George Lindbeck and The Israel of God

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Shaun C. Brown

   Pages 1-16

3. Church and Israel in Historical Perspective

   • Shaun C. Brown

   Pages 17-35

4. The Catholic Protestant: Vatican II and the Church and Israel in Parallel

   • Shaun C. Brown

   Pages 37-66

5. The Role of Scripture in the Christian Community

   • Shaun C. Brown

   Pages 67-105

6. The Old Testament as Ecclesiological Textbook

   • Shaun C. Brown

   Pages 107-128

7. Jesus the Christ as Israel’s Only Fulfillment

   • Shaun C. Brown

   Pages 129-150

8. Christian Mission

   • Shaun C. Brown

   Pages 151-178

9. Further Ecumenical Implications

   • Shaun C. Brown

   Pages 179-214

10. Conclusion

    • Shaun C. Brown

    Pages 215-224

11. Back Matter

    Pages 225-248

    PDF

George Lindbeck lamented that his most widely read work, The Nature of Doctrine, had often been read apart from his ecumenical focus. In this book, Shaun Brown seeks to provide a corrective to misreadings of Lindbeck’s work by focusing upon his “Israelology”—his emphasis upon the church and Israel as one elect people of God.

While many Christians after the Holocaust have noted the harm that Supersessionism brought to the Jews, Lindbeck focuses upon the harm that supersessionism has brought to the church. He argues the appropriation of Israelhood by the church can bring intra-Christian ecumenical benefits. This work comes in two stages. In the first stage, undertaken while he was an observer at the Second Vatican Council, Lindbeck discusses a parallel between Israel and the church. The second stage, which begins in the late 1980s and continues through the end of his career, Lindbeck describes the church as “Israel-like” or “as Israel.”

• Vatican II
• Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity
• The Nature of Doctrine
• Paul J. DeHart
• George Lindbeck

​“George Lindbeck never finished the project he hoped would bring together, in a mutually enriching way, the great concerns of his theological life: Israel, the church, and Christian ecumenism.  Thankfully, Shaun Brown has offered the next best thing.  With remarkable energy and insight, he has gathered up the fragments Lindbeck left behind, fit them together, and given us a clear sense for Lindbeck’s theological vision of the matters he cared about the most.”—Bruce D. Marshall, Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine, Perkins School of Theology,
Southern Methodist University, USA




“In a day of increasing polarization, religion against religion, denomination against denomination, religion against secular society, it is time to read George Lindbeck again. But how to read him without misreading him? My strong recommendation is, first, to read George Lindbeck and The Israel of God by Shaun C. Brown. Brown provides the most up-to-date, comprehensive, and compelling rereading of Lindbeck’s own accounts of the ecumenical, doctrinal, and scriptural settings of his decades-long study of the Church as Israel.”
—Peter Ochs, Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies, University of Virginia, USA


“The reception of George Lindbeck’s thought has been needlessly muddied by the tendency to treat a single methodological experiment (The Nature of Doctrine) as his most important work. In this fine book, Shaun C. Brown rights the balance. He offers a convincing reading of Lindbeck as first and foremost a theologian and ecumenist, driven by a lifelong passion for Christian unity. His analysis of Lindbeck’s “Israelology” is especially insightful.” 
—Joseph Mangina, Professor of Systematic Theology, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Canada

• First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Garland, USA

  Shaun C. Brown

Shaun C. Brown is Associate Minister at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Garland, TX and an adjunct professor at Johnson University and Hope International University.