Abstract
The previous chapter intended to correct the conception of political authority in Vatican II by proposing a more robustly theological conception that drew together the insights of several Protestant exegetes. This chapter will correct the problematic ecclesiology that affected Vatican II’s teaching on church-state relations. The ecclesiology that will be elucidated in this chapter will develop seeds already present in the conciliar documents. The aim is to present an ecclesiology able to understand church-state relations without relying on the dichotomy between religion and politics, as it was identified and criticised in earlier chapters, which undermines Christians’ ability to see the church as a unique kind of social and political community. It proposes a sacramental ecclesiology to explain how the church is a unique kind of political community under the authority of Christ and given social form by the sacraments of baptism, the Eucharist, and ordination. Being baptised and incorporated into the Eucharistic Body of the Christ enables the lay and ordained members of the church to participate in Christ’s royal triumph over the Powers by bearing prophetic witness to him and by sharing in his self-sacrificial priesthood, both of which may lead to martyrdom.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
Whether the one being baptised must first profess belief, or if an infant may be baptised while relying on the faith of parents and godparents is a debate I do not need to enter (Wainwright 1969, p. 12).
- 2.
Cf. ‘epi to auto’ in Acts 1:15, 2:1; 1 Corinthians 11:20, 14:23.
- 3.
The Incarnation should make it obvious that no technological simulacrum can substitute for meeting together in the flesh but, lamentably, it is not obvious to some.
- 4.
Despite being widely respected for his writings on church-state relations, it does not reflect well on his thought to know that John Courtney ‘Murray rarely mentions the fact that the need to suffer the Cross is integral to the Christian’s “worldly” presence’ (Schindler 2015, p. 201).
- 5.
I do not have space to discuss the complex problem of how episkopos and presbyteros became two different offices, how the episcopate gradually came to be the office of a single figure over a group of presbyters, nor the issue of how deacons fit into the ordained ministry, eventually to be variegated into four minor and three major orders in the Catholic Church. Such issues are capably explored in (Kirk 1957; Nichols 1990).
- 6.
The literature from the intertestamental and Second Temple periods also contains passages that look ahead to the coming of an eschatological high priest, sometimes alongside a royal messiah, sometimes fused as a single, royal-priestly figure (Giambrone 2022, pp. 162–166).
- 7.
Leeman’s Political Church (2016) is a rich and insightful work of political theology, from which I have learnt much. However, his argument is impaired by his attempt to square the circle of combining an ecclesiology committed to someone or some group within each local church being entrusted with authority to teach and discipline, with a typically Baptist insistence that the whole church is entrusted with the power of the keys, not any particular group of elders, presbyters, or bishops.
- 8.
- 9.
I do not enter into the contentious issue of the manner of his presence in the bread and wine or, put otherwise, the manner of the bread and wine’s conversion into the body and blood of the Lord. The speculation by theologians over the centuries to identify the precise element of the Eucharistic ritual that makes it possible to describe it as a sacrifice in a certain sense (e.g. the consumption of the elements or their separate consecration) is also irrelevant for my purposes. On these issues, see: (Nichols 1991; Farrow 2018, pp. 124–170).
Bibliography
Arendt, H. 1958. The Human Condition. London: University of Chicago Press.
Atkinson, J.C. 2014. Biblical & Theological Foundations of the Family: The Domestic Church. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.
Austin, V.L. 2010. Up With Authority: Why We Need Authority to Flourish as Human Beings. London: T&T Clark.
Bettenson, H., ed. 1969. The Early Christian Fathers: A Selection from the Writings of the Fathers from St. Clement of Rome to St. Athanasius. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bouyer, L. 1960. Woman and Man with God. London: Darton, Longman & Todd.
Catholic Church. 1966b. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World of Today (De Ecclesia in Mundo Huius Temporis). London: Catholic Truth Society.
———. 1975a. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4 December, 1963. In Vatican II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, ed. A. Flannery, 1–40. Collegeville: Liturgical Press.
———. 1975b. Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People, Apostolicam Actuositatem, 18 November, 1965. In Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. A. Flannery, 766–789. Collegeville: Liturgical Press.
———. 1975c. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 21 November, 1964. In Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. A. Flannery, 350–426. Collegeville: Liturgical Press.
Cavanaugh, W.T. 1998. Torture and Eucharist. Oxford: Blackwell.
———. 1999. Absolute Moral Norms and Human Suffering: An Apocalyptic Reading of Endo’s Silence. Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 2 (3): 96–116.
Collins, J.N. 2002. Deacons and the Church: Making Connections Between Old and New. Leominster: Gracewing.
———. 2014. Diakonia Studies: Critical Issues in Ministry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cullmann, O. 1949. The Earliest Christian Confessions. London: Lutterworth Press.
———. 1950. Baptism in the New Testament. London: SCM Press.
———. 1953. Early Christian Worship. London: SCM Press.
