Theology of the People of God: Experiences of the Catholic Integrated Community

The theology of the People of God presupposes from the basic biblical understanding that the will of God is not simply unknown and man would incessantly have to strain to guess it, to sense it, but rather that the will of God is clearly comprehensible from the rich history of salvation. It believes that God brought a people into being in this world which in its togetherness mirrors God’s affection for the world – as a blessing for all nations, as the “new city coming down from heaven” – an actual society marked by doing the will of God.

The specific contribution of the Catholic Integrated Community to the Catholic theology determines the orientation of the “Academy for the Theology of the People of God” with the following four focal points:

1. The coherence of Old and New Testament, of Jews and Christians
Israel of the Old Testament as the root of the Church, and the living Judaism as a corrective partner and reminder of this root, were newly discovered. Images of the “one bride of God” and of “the older and younger brother” are an essential impulse of the renewed theology of the People of God.

2. Differentiation between natural religion and biblical faith
An essential task of the theological reflection is the “differentiation between natural religion and supernatural historical revelation". Israel’s history of faith, Jesus’ of Nazareth life and theology, and the history of the Church show that tradition and interpretation of revelation are connected with an uninterrupted process of critique of religion.

3.Structural congruence
The Community made experiences congruent in structure to the Holy Scripture, and was able to formulate them. Thus the Community developed a “Hermeneutics of structural congruence”: Living as a community according to the New Testament is the key for understanding the texts of the Scripture Canon and the Catholic dogmas. Thus theology becomes again the immediate and reflected talk about God’s acting among his people.

4. Faith and Form
The primary impetus of revelation, to redeem and to transform the conditions of the world and of society, led towards a clearer conception of the connection between faith and form. This became a central topic of the theology of the Catholic Integrated Community and a code of practice, having an impact on all fields: on economy (acting jointly in the economic field) as well as on education, on the field of sickness and healing, and on the field of design.