HERMENEUTICAL RECONSTRUCTION AND DISCOURSE ETHICS: A CRITICALASSESSMENT OF FRANCIS SCHUESSLER FIORENZA’S CONCEPT OF ‘THE CHURCH AS A COMMUNITY OF INTERPRETATION’

Abstract

The essay offers a critical assessment of Francis Schuessler Fiorenza’s influential concept of the church as a community of interpretation. A first section focuses on his argument that processes of the interpretation of tradition within the church can actually contribute to normative discourse in the public sphere. The way in which Fiorenza, engaging with Habermas, develops his idea of political theology somewhere between discourse ethics and hermeneutical reconstruction is explored critically. Against this background, a second section then focuses more specifically on Fiorenza’s concept of a community of interpretation, both from a social and an ecclesiological perspective. It is argued that the notion of community remains unclear. It can be understood as institution, organization or life-form. The concluding argument is that the question how the reinterpreted ethical traditions of Christianity can contribute meaningfully to public discourse calls for greater clarity concerning this notion of community.