RT Article
T1 Autonomy and Church Membership: Resolving Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Dilemma through John Zizioulas’s Ecclesiology
JF Ecclesiology
VO 20
IS 3
SP 294
OP 312
A1 Chen, Steven
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1909490903
AB This article explores the theological implications of being a church member in a contemporary context that highly values individual autonomy, by engaging with John Zizioulas’s ecclesiological framework. Initially, the article elucidates the notion of the ‘autonomous self’, drawing upon the intellectual contributions and life experiences of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It posits that Rousseau’s dilemma of losing self or suffering from loneliness represents the challenge faced by those holding this autonomous anthropological assumption. The article subsequently employs John Zizioulas’s constructs of ontological personhood and communion ecclesiology as counterpoints to this quandary. It contends that Zizioulas’s trinitarian-informed theological anthropology offers an ecclesial means to surmount this existential dilemma, arguing that church membership is an act of participating in divine and familial communion.
K1 ontological personhood
K1 Ecclesiology
K1 autonomous self
K1 Communion
K1 John Zizioulas
K1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
DO 10.1163/17455316-bja10048