Casting a Vision of Communal and Public Life of the Church for the Post-Pandemic Korean-American Churches: Focusing on Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’s Communion and Public Ecclesiology

Abstract

I engage with Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’s communion and public ecclesiologies in casting a vision of communal and public life of post-pandemic Korean-American churches. For Kärkkäinen, the trinitarian economy of salvation constitutes the ontological ground of a church’s communal life in the wider society. The theologian advances a communal ecclesiology that celebrates irreducible particularities in unity of the Church while upholding a public ecclesiology through creative mutual interaction with other sectors of society in the imitatio Trinitatis. I discuss how his ecclesiological proposals may contribute to Korean-American churches by enhancing their socio-economic accountability, intercultural mutual respect, and intergenerational unity, while remaining deeply rooted in the Gospel of Christ.