INTRODUCTION Because of the complexities of both primary and secondary material; and because of the numerous disciplines covered (New Testament, church history from prior to the common era in the Mediterranean basin through the twenty-first century, historical theology, liturgical history, liturgical theology, and constructive theology); this study has taken almost ten years to complete. It serves as a bookend to its sibling book, Baptism in the Reformed Tradition, which appeared in the Columbia Series in Reformed Theology ...
Read More
INTRODUCTION Because of the complexities of both primary and secondary material; and because of the numerous disciplines covered (New Testament, church history from prior to the common era in the Mediterranean basin through the twenty-first century, historical theology, liturgical history, liturgical theology, and constructive theology); this study has taken almost ten years to complete. It serves as a bookend to its sibling book, Baptism in the Reformed Tradition, which appeared in the Columbia Series in Reformed Theology in 2002, so that the two books encompass Reformed sacramental theology. The final chapter of this Supper study also completes sacramental ideas that were already present in the baptism study, but that had no appropriate place there, and that took some time to develop as fully as are given here. First, a few retrospective comments on the baptism book; then some comments about this Supper book, noting advances that it tries to make along the way; and, finally, the many thanks that are owed to so many people. The baptism book was a shot across the bow of the modern, Protestant liturgical renewal: "You are going the wrong direction and do not even know it." The argument was relatively simple. Among the remarkable achievements of the Roman Catholic liturgical renewal movement was its description of ecclesiology. The church is fundamentally built from the initiation of believers into the Paschal Mystery and sustained by the Spirit. The Roman Catholic Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), which has very specific liturgies that work together and that incarnate a particular theological grammar of initiation into the Paschal Mystery, was uncritically adapted by Protestants as initiation into the visible church. (No Protestant can possibly ascertain initiation into the invisible church because no one can see human faith; but more on that below.) The only broad Reformation-era tradition that has ever thought of baptism as fundamentally an entrance rite into the church is the Baptist tradition. When Karl Barth in IV.4 of his Church Dogmatics embraced baptism as initiation into the visible church, he realized (much to his credit) that for him baptism no longer was a sacrament. Barth realized that he had placed himself rather more in the Baptist tradition of an ordinance; and done so under considerable influence from the much overlooked work of his son, Markus Barth, in Die Taufe--Ein Sakrament? For the Reformed tradition baptism remains not an ordinance but a sacrament that is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Baptism primarily communicates the divine presence that claims this or that particular person as a beloved child, always and forevermore. Baptism cannot fail to do that, because God's grace does not fail to do that. Baptism secondarily initiates someone into the visible church; but whether that person is, or has been, initiated into the invisible church that is comprised of believers, and is thus initiated into the body of Christ, can in principle never be known by any human being. Why? Because whether someone has faith, and thus takes to heart the prior self-communication of the Divine that claims her or him, can never be known by any human being. (Here a foundational difference about "faith" exists between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, a difference that lies at the heart of being "initiated into the Paschal Mystery.") As a Reformation example of exactly this point, Martin Luther, in his essay on rebaptism, protested that Anabaptists think that they are God and that they can see someone's heart when they rebaptize, because some- one claims to have come to faith. Baptism, argued Luther, is grounded in the divine offer of grace, not in someone's putative coming to faith. You may know someone's public confession, Luther rightly observed, but you can never know whether another person has faith. A Reformation example also exists for the d
Read Less
Add this copy of The Lord's Supper in the Reformed Tradition: an Essay to cart. $22.00, very good condition, Sold by Windows Booksellers rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Eugene, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by Westminster John Knox Press.
Add this copy of The Lord's Supper in the Reformed Tradition (Columbia to cart. $56.55, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by Westminster John Knox Press.
Add this copy of The Lord's Supper in the Reformed Tradition (Columbia to cart. $78.74, new condition, Sold by Just one more Chapter, ships from Miramar, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by Westminster John Knox Press.
