662 - Problems of Authority in the Reformation Debates

Problems of Authority in the Reformation Debates
By G. R. Evans
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992. 328 pp. $59.95.

Evans, a lecturer in history at the University of Cambridge, has authored or edited a spate of patristic and medieval studies in the last decade, including two books on the language and logic of the Bible and two others on authority. The present work is, as she says, a "cousin" to the latter two. Despite its title, this study of Reformation controversial theology is intended to contribute to contemporary ecumenical discussions, after what Evans has elsewhere called the new, "ecumenical" method of doing theology, whereby sources are read with an eye for consensus, not difference.

The first third of the book documents how theological consensus in the sixteenth century was frustrated by subtleties of language and hermeneutics, which the age wrestled with but could neither master nor resolve. Subsequent sections explore how Protestants and Catholics reached similar stalemates over justification and sanctification, priesthood and the sacraments, and the visibility and basis of church authority. Ironically, Evans argues, the complexity of theological discourse impelled both sides to seek refuge and identity in doctrinal simplifications that were too often adversarial, polarized, and one-sided. But where the Reformers and their opponents found only antitheses (Scripture versus tradition, faith versus works, and so on), Evans urges her readers to discover ingredients that are both complementary and essential for a balanced ecclesiology.

Evans' study is impeccably researched and her agenda cogent, but this is no easy read. The book's mass of detail threatens to obscure the line

663 - Problems of Authority in the Reformation Debates

of argument, especially early on, and one could wish the clarity of purpose found in the last chapters were as visible at the start. There is much here to demand the attention of specialists, whether historians or ecumenists, but the book's price and its Latinisms will probably keep it-written in service of so important a cause-from reaching and informing a wider audience.

John L. Thompson
Fuller Theological Seminary
Pasadena, CA.