a common people and a common hope for an eternal inheritance. The author interprets the Psalms neither according to two levels of meaning, nor within an expansive literal sense, but as a living word of address whereby God speaks directly to his people. Old Testament locutions retain their illocutionary force, but adopt new valence in light of Christ. The authority of Scripture, then, rests not in some historically reconstructed sense, but in God's self-communicative act in the redemptive-historical present.