Category: Ecclesiology

Working bibliography of biblical studies books on ecclesiology

Post author By Andy Rowell
Post date November 23, 2008
1 Comment on Working bibliography of biblical studies books on ecclesiology

I have prepared a working bibliography of biblical studies books on ecclesiology. Below I have also reviewed Longenecker's compiliation which is quite good. Elsewhere, I have reviewed Barrett's book.

Update: See also the input from different people on Chris Tilling's post asking for suggestions on this topic.

Working bibliography of biblical studies books on ecclesiology

Book review: Community Formation: In the Early Church and in the Church Today edited by Richard Longenecker

Richard N. Longenecker, ed. Community Formation: In the Early Church and in the Church Today (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2002).

Outstanding book on biblical and historical backgrounds of church leadership structures, November 22, 2008

By
Andrew D. Rowell (Durham, NC) – See all my reviews

The subject of this book is church leadership structures. It addresses the question: "What are bishops, elders and deacons?"
There
are 11 chapters plus a fantastic introduction to the history of the
debate by editor Richard Longenecker. "Most of the chapters in this
volume were originally presented at the Bingham Colloquium, held June
26-27, 2000, at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada"
(xvii). I will highlight the chapters I happened to find particularly
helpful. I found the first two chapters by Richard Ascough on
Greco-Roman associations, and Alan Segal on the Jewish institutions, to
be excellent concise descriptions of the context from which the church
emerged. Then there are chapters by well known New Testament scholars
Craig A. Evans, Richard Longenecker, and I. Howard Marshall on the
church in the Gospels, Paul, and the Pastoral Epistles respectively.
Frances Young traces the development of the forms of church leadership
in the whole New Testament and into the Greek fathers–arguing that
probably elders meant "senior citizens" and not a church office.
Finally, there is a brilliant essay by theologian John Webster on how
church leadership should be considered; an interesting essay by David
Hester about the development of Presbyterian polity and whether it is
still valuable today; and then finally a summary by Miroslav Volf of
his book After Our Likeness. If I were teaching ecclesiology in a
seminary, I would require all of these essays. They are concise and
well-written by outstanding scholars.
Because of my own interests, I did not delve into the chapters by Peter Richardson, Scott Bartchy, and Alan Hayes.

Ecclesiology Evangelism John Howard Yoder Missional Papers Th.D. / Ph.D.

The Ecclesiology of John Howard Yoder paper

Post author By Andy Rowell
Post date November 3, 2008
3 Comments on The Ecclesiology of John Howard Yoder paper

I am placing online the major paper I wrote this summer: The Ecclesiology of John Howard Yoder: Scripture, Five Practices of the Christian Community, and Mission.

It is 96 pages and I don't expect many to read it but it might be helpful for someone.

Here are my casual blogpost-informal introductory comments; you can read my academic phrasing in the paper.

I find Yoder's writings on the church to be enormously inspiring. Some people caricature Yoder as a "bury your head in the sand" "come out from them and be separate" sectarian who supports Christians huddling together as the world goes to hell in a handbasket. (That's a lot of cliches). His point of view is much better summarized as: "let's walk our talk"–Why do we expect people to want to become Christians if we don't live as Jesus did? This seems to me to be basic Christianity. (Make disciples . . . Matt 28:18-20). Yoder writes a book called For the Nations in 1997, while Stanley Hauerwas wrote Against the Nations in 1992–note well the difference in emphasis. Not only is this missionary emphasis explicit in his later writing, Yoder's emphasis on the importance of the church being missional is found in his 1967 essay "A People in the World" in The Royal Priesthood and greatly resembles the paradigmatic missional theologian Lesslie Newbigin's understanding of the church as missional. (See page 70 of my paper. By the way, Newbigin drew upon Yoder regularly in his writings and did not caricature Yoder).

Similarly, in the last 17 years of his life (1980-1997), there is very little emphasis in Yoder's writings on pacifism which is what he is most famous / infamous for. He deliberately tried in these later years to show that his ecclesiology was much more multifaceted and fruitful than this emphasis. The idea that Yoder = pacifism is another caricature that must be debunked.

Still, I do offer some critiques of Yoder's ecclesiology in my paper. I argue that the five practices that he presents in Body Politics (as well as in various other places) do not adequately represent the main practices of the early church. As he admits, they are "sample" practices–not necessarily the most central ones (and I argue they are of particular interest to him as an ethicist interested in moral discourse)–but the casual reader could easily get the idea that these are the main practices that characterize the New Testament church. (See pages 13-15 of my paper). I argue for example that the Acts 2:42-47 arguably better represent the early church's life than the five practices Yoder draws out of the New Testament.

Along these same lines, I also think he does not adequately capture the importance of leaders (specifically the apostles in the New Testament) and teaching. By his emphasis on the multiplicity of gifts and the open meeting, he gives the impression that we do not need leaders, nor someone to show up at the open meeting adequately prepared to present something that edifies the community. Though I am a huge fan of interacting with the congregation in preaching, shared leadership, and gift-based ministry, I think Yoder does not adequately address the central importance in the New Testament of someone like the apostle Paul. There is no place in Yoder's ecclesiology for someone doing the kind of leading and teaching that Paul did and my sense is that this leading and teaching function need to be taken up somehow in all Christian communities. I am making quite a pedestrian boring point here I think–churches are not wrong in thinking that often there will be a very good Bible teacher in the community who will also exercise leadership in shaping the direction of the community–Yoder does not want to say this because he is trying to emphasize the priesthood of all believers. Again, you will need to read the whole paper to see my full arguments on these points.

