Panel: NEW GENERATIONS AND THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH



89.5 - THEOLOGICAL CACOPHONY

AUTHORS:
Purina L. (University of Latvia ~ Riga ~ Latvia)
Text:
Two distinct forms of ecclesial participation have today become established: attendance in person and participation virtually. What has not been sufficiently noted is the variety and amorphous nature of the latter. While representing freedom, this variety forms an enormous confusion of expressions of faith. What does this mean for the concept of a "common faith" tradition? Is this "cacaphony" outside or part of the Christian witness? Do all these voices belong, or are they foreign to a "continuity of tradition"? How is this variety to be understood theologically? A helpful parallel is the situation of Christians before Nicaea. Early Christian communities were scattered, often small, and without a centralized structure that could control teaching or guarantee unity. In that time, the information was not accessible in any easily understandable, structured way, and different competing voices were common. Today's digital environment is obviously different, but both situations raise the same question: how does the church navigate this world? How can we enter into "the future of the church"? Most contemporary theological reflections on the Holy Spirit indicate that the third article of the Nicene Creed, on the Holy Spirit, has been either forgotten or inadequately represented in Western theology. This paper argues that the future of the Church's ministry and theology requires a serious reworking of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It will show that precisely this doctrine can both respond to the "theological cacophony" and indicate a necessary role of the Spirit in a technological culture. To justify this claim, I engage with Najeeb Awad's critique of the reductionism of the Spirit in theology and the loss in the ministry of the Church in an undeveloped pneumatology.