Bound to Sin: Abuse, Holocaust and the Christian Doctrine of Sin (Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine)
Cambridge University Press, 9/14/2000
EAN 9780521432863, ISBN10: 0521432863
Hardcover, 270 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
This book tests the explanatory and descriptive power of the doctrine of sin in relation to two concrete situations: sexual abuse of children and the holocaust. Taking seriously the explanatory power of secular discourses for analysing and regulating therapeutic action in relation to such situations, the book asks whether the theological language of sin can offer further illumination by speaking of God and the world together. Through its discussion of abuse and the holocaust, an engagement with Augustine, original sin and feminism, a fresh and sometimes surprising perspective is offered, both on the theology of sin and on the pathologies under consideration. The understanding of sin that emerges is centred on joyful worship of the trinitarian God. This essay is more systematic and more theological than most practical, pastoral or applied theology and more practical and concrete than most systematic or constructive theology. It is a genuinely concrete, systematic theology.
Acknowledgments
Part I. Drawing into Conversation
1. The loss of God
pragmatic atheism and the language of sin
2. Speaking morally? The case of original sin
3. Testing, testing
theology in concrete conversation
Part II. Concrete Pathologies
4. Bound by silence
sexual abuse of children
5. What was the problem? 'The Final Solution' and the binding of reason
Part III. Testing the Inheritance
6. Willing
7. Power and participation
feminist theologies of sin
8. Augustine's will
9. A question of standards
trinity, joy, worship and idolatry
10. Concrete idolatries
Index of names
Index of subjects.