Why the Church?: Self-Optimization or Community of Faith (Cultural Memory in the Present) - Softcover

Book 209 of 213: Cultural Memory in the Present

Joas, Hans

 
9781503640795: Why the Church?: Self-Optimization or Community of Faith (Cultural Memory in the Present)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1503640795 ISBN 13: 9781503640795
Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2024

Synopsis

Why did Christianity produce the special organizational form "church" in the first place? Is it possible to be a Christian without the church? To what extent is Christian faith in community with other believers an alternative to the mere self-optimization of individuals?

In this accessible and questioning new work, Hans Joas traverses theological, church-historical, sociological, and ethical territory in search of a viable conception of the church adequate to contemporary globalized societies. Across eleven essays that draw on work by Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, H. Richard Niebuhr, Leszek Kolakowski and others, Joas reflects on key debates―from the failure of so-called secularization theory to explain religiosity in modern society, to the role of Christianity and the church in relation to rampant nationalism and refugee crises, and to the question of whether or not human dignity ever was, or still is, the highest value in the West. Addressing the sociology of the church as the distinctive communal formation of Christianity for the last two millennia, Joas underscores the need for Christian conceptions of church to balance theological sensibility with concrete sociological grounding. In the process, he considers the relation of a community of faith to contemporary ideas about the optimization of life.

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About the Author

Hans Joas is Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the Humboldt University of Berlin. For more than twenty years he was a Visiting Professor of Sociology and in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books including The Power of the Sacred (2021) and Faith as an Option: Possible Futures for Christianity (Stanford, 2014).

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Publisher
Stanford University Press
Publication date
2024
Language
English
ISBN 10 
1503640795
ISBN 13 
9781503640795
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
200

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9781503638037: Why the Church?: Self-Optimization or Community of Faith (Cultural Memory in the Present)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  1503638030 ISBN 13:  9781503638037
Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2024
Hardcover