THE CHURCH AS PARTICIPATORY COMMUNITY: ON THE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF HERMENEUTICS, ECCLESIOLOGY AND ETHICS

Is church a place where people are formed by a specific liturgical and moral tradition or a space where they are transformed towards a new reality? Are these two dynamics mutually exclusive or are they interrelated? In this study, Simone Sinn explores these questions and in so doing proposes an approach to church life which integrates ethics, hermeneutics and ecclesiology. Arguing that the church is called to enable people to understand themselves and each other in the light of God's will and action, Sinn develops the concept of church as participatory community. Moreover she suggests that it is by fostering and encouraging this approach that the church enables people to participate existentially and critically in the formation of their own faith.

Simone Sinn, born in 1975, studied theology in Heidelberg and qualified there in 'Diakoniewissenschaften', the study of the church's social action. She gained an M Phil in Ecumenical Studies at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College, Dublin, and now continues her theological studies in Tubingen.