Defense Date

10-30-2017

Graduation Date

Fall 1-1-2017

Availability

One-year Embargo

Submission Type

thesis

Degree Name

MA

Department

Theology

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Marinus Chijioke Iwuchukwu

Committee Member

Elochukwu Uzukwu

Keywords

Interreligious Dialogue Nostra Aetate Contextualization Postmodernity

Abstract

The church has accomplished tremendous strides in interfaith dialogue within the past fifty-two years after the promulgation of Nostra Aetate, the declaration which opened a positive and revolutionary avenue for the church in her dialogical encounter with the non-Christian religions. This project praises Nostra Aetate for the bold step in entering the unfamiliar terrain in the church’s dialogue with non-Christian religions, by affirming in these religions “ray of truth,” “seed of the gospel,” element of “truth and holy” and reproving as foreign to the Christian faith any discrimination and harassment against people based on culture, race, condition in life and religion.

However, the postmodern world today, characterized by religious pluralism and diversity, and dethronement of grand narrative, pose a challenge for the church in dialogue with non-Christians to reflect beyond the tenets inherent in the conciliar document, Nostra Aetate in order to foster a genuine dialogical encounter. The project, therefore, calls on the church to avoid subsuming all particularity, historicity, and context into the theological principle of sameness and universalism in order avoid all judgments and all narcissism in an interreligious encounter.

Language

English

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