Ecclesiology

Review: Eating with Jesus

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Cover image of "Eating with Jesus by Robert D. Cornwall

Eating with Jesus

Eating with Jesus, Robert D. Cornwall. Cascade Books (ISBN: 9798385213450) 2025.

Summary: An argument against restrictions or “fences” around the Lord’s table, welcoming all who will to come and encounter Christ.

When your church has communion or celebrates the Eucharist or Lord’s table, may all who wish to come, participate? Or is participation qualified in some way? Once, while visiting a church in a different denomination than my own, i needed to be interviewed by an elder and complete a form before being permitted to take communion. Another time, I was a guest in a service celebrating the Jubilee year of my former spiritual director. It was deeply meaningful, but when it came time to partake in the Eucharist, I knew that church permitted the Eucharist only to those received into the church, and so I refrained out of respect. But I felt left out.

Robert D. Cornwall asks whether it is consistent with the table Jesus kept to erect such “fences” to coming to the Lord’s table. He argues that it is not. Part One of the book lays out his argument. Part Two then offers reflections on a number of relevant passages. The appendices offer resources including liturgies and prayers for an open table.

First of all, Cornwall lays out biblical and theological foundations exploring the significance of Communion including its Passover roots, New Covenant significance, and as a meal of thanksgiving, unity, and encounter with Jesus. Then he turns to the history of restrictions to participation. He argues that 1 Corinthians 11:27-28 reflected the discriminatory practices in Corinth in which more “entitled” persons ate, leaving others to go hungry. They devalued both the bread and cup and the body of fellow believers. It’s not so much a restriction as a warning about their behavior toward fellow believers.

Thus, he contends that the New Testament offers no restrictions and opens the table to be shared by Jew and Gentile. Rather, restrictions came in subsequent centuries, requiring baptism after a lengthy catechesis. While in the modern period, ecumenism has led to mutual recognition of baptisms in many denominations, restrictions remain barring the table to unbaptized, or unconfirmed children, and to the unbaptized, including those who have yet to profess faith.

While upholding the importance of baptism as one’s visible profession of faith and initiation into the church, Cornwall does not believe this should bar those who would come. He argues that Jesus placed no such restrictions. Even sinners were welcome to his table, often with transforming effects. He argues that if this is the Lord’s table and not the church’s, Jesus is the host. He does not need us to “gatekeep.” Cornwall also includes a chapter on the COVID pandemic, when online participation ruled out such gatekeeping.

Positively, he then considers more deeply the meaning of the table as a place of encounter with the risen Lord. This includes the significance this may have in welcoming non-believers to the table. While I haven’t observed the latter, I’ve seen non-believers converted during prayer gatherings and work trips with Christians. They experienced the reality of people encountering Jesus in a compelling way. This made sense to me.

Part Two turns to reflections on several biblical passages. Perhaps most unusual is Genesis 18, reflecting how Abraham’s hospitality to strangers is a model for us. In Matthew 9:9-13, he considers Jesus eating with sinners. Among the texts included, he turns again to 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 on the matter of eating worthily. The eschatological elements of the meal are explored in Matthew 26:26-30. The final reflection, on the Messianic banquet, offers a reading of Revelation 19:6-10.

In his concluding thoughts, Cornwall recasts the Lord’s table, not in ecclesiological, but rather missiological terms. Rather than the table being a closed place, Cornwall raises the missional potential of making the table a place of welcome.

I appreciated this argument. Reflecting on how I’ve been excluded, even as a believer from some tables, I am deeply sympathetic to what this might mean to seekers. After all, who would come to this table, understanding what it means, if not desirous of an encounter with Christ? In fact, might not such a desire reflect the work of the Holy Spirit, drawing one to faith? Why would we want to quench the Spirit? Also, I’ve found that it is a fool’s errand to try to defend Jesus, who welcomed sinners, and hostile religious leaders, and even Judas to his table. He’d rather we come, and bring both friends and strangers.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Future of Synodality

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Cover image of "The Future of Synodality" by Kristin M. Colberg and Jos Moons, SJ

The Future of Synodality, Kristin M. Colberg and Jos Moons, SJ. Liturgical Press (ISBN: 9798400800160) 2025.

Summary: An account of the effort of Catholicism to move to a more open, participative and inclusive ecclesiology.

Synodality. Not a word on the tip of most of our tongues. But one that represents an important renewal effort within Catholicism. The word derives from the Greek syn = with and hodos = road. It translates as something like “journeying together.” Synods are gatherings of a Christian community, whether at local, national, or global levels, emphasizing an effort to include all voices, to listen together, discerning God’s way forward for the church.

