Abstract

This dissertation investigates the nature and dynamics of the church as a Christian community of hope by comparing Jurgen Moltmann and Stanley Hauerwas. Seeking to avoid reductionistic theological tendencies, Moltmann and Hauerwas assert that the Christian church can, and should, be a community of hope which is regulated and constituted by specific communal activities. This work proposes that Moltmann and Hauerwas exhibit, in part, a mutually critical complementarity with respect to the church as a Christian community of hope. ;The Introduction of this dissertation acknowledges basic assumptions about a "logic of hope," specifies the factors which create the dissertation's problematic, and sketches the features of a cultural-linguistic style of thinking which is employed. Chapter One offers an analysis of Moltmann's and Hauerwas' depiction of the contemporary context. Chapter Two focuses upon the theologians' interpretations of the scriptural narratives and their grammar. Moltmann gives special focus to how the Christian hope is regulated by a narrative vision of the trinitarian God as focused upon the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Chapter Three examines the communal context, practices, and self-critical procedures necessary for sustaining communal hope. Hauerwas gives special focus to how the church fosters the capacities to respond flexibly and creatively to various urgent communal dilemmas. Chapter Four analyzes four such dilemmas: the Holocaust, poverty, the mentally handicapped, and nuclear war. This chapter moves from a strict descriptive analysis to a constructive interpretation of the similarities and differences between Moltmann and Hauerwas by ascribing to their work implicit informal rules which guide a hopeful response. Chapter Five concludes the dissertation with an interpretive recapitulation of their arguments and an internal criticism of each theologian which seeks to build upon their strengths. The outcome of the inquiry is formulated in a constructive section which proposes how the logic of Christian hope is formed and sustained in and through a church's activities. The Appendix offers a critical discussion of a cultural-linguistic style of thinking as proposed theoretically by George Lindbeck, in light of the substantive theological work of Moltmann and Hauerwas