135 - The Supper of the Lord: The New Testament, Ecumenical Dialogues, and Faith and Order on Eucharist & Church, Ministry, and Sacraments in the New Testament

The Supper of the Lord: The New Testament,
Ecumenical Dialogues, and Faith
and Order on Eucharist
By John Reumann
Philadephia, Westminster, 1985. 225 pp. $13.95.

Church, Ministry, and Sacraments
in the New Testament
By C. K. Barrett
Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1985. 110 pp. $6.95.

Both of these books are interested in relating the New Testament documents to the current situation of the churches, especially their ecumenical enterprise. Reumann's book is replete with references and bibliography; Barrett's is almost without references, more of a reflection, in his maturity, on the topics of the book's title. In both cases, the titles and subtitles provide fair descriptions of the content.

Reumann's book is a detailed examination of the current discussion of the Eucharist in the New Testament and recent ecumenical documents (such as the bilateral consultations and the Lima document), and a more cursory survey of some major developments between the New Testament period and today. These chapters are not mere recital of facts, but also evaluation and critique of the developments narrated. The fourth and last chapter is dedicated entirely to evaluation of past and present and speculation about the future. The book is clearly composed and easy to read. Only one caution is in order-the unwary reader might be overwhelmed by the variety, indeed, the conflict of ideas and interpretations presented. With this in mind, both Reumann's and Barrett's books, although quite different, are suitable for students and seminarians, pastoral ministers and academic theologians.

Barrett's book consists of four chapters, the Didsbury Lectures, given at the British Isles Nazarene College, Manchester, November, 1983. The chapter titles indicate the content: From Jesus to the Church; Ministry; Sacraments; and The Developing Community. I found the first two excellent, the latter two disappointing. Barrett properly points out that "the church is at the same time central and peripheral." Likewise, the church is provisional, temporary, penultimate-an interim solution for the time between the resurrection/ ascension of Jesus and the heaven of the church. He also correctly notes the possibility and danger of an ecclesiological as well as christological Apollinarianism. Consequently, he emphasizes the human nature and dimensions of the

136 - The Supper of the Lord: The New Testament, Ecumenical Dialogues, and Faith and Order on Eucharist & Church, Ministry, and Sacraments in the New Testament

church. However, one never has the feeling that he is really comfortable with this human dimension, with the "given facts … of human society" He seems to be preoccupied constantly with their negative, sinful possibilities, consistently unimpressed with their positive possibilities for human being and societal orderliness. Only at the end of the book do we learn the source of this uneasiness with human institutions, even religious ones: "All this is part of a quest for security, a flight from the dangerous sola fide of the New Testament." Those not enamoured of the sola fide (of theology, not of the New Testament) tend to find it the most accomplished quest for security in all the history of Christianity.

Both books are interesting and valuable. They indicate both how far we have come ecumenically, but also how far we have yet to go. It is not clear that either book decisively evades the temptation to seek a solution for the ecumenical problem of diversity in unity and unity in diversity in the past consensus. I find this well illustrated by Barrett's insistence on the term "ministry" to describe leadership in the church, for elsewhere he acknowledges both the relativity and evolution of terminology and of ministry in the church. Elsewhere (The Church, Paulist, 1985), 1 have noted the advantages (necessity?) of using the categories and concepts of contemporary leadership, administration-management theory and practice in understanding and describing and practicing the various forms of leadership in the church. Interestingly enough, when Barrett describes the development of leadership in the church, he spontaneously uses language reminiscent of G. H. Mead's theory of leadership. The future of the church must be sought in the future, of course, in perichoresis with present and past.

In the conclusion, Reumann emphasizes the great ecclesiological principle of unity in diversity, diversity in unity, in the context of which he considers various ecumenical problems such as the sacraments of initiation, the frequency of Eucharistic celebration, the precise role of the Eucharist in the life of the church. There is perhaps an even more pressing problem, indicated by Barrett's general diffidence in regard to sacramentality and specific relativizing of the Eucharist. (He should ask himself, for example, whether the Catholic churches regard the Eucharist as "a matter of relatively slight importance" just because there is "no reference" to it in the creeds, when he suspects the same of the Pastoral Epistles on the same grounds.) Does sacrament capture, encapsulate, and constrain God's activity in the world, as Karl Barth feared? Or does sacrament strikingly manifest in humanly perceptible modes this divine activity in the world?

Robert Kress
University of Illinois
Urbana, Illinois