My reflection mission, gender, and power is in memory of two women who dedicated their lives to the proclamation of liberating gospel and theological education. Despite their different national, social, Christian, and theological backgrounds, they both envisioned the church and its mission in a similar way: as an inclusive community, as a round table, as a place of love, care, respect and sacrifice. I refer to Elizabeth Behr-Sigel, the well-known French orthodox theologian, and to Letty Russell, the famous scholar, teacher, theologian. Elizabeth Behr Sigel describes her vision: My desire is that the Church become what it is in the supreme reality of the mind of God: a community of faith, hope and love, of men and women, of mysterious human persons, unutterably equal yet different, made in the image and reflecting the glory of God, the Three in One. That is the great Orthodox vision of the Church. It remains for it to be translated into concrete historical terms. (1) And Letty Russell in her article with the title Hot-house Ecclesiology points out, I have entitled this article feminist interpretation of the church Hot-house ecclesiology because it seems to me that the vision women have for the Church is that it could be a sanctuary, a place of safety for all who enter, and especially for those who are the most marginal, weak and despised of any community ... and the welcome extends to those of all races, ages, nationalities, genders, sexual orientations, all creatures and creation itself as the Church becomes a place where there is intent to heal and to live out God's justice rather than to harm and to promote the privilege of the few. (2) Both visions, according to my understanding, are of biblical origin. The early church developed its ecclesiology, and in turn its missionary practice, a radical eschatological teaching of the historical Jesus about the kingdom of God (which, as modern biblical research has shown, moves dialectically between the already and the yet; in other words, it has begun in the present but will be completed in its final authentic form in the eschaton). From the writings of Paul, John, and Luke, in addition to other works, we see this teaching reflected in images of the church as the body of Christ, as vine, and especially as unity. Paul in particular was absolutely convinced that all share in the kingdom through baptism, completing with the eucharist their incorporation into the one people of God. The fourth gospel develops this radical eschatological teaching even further in regard to the unity of people of God around Christ and their incorporation into Christ's body--above all, through the eucharist. The main contribution early Christian theology made to the development of this messianic eschatology was the common belief of almost all theologians of the early church, emphasized and underlined most sharply by St Luke, that with Christ's resurrection and especially with Pentecost the eschaton had entered history and that the messianic eschatological community becomes a reality each time the church, the new Israel, the dispersed people of God, gathers epi to auto. This development is undoubtedly the starting point of Christian mission, the springboard of the church's witnessing exodus to the world, which in the fact interpreted the imminent expectation of the parousia in a dynamic and radical way. (3) For Orthodox, mission is not realized in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; but mainly, it is a participation in the life of the Holy Trinity, an expression of this love with all the power of existence. Mission is an essential expression of Orthodox self-conscience, a cry in action for the fulfillment of God's will on earth as it is in heaven. For Anastasios Yannoulatos, [O]rthodox mission, internal or external, is through its nature ecclesiastic. …
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Dec 10, 2017
Joel Iparraguirre + 1
