Abstract

Normativity in Ecclesiology has tended to be based on a particular understanding of theology as blueprint. In the Ecclesiology and Ethnography Conversation there has been some dispute around how theological normativity should operate. This paper argues that theological knowledge arises from an ecclesial context of ‘abiding.’ This abiding is pneumatological in nature ‘like the wind’ and as such it is perilous. This point is argued with resort to a critical realist epistemology.