Ambassador of Hope

From The Living Church-

Upon his reception of the prestigious Erasmus Prize in 1982, an award given annually for contributions to the advancement of European culture, the late Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P. [TLC, Jan. 24], noted that he was especially proud that the Protestant members of the award committee described his theology as “transconfessional.” When asked in a subsequent interview about this term, the Belgian Roman Catholic theologian commented that the committee recognized “that my arguments were not based on my Catholic confession, but that I took the great Christian tradition and especially the Old and New Testaments as my point of departure.” He went on to emphasize that all of his work — more than 60 years of theological writing — was rooted in the notion, underscored at Vatican II, that the Church, like God, is a mystery.

Because theology, or any talk about God, can never exhaust what it seeks to express, Schillebeeckx believed that theologians should avoid limiting themselves to the language of any one confession and, instead, seek language that transcends divisions. For himself, he wanted his words to cross boundaries and offer a convincing account of the Christian hope to all people.

Schillebeeckx rightly perceived that one of the greatest challenges facing the Church in the 20th century was effective communication of its message in an increasingly diverse, scientific and skeptical culture. He observed, after a tour through the United States in the 1960s, that “the problem narrows down to how we, as men of faith in a secularized world, can still speak of God.” Accordingly, he sought to bridge the gap between religious and modern or secular experience, particularly in the wake of the pronounced suffering of World War II.

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2010/1/29/ambassador-of-hope