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International Conference Jana M. Bennett Assistant Professor of Religious Studies University of Dayton, OH, USA A Mystagogy of Family Does a family “begin” with the sacrament of marriage or with the sacrament of baptism? Some scholars note tensions in bishops’ and magisterial documents regarding sacraments in relation to the “domestic church” and the founding of family. If we focus on marriage as “primordial sacrament” as recorded in Genesis, then family is indeed properly associated with the sacrament of marriage and the specific couple giving their consent to the marriage. The difficulty is that the New Testament and early theologians do not cull this “primordial sacrament” outright. There is also a distinctive view of baptism as a person’s entry into a marriage between Christ and the church. In the face of this relationship that baptized Christians have, what then does family look like? This paper examines the type of family needed for the church by discussing mystagogical sermons from Ambrose, Augustine and John Chrysostom. I claim that the idea of Christian family is best when it informs and draws upon a variety of states of life. At the same time, I show that the sacrament of baptism provides a boundary to the understanding of family, for it is not every Christian community that counts as family. Jana M. Bennett is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA. She studied theological ethics with Stanley Hauerwas at Duke University, and her research interests involve studying contemporary ethical questions in relation to sacraments and theological history. She is the author of Water is Thicker than Blood: An Augustinian Theology of Marriage and Singleness (Oxford, 2008), and Free to Stay, Free to Leave: Fruits of the Spirit and Church Choice (Cascade, 2009), as well as published articles and essays on such topics as feminism and disability, Christians living in a state of singleness, and Catholic social teaching. She is currently at work on a study of the sacrament of reconciliation and the nature of sin. Dr. Bennett is married to Dr. Joel Schickel, a philosopher, and they have a daughter, Lucia. Personal website Conference Main Page | Theme | Travel Programme | Call for Papers | Information | |
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