Razing the Bastions: On the Church in This Age

by Hans Urs von Balthasar

Publishers:

Ignatius; Communio Books

, 1993

Overview

Written in the 1950s, this book defines and anticipates, in a prophetic way, the role of the laity in the Church, and the intimate relationship between the Church and the world. These two themes were recognized by the Second Vatican Council especially in the two constitutions “On the Church” and “The Church in the Modern World.” Hans Urs Von Balthasar’s “bastions” are barriers erected over the centuries which separated the laity from the clergy and the Church from the world. He pleads for a Church that interprets “the signs of the age,” grasps them and answers them. The new function of the Church is to be the “yeast of the world”—she must understand herself as the “instrument of the mediation of salvation to the world.” Stressing that the hour of the laity is sounding in the Church, von Balthasar makes it clear that the “true program of the Church for today is: the most powerful radiance into the world through the most immediate imitation of Christ.”

Product Details

• Title: Razing the Bastions: On the Church in This Age
• Author: Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Publishers: Ignatius, Communio Books
• Print Publication Date: 1993
• Logos Release Date: 2019
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Catholic Church › Influence; Church and the world
• ISBNs: 9780898704280, 0898704286
• Resource ID: LLS:RAZINGBASTIONS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T20:44:20Z

About Hans Urs von Balthasar

Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) was a Swiss Roman Catholic theologian. Along with Karl Rahner, Balthasar is one of the most important Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century.