The church for the world: A theology of public witness

My project constructs a theology of public witness for Protestant church-communities in the United States by drawing centrally upon the work of German pastor-theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The project asks if there is an ecclesial mode of being in the world that acts and speaks concretely in public life as it offers a non-triumphalist witness to Christ. The central thesis is that North American Protestant churches witness to the crucified and risen Christ and become vehicles of concrete redemption through an overlapping confession of their own sin and the sin of broader society: The church demonstrates Christ's redemptive work when its mode of being in the world is confession of sin unto repentant action. Part I establishes why a theology of public witness is needed by unearthing some unrecognized factors driving Christian conceptions of witness in the United States. Part II constructs a theology of public witness by examining the three main interrelated dimensions of Bonhoeffer's thought: Christ, the world, and the church. Part III offers ethnographic studies of two church-communities whose work exemplify ecclesial commitments and practices born out of a disposition of confession unto repentance.