?This book challenges the prevailing notion of stability, cohesiveness, and uniformity within Christian communities, inviting readers to view contestation and disagreement as integral to theological reflection and church identity. While the volume focuses predominantly on the Roman Catholic Church as a case study, various chapters broaden the exploration across other Christian and non-Christian traditions. Beginning with the philosophical and theological foundations of conflict, contestation, and community, the book subsequently focuses on four main conflict fields: liturgy, canon law, gender, and sexuality, as well as race and postcolonial critical theory. The book finishes with a constructive proposal on how to think theologically about identity and antagonisms, as well as how to construct an ecclesiology of dissent. Contributors employ diverse methodological perspectives to offer constructive theological reflections, enhancing both understanding and practice of theology in the context of polarised public debates.
This is an open access book.
Chapter
1. Introduction.- I. Philosophical and theological foundations
of conflict, contestation, and community.
Chapter
2. Theological
Perspectives of Conflict, Contestation and Community Formation from an
Ecumenical Angle.
Chapter
3. A Radical Theology of Conflict and
Contestation.- II. Conflict field: Liturgy.
Chapter
4. Catholic Liturgy
Caught Between Polemics About Differences and Embracing Diversity.
Chapter
5. To Be Who We Are - A Dissenting Church: Two Proposals.- III. Conflict
field: Canon Law.
Chapter
6. Dealing with Conflict and Dissent in the Roman
Catholic Church.
Chapter
7. Dissent as Deviance: Sociological Observations
on Structural Conicts in Church.- IV. Conflict field: Gender and Sexuality.-
Chapter
8. Seeking allies within the institutional church: reflections from
South Africa on partnership as means to unsettling deadlocked conflict?.-
Chapter
9. Conflicting Masculinities in Christianity: Experiences and
critical Reflections on Gender and Religion.-V. Conflict field: Race /
Postcolonial Constellations.
Chapter
10. The Muslim Ban: The Racialization
of Religion and Soteriological Privilege.
Chapter
11. The Secularism Paradox
of Interreligious Relations and International Relations.- VI. Constructing a
Theology / Ecclesiology of Dissent.
Chapter
12. Love your enemy: theology,
identity and antagonism.
Chapter
13. Disagreement and Religious Relevance.
Judith Gruber is an associate professor of systematic theology at KU Leuven, Belgium, and the director of KU Leuvens Centre for Liberation Theologies.
Michael Schüßler is a professor of practical theology at the Catholic-Theological Faculty of the University of Tübingen since 2015. Ryszard Bobrowicz is a postdoctoral fellow at KU Leuven and an affiliate researcher at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University. He serves as the theological advisor for the Churches Commission for Migrants in Europe and collaborates with the Atlas of Religion or Belief Minority Rights.