Therefore, here is my advice for people who are Yoder fans. If you liked his Body Politics, you need to see how you can incorporate those excellent practices in your church but at the same time, you may need to keep other good practices like the practice of teaching Scripture.

If you think the church is a boring, bureaucratic sleepy organization where mediocre people dutifully show up to pay their dues, then Yoder is what you need. For Yoder, the church is the means by which God intends to change the world. It is a laboratory run by revolutionaries who intend to undermine all that is wrong with the world by the way they love one another. Amen to that.

Download The_Ecclesiology_of_John_Howard_Yoder.pdf

Download The_Ecclesiology_of_John_Howard_Yoder.doc

See my posts:
Based on Yoder's five practices: Everything I needed to know about the church I learned at Taylor University.
John Howard Yoder on Voting
I recommended Yoder's Body Politics at my post: Best book on ecclesiology I read this year.

See also my major paper: The Missional Ecclesiology of Rowan Williams.

Books mentioned in this post:

Ecclesiology Evangelism Megachurches Missiology Missional Worship

A wider target: Deconstructing and redeploying the Seeker Sensitive Service planning of The Purpose Driven Church

Post author By Andy Rowell
Post date October 27, 2008

In 1995, Rick Warren published The Purpose Driven Church. It was perhaps the most influential book in church circles in the decade. It was the definitive "how-to" manual of how grow a megachurch. In it, he presented Donald McGavran's "Church Growth" principles from the 1970's to a new generation. Younger leaders in their 30's like Leadership Journal managing editor Skye Jethani and myself continue to feel like these ideas need further theological reflection. In his post in January 2008 entitled Sense & Sensitivity: Why It’s Time to Abandon the Seeker-Sensitive Model, Skye reflects on biblical and monastic hospitality and urges churches to embrace people first rather than focusing on which people our church is targeting. Although I largely agree with Skye, I want to affirm in the seeker sensitive approach the principle of intentionality. I think it makes sense to be intentional about how we are communicating in our worship services but I agree with Skye that a narrow target is theologically problematic.

What we need I believe is a wider target. The educational and missional and liturgical task demand that we attempt to communicate as clearly as we can with as many people in attendance as possible. For those not involved in this ideological argument between seeker-senstive vs. not seeker-sensitive, this should be quite obvious. In plain English, the pastor and worship leaders should attempt to draw in and engage as many people who may attend the church from the surrounding community as possible. This is the wide target. This involves speaking clearly, using music that has broad appeal, and using images that are accessible to a large range of people. This is why the tasks of preaching and leading worship are so difficult. However, this seemingly obvious insight does have some edge to it, some "bite," because it means that congregational worship and preaching that only appeals to the most entrenched insiders needs to be given greater accessibility. The pastor can address very complex Christian concepts and stories but they need to use vocabulary that people readily understand (or they need to define those theological words). Rituals need to explained. Music needs to be singable or otherwise accessible or it needs to be carefully taught. What Warren and other seeker-sensitive people get is that the person who visits the church for the first time needs to be given tips and help on making sense of what is going on. This, as I argue below, however does not mean that churches need to only have one target audience. They need to be intentional about communicating with the wider target of their surrounding community.

Here then is my comment on Skye's blog in response to his post.

I think this theological probing into hospitality is important work. I agree with you that the biggest problem with seeker-sensitive approaches is that they seek to capitalize on people's social prejudices by giving them an environment, communication and music that makes them feel comfortable. This can tend to reinforce social barriers. If the worship service is designed to appeal to "Saddleback Sam . . . in his late thirties or early forties . . . among the most affluent of Americans" (Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995, p. 169-170), then one wonders whether people who do not fit this profile will feel that they do not belong.

As one attempts to speak the language of the people; (I like this terminology because it makes one think of the missionary task or educational task); we must be careful to include the whole surrounding community–a wider target. Warren and others are wrong I think for championing the targeting of one demographic (Saddleback Sam), but they are right in wanting to clearly communicate the gospel of Jesus to those present in language those people understand. "Why do we got to all this trouble defining the typical person we're trying to reach? Because the more you understand someone the easier it is to communicate with him" (Warren, Purpose Driven Church, 171). Yes, that we can agree with. Warren contradicts his own emphasis on Saddleback Sam when he notes in passing that his church has not rigidly followed the single-demographic targeting! He notes, "One of the advantages of being a large church is that you have the resources to go after multiple targets . . . we've been able to add additional ministries and outreach programs to reach young adults, single adults, prisoners, the elderly, parents with ADD children, and Spanish-, Vietnamese-, and Korean-speaking people, as well as many other targets" (Warren, Purpose Driven Church, 159-160). Warren's conscience, even in 1995 before his awakening to the needs to the world, would not allow him to strictly only target one group's needs. But he is wrong that only large churches have the luxury of reaching a variety of people. No, every church needs to intentionally communicate with (and minister to) the broad range of people who live within their community.

Therefore, I do not think that it is mutually exclusive to "welcome strangers indiscriminately into our tent/monastery/church" and "determine our target audience’s desires in advance." Preparing for people to come over is precisely what hospitable people do. The monastery has clean beds and food in the cupboards so that when the stranger shows up, they can be hosted appropriately. Similarly, it is appropriate for churches to prepare well to communicate with the people who will come through the doors.

Furthermore, negligence by worship leaders and preachers in preparing well to communicate in language that guests understand will not necessarily lead to congregation members stepping up and being more hospitable. I have seen friendly and distant congregation members at both seeker megachurches and traditional small churches but my sense is that the pastor and worship leaders have a significant role in shaping congregational practice by their own example and practice.