God in the Global City
Abstract
The global city became a significant symbol of radical secularization as well as a sign of God's eclipse in contemporary society. The experience of the absence of God seems to be one of the pivotal problems for the ecclesiology of communion, which interprets the mission of the Church in the light of the “signs of time.” In this paper the author presents the city as a life space where people of all nations and cultures can find the presence of God in both secular and religious realms. Using the correlation method typical of contextual theology, he describes the phenomenon of the secular city with some of its features and potentials. Then he identifies the signs of God's presence in the global city in the light of the teaching of Pope Francis. Further on in the article, the author describes the Church as a sacrament of liberation in the context of so called “experience of contrast” characteristic for a metropolis. Finally, he formulates some pastoral implications.
References
Address of Pope Francis to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, 25 November 2014.
Altizer, Thomas, Hamilton, William. Radical Theology and the Death of God. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1966.
Bauman, Zygmunt. City of Fears, Cities of Hopes. London: Goldsmiths College, 2003.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Life. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 44 Letters from the Liquid Modern World. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010.
Benedict XVI. Sacramentum caritatis. Vatican, 2007.
Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy “Sacrosanctum concilium.” Vatican, 1963.
Cox, Harvey. The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective. With a new introduction by the author. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.
Francis. Evangelii gaudium. Vatican, 2013.
Francis. “Homily (Madison Square Garden, NYC 2015).” In: The Allure of Goodness and Love: Pope Francis in the United States, Complete Texts, 63-66. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2016.
Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.
John Paul II. Ecclesia in Europa. Vatican, 2003.
McBrien, Richard. Catholicism. New Edition. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994.
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World “Gaudium et spes.” Vatican, 1965.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Church. The Human Story of God. New York: Crossroad, 1990.
Sison, Antonio. “The Prophetic-Liberating Schillebeeckx: Reclaiming a Western Voice for the Third World.” New Theology Review 22(2009), 4: 57-68.
Van Buren, Paul. The Secular Meaning of the Gospel. New York: Macmillan Company, 1963.
Ward, Keith. Christianity: A Beginner's Guide. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008.
Copyright (c) 2017 Roczniki Teologiczne
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
