Theology Today - Vol 35, No. 4 - January 1979 - BOOK REVIEW - Ministry to Word and Sacraments: History and Theology

486 - Ministry to Word and Sacraments: History and Theology

Ministry to Word and Sacraments: History and Theology
By Bernard Cooke
Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1977. 677 pp. $25.00.

This book is unquestionably the most exhaustive and penetrating study of the history and theology of ministry extant. It cannot be ignored by either Roman Catholic or Protestant scholars. The author, a Roman Catholic professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, admits that a more adequate treatment is given to the development of the Roman Catholic tradition, but he has made a serious effort to present the .major strains of Protestant thought and practice as well. This he has done, in order to indicate a basic, common development and a common problematic. He apologizes for not giving the same consideration to the Eastern Christian churches.

The book begins with an introduction in which the author reviews the considerable literature on ministry which has emerged in recent years through theological studies and ecumenical conversations. Lacking, however, is any reference to Barth's extensive treatment of the gathering, up building, and mission (ministry) of the church in Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Volume IV of the Church Dogmatics. Cooke then cites six questionable aspects of the priesthood that have prevailed in Roman Catholic circles for many centuries, and these set the stage, as it were, for his detailed historical investigations and theological reflections upon ministry. These are presented in five parts: the first describes the role of the ministry in the formation or development of the Christian community; the second, the ministry to God's Word; the third, service to those in need; the fourth, judgment, authority, and jurisdiction as attached to the church's ministry; and the fifth, "Ministry of the Church's sacramentality," that is, the, ministry of sacramental leadership, the sacramental character of all ministry, and the relationship between ministry and priesthood.

Each part begins with the New Testament evidence and pursues the historical development of the five aspects of ministry through the ante-Nicene, Patristic, Middle Age, Reformation, and modern periods. Each part concludes with "theological reflections" by the author, and the historical investigations are supported by copious footnotes.

Cooke repeatedly asserts that views of ministry depend upon soteriology. He himself takes the position that "'resurrection' means that Jesus of Nazareth continues to live and work as Christ and Lord

487 - Ministry to Word and Sacraments: History and Theology

and that he is constantly present to the Christian community in a variety of ways... To take seriously the Presence of Christ to the church or the animation of the historically envolving Church by the Spirit of Christ is to admit that terms such as 'institution by Christ' or 'de jure divino' cannot be limited to the earliest decades of Christianity. Not just the first community of his immediate disciples but the church in its entire historical development comes into being under the impact of the risen Christ and his Spirit" (p. 194). On this basis Cooke believes "it is possible to speak meaningfully of the church as 'the extension of Christ in history,' not in the sense that Christians are the successors of Jesus but in the sense that they are a sacrament through which he can still make himself redemptively present to human history" (p. 194). What Cooke deplores is that ministry, under an erroneous view of Christ's ascension, gradually was limited to the ordained clergy. "The bulk of Christians (the laity) was early reduced to passivity." He holds that "the entire Christian community is the body of Christ, sharing in Christ's prophetic-priestly role, 'ordained' in baptism to evangelical witness, to concerned service in the world, and to Eucharistic worship of the Father in union with Christ" (p. 195). Tradition and apostolic succession must relate to the Christian community as a whole and not to the hierarchy (p. 203). The division between clergy and laity, between rulers and the ruled, was canonized quite early as "being of divine institution" (p. 196). Cooke rightly observes that when in the Protestant Reformation there were groups who refused the authority of these rulers, "some form of division between clergy and laity quickly arose in these communities."

While Cooke sees no theological justification for the clergy/laity division, he maintains that there is an intrinsic need for specialized ministries in the church and for certain individuals to be ordained to these ministries. But the entire church must participate in appropriate ways in discerning the Spirit's charismatic designation of certain individuals and groups for special ministerial roles. "Public acknowledgment of these charisms ... will constitute the essence of 'ordination"' (p. 198).

