Anabaptist World, the denominational magazine of Mennonite Church USA, has published an article on the death of German Catholic New Testament scholar Gerhard Lohfink on 2 April 2024. The article notes the interest that Mennonites took in his work on ecclesiology and the social dimension of Christian faith:
by Wolfgang Krauß
Gerhard Lohfink, a German Catholic New Testament scholar, died on April 2, 2024 in Ebenhausen, Germany. North American Anabaptists, including Mennonites and the Bruderhof, took interest in his work, especially his book Jesus and Community: the Social Dimension of Christian Faith.
The book was published in 1982 in German and is still in print. A translation into English appeared in 1984. From the evidence of the New Testament, Lohfink developed a biblical ecclesiology that is similar to the early Anabaptists’ understanding of the church.
According to Lohfink, the Jesus movement continues in a small, relationship-based community. Through the community’s witness, people come into contact with Jesus and are invited to follow him and live together. Here Jesus is present and lives with the community in contrast to the social and political relationships of power and violence.
Lohfink’s coining of the term “contrast society” for the social dimension of the community of Jesus was an extremely important, and indeed indispensable, contribution to the ecclesiological discourse. …