교회개혁을 위한 신학적 성찰 ―교회의 정체성과 적실성을 중심으로 = A Theological Reflection on Church Reformation: Centering on the Identity and Relevance of Church

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

2017 is the quincentenary of the Reformation. However, the reality of Korean church and society is very terrible and abject, mainly due to a lot of problems such as ecclesiastical institutionalization, authoritarianism, parochialism, expansionism, growth ideology, privatization, patrimonialism, and ghettoism. Taking these problems into serious consideration, this paper attempts theological reflection for the reformation of Korean church. In order to do so, this paper, while examining these problems closely, points out that they fundamentally result from some inadequate understandings and applications of church. Especially, this paper maintains that they are wrongly related to the identity and relevance of church.
Thus this paper, based on discussions on church in the Bible, church history, or theology, seeks to provide the most central and prominent understanding of the identity or nature of church. This paper notes an identity of church as God`s people, saints, or communion of saints. And then this paper considers that Jesus Christ wants to be recognized not only as the head of church but also as the head of the world and Christ wants the world to be unified in himself. And this paper also considers that God the Father wants to reconcile the world to Godself through the cross of Jesus Christ, and that this begins in church as the body of Jesus Christ and then extends to the world. And this paper, by examining missio Dei, the mission of God, Missional Church, ascertains a very intimate relation between church and society. Here there could not be any dualistic or dichotomized relation between church and society.
Through these analyses and discussions, this paper argues that theological works to hold fast to both the identity of church and the relevance of church are urgently necessary. Those works would provide precious insights and useful effects for the reformation of Korean church in the future.