Dix, G. 1957. The Ministry in the Early Church. In The Apostolic Ministry, ed. K. Kirk, 183–304. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Dulles, A. 2007. Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith. Ave Maria: Sapientia Press.
Farrow, D. 2018. Theological Negotiations: Proposals in Soteriology and Anthropology. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Giambrone, A. 2022. The Bible and the Priesthood: Priestly Participation in the One Sacrifice for Sins. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Herbert, A.G. 1957. Ministerial Episcopacy. In The Apostolic Ministry, ed. K. Kirk, 493–534. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Hollerich, M.J. 1993. Retrieving a Neglected Critique of Church, Theology and Secularization in Weimar Germany. Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology 2 (3): 305–332.
Hütter, R. 1994. The Church as Public: Dogma, Practice, and the Holy Spirit. Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology 3 (3): 334–361.
Jägerstätter, F. 2009. Brief Thoughts on Our Past, Present, and Future. In Franz Jägerstätter: Letters and Writings from Prison, ed. E. Putz, 176–180. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Kirk, K., ed. 1957. The Apostolic Ministry: Essays on the History and the Doctrine of Episcopacy. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Knox, R. 1952. A Commentary on the Gospels. New York: Sheed & Ward.
Kroeker, P.T. 2000. Why O’Donovan’s Christendom is not Constantinian and Yoder’s Voluntariety is not Hobbesian: A Debate in Theological Politics Re-defined. Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 20: 41–64.
Leeman, J. 2016. Political Church: The Local Assembly as Embassy of Christ’s Rule. London: Apollos.
Lockwood O’Donovan, J. 2023. English Public Theology: A Reformation Response to the Crisis of Natural Rights. London: T&T Clark.
Lohfink, G. 1985. Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith. London: SPCK.
Long, D.S. 2018. Augustinian and Ecclesial Christian Ethics: On Loving Enemies. London: Lexington Books.
Louth, A., ed. 1987. Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers. London: Penguin.
Manent, P. 2018. La loi naturelle et les droits de l’homme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
McKay, D. 2005. The Crown Rights of King Jesus Today. In Tales of Two Cities: Christianity and Politics, ed. S. Clark, 210–259. IVP: Leicester.
Milbank, J. 2006. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond secular reason. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mommsen, T. 1886. The History of Rome: The Provinces, From Caesar to Diocletian: Part I. London: Richard Bentley & Son.
Nichols, A. 1990. Holy Orders: Apostolic Priesthood from the New Testament to the Second Vatican Council. Eugene: Wipf & Stock.
———. 1991. The Holy Eucharist: From the New Testament to Pope John Paul II. Dublin: Veritas Press.
———. 2010. For Liberal Protestants: How Christ Is Priest. In Criticising the Critics, 88–102. Oxford: Family Publications.
O’Collins, G., and M.K. Jones. 2010. Jesus Our Priest: A Christian Approach to the Priesthood of Christ. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Donovan, O. 1996. The Desire of Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2004a. The Political Thought of ‘City of God’ 19. In Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics, Past and Present, ed. O. O’Donovan and J. Lockwood O’Donovan, 48–72. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
———. 2004b. History and Politics in the Book of Revelation. In Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics, Past and Present, ed. O. O’Donovan and J. Lockwood O’Donovan, 25–47. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
———. 2005. The Ways of Judgment: The Bampton Lectures, 2003. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Orchard, B., E.F. Sutcliffe, R.C. Fuller, and R. Russell, eds. 1953. A Catholic Commentary On Holy Scripture. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd.
Parsons, B. 2015. The Perspicuity of Scripture. [Online]. Available at: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/perspicuity-scripture. Accessed 19 Dec 2023.
Peterson, E. 2011. Theological Tractates. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Ratzinger, J. 1987. Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
Schindler, D.L. 2015. Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: An Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae on the Right to Religious Freedom. In Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom—A New Translation, Redaction History, and Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae, ed. D.L. Schindler and Nicholas J. Healy, 39–210. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Schlier, H. 1961. Principalities and Powers in the New Testament. New York: Herder and Herder.
———. 1967. The State According to the New Testament. In The Relevance of the New Testament, 215–238. London: Burns & Oates.
Schmemann, A. 1973. For the Life of the World. 2 Rev. ed. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Smith, J.K.A. 2017. Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology. Volume 3 of Cultural Liturgies. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Torrell, J.-P. 2013. A Priestly People: Baptismal Priesthood and Priestly Ministry. New York: Paulist Press.
Vanhoye, A. 2009. Old Testament Priests and the New Priest: According to the New Testament. Rev. ed. Leominster: Gracewing.
Wainwright, G. 1969. Christian Initiation. London: Lutterworth Press.
———., 1981. Eucharist and Eschatology. 2nd American ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Waters, B. 2007. The Family in Christian Social and Political Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zahn, G.C. 1964. In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter. 1st ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ciftci, M.Y. (2024). Deliverance from the Powers in the Church. In: Vatican II on Church-State Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56706-3_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56706-3_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-56705-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-56706-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)