What is the Good of the Church?
In this four-part video series 'What is the Good of the Church?', Sarah Coakley examines afresh the fundamental question of how we should think of, imagine, and hope for the life of the Church today. The focus is on the effects of the global pandemic and of intensified political and ecclesiastical divisions in the Anglican Communion and within the Episcopal Church itself.
Using a 'dialogical' model of discussion with other leading theologians, historians and commentators, Coakley covers the following topics, and invites viewers to extend and deepen the debate for themselves: 1. The Kingdom and the Church in the New Testament: Did Jesus Envisage a Church, and What Did Paul Make of It? (with the Rev'd Dr. Richard Hays); 2. Learning from History: Select Visions of the Church from the Constantinian Settlement through the English Reformation and to the Great Renewal Movements of the 19th Century (with Dr. Hannah Matis and the Rev'd Dr. Benjamin King); 3. Contemporary Ecclesiological Crises and Questions: How Should we Re-Imagine the Episcopal Church Within the Anglican Communion Today? (with Dr. Scott MacDougall and Br. James Koester, SSJE); and 4. The American Heritage of Racism: Can an Ecclesial Vision of Hope be Found? (with Dr. Vincent Lloyd and Dr. Jonathan Tran).
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The videos are accompanied with handouts supplying key texts, further bibliography, and questions for discussion. A final 'Coda' by Sarah Coakley draws together some of the theological challenges and conclusions that have emerged from the series.