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KNOWING THE TRIUNE GOD

The Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Church

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Copyright © 2001 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8028-4804-8

Contents

Contributors...................................................................................................ix1. Introduction: A Catholic and Evangelical Theology? James J. Buckley and David S. Yeago.....................12. The Church Reinhard Htter.................................................................................233. The Bible David S. Yeago...................................................................................494. The Liturgy Susan K. Wood..................................................................................955. Contemplation A. N. Williams...............................................................................1216. Baptism L. Gregory Jones...................................................................................1477. Interpretation David S. Cunningham.........................................................................1798. The Wounded Body James J. Buckley..........................................................................2059. Israel Bruce D. Marshall...................................................................................23110. The Stranger Eugene F. Rogers, Jr.........................................................................265

Chapter One

Introduction

A Catholic and Evangelical Theology? JAMES J. BUCKLEY AND DAVID S. YEAGO

The central claim of this book is that knowing the triune God is inseparable from participating in a particular community and its practices — a participation which is the work of God's Holy Spirit. Why say this, now?

A first step in answering this question is the specific circumstances of the book's origin. Several years ago Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson founded the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, headquartered in Northfield, Minnesota. The Center sponsors regular conferences on theological matters, and publishes Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology. In addition, the Center has also sponsored meetings among theologians interested in "Catholic and Evangelical theology." The authors here were members of one such group, originally called "The Dogmatics Project." This group was "Catholic and Evangelical" — Anglican (Cunningham and Williams), Lutheran (Htter, Marshall, and Yeago), Methodist (Jones), Roman Catholic (Buckley and Wood), and one raised Presbyterian, with a Lutheran conscience, who reads Catholics and Orthodox, and attends Episcopal services (Rogers); at times the group included Greek Orthodox and Baptist participants as well.

Thanks to the generosity of Carl and LaVonne Braaten and Robert and Blanche Jenson, this group met in Northfield, Minnesota, once or twice a year for several years, beginning in 1991. At our meetings, we discussed papers on a wide range of topics central to the future of a Catholic and Evangelical theology — from the doctrine of the Trinity to emerging theologies of the Jewish people. Eventually it was time to ask whether our conversations were leading in any distinctive direction. Did we have something to say as a group about the best direction for what the Center calls a "Catholic and Evangelical theology"?

This volume is our answer to that question to date. But we did not proceed deductively by arguing for an abstraction called "Catholic and Evangelical theology" to add to the pantheon of modern and postmodern theologies. The label has a past and present that is suggestive but hardly forms a monolithic school of thought. For example, in the nineteenth century, William Augustus Muhlenberg, the Anglican grandson of a famous Lutheran leader, proposed the formation of "an Evangelic and Catholic Union" of "the two distinctive elements" of the "Protestant Episcopal Church" — the primitive Catholicism of the early church and the restored Catholicism of the Reformation. But an aspiration to "evangelical catholicity" is also deeply embedded in the Lutheran tradition; "evangelical catholic" has recently served as a party label in intra-Lutheran controversy.

The label also has a connection with what moderns call "The Radical Reformation." That is, George Hunston Williams identified "Evangelical Catholics" as one subspecies of the "Evangelical Rationalists" of the Reformation era, exemplified by Erasmus, Lefevres, and Juan de Valdes. Still further, in the Reformed tradition, Karl Barth once expressed "a horror of mystical, High-Church, Evangelical-Catholic dilettantism"; but he could say, decades later, that he preferred "evangelical-catholic" to "evangelical" — and Thomas Torrance's essays on evangelical and catholic unity in east and west carry on this tradition. A more liberal theological tradition speaks of "the public Church" as a coalition of "mainline, evangelical, and catholic."

Among Roman Catholics, "evangelical" has usually meant "non-Roman Catholic." But Catholics also have a tradition of evangelical Catholicity, and Avery Dulles has recently spoken of "the birth of a new Catholicism which, without loss of its institutional, sacramental, and social dimensions, is authentically evangelical." Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus have brought together American Evangelicals (quite different, on many scores, from the largely Continental Evangelical theologians mentioned so far) and Catholics to speak to their "common mission" as well as "the gift of salvation."

We could go on. Our point is that, if all these groups and individuals share something theologically, it certainly does not add up to a party line. We certainly wish to embrace a Catholic and Evangelical cause. In calling the spirit in which we do theology "Catholic and Evangelical" we mean that we intend to engage the whole of the Christian tradition, in its diversity and richness. At one level, this means that we believe modern and constructive theology is authentically Christian and ecclesial when it is contiguous with the prior theological tradition — this much is implied when we affirm our belief in the communion of saints. At another level, it implies an ecumenical conviction: that theology which is to be heeded is not simply the theology of the church to which a particular writer belongs, but the theology of all Christians. The Roman Catholic is to listen to Luther and Barth; the Presbyterian is to listen to Aquinas, and everyone is to listen to the theology of the church in the patristic age. But we have no interest in announcing a new theological school, or restoring an old one. We simply aim to do theology in a way that reflects and generates "Catholic and Evangelical" dialogue and debate.

It should not be surprising, given this history, that the unity of the volume is not provided by a single philosophical perspective or global ethical agenda. We found ourselves disagreeing about issues raised by traditional and modern and postmodern philosophies as well as about the joys and griefs of contemporary economic and political life. Those who think that theological coherence depends on first elaborating a common philosophical framework, methodological program, or social-ethical commitment may find it difficult to see any unity in this volume at all. Each essay has its own distinctive shape. There will thus be no substitute for reading each of the chapters on its own terms. However, we believe that the diversity of the essays only underlines our central thesis:...