Todd S. Berzon
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520284265
- eISBN:
- 9780520959880
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520284265.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This concluding chapter explains that heresiology was an endeavor created not simply through competition—as much between heretics and heresiologists as among the heresiologists themselves—but through ...
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This concluding chapter explains that heresiology was an endeavor created not simply through competition—as much between heretics and heresiologists as among the heresiologists themselves—but through contradiction and limitation. Since the foundation on which heresiology rested was never secure, it unwittingly contained and created the seeds of its own obsolescence and destruction. The history of heresy, as understood by the heresiologists, was perpetuated by heresiological inquiry: heresy was an inescapable aspect of a now-theologically defined world. To study heresy was, at best, to destroy orthodoxy and, at worst, to reveal heresy and orthodoxy to be one and the same. The chapter reiterates that to describe heresiology is to identify a form of theological ethnography marked by competing rhetoric. Reading heresiology as ethnography emphasizes the epistemological fractures and self-reflection within the genre, and among those who viewed themselves as its practitioners.Less
This concluding chapter explains that heresiology was an endeavor created not simply through competition—as much between heretics and heresiologists as among the heresiologists themselves—but through contradiction and limitation. Since the foundation on which heresiology rested was never secure, it unwittingly contained and created the seeds of its own obsolescence and destruction. The history of heresy, as understood by the heresiologists, was perpetuated by heresiological inquiry: heresy was an inescapable aspect of a now-theologically defined world. To study heresy was, at best, to destroy orthodoxy and, at worst, to reveal heresy and orthodoxy to be one and the same. The chapter reiterates that to describe heresiology is to identify a form of theological ethnography marked by competing rhetoric. Reading heresiology as ethnography emphasizes the epistemological fractures and self-reflection within the genre, and among those who viewed themselves as its practitioners.
Martyn Percy
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198797852
- eISBN:
- 9780191839177
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198797852.003.0018
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter explores and analyzes the ecclesial identity of a local parish church in a rural context. Deploying the concept of implicit theology, a subgenre of ethnographic theology, it argues that ...
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This chapter explores and analyzes the ecclesial identity of a local parish church in a rural context. Deploying the concept of implicit theology, a subgenre of ethnographic theology, it argues that the character of the church is composed through core and cherished values that are seldom explicitly articulated. What emerges from the study is that the character of rural Anglicanism in the Church of England can be understood as primarily but not exclusively temperate, mild, aesthetic, and rational. Moreover, there may be a link between the grammar and timbre of worship and the kind of God individuals and congregations subsequently believe they experience. The study also notes a broader sociological significance of selecting to study a rural church. That said, it pointedly avoids reductionism, but does recognize the formation of an alloy in need of attention in the emergent social and theological construction of reality.Less
This chapter explores and analyzes the ecclesial identity of a local parish church in a rural context. Deploying the concept of implicit theology, a subgenre of ethnographic theology, it argues that the character of the church is composed through core and cherished values that are seldom explicitly articulated. What emerges from the study is that the character of rural Anglicanism in the Church of England can be understood as primarily but not exclusively temperate, mild, aesthetic, and rational. Moreover, there may be a link between the grammar and timbre of worship and the kind of God individuals and congregations subsequently believe they experience. The study also notes a broader sociological significance of selecting to study a rural church. That said, it pointedly avoids reductionism, but does recognize the formation of an alloy in need of attention in the emergent social and theological construction of reality.
