Interrupting Tradition
An Essay on Christian Faith in a Postmodern Context
by L. Boeve
Paperback (Published)
(December 2003)
ISBN: 9780802826671
Price: $28.00
On back order
Not so long ago it would have been fair to say that the Catholic Church and the Catholic faith determined human life and social existence, more or less unquestioned, in Flanders and in a large part of Western Europe. The Catholic faith community in Flanders today, however, is struggling with the fact that the transmission of the Christian tradition has been flagging in recent years. This has not only led to diminished faith engagement and a massive decline in church attendance, it has also had its effects in the cultural domain: culture has become de-traditionalised; ‘traditional’ Christian culture is worn out. Even convinced Christians are having problems reflecting on the plausibility of their faith, precisely because of the chasm that has opened up between faith and culture. The author of the present study argues that every new context challenges the Christian tradition to recontextualise its presentation of meaning and purpose in a cogent and credible fashion. Christians today do themselves a disservice when they withdraw into a world of absolute self-justification. At the same time, however, the author avoids any form of appeal for an extensive adaptation to the postmodern context. Only a new dialogue between tradition and culture, respectful of (and indeed thanks to) the growing division between both, can claim to offer a future. In the first part of the book the author provides a pithy description of the vicissitudes of the Christian tradition in modernity and postmodernity. Against this background, he attempts to clarify the situation in which the Christian tradition finds itself today. The second part of the book is devoted to an analysis of the actual context with a view to establishing points of intersection on the basis of which the dialogue between faith and culture may be revivified. The third part of the book endeavours to provide this dialogue with concrete form. The reader is introduced to a challenging image of Jesus, an image that is contextual and theologically motivated, prior to being invited by the author into a reopened reflection on God. The volume concludes by drawing renewed attention to the place of the Christian faith in relation to the other world religions. The results of Boeve’s study reveal that Christians do indeed have the capacity to reflect on their faith in a credible and relevant manner in relation to the actual context in which they find themselves and without relapsing into the extremes of traditionalism or relativism. Lieven Boeve is professor of Fundamental Theology at the Faculty of Theology, K.U.Leuven (Belgium). He is also co-ordinator of the research group Theology in a postmodern context.
- By (author) L Boeve
Other Titles in this Series
Answerable for our Beliefs
Reflections on Theology and Contemporary Culture Offered to Terrence Merrigan
Volume 48
Towards Another Future
On the Christian Faith and Its Shape between Yesterday and Tomorrow
Volume 34
Suffering and Salvation
The Salvific Meaning of Suffering in the Later Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx
Volume 33
How Do Stories Save Us?
An Essay on the Question with the Theological Hermeneutics of David Tracy in View
Volume 35
Standing Responsibly between Silence and Speech
Religion and Revelation in the Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rene Girard
Volume 42
Similar Books
Deutsch als Fremdsprache nach Englisch an chinesischen Hochschulen
Eine empirische Forschung über Lernstrategien zum Wortschatzlernen
Lectori vago. Manuscripts, Libraries, and Classical Scholarship from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period
Liber amicorum Luc Deitz
Volume 43
Ein Schatzhaus indischer Erzählkunst –– Die Erzählliteratur der Jainas
Band 2: Ein „Lesebuch“ originalsprachlicher Texte zur jainistischen „Universalgeschichte“ samt eines Jaina-Māhārāṣṭrī-Wörterbuchs zu allen Text- und Lesestücken.
Grimm Gotha Paris
Eine europaische Konstellation zur Zeit der Aufklarung / Une constellation europeenne au temps des Lumieres
Conceptualisation as a Biocognitive Phenomenon and Part of the Faculty of Language
Cross-linguistic Evidence from the Preposition Category
Language Assessment Across Cultures
From Intercultural Communicative Competence to Artificial Intelligence
Linguistic Fragmentation and Cultural Inclusion in the Middle Ages
Translation, Plurilingualism, Multilingualism
Volume 22
Love and the Danish Worldview
A Cognitive Ethnolinguistic Study of the Concept of Kærlighed ‘Love’ in Danish
LSP Teaching / Fachbezogener Fremdsprachenunterricht
Practices, Innovations, Technology / Praxis, Innovation, Technologie
Strategic Perspectives on the Reconstruction and Diachronic Interpretation of Stereotypical Theolinguistic Matrices in Religious-Popular Discourse
Insights from English, German, and Ukrainian within Indo-European and Nostratic Frameworks
Translation – Didactics of Translation – Pedagogical Translation / Translation – Translationsdidaktik – Pädagogische Translation
Theoretical Concepts and Practical Suggestions / Theoretische Ansätze und Vorschläge für die Praxis
Varietate delectamur
Multifarious Approaches to Synchronic and Diachronic Variation in Latin: Selected Papers from the 14th International Colloquium on Late and Vulgar Latin (Ghent, 2022)
Volume 1
Aspektmarkierung im Mittelhochdeutschen
Untersuchungen zur prafixgesteuerten Perfektivierung und verbalen Paarigkeit
Das Bild des Flüchtlings im Deutschen und im Polnischen
Lexikographische Erfassung und Presseberichterstattung 2016–2017
Der spatmittelalterliche Kanzleibrief in Nurnberg
Zur Beschreibung von historischem Textmusterwissen
Die Sprache(n) der Wissenschaft
Eine empirische Studie unter Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern in Osterreich vor dem Hintergrund sprach- und kommunikationswissenschaftlicher Befunde
Volume 941
Grammatische Kategorien und ihre Funktionen
Ein Beitrag zur Synchronie, Diachronie und Genealogie des Formensystems der deutschen Sprache
