Sakramentele kerkwees herontdek

Abstract

Rediscovering a Sacramental Ecclesiology The demise of a participatory world view – characterized in this article as a world view of transcendence in immanence – has had far reaching consequences for the understanding of the church, the embodiment par excellence of transcendence in immanence. This article traces the radical separation of transcendence and immanence with special reference to the influence it has had on ecclesiological understanding by contrasting it with the sacramental, participatory world view of the first millennium of the church’s existence. The central claim of the article is that the rediscovery and subsequent recovery of a truly sacramental understanding of the church is of vital importance to the current context, characterized as it is by schisms and seemingly irreconcilable antagonisms. Such a recovery would not entail an impossible return to premodern times, but would encompass the inflected, interpretive performance of salient themes from the time prior to the advent of modernity.