This article takes Pope Francis’ call for ‘a poor church’ in Evangelii Gaudium as a starting point for an ecclesiology of vulnerable mission for the church. Drawing from biblical, patristic, and theological sources, the article proposes two theses on the church of the poor, and links these theses with a new model of a vulnerable mission which reflects a humble, servant church which embodies in her teachings and in her inner life and external activities the priorities and practices of Christ in walking with the poor. The paper uses a biblical analysis of the first proclamation of the Lord in the Synoptic Gospels to show that an ecclesiology of vulnerable mission is a way of being church which can help transform the social context. It advances some theological steps which the theologian and the faith communities can take in becoming actively and prophetically involved in co-operating with God in bringing about in particular and group histories the eschatological fruits of God’s kingdom.
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Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (Vatican City: Vatican Press, 2013), n. 198
Anne Hunt, ‘The Trinitarian Depths of Vatican II’, Theological Studies, 74 (2013), p. 3.
Hunt, p. 8.
See Raniero Cantalamessa, Poverty (New York: St Pauls/Alba House, 1997), p. xi; see also J. F. Kavanaugh, Faces of Christ (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991); see also Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil, ‘Discourse on the Poor in the Psalms: Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos’, in Meditations of the Heart: The Psalms in Early Christian Thought and Practice, ed. A. Andreopoulos, A. Casidy and C. Harrison (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2011), p. 188.
Jill Jacobs, There Shall be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009), pp. 50–51.
Elsa Tamez, ‘Poverty, the Poor, and the Option for the Poor: A Biblical Perspective’, in The Option for the Poor in Christian Theology, ed. Daniel Groody (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), p. 33.
Jacobs, op. cit., p. 57.
Michael D. Guinan (ed.), Gospel Poverty: Essays in Biblical Theology (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1977), p. 6. Leslie J. Hoppe argues that poverty was seen in the Deuteronomic tradition as the result of the violation of the law of God and hence there is no positive value to poverty in this tradition; see Being Poor: A Biblical Study (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1987), p. 31.
See Michael D. Guinan, Gospel Poverty: Witness to the Risen Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), pp. 34–45.
Jeffrey Tranzillo, John Paul II on the Vulnerable (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013), p. xvi.
Emmanuel Clapsis, ‘The Dignity of the Poor and Almsgiving in St. John Chrysostom’, in Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 56: 1–4 (2011), pp. 71–73. See also Eric Constanzo, Harbor for the Poor: A Missiological Analysis of Almsgiving in the View and Practice of John Chrysostom (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick, 2013).
Quoted in Roberto S. Goizueta, ‘Theo-Drama as Liberative Praxis’, in Cross Currents, 63.1 1 (March 2013), p. 69.
Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2010), p. 67.
William Loader, ‘“Good News for the Poor” and Spirituality in the New Testament: A Question of Survival’, in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church, p. 6.
Loader, p. 12.
Cf Gustavo Gutierrez, On Job: God Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), p. 94.
Daniel J. Harrington, p. 72.
William Barclay, Turning to God: Conversion in the New Testament (London: Epworth, 1963), p. 25.
Cf. Barclay, pp. 29–32.
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This article takes Pope Francis’ call for ‘a poor church’ in Evangelii Gaudium as a starting point for an ecclesiology of vulnerable mission for the church. Drawing from biblical, patristic, and theological sources, the article proposes two theses on the church of the poor, and links these theses with a new model of a vulnerable mission which reflects a humble, servant church which embodies in her teachings and in her inner life and external activities the priorities and practices of Christ in walking with the poor. The paper uses a biblical analysis of the first proclamation of the Lord in the Synoptic Gospels to show that an ecclesiology of vulnerable mission is a way of being church which can help transform the social context. It advances some theological steps which the theologian and the faith communities can take in becoming actively and prophetically involved in co-operating with God in bringing about in particular and group histories the eschatological fruits of God’s kingdom.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 634 | 89 | 13 |
| Full Text Views | 215 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 87 | 3 | 0 |