Marion and Levinas: Postmodern conversation partners for the church

This project asks whether aspects of the postmodern thought of Jean-Luc Marion and Emmanuel Levinas offer fresh theological lenses to the church as it moves into the twenty-first century. Through the concepts of givenness, icon and idol, and the Face, this project will introduce the ideas of Marion and Levinas within a small group context in a local church setting. The class will explore how we experience transcendence and our response to that experience. Using a variety of pedagogical theories, the project will seek to assess how this challenging learning takes place in the class and whether it is deemed by the participants to be meaningful for their theological reflection and relevant to the rising issues of their changing church context. Theological reflection calls upon us to be both thinkers and doers. Marion and Levinas have a fresh word for the church, offering challenging ideas that nevertheless open the way to love of God and love of neighbor in a postmodern, post-Constantinian era.