The assumption that there is one generic reality called "ministry which can find differing expressions has to be challenged. "Even if there were one charism that implicitly included all the others, this would not, according to the theological viewpoint of the New Testament, be the charism of 'governing' (episkopein) but rather that of prophecy" (p. 199). In the section on "Ministry to God's Word" Cooke reiterates that instead of viewing one ministry (the episcopacy) as the source of all other ministry, the community or rather the Spirit of Christ that animates the community, is "the source of all power." The community is primary because it is the body of Christ that lives by faith in him. By community Cooke means the local Christian community, though not in isolation from other churches. "The worldwide church [is] a community of communities" (p. 328f.). It is a witnessing, prophetic community in which all believers share and which ordains

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certain individuals (both men and women) to. special forms of ministry-prophecy, witness, teaching, theology, liturgical, leadership, and preaching-that are basic to the life of the church.

In the section on judgment Cooke distinguishes between jurisdiction and authority. They are not identical. Jurisdiction is a form of authority required in the civil community but has no place in the church. The point that Cooke seems to be making in the three parts of his book we have discussed (1, 11, and IV) may be summed up in the fourth article of the Barmen Theological Declaration.* Citing Matt. 20:25-26, it then states:

The various offices in the Church do not establish a dominion of some over others; on the contrary, they are for the exercise of the ministry entrusted to and enjoined upon the whole congregation. . . We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, apart from this ministry, could or were permitted to give to itself, or allow to be given to it, special leaders vested with ruling powers.

Jesus Christ is attested not only by Word but also by deeds. This aspect of ministry is dealt with in Part III, "Service to God's People" (diakonia), and in the final Part V, "Ministry to the Church's Sacramentality." In the former, Cooke argues that while theneed for the traditional works of mercy will continue for some time, this must not impede the need to change social, economic, and political institutions, Something must be done soon to combat the exploitation of the many by the few. Institutional processes must be made to serve rather than to impoverish, enslave, and degrade people. Cooke does not discuss the challenge of Marxism, the anti-Communist stance of the churches prior to Pope John XXIII, or democratic socialism as a possible means of eradicating the manifest evils of capitalism.

In the section on the church's sacramentality Cooke takes the position that Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection is a sacrament, that the church is a sacrament, that "all authentic preaching of the gospel is sacramental but the Eucharistic proclamation possesses a unique symbolic depth.... It not unity proclaims the Passover mystery; it is that Passover Mystery" (p, 645). It is the "key celebration of 'mystery' in Christianity" (p. 229).

In view of the fact that Küng, the Barths, Bornkamm, Jüngel, and others have pointed out that the New Testament nowhere refers to preaching, baptism, the Lord's Supper, or even the faith of Christians as a in mysterion (sacrament) and have urged that the word be dropped for clarity, it is regrettable that Cooke does not enter into dialogue with these theologians and does not investigate the possible influence of the mystery religions upon the development of sacramentalism in the early church.

*Cooke does not refer to the Barmen Declaration. Indeed, as a survey of the history of ministry, a serious gap is a treatment of the church struggle under Hitler (both Roman Catholic and Protestant) and of their witness concerning World Wars I and II. Antisernitism, the relation of Israel and the church, and the holocaust are mentioned only in Footnotes.

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Repeatedly Cooke affirms that the church "enables" or "makes present" Christ in the Eucharist. Yet elsewhere Cooke writes: "One finds no trace in the New Testament literature that some designated minister (whether by an apostle, bishop or, congrigation ) has the function, at the Eucharist or on any other occasion, 'to make Christ present.' Rather, wherever two or three are gathered in his name he is present among them (Mt. 18:20)" (p. 530). "Neither the notion of mediator nor that of instrument nor that of sacrament was formally present in the Ante-Nicene period" (p. 457).

In spite of the above seeming, inconsistency, so many wise and good things are written in an irenic spirit in this book (many we have been unable to mention) that this reviewer can only warmly commend it to all concerned about the church's ministry and express his gratitude.

Arthur C. Cochrane
Wartburg Theological Seminary
Dubuque, Iowa