Adam John McIntosh was recently awarded a Doctor of Theology by the Melbourne College of Divinity for his thesis, ‘The Doctrine of Appropriation as an interpretative framework for Karl Barth’s ecclesiology of the Church Dogmatics’. The abstract reads:

Barth’s ecclesiology has been interpreted by Barth scholars primarily in terms of a christological ecclesiology. Although several scholars have noted the trinitarian shape to his ecclesiology, the importance of Barth’s doctrine of appropriation for his understanding of the church has not been thoroughly considered. Barth’s doctrine of appropriation is the conceptual framework within his doctrine of the Trinity for bringing to speech the particular works ad extra of the divine modes of being. This thesis employs Barth’s doctrine of appropriation as an interpretative framework for his ecclesiology of the Church Dogmatics. It is argued that Barth’s doctrine of appropriation fundamentally determines his ecclesiology insofar as the particular work of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit shape the principles of his ecclesiology. The thesis concludes that Barth’s ecclesiology is best understood from a triadic perspective as a patrological, christological and pneumatological ecclesiology. It is only in the perichoretic unity of these perspectives that Barth’s whole ecclesiology is to be grasped, without diminishing the particular perspective.

I’m yet to read it but it sounds great. If it really is as good as it sounds then I can only hope that it finds a publisher pronto. His supervisors were Dr Christiaan Mostert and Rev Bruce Barber.