A Virtue-Based Model of Christian Presence: A Trialogue of the Texts of the Epistle to Diognetus, James Davison Hunter and Eka Darmaputera as a New Imagination of the Three-Duties of the Church

Abstract

This article is an intertextual reading of three models of Christian presence from three texts, namely The Epistle to Diognetus, an extra-canonical text of the second century; the text To Change the World by James Davison Hunter, an American sociologist; and the views of Eka Darmaputera, an Indonesian theologian. The findings of the three texts are analyzed using Alasdair MacIntyre’s concept of virtue, which rejuvenates Aristotle’s idea of virtue ethics. Through intertextual analysis of these three texts, the findings related to Christian presence are used to construct a model of virtue-based Christian presence. This virtue-based model of Christian presence is used as the basis for building an image of the three-duties model of the church, namely koinonia, diakonia, and marturia. This effort aims to answer the struggle of balancing the model of church presence between internal and external factors.

Keywords

• The Epistle to Diognetus
• James Davison Hunter
• Eka Darmaputera
• Christian Presence
• Virtue