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The Unity of the Nations Essay
An Essay on Vision and Mission
In the Unity of Na
The Unity of the Nations Essay
An Essay on Vision and Mission
In the Unity of Nations (1962), Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) leans on Origen of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo to develop his understanding of the universal vision and mission of the Church.1 For him, considering these two foundational theologians, the Ekklesia (Church) is the universal assembly of the People of God which replaces the particularized fatherland (State) of Rome. The biggest problem with Rome, Augustine suggests, is national pride—not in light of its universality, convoking the People of God into a universal Body of Christ, but in its particular temporal instantiation. In other words, Rome was just one polity (an empire) amongst others—asserting itself against others—in time but the Church is the polity which draws together the diversity of polities (nations) into unity for all time. Rome, not God, was its own source of pride – an error noted by Augustine and repeated by many others over the centuries.
This paper should be at minimum 2500 words, not including quotations or footnotes. You must use three assigned theologians as primary sources for your personal model and have 20-word declarative thesis.
The Task:
Define what you believe to be the Church and the State’s vision and mission to be. Be creative but be explicit. Draw this out through a declarative thesis, building out your mission and vision.
In order to define your position, you must discuss the following questions synthetically:
What is the relationship of the spiritual and temporal powers (the two powers)?
Is the Church (or a religious body of another sort) a necessary institution representing the spiritual power on Earth?
Is faith best mediated by institutions or by the liberty of one’s conscience?
What is the distinct function of the State? How do you manage diversity and unity?
Should the Church and State be separated or integrated? And, if integrated, what are the checks and balances you perceive as necessary?
What sort of authority is legitimate for Church and State governance? A Crown? A Council? A Parliament? A Democracy? Nothing at all?
What are the principle social concerns the Church and State should address? Poverty? Climate?
Individual liberty? Create a hierarchy if you believe it should be multiple.
These do not require lengthy extrapolations; they simply need to be discussed.
Alongside the development of your own model relating Church and State, outline your vision and mission in life. Explain, alongside your ideal model, how your own vocation in life fits into the universal vision and mission you have just designed. If it does not fit, ask yourself why not and address that in your essay. An easy entry into this is answer: What do I stand for?
1 Joseph Ratzinger, The Unity of the Nations: A Vision of the Church Fathers (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, [1962] 2015).
The Parameters
Again, this paper should be 2500 words not including quotes or footnotes. You must use Chicago style notation for your footnoted citations and must be consistent throughout the essay. Part of your grade will depend on your ability to do this well.
You must use three theologians (or more) from the primary readings to develop your framework and model. Examples of these include Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Delores Williams, Jacques Maritain, any of the popes, and many more. There are a wide range you can choose from that will hopefully allow you to lean on some structure to develop how you imagine the proper relationship of things are and ought to be. The only exception is that Ratzinger, Origen, and Augustine do not count towards your three theologians cited, as they are essential sources for your assignment.
Regarding The Unity of Nations, when you develop your own position, you must discuss that position in light of Ratzinger’s analysis. For example, when you outline your position on what the Church and State should care for socially, discuss that considering the tension Ratzinger notices between the particularity of diverse (and disunited) nations and the universality of the Ekklesia—pulling together the nations in unity. Is your worldview one wherein social goods only matter for a particular nation (i.e. yours)? Or do your social commitments extend universally, touching the whole of humanity, drawing together the nations? Do not feel compelled to take a global or humanitarian position if you do not actually believe it.
Further, regarding Augustine’s problem with Ancient Rome, how do you overcome the problem of national pride? Is national pride a limit on the accomplishments of your ideal social arrangement, or is it something which could act as an engine to drive it into existence? Think of examples in history wherein people will defend now-admonished traditions eventually overcome because they are “essential” to national character or wealth (i.e. Slavery in the South), but then others wherein national pride help in liberative ways (i.e. U.S. involvement in World War II). How can your model help furnish one over the other, accomplishing what you imagine to be the ideal social arrangement?
In other words, you must discuss The Unity of the Nations text insofar as it helps supply your model with frameworks and arguments. Do not simply regurgitate that text – use it.
The clearest and easiest way to address these questions above will be to have a social concern in mind from the start. If your problem is, for example, social cohesion, climate disruption, poverty, lack of ambition (i.e. work), political polarization, or whatever else, it will be easier for you to dive into how your model addresses this (or these) issue(s). Essentially, you can start to think about this broad set of problem by answering the question: “What do I stand for?”
(Professor said i don’t need to hit word count)
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