Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Tourist: Popular Piety and Practice as a Package Deal
- Chapter 2 The Traveller: Modernist and Orthodox Theology as Interpretative Experience
- Chapter 3 The Exile: This Location = Dislocation
- Chapter 4 No City of God…
- Chapter 5 Rethinking Location and Christology
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of Authors
- Index of Subjects
Chapter 5 - Rethinking Location and Christology
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Tourist: Popular Piety and Practice as a Package Deal
- Chapter 2 The Traveller: Modernist and Orthodox Theology as Interpretative Experience
- Chapter 3 The Exile: This Location = Dislocation
- Chapter 4 No City of God…
- Chapter 5 Rethinking Location and Christology
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of Authors
- Index of Subjects
Summary
The challenge of the flaneur forces a radical reassessment of the theological task in the modern world. The flaneur situates himself as dissident voice to the prevailing orthodoxies and institutional claims. Traversing the liminal boundaries between theology and the secular world, the flaneur acts as internal dissident to both cultures. This liminality is further emphasized in the various responses to his claims. To the secular he is a secular theologian, while to the world of theology he is a secular theologian. The differing emphases of response are both attempts to question his legitimacy. Both theology and the secular view him with a certain and understandable degree of distrust because he refuses to be constrained by boundaries or expectations. To the theologians the flaneur is too immersed in the secular world, its views and theories. To the secular world the flaneur is viewed as one who unnecessary traverses within the claims, worlds and language of theology and religion. To both he seems a dabbler; that is, he is someone who refuses a full immersion and focus within either world: he is too theological for the secular and not theological enough for the theologians. And yet I wish to state that the trope of the flaneur is perhaps the best expression of what is involved in undertaking cross-cultural theology in the modern world. The flaneur is cross-cultural both to the culture of theology and the culture of a secular world.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Bibles and BaedekersTourism, Travel, Exile and God, pp. 135 - 160Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2008