Take & Eat
Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper
by Russell D. Moore, I. John Hesselink, David P. Scaer, and Thomas A.
Baima
edited by John H. Armstrong
Zondervan, 2007
(224 pages, $14.99, paperback)
The Lord’s Supper: Five Views
by Jeffrey Gros, FSC, John R. Stephenson, Leanne Van Dyk, Roger E. Olsen,
and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
edited by Gordon T. Smith
IVP Academic, 2008
(159 pages, $18.00, paperback)
reviewed by Thomas A. Baima
In the last couple of years, two books have taken up one of the most important doctrinal issues that separate Christians: the Eucharist. I believe that both books are significant both in their content and in their methodology. In this review, however, I will avoid discussing the content of the volumes because I was a co-author of one of them. Instead, I will offer a review of the books’ equally important contribution in the area of theological methodology, which was the work of the editors, John H. Armstrong and Gordon T. Smith.
The content is worth separate review, and I hope someone will take up that task. At the same time, I believe the methodology is worthy of consideration on its own merit, for it represents a step forward in what some have called the new ecumenism.
For those unfamiliar with the term “new ecumenism” it will help to define first what its practitioners understand the “old ecumenism” to be. The old ecumenism is an “official” enterprise, done by theologians mandated by their churches to conduct bilateral and multi-lateral dialogues. This form of ecumenism has produced a large body of literature in the form of joint statements and agreements. It is largely the work of those communities which have strong national and international associations, such as the Lutheran World Federation, the Anglican Communion, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Catholic Church.
The old ecumenism tended not to include those communities which did not have membership in international associations such as these. This represents an important self-exclusion, since it meant that many conservative Evangelical and Pentecostal communities, which account for quite a significant number of Christians worldwide, did not enter the conversations.
The new ecumenism seeks to engage especially these communities through “non-official” dialogues. Rather than by officially mandated delegates, this new ecumenism is practiced principally by interested theologians and pastors—in other words, by individuals rather than churches. Both of these books are expressions of the new ecumenism.
Friendly but Firm
Both John H. Armstrong and Gordon T. Smith have chosen authors who generally hold to both a high Christology and a high view of the authority of Scripture (and in the Catholic authors, Scripture and Tradition). Said another way, although the Protestants and Catholics still do not agree on the sources of authority, all of the contributors to these two volumes appear to agree that theology is about Revealed Truth, to which all doctrine is accountable. This creates a fairly robust dialogue between the various views presented in both books.
While the essays are respectful in tone, based on the authors’ mutual recognition of each other as Christians, they nevertheless give no quarter on matters of truth. Each contributor asserts that the view of his theological tradition is most in conformity with Christ’s teaching. The conversation is, at times, quite passionate.
Thomas A. Baima is a Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago and provost of the University of Saint Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois. He holds a doctorate from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome/Angelicum.
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more from the online archives
32.2—March/April 2019
Misguided Mercy & Dante's Infernal Purgation by Joshua Hren
31.6—November/December 2018
on the Church's Response to the Anti-marriage Tide by Diane Woerner
31.5—September/October 2018
Errands into the Moral Wilderness
Forms of Christian Family Witness & Renewal by Allan C. Carlson
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