Self-Emptied Churches: A Three-fold Typology of Kenotic Theology in the Post-War Period
Bibliographic record
Abstract
For the last two centuries, the doctrine of kenosis has gone through periodic bursts of intense popularity in Christian theology. The doctrine was originally centred on a nineteenth-century debate of Christ’s two natures: how can the Logos become flesh and not cease to be God? Since then, however, theologians have struggled to define kenosis in any clear sense. Modern permutations have further complicated contemporary discussion of kenosis and have raised serious questions about the practical application of kenosis and its theological coherence. Despite these difficulties, some theologians have begun to speak of kenosis as a ‘practice’ of the Church. Kenosis has shifted its place from being seen as one element in the triune life of God to being claimed as an overarching motif: a descriptive metaphysical principle by which all things are measured. This dissertation examines how the topic of kenosis shaped Christian thinking in the aftermath of World War II. The study will map out a three-part typology of kenotic thought in Anglo-American theology during this period and consider its trajectory and ecclesiological ramifications. Type One develops kenosis as a totalizing ontological principle, while Type Two characterizes the kenotic motif as performing a socio-political function. Finally, Type Three seeks to define ecclesial power and ethics through a kenotic lens. Whereas Type Three offers the strongest and most compelling description of kenosis, all three types ultimately fail to account for the unique divine nature of the kenotic self-emptying. I argue that attempts to prioritize the doctrine of kenosis as a theological principle have been largely misguided and perpetuate false notions of power, hierarchy, and authority.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.010 | 0.045 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".