Synodality characterized the leadership style of Pope Francis, even prior to his papacy. Amid crises that reflected problems within the Catholic hierarchy, on March 7, 2020, Pope Francis announced the Synod on Synodality. It would become an effort to convene Catholics at every level of the Church’s life throughout the world to discern God’s direction for the church. The process emphasized openness to all Catholics including a mandate for the participation of women. Diocesan and national summaries were compiled into continental summaries and finally a universal document, all the while seeking to preserve the participative contributions of Catholics.

The Future of Synodality sets out the history, prerequisites, process, and impact of the Synod on Synodality, a process extending from 2021 to 2024. The book begins with asking why synodality? In response, the authors ground synodality on the foundation of the common baptism of the faithful, the idea of a journeying church, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a pastoral ecclesial style, and a missionary vision of the church.

Then the authors trace the history of synodality. They find biblical foundations in the Acts of the Apostles, but trace the emergence to a crisis of leadership and the distinctive leadership approach of Pope Francis. Following this account, the authors offer snapshots of the Synod on Synodality–from the Synod logo, to the opening, where the synod process was set forth, through the local, diocesan, national, continental assemblies to the final General Assembly.

Perhaps the most impressive part of this account was the summary of what the church heard. Rather than a disparate list of conflicting concerns, the authors speak of the sensus fidei–an instinct of faith in which the faithful discerned what was of God, distilled into five themes:

  1. A need for formation
  2. A desire for the church to be more welcoming and inclusive
  3. A new style of being church and a new style of leadership
  4. The centrality of the liturgy
  5. Women

The authors elaborate each of these in their summary.

The second part of the book addresses how the Church may move from synodality as a moment in time to an ongoing quality of the church. Firstly, this requires personal conversion of attitudes and behavior, moving from hierarchical norms to ongoing willingness to listen to the people of God. Secondly, structural conversion is necessary. How will the participatory decision-making of synods transform the top down decision-making style of the Church? Finally, in the area of practices, how will the ongoing communal life of the Church translate into continuing synodality?

I suspect many of us who are not Catholic were unaware of this process. From conversations with Catholic friends, I sense that there is a deep renewal going on within Catholicism. The global journey together of this Synod seems a significant part of that. But it seems to me that the test will be the long-term “conversion” of the hierarchy. However, the empowering of parish and diocese, of women and other marginalized Catholics, may well spur a ground-upward transformation.

The process is also a model for non-Catholics. From congregation to denomination, the journeying together image of synodality is desperately needed. Protestantism is overrun with celebrity pastors more interested in followings than the formation of their people. Similar crises of sexual abuse stem from similar self protective hierarchies. The Synod on Synodality recognized the gift of the Spirit of God to the people of God. It affirmed the equality of all the baptized, and their shared mission. My hope is that not only may this movement continue to flourish within Catholicism under Pope Leo XIII. I also hope that we may all earn from each other on our journey with God.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Local and Universal

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Cover image of "Local and Universal" by C. Ryan Fields

Local and Universal: A Free Church Account of Ecclesial Catholicity (Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture), C. Ryan Fields. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514006719), 2024.

Summary: A theological exploration of the contribution of churches in the free church, locally governed tradition, to the wider church’s understanding of catholicity.

I am a member of a Brethren Church. I am writing this review after a meeting of our church’s governance team. As a governing body, in consultation with our congregation, we make decisions on everything from building use to the calling of pastors and commending them for ordination. We host food pantries, community gardens and support ministries in collaboration with other churches in our community as well as participate in denominational matters from planting new churches, to supporting mission efforts in other countries and theological training at our seminary.

Given our grassroots up, local character, can it be said that we are in any sense “catholic,” that is, truly a part of the universal church over which Jesus is Lord? Some may contend that while we may be in Christ, we are not catholic, because we are not part of a hierarchy, particularly one that may trace its roots through its succession of bishops back to Peter. C. Ryan Fields, in this book, makes the case that while this may be an aspect, or particular expression of catholicity, it overlooks other expressions of catholicity that may be evident in other bodies and particularly those understood as within the “Free Church” tradition. “Free Church” is defined in the book as including congregational polity, a “low” liturgy, eschewing adherence to creedal statements, valuing individual conscience and religious freedom and insisting on a separation of church and state.

Fields goes about this by first establishing the biblical warrant for the doctrine of catholicity. He then considers the development of this doctrine from apostolic to present times, summarizing this in a ten-fold taxonomy:

  1. Holistic Catholicity: connected to the whole vs. sectarianism
  2. Geographical Catholicity: embracing “all places” vs. provincialism
  3. Missional Catholicity: reaching “all peoples” vs. exclusionism
  4. Chronological Catholicity: commonality through “all times” vs novelty
  5. Orthodox Catholicity: doctrinal faithfulness vs. heresy or apostasy
  6. Institutional Catholicity: visible mediation vs. invisible conceptions and schismatic impulse
  7. Differentiated Catholicity: diverse identity and contribution vs. uniformity
  8. Christological Catholicity: emphasis on Christological connection vs. ecclesial minimalism
  9. Liturgical Catholicity: sacramental continuity vs. ingenuity
  10. Numerical catholicity: greatest adherence vs. minority status

Fields then takes the rest of the book to contrast the Anglican church with the Free Churches. Fields sees Anglicanism fulfilling many aspects of the taxonomy but argues that this may be at the expense of a certain uniformity that fails to express the true unity in a differentiated diversity that also marks catholicity. In the three following chapters, he explores Free Church Catholicity. He starts with its different Reformation expressions: Anabaptist, Puritan, and Baptist. Each of these he sees as characterized not as starting something new but retrieving something ancient that is missing. They revealed a Reformation ecclesiology, interacted with the broader tradition and claimed to preserve catholicity in essentials. He then proceeds in the two following chapters to develop the idea of Free Church catholicity as local catholicity–that where one finds catholicity embodied is in placed, local congregations that express in word and sacrament the diverse, yet united catholicity of the church. Yet this also requires the local body to embrace connectedness to the rest of the body, including other local churches.

This last strikes me as important. Without lived connection, we cannot embody catholicity locally, where it can have meaning for others. At the same time, Fields’ argument affirms not only the possibility of catholicity in the Free Church tradition but also the essential contribution to a robust catholicity these churches (my church among them!). While the Free Church may humbly learn from Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox believers, they needn’t be ashamed but also come bearing gifts of catholicity, enrich the whole body of Christ.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Just Discipleship

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Just Discipleship, Michael J. Rhodes (foreword by Brent A. Strawn). Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: A study both of what the Bible means by justice and how we become people who practice justice.

Michael J. Rhodes grew up in a conservative, white suburban congregation. They believed the Bible and tried to live out its teaching. And then they invited John Perkins to speak. His use of biblical passages on justice that invited them into a deeper discipleship stretched Rhodes vision. What he heard from Perkins was neither a liberal agenda or “woke” but “the Bible tells me so.” That led to trips to see these truths in action in urban Baltimore, and eventually to living in urban south Memphis. And then it led him to doctoral studies of biblical texts on justice and an effort to bring biblical theology and praxis together. This book is a distillation of that work. In it he seeks to do three things: 1) to carefully read the biblical texts related to justice; 2) to bring biblical texts into dialogue with what theologians say about ethical discipleship; and 3) to imagine what moral discipleship might look like today.

Rhodes begins by summarizing the justice story of scripture, one in which God brings justice to victory in Jesus after both humanity and Israel fail to be a royal, priestly family, and in which Jesus brings justice to victory by establishing a people who do justice by forming a people of God and inviting all humanity to join in. He then lays out how people are formed as just disciples in community: through story, through the promotion of a certain kind of character, through formative practices cultivating virtue, and through politics in the sense of church structures and policies aligned with just discipleship. This occurs in a cultural context with a continuum of responses ranging from rejection to cooption, with adaptation and collaboration in between. Ultimately, this formation occurs in the context of God’s reign over all creation.

Having laid this groundwork, he proceeds to consider how we become just disciples. He looks at the feasts of Deuteronomy which brought people of various economic strata together and how we do justice in the economic segregation of our neighborhoods. He considers the justice songs of the Psalms and considers how we sing and pray in our churches, He turns to wisdom teaching of Proverbs and the plight of low wage workers and forms of racism and classism in our society. Finally, 1 John is examined focusing on the imitation of Jesus and how justice-oriented discipleship is both received as gift and embraced as God-ordained task.

He then explores how churches become outposts reflecting God’s just kingdom rule.He considers two cases. The first is the biblical idea of Jubilee in which debts are cancelled, property is restored and slaves freed. Rhodes, drawing on Chris Wright’s idea of not treating these texts as blueprints but rather paradigms, weighs the possibility of churches voluntarily pursuing reparations for past injustices related to Black slavery and unjust tratment, citing the example of Virginia Theological Seminary. He did not discuss this but I could see similar applications in some contexts with indigenous peoples of North America. Rhodes also considers the case of Paul’s teaching with the Corinthians about the Lord’s table and the breaking down of societal distinctions in our church practice and governance.

The last part of the book looks at political engagement, looking beyond our common appeals to Romans 13 and Revelation and our subjection to political powers to our engagement with them. Rhodes draws a fascinating contrast between the model of Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon. While both were people of faith and integrity, Joseph acted alone and used his position to consolidate Pharoah’s (and his own) power, enslaved Egypt, and afforded benefit to his own family. Rhodes even raises the intriguing and plausible idea that this may have contributed to the animus against, and enslavement of Israel subsequently. By contrast, Daniel acted in community, working to challenge Nebuchadnezzar’s pretensions to godhood, making God and not himself great and arguably humanizing Nebuchadnezzar in his rule. He served where this did not involves assimilation, while refusing to collaborate when this compromised the worship of God. Rhodes thus sees Daniel as offering a better paradigm for our bolitical engagement.

Rhodes offers us a fresh look at both biblical passages and church practice. I’d never thought about the contrast between Joseph and Daniel. Nor had I thought about how feasting and singing might form just disciples. He gives numerous examples both from his own church in south Memphis (before taking a faculty appointment in New Zealand) and other congregations. Grounding his discussions of just discipleship and justice issues in a probing examination of biblical text, he sidesteps the criticism that this is just a Christian version of critical race theory. While he addresses political engagement without the church becoming entangled in a particular brand of politics the stronger appeal for me is that he shows what the church as its own polis and in its own congregational life can do. And he shows how just discipleship is just discipleship–it is what we signed up for when we decided to follow Jesus.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: T. F. Torrance as Missional Theologian

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T. F. Torrance as Missional Theologian (New Explorations in Theology), Joseph H. Sherrard, Foreword by Alan Torrance. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: An examination of the contribution Thomas Torrance’s theological work makes to the church’s understanding of missiology, particularly centered around his understanding of the Godhead, the person of Christ, and Christ’s threefold offices and the church’s participation in them.

Thomas Torrance lived in the shadow of his mentor Karl Barth as well as collaborators like Leslie Newbigin. Much of his theological work addressed the nature of the Triune God and the person of Christ, as well as the relationship between science and theology. Joseph H. Sherrard asserts, contrary to first appearances, Torrance’s work offers a distinctive basis for the missiology of the church.

He begins with Torrance’s doctrine of God. Torrance’s doctrine of the homoousion leads to the idea that who the Triune God is in essence is who God is to us. There is no room for dualism, sealing God off from the material world God created. He highlights the lack of separation between God and the logos in Athanasius, the Reformation doctrine that saw the gift of grace and the Giver of grace as one, and the way Barth united these two insights in his thought. God’s mission that reconciles the world and creates the world reflects what God is in essence rather than something added or set apart.

Sherrard then turns to Christology, focusing on Torrance’s understanding of the threefold office of Christ as king, priest and prophet, and how the latter two often come together in Torrance’s work. I thought Sherrard’s treatment here was rich in material for theological reflection, including a discussion of three terms for redemption that form Torrance’s thought and how these map onto Christ’s threefold office:

  • paddah, referring to a powerful, gracious work redeeming from sin’s power.
  • kipper, the wiping out of sin, effecting propitiation between God and man.
  • goel, the kinsman redeemer

In his chapter on Christology, Sherrard also elaborates the importance of the ascension as creating the space for the church as Christ’s body to participate in his ministry.

He then turns to this idea of the church as the body of Christ. Torrance saw the church as shaped by “the analogy of Christ” in four ways:

  1. As a sent church as the Son was sent
  2. As a body constrained by suffering as was Christ as the Suffering Servant
  3. In its identity with fallen humanity as Christ so identified himself
  4. In its movement toward teleological fullness as Christ is the one who fills all in all.

In the chapter, Sherrard also contrasts Torrance and Newbigin, particularly with regard to the latter’s more robust pneumatology.

Chapters four and five focus on the three offices and how the church in its mission participates in these. Chapter four focuses on the royal office. The church reflects the new creation, the new order under, and exercising royal authority, in the world. Sherrard notes that in the realm of political theology, Torrance left us with some ambiguity of how this authority is to be worked out vis a vis the state, a critical lacuna in our current moment. Chapter five then turns to the prophetic ministry and its relation to preaching and the priestly ministry and the place of sacraments in enacting that ministry. One of the criticisms Sherrard notes is that the prophetic ministry takes a back seat to the priestly in Torrance’s writing and is “underdetermined.”

,He concludes with a summary and assessment of Torrance’s contribution to missiology. First is the grounding of missiology in the Triune God rather than sociology. Second, and occupying much of this work is how mission ought be shaped by Christ’s threefold office. Third, and not something I’ve discussed thus far, is the contribution of the idea of the “deposit of faith” to mission, that is that the gospel has been entrusted to the church, to be kept by its continued propagation. Finally is the idea of how the church participates in Christ’s threefold ministry, patterning its life on his.

As noted in this conclusion, it may be that Torrance’s most distinctive contribution is to ground mission in our theology of the Triune God and this God’s seamless relation with and redemptive movement toward the world. Only our ever-deepening worship of the Triune God can sustain our missional efforts. Only his Son provides the definitive pattern for our mission. Only the gospel of a gracious God is sufficiently worthy to proclaim. Sherrard rightly notes our tendency to turn from theology to sociology, or worse pragmatic methodology. We do well to attend to the caution, and the rich contribution Torrance makes to a robust missiology.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: An Introduction to Ecclesiology

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An Introduction to Ecclesiology, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: An introduction to different historical theologies of the church, contemporary theologies from throughout the world, the mission and practices of the church, and the church and other religious communities.

At one time, an introduction to ecclesiology would be complete with parts one and three of this work. It would be sufficient to discuss the historical theologies of the church from the major church traditions, and the liturgy, sacraments or ordinances of the church and the mission of the church from the West, from where these theologies arose, to the rest of the world. The changes, even from an earlier edition of this work, reflect the growth of indigenously led Christianity on every continent engaged in the theological task as well as the increasing awareness of Christianity’s intersection with, points of contact and difference with, and need to engage the other major religious communities of the world. These latter two form parts two and four of the present work.

Part one then discusses the major traditions of the church and what these have meant by confessing one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. A chapter each is devoted to six major traditions, featuring a representative theologian and a key theme. In order, they are:

  1. Eastern Orthodoxy, “The Church as an Icon of the Trinity” (John Zizioulos)
  2. Roman Catholic, “The Church as the People of God” (Hans Kung)
  3. Lutheran, “The Church Around the Word and Sacraments, Part One” (Wolfhart Pannenberg)
  4. Reformed, “The Church Around the Word and Sacraments, Part Two” (Jurgen Moltmann)
  5. Free Church, “The Church as Fellowship of Believers” (James William McClendon, Jr.)
  6. Pentecostal/Charismatic, “The Church in the Power of the Spirit” (no representative theologian)

It is surprising that no separate chapters address Anglicanism and its Wesleyan offshoots and that German theologians are representative of three of these traditions. Might not Herman Bavinck or Abraham Kuyper be more representative of the Reformed movement?

Part two turns to global theologies. Latin American theology turns to theologies of liberation and the idea of base communities. Africa has a long church history from early Christianity, to Catholic and colonial missions efforts , and the rise of the African Initiated Churches, the latter with a significant emphasis on the Spirit in the churches. The chapter on Asian ecclesiology was surprisingly short, focusing on “church-less” Christianity and Pentecostal and indigenous churches. Greater attention is given to global feminist ecclesiologies, particularly the confrontation of patriarchy, womanist black theology, and mujerista Latina theology. The North American church is treated as a mosaic of historic traditions, the Black church, immigrant communities and emergent churches.

Liturgy, order, and mission are the focus of part three. It traces a development of a multi-dimensional focus on mission shared by the whole church as a response to colonialism Subsequent chapters outline different understandings of ministry, liturgy and worship, and the sacraments or ordinances. The final chapter focuses on what the unity of the church can mean amid such diversity and various ecumenical efforts as well as the resistance to such. On this last, I would like to have seen more discussion of this in a global context as the predominance of the church has shifted from Europe and North America to the rest of the world.

The last part consider Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism with regard to community among these religions. Probably most significant for me are the connections of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as people of the book, as well as the Sangha communities of Buddhism. I felt this section somewhat cursory, addressed much better in texts on world or comparative religions. Still, to consider the counterparts to the communal nature of Christianity, and even what the individualistic West might learn from these counterparts is worthwhile.

This is an introductory text that doesn’t attempt to formulate a distinctive ecclesiology but rather survey how theologians have understood the nature of the church through history and around the world. It’s useful as part of a doctrine or theological survey course and points people to the contributions of key theologians in the field. It is written with clarity and concision, and if in some place, one may want more coverage, in no place will one want less.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.