A Reflexive Approach to Christian Witness: A Theology of Social Involvement Through the Life and Writings of William Stringfellow

Abstract

In this thesis we develop a reflexive approach to Christian witness. The question is how to account for an understanding of Christian social involvement without transgressing important theological premises. We do this by pairing William Stringfellow’s typology of witness (realism, dissent, and intercession) and method of doing biographical theology, with Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic social theory wherein human reflexivity features prominently. Along the way, we argue that the modern era requires the church to reconceptualize its understanding of Christian witness. To this end, we identify four dynamics crucial to Christian witness in the modern era: (post)Christendom, secularism, social formation, and justice. This reflexive account of Christian witness will attend to certain significant theological topics, such as God’s eschatological sovereignty over the outcome of history, God’s aseity, theological realism, and the church’s relation to the social conditions of the poor, marginalised, and oppressed. We argue that conceiving of Christian witness in terms of reflexivity, as we develop in this thesis, meets the challenge of witness in modernity.

Date of Award	9 Jan 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester